You know... a case could be made that this will make players better. Getting to spend more time with your entire tool set and passives before group play can only help, not hurt.

Meh. I am enjoying the game. Sorry you aren't.

I do find it bizarre that gaming companies gravitate so closely to Twiter to release information. I honestly didn't think people use it much in the USA. Even my teenagers have given it up. Either I'm really out of touch or Community teams are. Hard to say.

Everytime I design some old dude with a full white beard, and get called Padawan on Tython, I chuckle a little.

"Cannon" establishes rules. Imagine if Disney declared that despite what happened in the previous movies, now all Jedis have halos and all Siths have horns. The general public would guffaw and rage and say, "THAT'S NOT STAR WARS!" Cannon allows people to play mental games with fiction and create "what if" scenarios that can be logically answered. Han's Kessel Run mistake comes to mind. It's easy to say, "Lucas made a mistake with Han's boast." but it's more FUN to say Han knew what he was saying and explain it away. When something is cannon, you can expect those events and characters to be referenced in the future. Let's take for example Ben Skywalker. He was in dozens of books. Meticulously developed and groomed, and even shepherded a little by Lucas himself. Now that he's not cannon, we have to wait to see if Luke fathered him or not according to the movie. If, according to the movie, he didn't, then that character is gone. It's not that he won't be in a movie, it's that it's just over. He won't be in anymore books, comics, movies, nada. So yes, we still have the stories he was in to enjoy, but we can't really look forward to his continued journey. It was just a story that was pinched off. When something is declared "cannon" it's sort of a guaranty of consistency. Yes, it's all useless knowledge since it's fiction... but the promise of consistency adds a sort of "reality" to things.

Playing Devil's Advocate here... But Sidious' strength came in the fulfillment of the Sith Destiny to control the galaxy. Even in the movies, Palpatine admits that he wasn't as strong as his master and had to kill him in his sleep.

I guess in my mind, the reason they created the "Legends" tag was so that they could sweep the old stories under the rug and insure that every new piece of literature or film released would be "Cannon." They shut down a lot of active projects when they were making decisions, from books to games. When they decided to keep SWTOR running, I interpreted that as a either "It's cannon" or "It's so long ago in the storyline, we'll address it when we need to." The Old Republic story line offers something that the modern stories do not allow for, and that's a galaxy where the Force isn't nearly as rare and where Sith society as a whole can be addressed. People LOVE the Sith. There's a HUGE market for Sith stories, merchandise, and fan service. Hell, my 13 year old son LOVES the ideas behind the Sith, where they don't just pay attention to their "feelings" but forcibly channel them to accomplish goals. He loves the mystique, he loves the color scheme, he loves that they armor themselves instead of using robes. The lack of Force users in the primary movie sagas makes sense in the bubble of that time frame and tells a great story. However, with Disney releasing a movie every year between now and who knows when, they will be looking for additional ideas to explore. A young Han Solo movie makes sense, even a young Boba Fett makes sense, but do people really want to see a young Wedge Antiles movie? Probably not. Star Wars is primarily about two things: family drama and The Force. They can't keep building new movies off of "the big three" so they will need to explore new options. With that said, there's a part of me that thinks Kylo Ren is either a Revanite or Revan himself. I've heard "Ren" is a title/name bestowed upon those who are members of the order of "The Knights of Ren" so I can imagine that over the course of 3,000 years that word could have lost its original translation (and gone from "Revan" to "Ren"). I know it's a stretch, but the Old Republic is just too rich for them to ignore forever and completely. Also, I have a friend who says, "IT'S ALL CANNON!" He says there's no need to argue about what actually happened and what didn't, and that it's all about what you enjoy in the moment, anyway.

I thought they weren't based on your level, but on your class story progression.

I am curious if it's intentional design that you drop 208 gear/mods from the harder version of Star Fortress, but seemingly expect players to be geared better than that before succeeding in them? Please excuse the question if you regard 208 ilevel as a character getting geared for them.

Regarding the changes... I'll give them a whirl, but if the game feels more grindy when I'm doing solo stuff, it would be a hard change to swallow. Please remember that this isn't a genie that can put back in its bottle later. Everyone knows how subscription games work. You captivate people, but when the spell is broken (by a perceived bad change or release of a competitor) you end up losing them for a year or more. I'm used to one thing, and if it's not as fun as it used to be, the spell will be broken and I'll start looking for other stuff to play. That's not a threat, or an accusation. It's just how us 30-somethings play MMOs nowadays.

I don't want to just jump into this argument, but it's worth noting that with about 10 minutes of solo playtime a day you can generate enough gold to pay for your monthly sub there for starters. There's a redonkulous amount of stuff you can do solo in WoW, and quite frankly it's a little unfair to even compare the two games on that metric.

A work around I found was committing a single point at a time. It (sometimes) works.

http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/1a8gtl

Honestly... the number one thing I find this game missing is a real source of information. I assume your data is stored in such a way that fan sites can't mine it well, but when I try to find out what's purchaseable with, say, Daily Coms, I am on a google search. Even then, it's hard to find much more than generalities. I can't go to a single knowledge repository on the web because they are ALL a wreck compared to *other* mmos out there. And yes, when you are new user to this game, it makes the game have an air of low rent and community disinterest. A game as complex as this NEEDS a good data-driven website backing it up. If the community has failed to generate one, then it really should be something your company tackles instead.

Thanks for the info. I noticed the other thread about the broken blasters and worried people would think my thread was being passive-aggressive. Space missions are actually one of my favorite parts of the game. I think they are an awesome distraction and mini-game. I want the top tier of ship gear, but it is costly enough that if it's going to be replaced soon I'd rather not burn the effort.

Due to double exp weekends, I've managed to level up a couple of alts to 50 before Makeb hits. I am curious if I should bother with spending the Cartel Coins or in game credits to acquire Grade 7 upgrades or wait. They are quite costly, and I am worried that Rank 8 upgrades are only a few weeks away. Anyone in the know that could fill me in, or offer a suggestion, I would greatly appreciate it.

I thought about this, and the explanation I have is this. It's a bit convoluted if you haven't read many of the books, but here goes. At some point after the Republic defeats the Sith Empire, the Republic completely demilitarizes (this is true). Flash forward a few thousand years, and the Republic is "tricked" into a war with the Trade Federation, and they use the Clone Troopers as an emergency army. It sort of makes sense that they modeled it after their last standing army.

I would have to look it up, but I'm reasonably sure she thought to herself that as long as she kept screaming she knew she'd be safe. The mental imagery that gave me invoked an " IT'S OVER 9000!" image in my head, and that kind of shenanigans definitely feels like it only happens in the old republic books. There's a great scene in Revan where he says, "I am Revan reborn and before me you are nothing." Which is awesome, but again, the outcome of that line is not something I would expect to see in any New Jedi Order era book.

I've been playing for about 3 months now. I really enjoy it. I feel really bad for my friends that started at launch. They'll probably never come back or really know how awesome the game is.

I've liked everything I've listened to so far. My only comments would be that old republic books tend to be a little lower quality and they really glorify the Dark Side's power. Annoyingly so. Fatal Alliance has a scene where a Sith girl creates a "Scream Shield" with the Dark Side. She screams her rage and deflects incoming blaster fire like she's Goku from Dragon Ball Z or something... I don't think a scene like that would float in any New Jedi Order book. But, you know, I'm 35 so I think Luke Skywalker when I think of Star Wars. My 10 year old thinks of Anakin Skywalker instead, so his wants and expectations are completely different.

It all depends on the book. Revan, my 10 year old LOVED. The Fate of the Jedi Saga showcases a force entity that possesses victims in a very graphic manner that freaks him out quite a bit, but he really enjoys the Luke and Ben Skywalker dynamic. In Legacy of the Force, I haven't seen anything too bad and I'm up to book 6 of 9. There is NO WAY I would let him read or listen to Red Harvest or Death Troopers, though. They are good books, but they are beyond graphic, they are flat out twisted. Edit: As far as cursing, there is none. They use "pudu" for the S word and "Stang" instead of most other 4 letter words.

After reading Fate of the Jedi, I can't see how anyone would think they AREN'T using the EU. Fate of the Jedi re-aligned the entire storyline for modern Star Wars into something more similar to the Old Republic. This opens so many plot options. The EU is a FANTASTIC revenue source with a pre-built fan base. Disney won't throw that way. I've spent more on purchasing the Audiobooks than I have on DVDs and BluRays. We have to view this pragmatically. They don't have to use the EU to respect the EU. They can tell a NEW story with barely a reference to it and still follow it.

I just started reading Star Wars books about 6 months ago. I'll fill you in on what I know. So, you are going to find a few "eras" of books. Wikipedia has a decent entry on this but it's out of date and arranged in a way that is confusing. Wookieepedia is a little better: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_books There is the Old Republic books, which basically cover what this game covers. You can pretty much pick up and "Old Republic" novel and read it out of order of the other books and be just fine. This era focuses on the war between the Sith Empire and the Republic (including the Jedi) and how the Jedi eventually win. I have read these books from this era: Red Harvest: This is a good book, but it's a horror book in reality. Zombie Sith vs Sith, Bounty Hunters, and Jedi. Revan: This book takes place after KOTOR 1 and 2 but before this MMO (SWTOR). There will be a lot here you will recognize from this game. Fatal Alliance: I do not think I like this book. The primary Sith character does a lot of Dragon Ball Z type anger powering and I think that's ridiculous. It really bothers me. The next major "era" is the Rise of the Empire stuff This is the timeline that covers Palpatine's rise to power and the defeat of the old Jedi order. This is Clone Wars, Episodes 1 - 3, Rule of 2 type stuff. The only book from this era I read was Darth Plagueis and I have to admit, it was cool how they wove this story in and out of the movies. The book was really about Palpatine and not Darth Plagueis. Another era is The Rebellion Era (think Episodes 4, 5, 6). I haven't read any of these. The next era is The New Republic Era. This makes the news a lot because the the Thrawn Saga that was set directly after the defeat of Darth Vader and Palpatine (right after Episode 6). I haven't read any of these yet. The last era is The New Jedi Order era. Folks call it "NJO" for short. I'm halfway through the Legacy of the Force series, and have completed the most recent series called "Fate of the Jedi". Legacy of the Force is interesting because it chronicles a prominent character's fall to the Dark Side and is very similar Darth Vader and such. Fate of the Jedi is interesting because it manages to (believably) inject 5,000 Sith back into the Star Wars storyline for Luke to deal. It's also interesting because the books are age-correct for the Big 3 (Luke, Han, Leia). They could easily build the new movies based off the idea that a society of Sith long thought gone has returned. The books, all of them, has been very interesting and enlightening for me. For example: Sith doesn't just mean you use the Dark Side. It means you buy into a very particular philosophy about Order and Rule and acceptable means to accomplish those goals. Also, as a side note, I commute 2 hours a day. There is a very robust selection of Star Wars audio books out there, with some very talented readers. They do great impersonations of the actors you know and love, and even use official Star Wars soundtracks and sound effects. It's very much like enjoying one of the movies. Props to Marc Thompson.

Thanks guys. This helps some. Out of curiosity, though, tiered armor after Tionese can be dealt with easier?

I am still fairly new to the game. I have a Trooper that hit 49 yesterday and and a Sage sitting at around 35. I got curious so I started looking up the tiered armor sets, and this forced me to create this thread. After viewing Sage armor, I have to ask: Are you really stuck looking like that? Is it possible to pull out the mods, enhancements, armoring, etc and still retain the set bonuses? Can I use Social Armor to not appear as a clown, or even buy something from the Cartel Market? Any other suggestions? I am really, really, really, enjoying the game so this isn't a "Can I have your stuff" type of thread.