I went Twilek male. I wanted something that looked a bit more intelligent and less aggressive for my Sage. Miralukan is my favorite race, but I only rock that out on my Commando and Agent. Mirialan Sith Warrior. Pureblood Bounty Hunter. Rattataki Smuggler. Human Vanguard. Zabrack Knight. Chiss Inquisitor.

If you want to Metagame it for the affection instead of caring about the story, Jorgen is the more difficult to affection up. His conversation hits are smaller (15 instead of 22) so it takes more agreeing with him throughout the game in order to get him up there. Also his preferred gift is Weapons, which is one of the more high demand gift types across all companions, while Dorne is cool with Luxury which tends to run a bit cheaper (and she even likes Courting if you're male, which those are dirt cheap). Overall, that big boost of affection for giving Jorgen the bump back to LT is expensive to make up elsewhere, both in gifts and lengthy stretches of playing him for conversations, while Dorne is relatively easy to cap out. And if you're Male and you are going to miss out on all the points for Romancing Jorgen through the companion conversations, then giving him the promotion doesn't even come close to narrowing the gap on what you're going to miss out on. Then again, when I played, I gave Jorgen the promotion just because I was male and I didn't want to seem unprofessional by promoting my girlfriend over a guy who had already held the rank once.

Would it be possible to have the voice modulator added to the Malak's Jaw headpeice? I've got jackets and helmets and even a cowboy hat that change the voice into that echo-y microphone effect, but wearing a big hunk of metal over my jaw does nothing to my impecable Imperial accent. Alternatively, if you want to make the exact same peice of gear as a second item and this time include the voice modulator to keep folks happy who like it the way it is, I'll begrudgingly be willing to purchase it over again so I can get it with the added voice effect.

I've got a whole ship full of goodie-goodies. I need to fire them all and crew up again at Port Nowhere with people who have a stomach for this business.

Guss: You can't go head on against the White Maw! They are one nasty b- I mean, I.. sense much anger in them. Serious, serious anger. I love it when Guss tries to pretend to be Jedi-y.

On Ord Mantell, a distraught mother sends you to look for her long-lost son after a friend of hers actually witnesses him alive in a neighbouring town. She now believes him to be alive and swears she could never give up on her child, no matter what has transpired. She requests you find him. When you find the boy, he has been drugged and forced to fight on behalf of the Separatists against his will. The boy is ashamed of what he was forced to do and afraid to face his family. Dark Side: [truth] Your mother still loves you and is worried about you. I have killed the Separatists and will safely escort you back to your family where you may be safe and your family can be reunited and at peace. Light Side: I'll give you some credits and help you run away from your problems and flee off world so you never have to face anyone. I'll then lie to your parents and tell them that you are dead, because obviously it'll be easier for them to believe their son is dead, rather than accept the fact he is alive and safe. If you deny the boy's request for credits and to run away from all his problems, he will still refuse to return to his family and choose to remain a drugged Separatist slave! Wha? Really, kid, it can't possibly be that embarassing. So you return to the boy's family empty handed... Dark Side: [truth] Your son was captured by Separatists. He is alive, but he refused to return with me. Light Side: [Lie To Grieving Mother] Your son is dead. Nevermind the fact that he is still alive. Nevermind the fact that he's only in the neighbouring town. Nevermind the fact that you've already got friends who are eyewitnesses to what is going on, so it's only a matter of time before you discover the truth anyways. I'm going to lie to you and break your heart just for the joy of watching your emotional pain, to ultimately spare you nothing. Now give me my reward! Yeah. Some of the missions leave me scratching my head. I never make my decisions based upon the White Star and Red Triangle; I do what I want for the story that I'm telling, and then let the chips fall where they may. It makes leveling much more enjoyable that way.

Functionally, it is easier to + Affection with companions that come later in the game than it is with the earlier ones. The game rewards differant levels of affection to sort of pro-rate your amount based on how long you get to spend with the companion, so the companions joined later in the game will get larger amounts of affection from each choice. The Smuggler is the only one I remember off the top of my head, but he gets 15 with Corso, 22 with Bowdaar, 38 with Risha, etc. Using Rank 1 gifts to get to 6000 is the cheapest and easiest way to affection up, then start using mission conversations until 8000. Then run all their companion missions. Then run more world missions until 10K. Considering that, romancing Vette makes the most in-game sense. It'll take you basically double as many conversations with her to reach 10K as what it will take with Jaesa, so don't shortchange yourself those big points from Vette's romance arc. If you're metagaming, that is..

Exactly. And turn a blind eye to some of our shadier dealings while we're doing their dirty work. Still, I'm left with absolutely no motivation to help them. I am not afraid of Rogun the Butcher; I just inherited Nok Drayen's wealth and I've got his daughter full of knowledge at my disposal. I am confident I can escape the Voidwolf; I'm the new King of the Underworld. I do not need the Republic to give me a legal pardon; they would have to catch me first and they've got their hands full. Republic isn't paying; their great offer was that I could keep some of what I find. When I work without them, I can keep ALL of what I find. The fact is, Han doesn't double back and help rebellion out of the goodness of his heart; he does it because he has a thing for Leia. My girl is already on my ship and gets a bit annoyed when I risk our lives to help people out with nothing in it for me. The classic Smugglers like Han and Lando have a change of heart, but they have a reason why. We are never given one; that is why our own Smuggler story falls flat. We're supposed to help the Republic because we are a.. ahem.. "Law Abiding Citizen".

Re-working the Smuggler story in order to make it fun. On Alderaan, have the Smuggler meet a love interest. Let's say a Princess or Prince (there could be a brother/sister combo so there is one of the correct gender for you). Now let's say, at the end of the Alderaan arc, you've helped this hypothetical set of Royal Siblings out of a few jams and really ingratiated yourself to their family. Perhaps you, I don't know, represented them in a duel and saved one of their lives, in addition to retrieving for them the information that brought them great wealth and influence on Alderaan again. But then, before you can even collect your overwhelmingly lavish reward, they are kidnapped by some Imperial Operatives while you are off ending a grudge with some old enemy. If you're light side, saving them is the right thing to do. If you're neutral, well, they are incredibly wealthy royals and they're open to a bit of fade action as well, so it makes sense. If you're dark side, they are a potential source of untold wealth and connections, easily manipulated and in your debt; the perfect mark to be abused to your own personal gain. Spend Act 2 infiltrating Imperial Bases, stealing valuable information, hyjacking ships, etc, until you finally track down your captured nobles to an Imperial Headquarters where you can save them. Discover that they have caved during interrigation and revealed the secret source of their (your) wealth. The Voidwolf has claimed the wealth of House Terr- I mean, these random nobles, and has now claimed Nok Drayen's place as King of the Underworld. Spend Act 3 going on a one man wrecking spree against him, eventually overthrowing his empire and taking your rightful place as top dog gangster in the galaxy. In short, we want our Smugglers to be Smugglers for the whole story, not just for Act 1. The "Royal Republic Stooge" portion of the story gets real old, real quick.

Aye. I too own the jaw. I too have built a character around wearing it. I too was vastly disappointed that, after binding it mind you, I discovered it did not cause any sort of effect to detract from the thick Imperial Accent of my Sith Warrior. I play the character much more impulsive and prone to violent outbursts through my missions. It just seems really backwards then that I have this highly intelligent, refined British accent. I had hoped a bit of muffling would do the trick towards building some consistancy between the choices I am allowed to make and the behavior I am forced to exhibit.

I will take a Grilled Cheese Sandwhich, thank you very much.

Not just Syreena, I actually think it'd be fun to be able to go around swooping up all of Skavak's ex's. The distress call girl. The museum girl. Just to get them to holo him and tell him we were better.

"Subscriptions are like the all-you-can-eat buffet"... if you're only allowed on the Salad Bar. If we want a cut of meat, we're still stuck ordering it from the menu like everyone else.

Double XP weekends have been incredible about increasing my enjoyment in the game. Like many players, I am less interested in the endgame gear-grind of generic MMO and much more prone to enjoy the storyline of a quality Bioware game. I've been subscribed for quite a while and basically just bang my way to the end of the class mission, then drop the character and start over with a new class or alignment path. The world missions kill me. Specifically Alderaan and Voss on Republic side; they are so incredibly boring and I've already done them a dozen times. Leveling up a second Consular to go Dark Side or building another Smuggler to try Gunslinger instead of Scoundrel still gives me a lot of fun, until I get to these worlds where I know I have to do the exact same story again, and the missions were obnoxious the first time. With the Double XP weekends, I basically only have to do my Class Mission and then about 1/3 of the world missions. That allows me to pick and choose, trading it up with each new character so the experience stays somewhat fresh and fun, instead of the tedious drudgery of knowing that I will have to do basically every single non-Heroic world mission, plus most Bonus Missions, just to keep up with the level of my Class Missions for progression.

I honestly believe that the game is designed for characters not to be purely Light or purely Dark, but (like most people in the real world) some sort of mixture of grey. The Trooper is supposed to be loyal to the Republic, but on Ord Mantel he is made to make a choice between returning stolen medicine to it's rightful owners, the soldiers who are injured defending the Republic civilians, or giving it back to the thieves who took it to care for civilians. If you are a soldier who believes in loyalty, honesty, or who understands that without soldiers to defend them, even more of the civilians will be hurt and killed by Separatists, you go Dark Side. If you support lying, stealing, neglecting one's duty, and allowing personal emotions to interfere with your ability to make objective decisions, then you get the Light Side points. Even though the Trooper is Republic, any actually decent Trooper is going to have to make a Dark Side decision there. In contrast, when the Sith Warrior is to pass judgement during his trials, executing the Assassin is deemed the Dark Side decision, but Master Tremel makes it quite clear upon returning that it was a waste of a potentially valuable resource and that any decent Sith would have brought her into the Empire to work for us now (Light Side choice). Too many people obsess over that White Sun or Red Triangle and don't actually pay attention to what the real decision is. I think you'll find that your Sith Warrior occasionally has to get his hands dirty if he wants to make something of himself, but quite often any forward-thinking, ambitious Sith would go Light Side in order to maintain valuable contacts, make allies, or preserve resources.

Wow. I am baffled. I had no idea that so many people played rigidly Light Side/Dark Side. I have much preferred to play my story as, well, a story. I do what I believe the character would do. Sometimes it's light, sometimes it's dark, sometimes it's popular with the companion, and sometimes I get that big -154 affection. After getting the Legacy unlock for Level V light/dark, I didn't see any reason to ever be "pure" anything again. When the time came for my Sith Warrior to mold Jaesa, I thought about it for a moment. Do I want this woman to be kind of a b- I mean, a hag, but be willing to put out? Or do I want her to be more pleasant for conversation, but frigid to any advances? Would I rather have the bad girl fling, or the good girl who is 'just friends'. I opted for the bad girl. Dark Jaesa might get irritated with some of my decisions along the way as I follow no specific path other than my own goals, but when she does, I just give her a gift or two and buy my way back into bed. After all, she's a bad, bad girl now.

I'm a subscriber, but this is something I would spend my Cartel Coins on in a heartbeat. I love playing through the other stories, and checking out the opposite Advanced Classes. I've actually gone back multiple times through the same class just to run it with differant companions so I could see their reactions to the story (DS Trooper w/ M1-4X is my absolute most fun combination so far). But repeating all those World Missions that don't always fit well for the character, especially after doing them a dozen times already, makes leveling up less of a game and more of a chore. Double XP does not negatively affect the endgame, because it doesn't have an impact on the gear grind, but it certainly makes the introductory portion of the game more flexible and fun.

Ah, the joy's of being a Trooper. Four companions use Heavy Armor with Aim, and the fifth one is a Droid which nobody can claim is for their actual character. Nobody will ever yell at me for /needing on the items that I can wear, and I can fully outfit my character plus almost every companion without anyone even batting an eye.

Now that you mention it, my son has been asking me to sub him up so he can play unrestricted over Spring Break. I had never thought about marketing that Refer A Friend feature to make some money off of hooking someone up with the whole Free 110% Speeder on every character that only requires Piloting Rank 1. I reckon I'll have to shout around Fleet or something and see if anybody wants the hook-up.

Exactly. I've got ten level 50s so far. None of them get played after the final mission arcs end, with the exception of perhaps a bit of tradeskilling to make gear for the newest recruit. When I'm in the mood for endgame, I play DCUO; here I'm just playing Story Mode. Having players like me in the game pads the numbers so it's easier for people to get flashpoints and heroics done. I'm a subscriber and I make my fair share of Cartel purchases on top of that, so I contribute to the game's future. And all I really want to do is be able to enjoy the story mode of the game; I'm never the guy rolling on your gear or dragging down your PvP team. The way I see it, $15/month is plenty reasonable for this game, even if it were solo player; it's sort of like a substitute that I'm treating as if it were KotOR 3. Do I contribute positively to the game? Yes. Do I influence anyone's endgame gameplay in a negative manner? No. What's so wrong about wanting to play characters through the story without having an interest in the gear-grind? What double-xp did for me was allow me to level off of mostly my Class Missions, only doing maybe 1/3rd of the World Missions instead of running basically every single one. By trimming back the fat and allowing players to pick and choose the content they want to do, rather than basically require it all, there is less repetition. Less repetition means that the gameplay stays more interesting. And as long as there are interesting new options, we keep playing. Unless they start offering Double Commendation weekends or something, this sort of thing does not affect the endgame players. The gear-grind takes the exact same amount of time; it's just the opening story that goes quicker.

I love the class missions (mostly). I especially enjoy the ones that shape up differantly based upon our choices. I don't love the way that many decisions seem to have zero impact. Many world missions, and even some of the class missions, make almost no sense in the context of a given character. I still cannot for the life of me figure out why the Republic trusts my Smuggler with sensitive information and important missions when I have repeatedly demonstrated I will betray anyone and am only interested in making money and have absolutely no scruples. I hope for... it's too much to hope for Gamorreans as a playable race, but could I at least get a Gamorrean companion?

Made 3rd Trooper (it's my favorite class). Leveled from 1-22 doing the class missions and a very bare minimum amount of world missions (just the ones off the top of my head that I remembered giving Light Side/Dark Side). Double XP made for quite an enjoyable experience. I can do the Class Missions, and then pick and choose about 1/3 of the world missions, and move forward at the appropriate level. Without the double xp, leveling basically means doing Class Mission, plus almost every single non-heroic World Mission, unless I want to do lowbie PvP and flashpoints. Cutting back the total number of world map missions needed for each character means that the leveling is less repetition and leveling up the alternate Advanced Classes doesn't have to feel like quite so much drudgery.

The errand boy factor will end with Act One, which sounds good at first. But Act Two and Act Three become progressively worse for many Smugglers. If you enjoy being the faithful, loyal, Republic Privateer, then the story picks up a bit for you. But if you're 'just in it for the credits', or if you actually play making Dark Side choices, much of the Smuggler story later on will leave you scratching your head wondering "Why does this guy trust me enough to send me on this important mission? And why is my character supposed to say Yes?" Imagine Han Solo flying the Falcon into the middle of a warzone to save the day. Sounds heroic. Now try and imagine that if he'd never met Leia and he was only interested in himself and money. That's us. We're doing the heroic stuff, but we're entirely without motivation.

It ties to Race. My human, cyborg, twilek, and miralukan 50s all are Body Type 2, because it seems natural for them. Sith Pureblood, I went with Body Type 3. It seemed way too freakishly tall for a human, but for a Sith, it seemed to complement that arrogance and smug superiority perfectly to always be looking down on people. The only type 4 I've made was a Mirialan, and while I wish he was a bit more heavy at the midsection, my purpose was to keep him shirtless and slap a helmet on him to RP that he was a Gamorrean. The only type 1 I've made was a Dark Side Human Male who was given the grey hair and aged face. I was actually surprised to see how many people interpret Type 1 as a Teen; I immediately thought Elderly. That degree of scrawny seems more Palpatine than Anakin.

Color me crazy, but the most fun I ever had being Dark Side was as the Trooper. I ignored some of the World Missions with Dark Side options because they don't always fit with the class interpretation, but the Dark Side Trooper was incredibly by-the-book most of the time. The Light Side Trooper seems to be easily swayed by civilian needs and personal feelings, while the Dark Side really seems to capture the dirty business of war. I interpreted the DS Trooper as often even making decisions they did not like themselves, and was able to express remorse or regret afterwards on several occasions, but when push came to shove, he was always willing to do what needed to be done.