If you are going for a 31 point build (i.e., to get to the top skill of the tree), then you usually stick with one tree until you get 31 points, then move on to other trees. This is because most of the most important skills are usually in the higher tiers and getting the top skill ability usually has a large benefit. If you are not going the full 31 point build, you still probably want to focus on one tree first because you will want the synergy obtained from all the skills in your primary tree. Likewise because the upper tiers usually contain important skills, you most likely want to get to those as quickly as possible. On the other hand, especially if you are giving up some aspects of one tree to get something in another, it is best to look at all the skills you are going to ultimately get and determine how important each one is to you, and prioritize from there.

Oh, please! He posted the "open letter" as "from your unofficial playerbase." In doing so, he is strongly suggesting he is speaking for all of us, not just that he is one person stating an opinion that others may agree with. So, no, I don't agree, and, no, I don't appreciate him trying to give his opinion the weight of the entire community.

Hmmm ... I wonder why they may be a little reluctant about sharing their plans. It couldn't be that if they tell people what they have planned, and it turns out that they cannot implement it when they wanted to, that some segment of the player base will act like this was something promised or that they were lying about it, now could it? No. Certainly there can be no negative ramifications of sharing what you are working on. No one would ever throw it back in their faces. I mean, come on. MMO players are the most understanding, most mature people on the face of the Earth. What could they lose?

The idea of an auction system is fine, but not the way MMOs generally implement it. The problem is that, in a real auction, the auctioneer doesn't just take bids; he determines if there are any more offers coming in. Once he feels no one is going to place another bid, he ends the auction. In an MMO auction system, there is no auctioneer to decide if more bids are forthcoming. They typically place an artificial end to the bidding by means of a set timer. Once that timer expires, all bidding ceases whether people are actively bidding or not. The problem is that this encourages an abuse of the system because people know that any bid made before the last few moments of the auction is a wasted bid. This is because, unlike a real system where the highest bid is the last bid, this system makes the last bid the highest bid (i.e., even if someone places a higher bid one millisecond too late, the bid just before the timer expires wins). Thus, only bid that matters is the last bid, so people won't even bother making a legitimate offer early in the bidding process (say, in the first day of a two day auction). They just wait until the last few moments of an auction and place an incrementally higher minimum bid hoping that no one else will be able to bid before the timer expires. Thus, you are no longer working an auction system, but a time lottery. In fact, this kind of system discourages a true competitive bidding system by rewarding people for holding off their bid so that no one can bid against them and force them to place a higher bid in return. It all comes down to whomever is fortunate enough to press the bid button last, not who was willing to outbid other players. The last bid wins the auction even if there were thousands of players willing to pay more. I am completely against any auction system that does not address this issue. No auction system should be implemented unless the timer for the end of the auction extends each time someone makes a bid within the last minute or so of the auction. How ever long this buffer period is, the timer should extend a reasonable amount of time to give people a chance to review the latest bid and place a counter bid, and it should keep extending until no one bids within that same buffer period of the new end time. As long as higher bids keep coming in, the auction keeps going. Once bidding stops, the auction ends. People can still make minimum bid raises, but they are not rewarded for doing so by having lucky timing stop any further competing bids, and items will have a chance to sell at legitimate price.

While I would support a longer time frame, those claiming that the 2-day limit is an artificial barrier are simply wrong. There are a lot of factors involved. First, developers use both a time limit and the requirement of a deposit to help stop people from using the market as extra bank space. Without those, people would just post things on the market for outrageous prices no one would pay and leave them there, freeing up bank/inventory space. Imposing limits and deposits makes that much less workable. Second, forcing sellers to repost their wares periodically forces them to re-evaluate the price of an item that has not sold. Without this forced time limit, they can leave an overpriced item on the market indefinitely. That both clutters the market with overpriced items and causes a false impression of the selling price of items for both buyers and new sellers. If the seller feels their asking price is fair, they can simply repost the item at the same price. On the other hand, being forced to repost will give them a chance to realize that, if it didn't sell at this price the last three times they posted it, it probably isn't the right price. This forces them to decide if they want to sell the item at a lower price or vendor it or give it to someone. If they lower the price and repost it, it is good for the market by having it more realistically priced. If they vendor it or give it to someone, it is good for the market by lowering the supply to a more realistic level. Could the period be longer? I have no problem with it being a bit longer as two days seems a bit short. However, the idea that there should be no limit or that the limit is some kind of unjustified barrier is simply wrong. Oh, and WoW is not the only MMO to maintain a 2-day post limit. LotRO does as well, or at least it used to.

You are simply incorrect. The first step they took towards rock bottom was going Free to Play and adding Microtransactions (with the microtransactions being the key element). That is why I canceled my lifetime subscription the very day they announced it. I didn't even wait until they implemented it. I knew they would do this kind of thing. The issue to which you refer is simply the inevitable result of them going with a microtransaction model. Once a company figures out people are willing to buy their way to items or advantages in the game, the only question left is how much they can add before people leaving the game costs them more money than people willing to play this model will give them. This will always lead to adding things like that and always lead to adding things that cannot be obtained in the game so that the only way you can get them is by spending more money. Dream if you will about Arenanet's "integrity," but the lack of integrity is in the player base, not the companies providing the content. It is inevitable that if their competion is attracting and retaining players and making money doing these things, they will too. I quit LotRO when they announced they were adding microtransactions. I won't go back to WoW or EQ2 because they added it. I won't even consider playing Diablo III. I will not give my money to companies who pursue this model, or any similar model where outside resources other than the player's time and talent affect what they get in the game. If this game adds microtransactions, whether they go free to play or not, I will instantly cancel my subscription.

The fact that it is very easy to make money in this game has far more to do with the lack of traction Gold Sellers get in this game that your perceived lack of success the game has.

First, since Bioware has not disclosed the actual development costs and since industry analysts estimate the cost to be more likely between 150 million and 200 million, your point is off, cost-wise, as much as 50 - 100% too high. More importantly, by contrasting the total cost of the game and the amount of spacebar pushing you perceive, you are suggesting that all that money was wasted because you perceive that people are not bothering with experiencing the voice acting. Grossly over estimating the total cost then falsely suggesting that all that money was spent on voice acting is highly disingenuous. Even without that, your premise is absurd. Yes, people spacebar through voice-overs they have seen before. Guess what, people spacebar (or whatever the mechanism) through content they have read before in other games. Those who would spacebar through the acting they have not seen/heard yet are the same people who spacebar through text based quests that they have not seen before. In fact, I would venture to say that it is far more likely that someone would spacebar through a quest dialog they have not seen before on games with text based presentations. Thus, if the fact that people spacebar through stuff they have seen before and if a minority hitting the spacebar through everything means this was a waste, the you have to also conclude that text based presentations are a waste as well. Is it really wasted? Ironically, just last night, I was playing a different game, and it, of course, is primarily text based in its quest presentations, and what few times there is a voice over, it is presented with a still "picture" of the NPC. While I was playing it, I couldn't help buf think how primitive the whole thing felt compared to SW:TOR. So, no, the money spent on the voice acting was not a waste. In fact, I would suspect that there will be more and more of a trend to implementing this in games as it does add a lot to the flavor of a game.

I honestly don't remember the fight, but I don't recall dying to it as a Gunnery Commando, so it is doable.

As long as you have the option to allow same class characters in class stories set in options, it doesn't matter. You both may need it set, but if you go ahead and set it yourself, you shouldn't be prevented from getting into someone else's instance if they, too, have it set.

Better yet, I want to know why does he pull out this mystery pistol in some circumstances? For instance, at the end of the final cutscene for the final boss in Explosive Conflict, he steps forward, pulls out this pistol, and points it at a three story tall, armored walker-of-death. When that happens, I can't help but think of the scene from Blazing Saddles: Honestly, wouldn't the big friggin' autocannon strapped to his back be a slightly better choice? At any rate, I guess I will just have to assume that he is borrowing Elara's for the time being.

I don't consider this a problem, personally, because finding my character kneeling when I log doesn't bother me. However, I am not sure the so-called problem is solved by putting my pet away before logging off since I frequently find my character logging in while kneeling and his pet is not out. The only caveat to that would be that the bug, if it is one, could be that he had a pet out when he logged at one point and that it is not showing up when he logs back in, but the game thinks it is still out. I will try summoning and dismissing the pet next time I am on and then log out without the pet out to test if it still happens. However, I am fairly certain that I have not logged out with the pet out since, even though I like having them, I typically get bored fairly quickly with them when they are out so I almost never have them out for more than a few minutes at a time. Likewise, I don't recall having resummoned the pet since the last time I dismissed him. At any rate, I will test it out, but to be honest, I don't think this necessarily solves the so-called problem since my pet is not out, and I am fairly certain I have not had him out since the last time I dismissed him.

Generally, the clock starts when you register the game, so if you registered the game on December 26th, your free play time would have been ticking down between 12/26/2011 and 1/26/2012. If your game time expires in 9 days, and you purchased a 60 day game card in March, that suggests that you applied that game card on or about March 17th, which would pay for your March to April and your April to May play time. Looking at it from that perspective, the numbers add up: Dec - Jan for your "free" 30 days and Mar - May for your 60 day game card. The issue I have with that is that game companies generally don't allow you to register the game until you enter a payment method so that they can continue your subscription automatically after the first 30 days expires. With a credit card, you can cancel before the 30 days is elapsed so you don't get billed after the initial 30 days, but you still have to enter the card to get the game registered. I have never used a game card, but I was under the impression that the same restriction appied -- that is, you would have had to enter a game card number at the time you registered in order to complete the registration. Since you said you waited until game cards became available before you started, I would have thought you would have had to wait until March to complete the registration, and, therefore, the "free" time would not have started until March. That should mean March - April would have been the "free" time, and your game card would be paying for April - June, which is clearly what you were expecting. The other possibility is that they only credited you with a 30 day game card or that they only charge the game card a month at a time. I find either of these things to be unlikely, though. Their database should properly register the type of card, and I would expect them to treat a 60 day game card the same as purchasing a 2 month subscription (i.e., that your time would be credited for the full, non-refundable once it is applied, 60 days, not one month at a time), so you should have been credited with 60 days either way. Unfortunately from your description, it sounds like you did complete the registration in December, which suggests you were credited with free game time then, but you just simply never logged on in that time frame. Since the time starts from the point you register, not from the time you first login, you may be out of luck. This is something you are going to have to talk to Customer Service to straighten out. Since game companies typically do not allow you to register until you enter a valid (game or credit) card number, you may have some leverage. You may also have a case to argue if you can show that you never logged in during Dec - Jan and that their registration process made you think your time would not start until you got the game card. However, be aware that, if they made it clear your game time was starting in December, even if you did not login, they are not legally obligated to credit you with more time. It would be good for them to cut you some slack, but that time may be lost. Good luck with it.

I have made that point several times. In fact, I made the point before the game went live. In the pre-release forums, I stated that it was inevitable that someone would eventually use this trite "paying to play beta" comment after the game went live. It took no clairvoyance on my part. I have seen this same comment with the same justifications about the same kinds of bugs in every game I have played (this makes my eighth MMO), so it was guaranteed that someone would say it and that it would be repeated many times no matter what. It took only a couple of weeks for the first one, and I congratulated that poster for being the first to use that phrase in this game and for his utter lack of originality. In either that post or another that came up a month later, I even quoted a recent post from WoW's forum proving it is still being said even there, so I have no doubt you have seen yet another one there recently.

Please, drop the politically correct "evil corporation" mentality. As I have stated before, I will not play a game that offers microtransaction, even for fluff items. However, you, yourself point out the problem. It is people willing to spend money to buy things rather than earn them by actually playing the game that makes this a pipe dream. Corporations are not forcing this on anyone. The are simply providing a product some people are willing to buy. If people would stop playing games that have microtransactions and stop justifying it with "Well, it is only fluff items," companies would stop offering these things. Put the blame where it belongs, on the consumer.

Cash shops allow you to purchase items so that you do not have to earn them ingame. They also inevitably end up offering things you cannot obtain in the game itself, which inevitably ends up costing those willing to play this model more, on average, than they would pay for an actual set subscription. Suggesting that they are exactly the same is pure and utter nonsense.

Microtransactions are merely a way to squeeze more money out of the player base by adding items that are not available in-game or by creating a pay-to-win path to things that should only be obtainable by playing the game. This, like any MMO, is a game, and a game should be about what you accomplish inside the game world. Outside resources, other than the time you can spend, should have zero effect on what happens inside the game. Therefore as far as I am concerned, microtransactions violate the most fundamental principles of gaming. Do I have a problem with companies making money? Nope, not in the least. I simply believe the free market should decide if it is a good idea, and I believe in putting my money where my mouth is. Thus, I played LotRO from Open Beta to the day they announced they were going free to play and adding a cash shop. I did not even wait until they implemented said changes. That very day, I canceled my lifetime subscription and let them know I would never play another Turbine game again. Admittedly, some of that ire against Turbine is due to the fact that a lot of people speculated that LotRO would go this route when Turbine converted DDO to this model and Turbine denied it. However, many had justified their speculation this was in the works by pointing out the slow down in content updates and the so-called "expansion" that was Mirkwood (that was barely more than a free content update pre-Moria), saying the lack of content was due to the fact that Turbine was working on changing LotRO to the DDO model. When they finally announced and quickly implemented the change, it became obvious that this had, in fact, been in development for quite some time, making Turbine's denials flat-out lies. However, I still would have left if they had just added a cash shop (because free-to-play is not really the issue). I played EQ2 for a number of years on and off. After quitting LotRO, I went back to EQ2 to visit old friends, but I only played a month because I found that they had added a cash shop. I will never play EQ2 again, either. I played Rift, but they have started offering CE and other special edition perks for anyone paying for it. That is the start of a cash shop there, so I will never play Rift again. I quit WoW back when the level cap was 60, and while I am not a WoW hater, I have never really considered going back, but they have added a cash shop, so now I will never play WoW again either. Thus, if this game ever adds a cash shop, I will quit playing it. When all MMOs offer cash shops, I will quit playing the genre altogether. Cash shops are nothing more than legalized gold selling, and I simply will not play a game where people can buy their way to success, even if it is just for fluff items.

I assume the idea is that there are different strengths to the field. That is, keeping air is not the only function of such a field. I would have to assume that you would want the field to be able to keep a ship out if you didn't want it landing or to keep space debris from crashing into your landing bay. You would also want only authorized exits, intentional or not, from the landing bay (your guy bouncing off the field would be an example of an unauthorized exit). Thus, I would also have to assume that the field is normally strong enough to keep things you want in, in. To allow things in or out, there would likely be some way to reduce the strength of the entire field to the point it keeps air in but allows a ship to pass through. It could also be that the field can be weakened in specific areas, just enough to allow the ship in question to pass without weakening the entire field. Alternatively, I could imagine a field being projected around a ship (either by the ship itself or by external projectors). When the two fields touch, I could imagine the effect be like two bubbles merging, allowing the ship to pass through without ever breaking the integrity of the field and without the strength changing.

Starwars vehicle tech typically uses "repuslor lifts," not jet engines, to keep vehicles or other apparatuses off the ground. Space ships typically switch to repulsors when landing. Thrusters are used to slow the ship down as it comes in or to get it moving as it takes off, but the actual tech getting the ship off the ground or lowering it safely to the ground is generally repulsor technology. Most sci-fi presumes force fields/magnetic fields are keeping air in which allow space craft to pass through.

When Han uses parsecs to indicate how fast the Falcon is, he was not using it as a direct measure of speed. That is an indirect conclusion that can be drawn. The Kessel Run is a smuggler's run taking Spice from the planet Kessel past an area of black holes known as The Maw. The run is typically 18 parsecs because the concentration of black holes makes navigation difficult, so you have to pass by it by a large margin. The shortest distance is a straight line, unless, of course, you pass through a black hole, in which case you never reach your destination. So a record Kessel run doesn't just go faster, it also passes closer to The Maw, cutting the distance traveled. A closer approach to the area will also, by extension, require greater speed to avoid being dawn into an event horizon. Thus, by expressing the record in parsecs, Han was bragging about the speed of his ship, its power, and his navigation skils. Lucas said in commentaries that the speed of his navigational computer meant that he could recalculate hyperspace routes faster than other ships, also increasing the speed he could make the run. That is important because runs like this would require numerous smaller jumps. Was the original wording a script error later covered with the above explanation? Possibly. A novelization of the New Hope uses "standard time units" instead of parsecs. The script also indicates that Obi Wan is to show scepticism at the "misinformation," meaning he thought Han was lying. But there is an explanation for why he uses parsecs either way.

Well, my Shadow casts a light saber.

Concussive Charge adds a snare, but if I am not mistaken, you can leap while snared, and many leaps have a stun or immobilize effect. Additionally, snares can be cleansed. Either way, the snare is fairly moot if, in order to do anything else, you have to stand still to be able to fire because they are back on top of you in one GCD. If we are not talking about melee attackers, then Concussive Charge is fairly moot as it is a PBAoE (Point Blank Area of Effect) ability, meaning it is not going to hit most ranged attackers, who, by the way, who are not as dependent on standing in one place to be able to be effective. Cryogrenade is a stun that only lasts 4 seconds. Concussive Round is a CC, but both stuns and CCs can be made moot by resolve, can they not? No, you cannot make Stock Strike an interrupt as a Commando. Stock Strike is a Knockback. Like any Knockback, it will stop a channeled cast time, but interrupts in this game do more than just stop a cast; they prevent them from being cast again for 4 seconds. Besides, last I checked, Stock Strike is a melee range ability. Since Commandos, as you point out, are supposed to be attacking from "triple the distance," ranged attackers are going to be out of range for its effect and since most melee attackers are not using channeled attacks for the most part, arguing for Stock Strike as an interrupt is more than a bit of a stretch. Nope. Combat Shield is a damage reduction only. It can be spec'd to grant an interrupt immunity while it is active, but only if you spend a minimum of 11 points in Combat Medic. The idea of using another ability during the four seconds of inability to recast from an interrupt is a fair challenge. However, since there is no interrupt immunity granted by resolve and since most of the important abilities are on 1.5 to 3 second channeled cast times, and since the ones that are not require a proc from a 1.5 or 3 second cast time skill to be most effective or are on a 15 second cool down, that point is less persuasive considering you can be stopped from casting or interrupted multiple times by one or more people without any counter. Cover Fire requires 22 points into Gunnery to get, and it applies only a 2 second snare on a 3 second channeled ability. That means that it does not even snare them for the full cast. Sweltering Heat requires at least 6 points in Assault. It is, likewise, only a 2 second snare, but, more importantly, it both requires Plasma Cell and it is dependent on a proc to apply the snare, meaning you have no control on it. Since Gunnery requires Armor Piercing Cell to be effective, the fact that Sweltering Heat can apply a snare is moot for a Gunnery Commando or a Full Combat Medic or CM/Gunnery Hybrid. Triple the distance is only a major advantage if you have the same mobility and the classes you mention don't have instantaneous gap closers, which, by the way, Commandos do not have. Extra armor only matters if you can fight while you are engaging them. If your opponent cannot be kept away and is in melee range hitting you with instant cast skill and preventing you from casting long cast skills, armor just becomes a way of prolonging the inevitable. Look, I am not saying that there is not some truth to what you say. There is definitely a lot of unjustifiable whining coming from some Commandos and there are some tools available. Likewise, I do not PvP, so I do not bring this up because it matters to me, since all these are really PvP issues. On the other hand, you are talking like these are a massive arsenal of counter abilities when some are made moot by, or add to, Resolve, some are not what you portray them to be, and others are only available to certain specs. People do need to learn to play the classs and people do need to accept the strengths and weaknesses of any class they play, but the picture you are trying to paint simply is not accurate.

I can VicSkimmer. There were people saying they were willing to wait, but I also recall a lot of people in the pre-release forums whining about how the game had been delayed long enough and that if they did not relase it soon, they would move on and not play the game if it did release.. Either way, I really wish I knew what people base this "finished the game first" myth on. Every game that has ever been released has released with broken or unfinished content. LotRO, for instance, did not even have all the skills to level 50 for most classes finished by release. It took them several "Month of [insert class here]" updates to get all the classes finished. In every game, content releases, patches, and expansions leave bugs unfixed, do not fix bugs intended to be fixed, or introduces new bugs. Yet game after game, people talk about wishing they would have "finished the game first" as if it were a realistic goal even though it has never been done.

Saying there was an economic exploit allowing players to make as much as 500 million credits is the equivalent of] saying the grass is green. Asking for details on how they did it is asking for an explanation of photosynthesis.

As it is, I can apply this debuff to two targets. I can mez one target, then mez another. As soon as the second target is mezzed, the first will wake up with the debuff and aggro. Because it is debuffed, I can fight it for 10 seconds taking only half the damage. When the second mob wakes up, it, too, will have the debuff, so I get another 10 seconds of only half the damage that mob can do. If it worked the way you suggest, I could debuff many, many more mobs because the debuff would not apply until combat was initiated. That would make the skill over powered. Also, it is not absurd that the mob aggros once it wakes up. Stealth in this game is not invisibility. It is a massive debuff to detectability. That is, the mobs are simply unaware of your presence. It makes sense that you could mez a mob and move on as long as what you did could remain unobserved. Nothing saw you apply the mez so there is no reason it would suddenly become aware of you when it woke up. It would just assume it nodded off for a moment. On the other hand, if you apply a massive debuff to the target, it would be aware something happened and immediately be alerted to your presence, so it makes sense that it comes after you. You can argue that it should have to look for you to find you, but to argue that, even though you cast a hostile effect on the target, it should remain blissfully unaware of your presence is simply not reasonable. Either way, you are making much ado about nothing. I can mez a mob with a Sedatives spec'd Tranquilizer, and just keep moving on. Yes, the mob will aggro when it wakes up, but in 60 seconds, I will usually be far enough away that it doesn't matter. It will, in fact, get far enough away from its assigned position while trying to follow you that it will quickly evade, drop aggro, and return. In cases where I will not be far enough away to risk that, I don't even need to mez them to get by. Using distance, speed, and facing, I can get by most mobs. The chance of being detected increases the closer you are and the longer you stay in detection range. Thus if I move by them quickly at a great enough distance, they won't detect me. Likewise, they generally can only detect you if you are in front of them. You can pass very close to most mobs as long as you are stealthed and they are facing away from you. In cases where facing and distance are not safe bets, you have Sneak, which greatly increases your stealth level, making you virtually impossible to detect for a short time even if you walk right through a group of mobs. And if you screw up using any of these techniques, you have Disappearing Act to drop out of combat and stealth away. The fact is, mezzing targets to get by them is almost completely unnecessary. I have yet to encounter a situation where I could not get by a group of mobs because I had Sedatives spec'd, and, frankly, the ability to debuff up to two mobs for 50% less damage for 10 seconds each is far more useful. It works just fine the way it is.