I've been thinking about it, and perhaps someone else already came to this conclusion before me, but I wanted to put it out there anyway. What if Revan as he stands is really the Sith Emperor? Well, ok, let me rephrase this to be a bit more complicated, yet coherent. Vitiate had Revan locked away for 300 years, during which time their minds were essentially linked together. We are told that they were able to "influence" one another during this time. What if the connection runs deeper than that? What if Revan has become the new host for the Emperor's consciousness? Or, perhaps, their consciousness has merged just as Ner Zhul and Arthas merged in WoW? 300 years is a very long time to plot and plan, and to be in constant contact with someone else's mind. It has been stated that the main body of the Emperor is still likely at large, and therefore the Emperor is still potentially active. My reasons for thinking this are primarily based around Revan's actions in-game, and the Emperor's motive. When Revan is freed, he sets about turning the Foundry into a weapon of mass extinction against anyone with Sith blood. According to HK-47, 98.7%(I believe) of the Imperial population fits that bill. That is a HUGE death toll, and would likely provide a great big boost to the Emperor's ritual. After all, the Emperor doesn't care WHO dies, just so long as enough die to fuel his ritual. This plan fails ultimately, of course, yet Revan manages to survive the encounter. He then shows up at the head of an armada of both Imperial and Republic forces bent on creating an army of cybernetic killers, presumably to start another war that is likely to rack up another huge death toll. If you look at the grand scheme of things, Revan is the PERFECT pawn to use for mass destruction. He has just enough tie with both Republic and Empire to manipulate both sides. His plot thus far has crushed both the Sith Academy and the Jedi Temple on Tython, eliminating a great deal of potential meddlers who might thwart the Emperor again. In the end, everything Revan is doing, and has done in this game, would work very nicely in favor of the Emperor's end-game goals. We are also told (by Revan) that he influenced the Emperor to create a peace between Empire and Republic. At face value that seems ok, but stop and really examine that a moment. If the Emperor wanted a massive death toll, and not just a total victory in a war he didn't really care about, this was a sound move. If the Empire had just pressed on and won the war, it would be over too soon and with too little damage. If you pause, let both sides fester in their fear and hatred, build up doomsday weapons against one another, and then go back at it, your death toll suddenly grows exponentially. Both the Emperor and Revan seem to have a goal that is on a galactic scale, and transcends both Republic and Empire. I don't think this is a mere coincidence. I think their goals have become one and the same. Annihilate all existence in the galaxy, and transform them into a singular entity. Another possibility is that Revan is not even aware of the extent of the Emperor's consciousness within him. Consider how the First Son and the Children of the Emperor had no clue that they were who they were most of the time. Vitiate is a master at mental manipulation. Revan could very well believe he is acting on his own accord, while Vitiate remains firmly implanted on his subconscious, guiding his every move. Either way, if I am right, the stakes of this conflict are going to be galactic in scale, and really epic.

You are talking a fraction of players willing to do WZ after WZ and just /dance to receive a pittance in WZ comms. Most people are not going to waste their time like that. Bad eggs may be there, but they are hardly so prevalent that everyone should get less reward potential just to thwart them. That said, I can understand wanting to see rewards directly tied with performance as well.

^ This. I for one am THANKFUL they are giving people more reason to PvP. Sure, it means you have a lot more players who aren't super PvP'ers, but that goes for both sides really. More players means a bigger pool of enemies as well as a larger pool of allies, good and bad alike. That reduces queue times, makes for a more varied win/loss ratio, and generally is a healthy thing for PvP in general. Why complain about this?

This is why we can't have nice things. We can't have a healthy PvP community because someone always thinks discouraging the "lesser players" means better PvP, we can't have nice rewards outside of gear because people complain that PvE'ers might want it... Seriously, stop whining when you are given things, and stop trying to discourage people from even getting started into PvP. Having one more thing to spend comms on means potentially getting new people involved in PvP, and having something to dump those extra comms on for those who do WZs a lot. Neither of these are bad things.

I think the proof is in the results on this one. People who say "It's fine, leave it be" are like repeat patrons at a failing restaurant. They like the total garbage they are being fed, so they continue to press for it. Meanwhile, the restaurant itself is losing money because most customers don't want to eat their crappy food, and simply politely pass on it and never come back, rather than keep fighting with the owners and the regulars. PvP in this game is in a difficult spot. You can try to deny it all you want, state how everything looks good to you, but the player representation in PvP has dwindled pretty significantly. Queue times for certain things are through the roof, if not downright impractical on some servers (solo ranked on Ebon Hawk for example. Sat in queue for three hours and got nothing). Why is this? Because people are not queuing. Many would rather chew their own leg off. Why is it that a good amount of people have completely stopped coming out to play the game's PvP? Well, I think there are a number of reasons. Class issues, lack of address to player concerns by BW, the removal of 8v8 ranked instead of upping the rewards for doing them, and yes premades are a problem for many people, but I think the problem with them is a symptom of a much larger issue, which is lack of cross-server queues. If there were cross-server queues, you might face premades but you would be unlikely to face the same premades over and over and over again all day long. As a solo queue person, I have had days where PvP was basically gridlocked by a geared out and extremely well-coordinated guild's premade groups that simply rolled over each and every team they were pitted against. Any reasonable person will simply say "Eh, screw it, I'm gonna go do something else" when things like that happen. The trouble is, some folks will take that a step further and say "Screw this, PvP in this game sucks, I'm never gonna go through this again", and thus stop playing it altogether. Some will say "Good riddance, people like that suck at PvP anyway and shouldn't play" Well again, I take you back to the original problem of having dwindling player representation, which causes longer queue times and a smaller pool of players to play against. If you want varied and thriving PvP, you need the good, the bad, and the ugly alike. You need premades and solo queue types alike. You can't just say "screw them" to an entire area of player representation without consequence.

I'll be honest, I have kinda wondered this myself as well. Especially now that they seem to be focusing a bit more on tactical flashpoints and the like in which you are actually a lot better off without a tank. Aside from Operations, there really isn't a NEED for a tank, nor really even a desire in many cases. I play a Kinetic Shadow and have noticed it is not heavily favored by any stretch of the imagination, PvP or PvE.

I just had a good analogy for this. PvP right now is like a fine dining restaurant in the middle of a rural town in Tennessee. Sure, you might have a small handful of customers who can afford it and appreciate it, but the vast majority of the town either can't afford it, or doesn't care for it. That small customer base will not sustain you for long and you will have to close the doors eventually. Now, if you were to open a buffet on the other hand, sure you wouldn't make as much per plate, but you would have more volume than you could have hoped for (people here love their buffet). Also, you could offer specialty menu items for those who want something a little more up-scale, but still want to come and dine with their friends. I watch WAY too many cooking and restaurant shows btw...

The devs have been posting threads, but it doesn't seem like they are interested in hearing what is really wrong. They just want to do their own things. Like, who thought putting 4v4 arenas in the same queue as 8v8 warzones? I don't think that was something WE asked for. What they want to hear is "MORE HUTTBALL!" from my perceptions. Granted though, you have a point that they are at least feigning care at this point where once they didn't even do that much. As far as PuG VS premade, my problem isn't even entirely with premades in general. It is with getting the SAME premade stomping you all day long because the server PvP population is so low that they are literally the only people playing, while you get stuck with the same group of PuG'ers each time and generally lose over and over again. Getting rolled a few times by a premade is one thing, being blocked from ever getting a fair fight all day is another. This ties directly to the cross-server point. If there was a greater pool of people to play against, sure you might face a premade every once in a while, but it likely won't be the same group, and you are more likely to encounter other PuGs. PvP population actually brings me to the point that was made about queue times. They would be far less lengthy if there were more people interested in playing. Right now on my server the PvP population is VERY diminished. I see the same names all day long because there just aren't many people who bother with it. If there were separate queues for folks the population might grow to accommodate. People just don't want to even try it right now. If they had a better place to start, without being decimated constantly by premade PvP guilds, they might be more willing to try it, get geared, and eventually move up the ladder as well. I also think the incentives should be better for those PvP guilds to do ranked stuff and not just sit in WZs all day to beat up on joe PuGer. The class balance portion of this I am intentionally not going into detail about because the last thing I intend is to start a war between classes. The moment you mention someone's class as being too powerful it devolves into bickering. Most people I have talked to and seen on the forums believe there are class balance issues with several classes, and I tend to agree. Some more obvious than others. There are not enough people playing PvP in this game. That should be pretty clear by the queue time and the player pools. Those who are enjoying themselves right now aren't the people to ask "what's wrong with PvP?", it is the people who aren't and have given up on it entirely, because those are the people you want coming back to it. Most aren't going to complain, they just stop doing them. Neither of my guilds will run PvP any more, and I've been in a few others that also just shun it entirely. I seem to be unique among them for my actually wanting PvP. At the end of the day you can just say "Eh, whatever, who cares what a bunch of casuals and RP'ers think?", but your queue times will only get longer, and your PvP experience will only grow less rewarding. This is just my opinion as someone who wants to PvP in this game, but is also on the verge of simply giving up on it as well. Take it for what it is worth.

I want to love PvP in this game, I really do... But I don't love it. In fact I hate it. This game has the worst PvP experience of just about any game I have played to date. From getting rolled over and over by the same premades for an entire night, to common sense class balance issues, PvP in this game simply is not fun unless you are in a PvP guild and playing an easy-mode class. Now, if you ARE in a PvP guild, and you roll on an RP server like mine, I would imagine you are enjoying PvP quite a bit. If you are a solo queue person who just wants to PvP for fun, the short answer is "don't", as I had been warned many times before trying it. The bolster system is flawed, there are glaring class balance issues, the lack of cross-server queues means you can fight the same premade group over and over with your same crappy PuG, there are now ways to trick the queue for rated to disguise your actual roles, and the only people who truly seem to have nothing to complain about are the people exploiting these flaws. Do I have an easy answer? I guess the only answer I can offer is "Care about it" really. It seems like BW doesn't actually care about it, which is a shame because I can promise you they are losing money over it. They put all this work into making more arenas, more Huttball, more maps, but it isn't helping because they won't fix the baseline problems. They make token gestures that more often do things like hurt a class in PvE under the guise of trying to balance them in PvP, while not actually affecting them in PvP at all really. I have seen a lot of good suggestions on here about how to fix things. People genuinely want to help make the PvP experience in this game better. These suggestions are very largely ignored I have found. I have yet to see one of them implemented, though my perspective is admittedly limited in scope. I'm a dirty casual PvP'er, I admit it, but I pay my sub just like everyone else and I don't think it is asking too much to have an even mildly fair PvP environment to enjoy. /endrant

Ah, I see. In that case, I apologize for not detecting the sarcasm that was actually well warranted in this circumstance.

Neither can a DPS sorc in the heat of battle. Without healing spec, we can't sit and spam heal ourselves very easily, especially with a MARAUDER (since we like using caps for the word) smashing your face in. We can lolbubble, but the second it ends he's just going to pop the cooldowns that have been brewing and finish the job. And yes, I can compare them. See, I just did in my original post. It is really just a question of sense. A stealth/speed buff makes little to no sense for a marauder, but it would make perfect sense for a class that has light armor, few defensive cooldowns, and is supposed to use sorcery as it's method of survival and attack.

It's ok, some day you will learn to read the big words. I will help you out for now. "Big fighting man should not be sneaky. Magic man should be sneaky" Does that help?

Something puzzles me a bit, and I thought I might share it. I have been playing around with classes for a while, and I noticed that a sentinel has a temporary stealth button, yet my sorceror does not. This puzzles me on a couple of levels. Firstly, from a strictly lore and logic standpoint. Knights and Warriors are the "stand your ground and fight" types by nature, yet they inexplicably have a very sneaky and underhanded ability that lets them sneak away from danger. Not exactly "knightly" in my opinion. Conversely, the entire idea of force stealth seems to derive from illusion and mental subterfuge, two things that a Sorceror or Sage SHOULD be able to do. Take Naga Sadow, for example. He was a master of Sith Sorcery, and he used illusions and mind "magics" all the time. Secondly, from a game-play practicality standpoint, this seems to make little sense to me as well. Knights and Warriors have a lot of baseline defensive cooldowns already. They don't really NEED another "oh ****" button, nor do they really need a short duration stealth with a speed boost. However, Sorcerors/Sages could REALLY use another viable defensive cooldown that gets them out of the line of fire. Right now, our best bet is barrier, which is nice but it has the overwhelming flaw of being a channeled ability. We have to stay in one place, basically CC ourselves, AND the whole world can see us still and know very easily when our bubble is gonna burst. This is almost pointless in circumstances where you are healing and being mobbed by a group of enemies. You can't continue to do your job, you just get focused again IMMEDIATELY after it breaks, it's basically just delaying the inevitable. Perhaps I am over-thinking things, but it just seems a bizarre choice to me. It would make a LOT more sense to me if Sorcs/Sages had a short duration stealth/speed boost to escape situations, rather than the armor-clad knightly sorts.

Hmmm, no, I am pretty sure it isn't just a matter of my sucking when I am quite clearly not the only person to complain that healers have too much survivability at present. Perhaps if you cannot manage to use a cast bar properly, it is YOU who suck. I play a DPS Sorc mostly in PvP pal, and most often lightning spec. Cast bars for days. I get focused like crazy just for BEING a sorc, yet I still manage to get casts off. I have to be careful, but I can do it. Yes, I think healers should have trouble when they are getting focused and having their "heads pounded", because that means they have to rely on their team for protection. At present, healers don't REALLY have to rely on their team nearly as much as teams have to rely on them. Healers should not be able to basically double as PvP tanks. Having a cast bar, and having the potential to run out of a resource, makes a healer fallible, which is not a BAD thing.

I think the trouble with RWZ's was not that it should be removed, but that it should have really been focused on a lot more. Rated comms, for example, should never have been able to be bought for WZ comms. Not ever. It takes away from the whole purpose of getting gear in PvP, which is prestige. Eliminating rated also means that the "big fish" who would normally be moving on to bigger and better things instead just sit in regular WZ's and roll over anyone who is new, which makes the newbies not want to play. Bear in mind, I am a relatively new player to this game. Still, it seems to me from my limited perspective that ranked should not only have remained, but should have been given better rewards to match the difficulty level, and should have been something that PvP'ers aspired to the way PvE'ers aspire to raiding. Regular WZ's should basically be like the 4 man FPs, where you go to get ready for the big leagues. What would happen to PvE if raids were removed? Well, people would quit. They would get bored, and they would quit. Arenas are not going to replace RWZs for the driving goal of PvP prestige I don't feel. Also, I remember quite well the impact that they had on WoW when they were introduced and heavily focused on, and I would really not like to see that happen to this game. It was miserable.