Gr8 b8 m8 8/8 i can rel8 to the h8 but if you just w8 i think you will see this is legitim8 and will be gr8. You wont get errything in life on a pl8 but if you dont emancip8 this h8 it will begin to excruci8 and when you realize the xpack was gr8 it will be too l8.

So, it was bold, it was daring, it was cool. I would assume most everyone on the forums by now has seen the trailer for Knights of the Fallen Empire, and everyone has been speculating. Now I've had several hours to think and would like to outline some of my personal theories as to where the story is going. #1 Not that much time will pass So, since we found out we'd be frozen in carbonite the community has had a mixed reaction. Some are calling lazy writing, some like it. I'm withholding my judgement until I see the actual scene. But there is one thing I'm pretty sure about. It won't be that long. I've seen speculations ranging from 3 to 20 years, and my money is on closer to 2 or 3. For one thing, many of our factions leaders are getting up in years, Satele being 60+, and adding 10-20 years to them would turn them from inspiring leaders to decrepit old geezers. Not very "epic". Secondly, there are romancable companions to be considered. Can you IMAGINE the nerd rage if Kira and Lana turned out to be 40 when you escape carbonite? A gray Quinn? I'd rather he be dead myself, but I know a sizable portion of the female playerbase does not concur with that sentiment. Bioware doesn't want to alienate the people who take the romances in this game seriously. #2 Marr will be dead by the time we wake up If there are two things we can say about Marr it's that he is a patriot, and he is dying. Dark side saturation has eroded him so much that is suit is as much for the life support as the aesthetics. What better way for a man that loves his country and knows his time is limited than to go out in a blaze of glory fighting off this "eternal empire"? It would make for an emotional scene for imperial players, and certainly fits with both his character and Bioware's pattern of killing major imperial characters. #3 The story will begin with Vitiates defeat So Vitiate has been painted as the big boss since launch. And many people are worried that post jedi knight story his only real content will be the end of Shadow of Revan and the story on Ziost. However, I theorize that a sizable chunk of the first 11 chapters ending his threat, and his defeat will play a pivotal role in the arrival of the eternal empire and our carbon stasis. #4 We wont be mono-faction So there is a lot of fear floating around that the factions will be merged for the sake of the story, and that this is indeed the "better than cross server" that Bioware has referenced, but I do not believe that to be the case. In fact, I believe quite the opposite-the eternal empire will revitalize the sith empire. Think about it, the republic millitary may be on retreat but their population is massive. Palpatine knew you could never destroy the republic from the outside, and that is a lesson this empire of Zakuul will learn the hard way. But what about the sith empire? The title and the blurb we received imply that the empire is truly on its last legs, if not fallen entirely (which firs with my theory that Marr will die, his death would correlate in a severe drop in the quality of imperial strategy) but we also know this is a story, and the protagonists always win in the end. Which leads to theory #5 So what happens to Zakuul? The trailer clearly showed this is a highly populated empire with traits that resemble that of the spartans. So what are the sith to do with this large militaristic culture once their leader has been deposed? Assimilate them of course. With new storytelling freedom the dark council could be erased entirely, and the empire's leadership could rest firmly in the hands of the warrior, inquisitor, agent, and Lana. This would both appease imperial players, and inject new lifeblood into the galactic war. Theory #6 The new companion system won't be as versatile as people are making it out to be Listen, the new companion system already has me really excited from just the little snippet of information we've been given. But everybody seems to believe that we will access a page, pick the companions we want from all 40 of them, and that will be that. It is far more likely there will be a small pocket of class interchangeable companions. Keep in mind this has to work with the lore as much as gameplay. A sith followed by Rusk, Jorgan, Zenith, T7, and Kira would be laughable at best. I mean can you picture a sith travelling with Ashara? oh wait... Keep in mind we most likely wont be able to just pick and choose. So keep you hopes up, but also keep them tempered. Theory #7 This is going to be epic Guys, they've done it. After all this time, we are finally getting the attention and passion this game deserves from the higher ups. A massive, choice driven, Bioware story arc hitting right now, with all the hype from the movies, is going to make this a hit. So thanks to everyone who stuck with this game through good and bad. Your support got us here.

Ok guys! I hove to say I just saw the cinematics, and cliche or not this looks really good. I'm still wary of the writing, but I can't say I'm dissapointed. Well done EA/Bioware, well done.

Come to Ebon Hawk, I have an all twi'lek(also all male) legacy. Granted those sniper rifles were clearly never intended for lekku...

I would actually stand by my wording there. In mainstream media the content of the sith inquisitor story would be far less likely to sell to an audience than that of the warriors. From the objective standpoint of a movie/game producer, the inquisitor is more "boring".

Oh dear dark side I hope not.

Also I'm gonna say that was kind of unhealthy for them though. You don't need to be a student of psychology to know that when you start to loose sleep over something trivial, it has become too large a part of your life and you need to step back. And that's coming from the guy complaining on video game forums about cliche character blurbs on a leaked webpage.

This will probably just make me sound like more of a pessimistic, unsatisfied little brat, since that is apparently the vibe I'm giving off. But truthfully, I couldn't get into dragon age 2 or inquisition because I didn't like the characters. Alistair from origins is one of my all time favorite video game characters, and I loved everything about origins. For me, though, who you share a story with is just as important as the story itself. Which is why while the inquisitor story is objectively more "boring" than the warrior story I enjoyed it more than the warrior because ,unlike the warrior, there was nobody on the inquisitor's ship I had any desire to kick off. I liked them all, and that's more than I can say for most classes. Agent story was indeed good, but it is probably my least favorite story in the game, even if it was masterfully written, because the agent's crew just completely rubbed me the wrong way. The only character I even felt close to on that ship was Vector, and the creepy bug-guy should never be the most relatable person in a story. I'm just worried that this story could be equally good, but be tarnished by poor, over-cliched characters.

There was a thread in the lore section not long ago complaining about dark side/light side choices and I made the point to him that the concept of star wars is very black and white. I hope I didn't give the impression I was upset with the morality behind star wars, as that is not the case. I'm just upset with the choices taken regarding the new characters. It's not even cookie cutter so much as it feels like trying too hard. "Ooooh, look at me, I'm the dark prince" "I'm the rulebreaker" "I'm the vengeful justicar" "I'm the veteran with a chip on my shoulder". That is what those little character descriptions were, and it was cliche to the point of being funny. I feel like even if the morality of star wars is as basic black and white as possible, the characters within it don't have to be so rehashed it's a joke.

I'm hyped too. I'm just saying we shouldn't get our hopes as high as they appear to be right now.

Also lets talk about how we're called the "outlander". It's all over again...

Ur a cheeky boi I'll give u tht m8.

I just feel like when it's Bioware, we shouldn't hold the to the standard we hold Lucas.

That I'll give you. This just seemed...especially cringey. Even if the characters turn out far better than the fallen empire page implies, what we have now inspires images of the power rangers.

Listen guys, you can bet your lightsaber I'm as stoked as the rest of you. This looks like the breath of fresh air this game so sorely needed. It was high time we had an expansion that wasn't just "mediocre story+level increase". And don't get me wrong, all props to Bioware/EA for actually giving this game another chance. But can we talk about the list of characters? Their descriptions have got to be the most mary sueish things I've read in a very long time. When I read the blurb for the first time, it had been copy/pasted, and my first thought was "nice try bub, but no self respecting video game company would be that cliche." Guys this is tumblr fanfiction level stuff. I'm not posting the specific descriptions because I like having posting privileges, but I think I can sum up my point nicely by saying that there is literally a character with the title "the dark prince" and an equally pseudo-edgy quote to boot. Now, with the exception of the new character list, I love the direction the game is taking. I just pray to all that is holy that those character blurbs were a rough draft, because right now I am legitimately worried you hired Stephanie Meyer as your lead writer.

It's legit there are screenshots from the website. Don't worry I thought the same.

The little leak they had just confirmed it's Nico Okarr. Meh :/

That is exactly what I thought and I'm really worried. Being the "outlander" sounds cool, but not if it means I can't be Darth Nox. What I'm gathering is that the factions fall and your character sort of leaves? Why wouldn't our sith/jedi remain with their respective orders. Why would Nico travel with imperial characters, when the only time we have ever seen him is him helping jedi flee from sith? Guys I don't like change and therefore I am scared.

Behold! The necromancer of legend!

I honestly have the exact same expectation. I'm gonna miss this game.

Good to see that word still gets thrown around willy nilly. I do think it's worth noting that that guy that said this was semi-out of place in a T game (though honestly this game should be M) simply because fundamentalist moms would get upset. And as someone who always tries to look at something impartially, we can bash said moms as bigots and what-have you until we can no longer speak, but if slapping a T on it would lead to a drop in sales caused by same fundamentalist moms who cried about ruining their children, causing fox news to do what they do best, which leads to potentially thousands of teen players living in more sheltered homes to be deprived the opportunity of playing, thus deprived the opportunity of paying, thereby hurting the game, then you put an M on it so they can't complain. I understand where both sides are coming from is all I'm saying. I wouldn't have even responded were it not for the fact that I am ridiculously weary of the word "bigot". A bigot is someone like a rascist. A bigot would advocate eugenics. Someone who says they think your bedroom life is weird is not a bigot. They may be rude, they may be downright hateful, but I wouldn't call them a bigot. I think that whether or not someone should be able to sleep with someone getting more attention in the news than starvation, war, poverty, and disease says a great deal about what the west cares about. Live and let live. End rant.

Forum rules say don't bring religion into discussion. Further more religion had nothing to do with the immediate conversation. Have this.

So I reinstalled the whole game with no change. I thought it might be the sound driver, which is embarrassingly a conextant, and to test that hypothesis I used an old pair of usb turtle beach headphones I had. I'm not tech savvy but the listed driver changes to turtle beach when using them, and considering they practically have a flash drive connected to them I believe they are their own sound driver. There was no change in the stuttering, so whatever this is it wasn't a faulty install or the sound driver, and to make matters more frustrating svchost is using a ton of memory which has me worried I may be dealing with a trojan or rootkit. But that kind of memory usage is probably the underlying factor, so now it's a matter of removing whatever nasty viruses I've got, not consulting the swtor forums.

I have a habit of not using paragraphs on forums. Too much work.

So, I returned to the game about a month ago, thanks to 12x XP. I often come and go in 3-4 month segments, but when I returned this time, I noticed that my sound appears to be suffering some form of lag. This is a SWTOR only issue, as I have run both elder scrolls online and wildstar with no sound related issues. Both in conversations and world sounds (ie mounts/attacks) the sound stutters. The sound is similar to a broken record, and is not time Dependant, it can start the second I turn on the game or it could be two hours of playtime. My fps is completely fine, I am usually somewhere between 30-60 fps and when the sound begins to lag the game sontinues to run visually smooth. The only exception to this is mission conversations, as when dialogue stutters the speaker freezes until they can speak again. I had put it off for awhile but shutting my entire computer down regularly just for 10 minutes of stutter free playtime has become gamebreaking. So my question is, has anyone else encountered this issue? I couldn't find any fixes online. I am also playing on a different server than all my other tenures in SWTOR, having switched from ebon hawk to harbinger. Is it possible that a poorer connection to the harbinger is the reason for this sound lag?