I actually put some thought into this and came up with some ideas. *Knight: Most likely the Outlander. *Consular: Wasn’t a part of SoR. The Noetikons were taken to Tython, but after the Assault by the Sith Empire, they were returned to Coruscant. The Barsen'thor went with them. He has been working to gather and preserve the lore and teachings of the Order. He has been working closely with Gnost-Dural and sent Nadia to assist him (they didn’t romance). Something else is he has been working to rebuild a Jedi temple there as well. *Smuggler: Wasn’t a part of SoR. He did fight in the Battle of Illum. Basically he got ahold of one of the stealth ships and a cargo hold full of Adegan crystals and faked his own death. No one has seen him since. *Trooper: He had retired from the military and wasn’t at the Battle of Illum. Everything that Havoc had done, everything Garza asked him to do, and especially Ava Jaxo’s death weighed too heavily on him. The rest of Havos Squad stayed in the unit and Arric became the leader. Garza still contacted him and got him to Rishi. After dealing with Eclipse Squad, He actually found he liked Rishi and built a small homestead there. He does some work as a freelance mechanic. *Warrior: Ah Wrath, while not the main character of SoR, he was on Ziost. After all of that, he was deeply troubled. He sent his companions away and was last seen heading into the dune sea on Tatooine. *Inquisitor: Parted ways with his companions and disappeared into the Rishi Maze looking for immortality. Basically following up on the Rishi side quest. He couldn’t divert the resources from the war, so he went himself. Companions either didn’t want to go or were ordered to stay. Took a small team of troopers and members of the Reclamation Service with him. *Hunter (male): Remember Mako’s clone storyline that was never resolved? That’s what got him. He disappeared on Nar Shaddaa trying to track down answers about Mako’s past. Mako and crew looked for him but no sign and they ended up in the Alliance. *Hunter (female): This is only one where I thought about different genders. If the Hunter is female, she was really shaken by Rishi and Yavin. Decided to retire. Went back to Alderaan and reminded Raffid they were married and she was the Baroness of House Girard. She worked to improving the standing and coffers of the House and ended taking over most of the day to day operations. When Zakuul took over, she covertly aided Choza Raabat and the resistance movement. *Agent: After Illum, the Agent was very disillusioned with the Empire. He began to think more and more about the original purpose of the Star Cabal. Why does the galaxy need to suffer because of Jedi & Sith? He is a Chiss and initially said he was returning the Ascendancy. This was a cover and he ditched his companions. Basically since then with the resources he has (The Black Codex among others), he is quietly rebuilding a new Star Cabal.

denavin, As I see apparently you can find the story from a source other than Kotaku, well done. Just like I said you could. Good for you. Make your own judgements about what it all means. I said repeatedly that it likely was a piece of the puzzle as to why things are the way they are with Swtor. Ultimately though there is no question Swtor is doomed. It's the last holdout of the Legend continuality. It was safe for a while because Disney wasn't touching the era. That is changing. The Kotor remake will be canon and it will change things. Swtor is not the money making machine it once was. As soon as Disney bought Star Wars and set the rules of the canon, the clock was ticking. Disney is beginning to produce content for the Old Republic era. There is no way they want Legend material to keep being produced. denavin white knighting is kind of like religion in the end. Doesn't matter what I say. You have your position. In your reply you put words in my mouth. You couldn't find anything about the story...until you could. I do hope Swtor can make a come back. I love the game. Edit: denavin, if you think being told that you made a mistake or are full of crap is an insult, you really need to get out more. Plus apparently Bioware thought I was civil enough as I am still on the forums.

I said search "Electronic Arts looking to sell" not "EA is looking to sell". EA could refer to several different thngs. If you do that you will get sites such as: MSN and many others reporting the story. I get it you do not like Kotaku. They are not the only one reporting this Edit: Ok either you are full of crap or messed something up because I just searched "EA is looking to sell" and got the same result. You do need to look in the news tab. My apologies I figured you would know to check the news tab for news. Anyway the white knighting is getting silly. Believe what you want but EA is in a bad way and this isn't a secret.

Ok Google "Electronic Arts is looking to sell" if you doubt. It's being reported several places. Kotaku was the first I happened to see. Kotaku is like any other news source. Sometimes right and sometimes wrong. That's why you look at more than one of them if you are curious about something. EA's woes are no secret and been reported is all sorts of place. That the company is having issues is pretty well known. That one article is one part of a mountain of evidence. Not the least of which is the stock price drop and valuation drop. Regardless several outlets are reporting the story. I really do hope Bioware gets the help it needs for Swtor. I personally just see the writing on the wall. I haven't even talked about the canon issues either. As Disney moves into the Old Republic era, how likely are they to let this last holdout of the Legends continuity stick around? A canon remake Kotor is coming. It will be hit. That will likely lead to a remake of Kotor 2 and Disney ramping up content for the ear There is also a Tales of the Jedi tv series panel coming at Celebrations. Disney has been dropping bits and pieces of OR lore into canon at an increasing rate. Swtor's massively decreased in quality, EA situation, and Disney beginning to seriously product canon material for the Old Republic doesn't look good for the game. I know people have seen doom and gloom before, however, this combination is new. Also Swtor has never been in a state tis bad before. As I so often say, I hope I am wrong. We'll see.

Well Disney giving other publishers a go also certainly has something to do with EA's performance. If EA could have delivered consistent hits, who knows? I honestly hadn't looked in the details of the FIFA deal, but I don't think it is a secret that EA is not doing so great these days. We have known Bioware has been in trouble since Anthem. There has also been all the legal issues and bad publicity over loot boxes. EA's stock price took a nose dive last November and really hasn't fully recovered. It's current valuation is way down across many metrics. I could go on. Legacy of the Sith has just been another mess in a long line of messes. So the idea that the EA wants to sell or merge is just another sign the company is not in the best place. I seriously doubt Bioware is going to get the resources it needs to straighten things out. Especially with EA doing layoffs. I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong.

A couple of things are going on here. Obviously there are issues like the UI, but a big difference is that Onslaught had plenty of content and Legacy has jack. Swtor player will keep playing an expansion if there is stuff to do while they wait on the next expansion. Legacy of the Sith had to deliver content and didn't. Another big factor is the changes to gear. See in 6.0 you could play your way to get gear. On top of that with the variety of tacticals and set bonuses, there was good reason to want multiple gear sets for each mirror class (ie merc/commando) you had. Anyone could get an optimized BiS set with the best amplifiers and augments. It just took time and credits mainly. Most Swtor players are not progression raiders and never will be. So firstly, they reduced the number of gears sets you actually need or even want for the game. Having a second class and how set bonuses work means you need at most 3 sets: a tank, dps, and a healer set. This is further compounded by getting rid of useful general sets. I know I went from have like 17 endgame sets to having 2 now. All my force users are sin tanks and all my tech characters are scoundrel dps (I don't heal). Combat style doesn't equal story anymore. So I have no incentive to run more styles. Why bother? Let's add in that all my characters have stealth now. Toss in the fact I can do 90% of the content in the game in green 320 gear. You know the set you get after running Legacy like once. Toss in token caps and the rest and the current gearing system gives reason to not bother playing. Story Ops gear drops are a joke and unless you are progression raiding you do not need the gear from progression raiding. Even if you want to bother with Op gear, look at the state of it. Everyone is grinding one or two bosses. It's really fast. People kept complaining that 6.0 gave gear too easy. 7.0 gives you all the gear you will ever need to do most of the game after you run Legacy once. That takes what 20 minute with a stealther? Legacy made gear meaningless practically. Legacy has no grind worth bothering with. At least Onslaught has a rep grind. Onslaught had 2 decent planets. Bioware set this up to push people to do Ops and didn't even release an Op. Edit: One other piece of the puzzle is that Bioware worked to make big legacies with lots of alts less rewarding with the token caps. They also made Conquest less rewarding. Every way you look Bioware pruned reasons to play. It's changes encouraged people to play less. The less people play the less they care. The more likely they are to leave.

Another factor in this is (as reported in Kotaku) EA is looking to sell or merge. The article also mentions that EA has laid off 200 customer service staff. EA has not only lost it's exclusive deal for Star Wars but FIFA now as well. Edit: Bioware has never been top priority for EA. So if EA is in trouble, you can imagine how things are looking for Bioware.

You are missing another possibility: many players are playing something else. I totally don't think everyone agrees with the criticisms of 7.0. Different strokes for different folks. However 7.0 is a mess. Many players have left or are playing it at a massively reduced rate. The industry knows Swtor is in trouble. Most of what's left of the playerbase knows it too. EA knows it as well. I totally get that you, and some others, may be pleased as punch with the new changes and totally ok with the lack of content and very happy with the state of the game. However, that's not the experience of the majority. Swtor has lost nearly 40% of its Steam players since Legacy of the Sith dropped. That's a good sign that lots of folks are not happy with the changes. I wish white knights would stop burying their heads in the sand.

Ok a couple of things to remember. Swtor is Legends continuity and in Legends, Jango Fett killed 6 jedi with his bare hands (Jango Fett - Open Seasons #3). He also killed Jedi Master Coleman Trebor in Episode 2. It took Mace Windu, one of the greatest jedi duelist ever to take him down. As to Vader himself. Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire #4 had it where Boba Fett could have killed him but chose not to. Hunters are packing shield generators, cortosis, and beskar. All of which stop lightsabers. Their armor auto-injects kolto. I could go on. Trooper, smugglers, and agents all have the same sort of tricks. Order 66 showed that force users are vulnerable to non-force users if nothing else. Aayla Secura got distracted by a bird and was mowed down by her troopers for instance. Legends has several cases of non-force users beating force users. More importantly, that a force user could loose to a non-force user has been true in the Old Republic since Kotor came out. Something that is missing is that by the time you get to Kotfe and Kotet, all classes are force users. The game also hints strongly that the Force has been using your character as it's main instrument to seek balance. Whichever character you are playing was guided and prepared to defeat Tenebrae by the Force. There also is an old idea in Star Wars that some people use the force and don't know they are doing it. Ultimately it comes down to this how do a trooper, smuggler, agent, and bounty hunter fit in? The same way a bunch of Ewoks could defeat the Empire's best ground troops. The Force did it.

Jesus Ok let me explain the basics of what is going on here. Bioware makes swtor hoping people will spend money on it. Yes, customers are entitled to a product they are satisfied with. If they do not receive it, they are entitled to complain about it and to not spend money on it. Also, customers who are not happy with the product are entitled to discourage other people from playing the game. If Bioware can't cope with criticism, then they need to stop seeking people's money. EA is a multi-billion dollar company with a PR department. They do not need you to defend them.

In the end you are right of course. It isn't going change anything. Speaking of that, I am going to get back to playing the game. The forums have wasted enough of my time.

Well it is not always big changes. Many bug took years to get fixed. You have hit the catch 22 of the PTS though. Bioware puts a lot of work into an expansion. Even if the changes are bad for the game, Bioware is committed and not going to change anything meaningful. So my time on the PTS is worth it why? I can have fun playing the main game now or playing other games. Feedback is pointless. There are plenty of places to get a solid preview. Nothing accomplished lasts beyond the PTS. What's the point?

I did. I did multiple times. I don't anymore. Don't get me wrong. I hope you are right. I hope Bioware listens to the testers and fix bugs and balances properly. I am just too burned out on every PTS it not really happening.

That's a crock. The issue with PTS is Bioware doesn't listen. Here this round let's go talk to the Jugg/Sent players about how well Bioware is listening. How many times has this gone on. Remember 5.0? Remember all the times Bioware didn't listen? I have been at this too long to fall for that again and again.

I have actually been coming with facts but let's go over this again. *Lack of Operations caused the mass exodus of progression raiders. The last really big one was during Kotfe and Kotet. 6.0 did not kill the progression raiding scene in Swtor. New Operations have not really brought them back. Machine Gods didn't do it. Dxun didn't do it. *6.0 saw an increase in activity in the game. Play your way was listed often as a reason for people returning. The activity included Operations. *Higher than story mode Operations have always been for the extreme minority of the playerbase. Resources and rewards put toward them benefit the few not the many. *Progression raiders cry they need better gear for progression to draw people in. Yet they are always the minority. In other words it doesn't work. *The majority of players are casuals with alts. 7.0 is very unfriendly to them. *Casual players are getting something taken away from them. It's not hard to see why they are going to leave. *Less players means less earnings which harms the game. To sum up, 7.0 changes are not going to benefit the majority of players of the game. This will cause people to leave. This will hurt the game. As to the PTS, I have done my time on it. I have watched the developers ignore feedback time and again. This is going back years now. I have way too many years in to fall for it yet again. Being wise to the game is not a lame excuse. At this stage if Bioware wants me to beta test their game they can pay me.

I disagree the overall issue is that gear is a distraction. See, 6.0 showed very clearly that the game was running just fine without out having gear Op locked. Raids was still being run. Swtor was active. All that really needed to happen was dropping RNG. In 7.0 the gear is being put beyond Ops & difficulty gates to encourage progression raiding and slow the gear chase down. The goal being to keep playing the expansion. This is being pushed so hard because the expansion is so content light. We are getting less than we have in some patches. The other issue is that some of us are pushing for player freedom over Bioware control. Much the changes in 7.0 are trying to change how players play the game. That's the bigger issue. I personally want to play the game I want to play. Most people do too. Bioware is trying to limit that and it is going to cost them players. This is not good for anyone. As to PTS, they don't listen. We have seen it over and over again.

Here is where your philosophy falls flat. The majority of the playerbase are casual players. They never touch Master Mode anything. Swtor does just fine without anything else. The right balance is struck. Hard and Maser Mode are out of balance by decision. It works amazing well for some but most never even bother. For most players story mode is plenty rewarding enough. The other issue for HM & MM is the same for group activities period, other players. This is why 16 man runs have been dropped. Most people are here for the story and the cosmetics.

Actually that's not correct. Lack of new raids killed the raiding community not the 6.0 gearing system. The last big exodus was during Kotet and Kotfe years before 6.0. More basically than gear, progression raiders needs new raids. Here is the thing, in 6.0 the activity level in the game rose not dropped. This is because progression raiding was never a large portion of the player base. Most players here and in other MMOs are casual players. This is not a secret. To be a factual data point it has to be factual. I am sure there was a drop about gear from raiders in 6.0. It was so outweighed by the influx of new players and returning players that many of us didn't even notice. So many overinflated the importance of the progression community. It's like hardcore GSF players trying to drive content for the whole game. Casual players are the majority, by far, Always have been. 7.0 is very unfriendly to them. They are going to leave. This not good for the game. Philosophy is fine. How you think the game should be run is fine. However, if enough people stop playing we loose the game. 6.0 has more activity that Swtor had seen in years. Changing that is just silly.

Honestly in my experience most MMO players I know also play single player rpgs. Swtor in this is a special case though. Swtor's big draw is it's IP and it's story. We all know that. That means that single players star wars rpgs present a unique competition for it. In the end though we know how this ends. Piss your players off enough and they leave. They will find something else to play. Bioware is going to loose players over 7.0. It's already started over the delay. I might be wrong about what they go play but it will be something else. What is really sad about this is it didn't need to happen. Removing RNG from 6.0 would have been enough. People are going to play the new OP. It's a new OP. They aren't going to push through to MM but the new gearing system isn't going to change that. The small minority who play MM would still do it if the gearing system didn't change. It's a new OP. On a side not about DA4, check around. It's farther along than it may seem. We actually know a good deal about it. However, they do keep loosing developers and that worries me.

Eclipse is supposed to be a large open world single player rpg. Also toss Starfield and DA 4 in there too. Big name single player rpgs are coming. Swtor is not even going to be the only rp game in town for it's era. Eclipse is High Republic but that's close. Casuals are here for story and Bioware is getting competition on all fronts for that demographic. I know folks who left for Jedi Fallen Order and never came back. Swtor has a dated engine and dated graphics. Making an expansion that is unfriendly to a large portion of the playerbase (casuals and alt players) is a bad decision and is going to hurt the game. 7.0 defenders either do not get that or do not care.

Here's what gets me about the anti-alt attitude. More alts means we need more cosmetics which in turn mean more spent on the cartel market. Bioware should be encouraging alt play. There is more money in it.

I hate to burst your bubble but if enough casuals leave the game dies. Casuals are the majority of players. 6.0, where they catered to casuals, has seen the game be more active than it has ben in a long time. Lack of raids did lead to an exodus, but the game got more active after they made BiS gear available for any content. The raid exodus had been over for years. 6.0 and it's gearing system had people coming back. The gearing system did have a big issue, RNG. This goes back to the root of the issue, raiders and Bioware are so hot that Ops be favored that they are willing to loose players over it. This isn't an issue of the hardest activities in the game giving the best rewards or else PvP would give BiS gear. When you speak of entitlement, it's kind of funny. I want players to have the freedom to play the game they want to play. You and other raiders are arguing that the whole game needs to be tailored to your expectations. I am not trying to change how you play the game. Where is the bigger sense of entitlement? I want Swtor to be as popular as possible to keep it going. You and others are willing to burn it down to try to make it fit a mold it doesn't. Let me be as clear as I can. Bioware is taking away access to something casuals have now. If casuals wanted to progression raid they would be now. This is not going to draw a significant portion of the playerbase to MM Ops. It never does. They are going to be to pissed about it. A shorter gear chase and the other restrictions mean casuals are going to spend less money on the game. Less money earned by the game means EA is more likely to shut it down. What is so hard about this? The last thing anyone should want is people to leave the game. I really hope I am wrong. I love swtor. I actually am not worried about BiS gear. I am worried that this is going to damage the game. The Kotor remake and Eclipse are coming. They are a significant threat to the casual playerbase of the game. This just makes it worse, when Bioware should be working hard on player retention.

Hate is perhaps a strong word. Better to say they want to tighter control over how they play the game. They are obviously trying to funnel as many players as they can to the new OP in harder modes. This is over all other activities in the game. However, they do feel that playing a lot of alts is not ok. "Interruptive play" is something they are actively trying to discouraged. So logging in an alt getting conquest and moving on to another character is not something they like.

Here is the thing. 6.0 exists. Many of us are complaining because access to end game gear is being taken away. We don't want to do MM Ops. So for us paying customers we are been asked to do something we don't want to do or lose access to what we already had. Also it's not like nothing is being done for the gear, content is being ran for it still. Let's been real is farming an Op boss so different than farming a MM flashpoint? It is all time investment. The mechanics in Ops aren't honestly that much harder than stuff you see in harder solo content like the Eternal Championship. Once the guide comes out and with a decent team most Op bosses are pretty easy. Casual players are going to jut ignore the new gear. They might run the new Op in story mode that's about it. Hard core raiders will do it but they were already raiding. How do I know this? The history of the game. This happens every time with every raid. Casual players won't in the end even care. The gear and rewards are never enough. The real issue is that this is pissing them off and they are going to leave. This is bad for the game. Telling people they need to get over to support a game model that doesn't work is silly. They aren't. In the end the gear isn't the point. The point is this plus a lot of the other changes are casual and alt unfriendly. Casual players are the majority and always have been. Bioware i giving the less reason to play the game and reasons to play the game less. Telling people to get over it isn't going to work.

At the end of the day, I want player freedom over Bioware control. I don't care how Bioware thinks I should play the game. I don't care how anyone outside of my circle thinks I should play the game. If I want to run Ops I will. If I want to group content I will. If I want to run solo I will. 6.0 showed the game functions just fine without content gates on gear. It has been fr active then I have seen it a while. Ops and Fps were being ran. Contrary to what 7.0 supporters on here would have you believe, it was far from just EV & farming MM. The old system lifted from WoW isn't going to work. It never really did. MM Ops never have been a big draw. Bioware is putting the hammer down on casuals exactly when they need to keep them invested. The Kotor remake and Eclipse are coming. Here soon Swtor isn't even going to be the best looking game for it's era of Star Wars. Casuals chase story not group play.