If by 'new experience' you mean being able to level just for talking to an NPC, then yes, I suppose it is. In my world, playing a game means actually playing a game and figuring out why a boss is so hard to kill, or finding that one sweet spot between mobs you don't want to aggro because instant death....Sometimes it means exploring the terrain to find easter eggs or, I don't know, datacrons. There should be risk for every action. Otherwise it's not really a game, but a theme park where nobody ever struggles and everyone gets to the end with no effort.

This is the point that the pro-easy-mode people miss. The game SHOULD be big enough for everyone. It is obviously interesting to a lot of people with very different tastes and play styles. There should be no need to alienate old-timers, casual gamers who might be experienced, or new players. Btw I tend to keep one main with the best of everything (pvp geared though) and a bunch of toons with whatever I can find. I'm not sure about the 'crowd' being drawn in though. A lot of people were on the mailing list and saw the relatively good looking rewards for a relatively short subscription. The reality of all my alts getting the same Nico, bonus blasters, bike, etc is a little different. Also, there does happen to be a new Star Wars movie being released, and many people are perhaps wanting to experience the SW universe a little after some time away.

That's hilarious. I was in a group and the lowest lvl member kept chain pulling everything on the way up the first hill (within view of the repair droid) in Taral V. We tried to tell him it wasn't necessary, that most of the mobs could be avoided......We ended up leaving him alone on the hill.

1. It's Sunday. Nothing will happen. 2. CS would be better than General if you're having legitimate issues. 3. Harbinger is the only server left with any pop, so queuing for randoms, PVP and stuff is usually pretty quick.

Bump. I remember when Hammer Station was hard too. Wiped many times before beating it.

LOL. I work too sweetie. As I said, it's perfectly okay for some content to be too hard for casual players. But casual players still want the shiny stuff without any effort. Whether they can put the time and effort in is irrelevant. I'm not a hardcore player either btw. Even normal story missions and flashpoints are nerfed to the point they are just walk-throughs.

Seems like that would solve a lot of issues. I play STO from time to time, and it works well.

Old fashioned video games had player chosen difficulty settings for a reason. An MMO shouldn't be all easy, all the time. It should be okay if some content is too hard for casual players. but here as everywhere else, I see the generation that grew up with participation ribbons wants all the rewards but none of the work.

Yeah. I was a little bummed about putting fully augmented gear on a few companions that I can now only sell to one of the few vendors for lousy credits.

I guess attitude is being able to ignore a fight and let the comp handle it because something interesting is happening on TV. Your point about space-barring through all the cut scenes is well made however. Not everyone is a 'l33t' player doing it for the 500th time, and sometimes the immersive nature of a story is well worth the time. I will space-bar through cut scenes I've seen many times, but never tell others to do it. Knowing how long some of them are let's me get a coffee or something while the other group members who want to see the scene can still enjoy the story. Occasionally, it's also fun to help someone go through a flash point for the first time. It reminds me that it can still be a challenge, especially the way match making has been all buggered up and a lvl 20 toon is matched with lvl 40, 50, or 60 toons. Even if they're good, they still only have the skills of a lvl 20 toon.

I'm sure the increase in subs has nothing to do with slowly growing hype over the Star Wars movie trailer that was also released. Besides that, the forums are filled with people who (claim, admittedly) only subbed to get the free pixels (I mean, rewards) and will let their subs lapse afterwards.

It's not tired because every MMO ends up doing this. Going easy mode. Giving everything hard away for free. Why? I don't know. Obviously you like it. And everyone knows that shiny outfits aren't really earned anymore. Rep, XP, commendations, skills (now nerfed to make it easier for ADHD people to 'outfit' their toons), companions, (buffed, and also made exactly the same, just with different skins). It's all way, way too easy. Given the ability to level-match toons for the planet they are on, it shouldn't be that difficult to convert any of the low pop servers into something where a Heroic mission is actually heroic, you know, a challenge. That way all the kids can strut around in end gear after a solid week of playing *snork*, and people who like to figure out the puzzle of how to kill a boss can also play.

But 9 episodes is more than one episode, therefore is must be more content, right? It would have been harder for them to put so much marketing into 1 chapter. It just would have been a big meh. As it is, I just started another toon and found 10 mail messages. How many Nico blasters can I use? They're just handing the crap out now.

You might not like this, but seriously, go do 2 or three PVP rounds and you will make up the lost ground quickly. Everything, I mean everything in this game hands out XP in huge amounts. Everyone is expected to rush through to end game stuff, even though there really isn't much of it here. I don't remember ever seeing a LFG request for a world boss. Once you level, you do dailies, pick up piddly quests, dust the knickknacks in your stronghold, or look for ways to spend credits because there doesn't seem to be many valid ways to do that any more.

Because you don't have companions. You have one companion with multiple skins, and the cut-scenes they do on story missions only include default gear, so it's a little jarring if you put something spiffy on your companion and the cut-scene only shows the default outfit. It really breaks immersion when you see 10 Nico's around a mission drop box....like, is he part of the new clone army?