Update: wow it was REALLY bad tonight. Forget unplayable, I can’t even stay online for long, it eventually lags me out of the server completely. Please fix this!

Bump plus update, it’s especially bad tonight. I can barely move around. I logged into Satele Shan, and there’s zero lag there. So it seems it is definitely something to do with this server.

I don’t live in Europe, so my latency is never great, but most of the time, going back to the Red Eclipse days, it’s been manageable. I usually have no problem handling PvE and even PvP. However, since 6.0, I’ve been experiencing severe lag spikes right around 4 AM PST, which I believe would be morning in Europe. The rest of the day I’m fine, but right around that time it sometimes becomes almost unplayable. Has anyone else been experiencing this or is this just me?

Bump. This issue was not fixed with the recent patch. I just played through Onslaught with my Bounty Hunter who killed Shan. His lines are gone, but the floating blaster remains. Also, the cantina music on the fleet still plays through the credits.

Recently did the fight at 75, and it's still difficult, including the fight at the end with Bowdaar. I wiped the first time, which had never happened before. Even the storyline mobs are red.

I discovered a workaround of sorts. I tried resetting the entire mission, which put me back at the beginning of the walker mission, making my way to that battle. This time, once I killed one of the walker droids, it stayed dead and didn't respawn when I revived. They still killed me each time I killed one, but I was able to eventually whittle them down. But yeah, hopefully this will be fixed more permanently, as I still have a few toons to take through this.

Theron Shan is still not quite gone from the final cutscenes. Prior to 6.0a, I had taken my Sith Warrior through Onslaught. He had killed Theron at the end of Nathema Conspiracy. At the end of Onslaught, while talking to Lana, Theron still got a few lines in, and though his toon wasn't on screen, I saw his blaster floating around. This was a known issue, so I presume it's been fixed with 6.0a. However, I just took my Trooper through Onslaught. He had not killed Theron, but kicked him out of the Alliance. His gun wasn't onscreen at the end of Onslaught, but there was one line of dialog that was said with his voice, something about a haircut.

I’m experiencing the same thing. I’ve gone through this mission several times before 6.0 and never had this issue. I was of the impression that the patch last week would fix it but it did not.

Posted this on reddit, but didn't get much response. Going to throw it out here, see if anyone has any thoughts on this? When I first got on SWTOR, one of my biggest motivations was these roleplay servers. I’ve never played WoW or any other game that had designated role play servers, and I was very intrigued by the idea of having my own personage, my own identity within the Star Wars universe. So, I joined one of those RP servers and began to look around. And I’ll be honest, I was disappointed. I was expecting a server-wide roleplay scene with lots of conflicts between the two factions and long term, player-driven stories going that people could plug into. Instead, I discovered that the two factions can’t even really communicate with each other, making any faction vs faction stories virtually impossible. Instead, the roleplay was limited to emoting sessions in isolated areas. I want to make it clear here that I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, and I hope those who enjoy that do not take offense or feel like I am demeaning them, as that’s certainly not my intent. It’s an entirely subjective thing, and it just didn’t float my boat. I saw that there was one pvp/rp server on the East Coast, but it was also quite dead by the time I began playing. So I began to throw around ideas for more large-scale, conflict-based roleplay situations that could be played out. This is the beginnings of one that I came up with that I wanted to throw out there, and see how it might work. Premise: Two opposing guilds fighting for control over a planet, possibly multiple planets. I’m thinking Tatooine because it is huge and has strongholds available. I’d like to see strongholds actually come into play in this, but I am not sure how. A few random points and ideas on how this would play out: Two guilds would be started at once; one imp and the other rep. Each Legacy is only allowed to join one side, hopefully to limit access to the opposing side’s strategies and plans. Anyone in either guild must, at all times, have PVP flagged. The two sides can launch large scale raids or fights between the factions. This will result in the winning side being considered in control of that area. In addition to those raids, on a regular basis, let’s say once a month, there will also be a large, staged battle between the two. Between these large scale battles, any character who is killed by a character in the opposing guild anywhere in the galaxy whether during those raids or just during normal adventuring, cannot participate in the next large scale battle. The player behind that character can of course still use another character in his/her Legacy, provided that character also hasn’t been killed, but it will limit that player’s options on which character he/she can contribute to that next battle. This will be the key component in all this. This will open up possibilities for various roles and their implementation in the larger story. For example, let’s say there’s a Jedi Knight who has been recognized as the best-geared toon of one of the most skilled characters on the Republic’s side. The leadership of the Imperial side sets a bounty on his head, which of course the Bounty Hunters can go hunt. They might also send Imperial Agents or Sith Assassins out to sneak into enemy territory to take that guy out and get out asap. If successful, this will result in that Jedi Knight not being able to fight in the next battle, significantly weakening the Republic’s capabilities. Or, if the Jedi Knight can fend off all the assassination attempts, now the Imperial side is out several assassins, agents, and bounty hunters for the next battle. Problems/missing ideas that I couldn’t really think of: Long term stakes. What is the point of these battles? What happens to the winning/losing sides? How do we calculate and implement the “conquest” of various areas after raids and battles? Use of Strongholds. I dunno, is there any possibility there?

Thank you for the insights. The problem is that my thought was not to just watch videos or look stuff up on YouTube, but actually play another game on the side. This of course is not a big deal with older games, but newer games could be an issue. I was hoping that it had the same resource management system as FFXIV so that it wouldn't overdrive my CPU to have SWTOR and another game on.

I’m thinking of hooking up a second monitor to my computer (one graphics card) so I can work on other stuff while I’m waiting for queues and such. If I’m playing SWTOR on one screen and I switch over to another program running on the other one: Will the game stay on that first screen or will it minimize? If it does stay on the screen, will it use less resources, like CPU? I know for example Final Fantasy XIV's CPU usage lowers significantly, almost to nothing, if it’s not the top window, even if it’s not minimized.

So the verdict seems to be if I want that light-sided Sith, I’ll need to play through the story. Bah. Guess I’ll be wearing the hell out of the spacebar in the next week or two.

Argh. Do you have a link to that thread?

So, I'm trying to get a toon to Ossus. I have played through the KotFE/KotET story several times and quite frankly I'm fairly sick of it. But I also don't want to skip straight to Ossus because I plan on playing this toon against their faction. I.e., she's a Sith Warrior that is lightside, so I don't want to default darkside choices made for me. But the thought of having to slog through that story again just... urgh. SPOILER ALERT So, here's my thought. Could I play just long enough to make some light side choices then skip the rest? For example, I'll play KotFE just for the first couple of chapters, enough that I will save the people in the Spire, and therefore not get Koth angry at me. Then, I skip the rest and start KotET. There, I play through the first chapter so I can save Senya and Arcann, locking in my eventual recruitment of both of them, then I skip to Iokath. If I do that, will they remember that I made those light side choices, or will that still cause the system to make the default dark side choices for me?

Wait, so just so we're clear, SteveTheCynic means that you can't start new romances with previously-romanced companions, right? So, if you had romanced someone during the class stories, then you skip straight to Ossus and reclaim that person through an Alliance Alert, it will allow you to continue the romance?

I was thinking of taking a few toons who have completed their class stories and skipping KotFE/KotET straight to Iokath or even Ossus. I’m fine with the default choices made in those cases, but I’d like to regain the companions. I read somewhere that skipping that content makes you lose out on all that stuff, but the explanation was a little vague. Has anyone tried this and have firsthand experience? I’m not interested in the companions that return/are introduced during Ossus since I’m planning to do that story with all of them, but companions that you get (back) during KotFE to the Traitors Trilogy: New companions introduced throughout the stories, like Theron, Lana, Arcann, Koth, etc. Class companions that return during the stories, like T7, Gault, Vette, Elara, Quinn, Aric, etc. Class companions that return via Alliance Alerts, like all the Smuggler companions, Blizz, Qyzen, Rusk, Mako, Iresso, Eckard, Ashara, etc. And yes I’m aware of the companion terminal in the on Odessen, but I have kind of an ethical issue with using it 😅 Anyone have any insight?

So, as has been discussed several times, it’s hard to go back to class stories after the last few expansions where everyone is the same role in the galaxy. It’s been suggested that the only way to return to class stories is major retcon. But, here’s an example of how they might bring that back without completely retconning everything. Presumably Malgus is going to be a major element in the new story as either the main bad guy or the right hand of the main bad guy, the Vader to the Palpatine if you will. This is perfect. Under the new leadership, the Empire once again becomes the dominant power for the galaxy. Plot points resulting from this: The Alliance is over. It’s destroyed by the new empire, and the remaining forces are folded into whichever side your character fights for. Of course, BioWare can’t take away planets completely, so Odessen becomes a neutral ground for diplomatic meetings and such, with a strict no fighting rule enforced by both sides. Zakuul also chooses to remain neutral, and being in wild space, is also not really much of a concern for either side. Remember that every single character who makes it this far, both Empire and Republic, has killed Malgus previously. Malgus wants revenge and hunts your character down. Without the Alliance for support, your character and his/her loyal companions become the most wanted people in the galaxy and is forced to go into hiding. Now, no longer the commander, no longer with an army at your back, you are forced to return to your old skills and training to survive. Hence, the new missions your character plays will be tailored to your character class’s specific talents and specialties, returning to class-specific stories and dynamics as people have been begging for. Or something like that.

I posted this on Reddit as well. So with the advent of the next expansion, which for my tastes is looking really good if Jedi Under Siege is any indication, I’m curious what everyone’s final verdicts are for the KotET/KotFE/Iokath/Traitor Trilogy series, now that we’re approaching a year after its completion. Thumbs up or thumbs down and why? [spoiler WARNING] since this will include discussion about story elements. My breakdown: The good: Decent story. Good, sweeping journey with some good twists that takes your character on an adventure and sees some interesting development. I always really enjoyed the dynamic of our companions, and it was really cool to see some of our favorite companions become integral parts of the story rather than just swappable heal bots as they had become after the class stories. The plot device of losing all your companions and having to start over, i.e. Mass Effect-esque, I thought was pretty cool. I also enjoyed finding them again, seeing them again in their “natural habitats”. Getting to use some of my favorite companions, like Gault, T7, and Blizz, on all my characters. Seeing the variations on some of the dialog in each class increased replay value. The last class I took through the story was Smuggler, and I was cracking up through many of those scenes. Smuggler is definitely my favorite non-force-using class. The bad: This I’m sure is a matter of personal tastes, but I thought this story really didn’t fit many of the characters. The Smuggler and the Bounty Hunter in particular I really felt were out of place in it. Honestly, this was more of a force-user’s story to me. The character classes really lost their individuality. One thing I enjoyed about the class stories is that they weren’t all just general “save the world” stories, but each class played a small part that suited each of their niche/role in the galaxy in the overall conflict. But now, everything after the class missions really homogenized them, with SoR and KotFE/KotET really cementing that now all the classes are essentially the same character, doing all the same things. And despite my choice for good thing #4, it also really eliminated much of the uniqueness of each class. For example, the Imperial Agent is no longer a spy, the Smuggler is no longer a smuggler, and the Bounty Hunter is no longer hunting bounties. They’re all now military commanders. Adding to #2, one thing I found really cool in the vanilla is that all the classes exist in each other’s universe. E.g. when you’re playing your Jedi Knight, your Trooper and Sith Warrior are also somewhere doing their thing. In fact, one thing I read about that I plan on trying later this year is that on each planet, you can see the progression of the status of that planet by playing the class stories in a certain order, and the effects of one story will come up in the next. That kind of dynamic is likely gone now, as since all the classes play the same story and assume the same exact role, your other characters no longer really exist in the one you’re currently playing. Numbers 2 and 3 will now make it very difficult, if not impossible, for BioWare to recover from it and ever introduce unique class stories again, which is something I’ve been begging for for a long time. I’ve pretty much given up on it, and now I wonder if it’ll really be worth the time going forward to take more than one character on each side through the future stories. Speaking of which, I was sick to death of the story by the time I played it for the 8th time, and found myself spacebarring through a lot of it. By contrast, I still enjoy playing the original class stories now and then. For me, overall, the KotFE/KotET experiment is a thumbs down. Thumbs in the middleish as far as the content on its own, but thumbs down for the overall “state of the galaxy” by the end.

So, I’ve been listening to some SWTOR podcasts, and some of them lament that these what they call “schroedinger” characters like Vette, Torian, Acina, Jace, etc. that may or may not be dead in individual stories can likely never play a prominent role in the story again, which is one of the reasons why there will likely never be the class stories that so many people want to see again. My thought is that they could take the Mass Effect approach and have possible stand-in characters. For example, in ME3, when you get to Sur’Kesh, Padok Wiks introduces the story and then becomes a minor character, passing it off to Mordin. If Mordin died in ME2, then Padok completely takes his place in the story. Couldn’t something like that be implemented in SWTOR? Knowing absolute zero about programming or video game budgets, how much complication would that sort of system add to a game like this?

Has there been any announcements about a server transfer sale coming up this year? I got some moving I need to do...

Well that’s basically any game’s business model. To my knowledge, no game company starts taking preorders at the beginning of its development cycle. It’s an investment. Keep in mind also that they gave us the last several expansions essentially for free. This one there is a guarantee will actually be making at least some of that money back.

I might note this is the absolute perfect time to reintroduce class stories. The war is over, the primary villain that had been the focus of the whole game so far is dead, the alliance will slowly fade as people look to their own interests, making this the perfect time for our characters to start catching up on everything they’d missed out on from fighting this war and making up for the lost 5 years of their lives.

I posted most of this in the roadmap thread, but thought I’d throw it in here. So I’m sure this isn’t the first time this has been requested, but I’d love to see more class-specific content. I understand the logistical difficulty of that in terms of both the storyline perspective with how many variables would have to be juggled since each class plays through essentially the same story and made different decisions, as well as the budgetary concern, with how expensive the original game was, made worse by the aforementioned storyline issues. So one thought I had, have you guys considered a full expansion that we’d have to pay for? I would imagine the revenue would offset much of the expenses involved. It may not be an attractive idea, but I know for myself I’m addicted enough that I’d be willing to pay for a full, substantive expansion, and I’m sure many if not most of my fellow subscribing addicts feel the same. This could also fit the model you mentioned of releasing chapters over time rather than one large expansion. The money from the paid expansion should offset that first chapter, draw more players in/back, leading to more revenue, more budget for subsequent chapters. Also, here’s another idea. You’ve gotten requests for new classes. Logistically unrealistic of course since then you’d have to produce new variations of Ilum and onwards. So how about new classes that would be borne out of the Alliance? For example, Alliance Soldier. The story would begin after the traitor story that’s about to wrap up. Then, by the end of that story, you have to choose whether to serve the Republic or the Empire, giving you access to one of their fleets, and permanently aligning you with that faction. So, these classes would only be available to subscribers, would not have access to anything up to and including the traitor story, and would act as its own mirror class for purposes of faction balancing? What would also be fun is if the commander that that soldier refers to is actually one of our characters that we took through the KotET story. Anyways. That’s my idea.

Also, here’s another idea. You’ve gotten requests for new classes. Logistically unrealistic of course since then you’d have to produce new variations of Ilum and onwards. So how about new classes that would be borne out of the Alliance? For example, Alliance Soldier. The story would begin after the traitor story that’s about to wrap up. Then, by the end of that story, you have to choose whether to serve the Republic or the Empire, giving you access to one of their fleets, and permanently aligning you with that faction. So, these classes would only be available to subscribers, would not have access to anything up to and including the traitor story, and would act as its own mirror class for purposes of faction balancing?

So I’m sure this isn’t the first time this has been requested, but I’d love to see more class-specific content. I understand the logistical difficulty of that in terms of both the storyline perspective with how many variables would have to be juggled since each class plays through essentially the same story and made different decisions, as well as the budgetary concern, with how expensive the original game was, made worse by the aforementioned storyline issues. So one thought I had, have you guys considered a full expansion that we’d have to pay for? I would imagine the revenue would offset much of the expenses involved. It may not be an attractive idea, but I know for myself I’m addicted enough that I’d be willing to pay for a full, substantive expansion, and I’m sure many if not most of my fellow subscribing addicts feel the same. This could also fit the model you mentioned of releasing chapters over time rather than one large expansion. The money from the paid expansion should offset that first chapter, draw more players in/back, leading to more revenue, more budget for subsequent chapters.