Exphryl does bring up a good point with his 1.2 Pyro Burst Potential video he so graciously uploaded: Also, one of his comments from the video: Nope, nothing to see here.

The healing nerfs are fine. I'm not talking about any class but powertechs. No other class takes me down in less than 15 seconds. Powertechs can do it in 7. What's so difficult to understand about that? Why keep on bringing up the healing nerfs? They are fine. That's not the point. I'm talking about powertechs, and you guys keep on changing the subject. I'm not talking about "DPS." We're talking about powertechs and powertechs alone. I give up. You guys win. You suck, but you win. I can't even tell if you're trolling or if you actually believe that verbal diarrhea you mistake for intelligent conversation. And to anyone who thinks Guild Wars 2 is going to offer more balanced PVP, it's not. It's a ranged AoE spamfest, far worse than Ilum ever was.

We actually had quite an active PVP community up until about a month ago. But of course you play on a PVP servers, and your opinions are validated only by the type of server you chose to roll on. What a strong argument you make! I'm still comfortable with sage healing in 1.2. I thought powertechs were OP before the patch, but I don't think having another wildly OP class would somehow balance out PVP. This point might be a bit too nuanced for you, but sage healing was incredibly OP compared to most of the other classes, and that has nothing to do with this thread. Errrm, I've always thought their buff was a bit too much in 1.2 PVP, on the PTS and live.

I've never seen a sniper do 2/3 the damage of that powertech I was QQIng about. I think a good old fashioned nerf is in order.

Yeah, I'm actually comfortable with my sage healing. Sage healing feels balanced, but commando healing feels a little underpowered, and scoundrel healing is a bit too much for single targets. DPS wise, I like where most classes are. Marauders could use a very slight nerf (like 15% to force sweep), but powertechs really stand out as having far too much burst/overall DPS. If you'll notice, I'm not changing my tune at all. I like where MY class is at in terms of healing. I'm complaining instead about powertechs. Big, big difference.

Here he is against a solid team. Oh yeah, more burst damage than any other class AND far more overall damage than other classes like 95% of the time in warzones. In fact, I've only ever seen one other player out DPS him (a sage). Anyone who claims that powertechs aren't OP is completely delusional.

I don't think the ability to burn me down in about 5 seconds is balanced, regardless of their own defenses or lack thereof. The fact of the matter is that powertechs do more burst damage than any other class in the game, and they also have some really nice utility to back it up (slows, pulls, etc.).

I'm a sage healer with full BM and a few pieces of war hero gear. Here's what Jager, a powertech, does to me on my server: [17:03:47.182] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [incendiary Missile {2027022700249088}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Burning (Tech) {2027022700249344}] () [17:03:47.841] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [incendiary Missile {2027022700249088}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (907* elemental {836045448940875} (907 absorbed {836045448945511})) <907> [17:03:49.585] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Thermal Detonator {2027100009660416}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Thermal Detonator {2027100009660416}] () [17:03:49.586] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Thermal Detonator {2027100009660416}] [Event {836045448945472}: ModifyThreat {836045448945483}] () <1> [17:03:50.319] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [burning (Tech) {2027022700249344}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (604* elemental {836045448940875} (604 absorbed {836045448945511})) <604> [17:03:50.933] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [sweltering Heat {2268958208032768}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Slowed (Tech) {2268958208033027}] () [17:03:50.934] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Combustible Gas Cylinder {2020687623487488}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Burning (Tech) {2020687623487746}] () [17:03:50.934] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [burning (Tech) {2020687623487746}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (903* elemental {836045448940875}) <903> [17:03:50.935] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Rail Shot {814278554681344}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (4768* energy {836045448940874} (1276 absorbed {836045448945511})) <4768> [17:03:51.918] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Plasma Burst {2785458090147840}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (165 elemental {836045448940875}) <165> [17:03:51.918] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [burning (Tech) {2020687623487746}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (903* elemental {836045448940875}) <903> [17:03:52.256] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Flame Burst {814222720106496}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (1835* elemental {836045448940875}) <1835> [17:03:52.927] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Thermal Detonator {2027100009660416}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (4253* kinetic {836045448940873}) <4253> [17:03:52.927] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Thermal Detonator {2027100009660416}] [RemoveEffect {836045448945478}: Thermal Detonator {2027100009660416}] () [17:03:53.313] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [burning (Tech) {2027022700249344}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (604* elemental {836045448940875}) <604> [17:03:53.608] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Rocket Punch {814300029517824}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (3211* kinetic {836045448940873}) <3211> [17:03:54.015] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [sweltering Heat {2268958208032768}] [RemoveEffect {836045448945478}: Slowed (Tech) {2268958208033027}] () [17:03:55.014] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [burning (Tech) {2020687623487746}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (1175* elemental {836045448940875}) <1175> [17:03:55.145] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [incendiary Missile {2027022700249088}] [RemoveEffect {836045448945478}: Burning (Tech) {2027022700249344}] () [17:03:55.145] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Combustible Gas Cylinder {2020687623487488}] [RemoveEffect {836045448945478}: Burning (Tech) {2020687623487746}] () [17:03:55.148] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [burning (Tech) {2020687623487746}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (1175* elemental {836045448940875}) <1175> [17:03:55.149] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [] [Event {836045448945472}: Death {836045448945493}] () [17:03:55.160] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Flame Burst {814222720106496}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (1913* elemental {836045448940875}) <1913> [17:03:56.804] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Flame Burst {814222720106496}] [ApplyEffect {836045448945477}: Damage {836045448945501}] (2062* elemental {836045448940875}) <2062> [17:03:56.804] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [] [Event {836045448945472}: Death {836045448945493}] () [17:03:56.806] [@Jager] [@Jaime] [Quell {2204499338854400}] [Event {836045448945472}: ModifyThreat {836045448945483}] () <1> Here are the numbers: 24,478 damage in 9.624 seconds. If you don't count the dots that tick after I die "the first time" (I dunno, how can I die twice in a row?), he actually kills me in 7.308 seconds. But no, his class isn't OP at all. No other class even comes close to those kinds of numbers for burst damage, and the only reason sages can "out DPS" him at all is because of their AoE spam. Seriously, Bioware. What the heck?

What you want to do for the turret stage is have the healer stand in the middle and keep everyone else topped off. The other three players should be able to blast away at all the critters pouring in Starship Troopers style.

I completely disagree about datacrons. Most of them just don't take that long to get, and if they were legacy wide, they would provide too much of a reward for absolutely no effort at all once you get them on a single toon.

1. The ability to interact with your pets. Why can't I pick up my tauntaun and tickle him or play fetch with my rakling? Also, please put in the ability to rename pets. I don't want "Pale Rakling." I want "Sir Charles the Face Eater." 2. Companions who do stuff. This is another no brainer. Every single time I go onto my ship, there's C2-N2, who tells me about putting some nice aroma into the ship's air or changing out the seat cushions. I never see him do any of that. I want C2-N2 to move around and do some of those things. Have the companions move around, play a game of dejarik with one another, watch a holovid, and actually work on maintaining the ship. This is the easiest way to make your ship feel more alive. Right now it feels static and dead. On that note: 3. Customizable ship interiors. I already made a suggestion about customizable ships, but I was really only talking about exterior options. Since we can theoretically "live" on our ships, we need to see some basic necessities. Right now, my sage's ship doesn't have any cooking area or bathroom that I can see. There are some unmarked doors that I'm guessing lead to those rooms, but I'd like to see what doors lead to when I mouse over them, much like my unused escape pod. Here's what we should be able to purchase for our ships (warning: this is completely fluff I'm talking about here): a. Personalized objects for our bedroom. I always envisioned something that looked more like Shephard's quarters on the Normandy. On my Defender, I get an uncomfortable looking bed, a really weird looking dresser / shelving unit, and a little Jedi meditation shrine looking area with empty pots (I couldn't even get live plants in there?). How about a genuine dresser, desk with functional computer (maybe where my legacy codex terminal is?), and some live plants in those empty pots. Also, if I marry somebody, I should get the ability to put their picture on my desk, alt, companion, or other player (if they agree to it). Also, some wall pictures would make my bedroom feel more homely. b. A med room with more medical equipment than a simple cot. I'm thinking a medical droid and some hospital looking equipment will do the trick. c. The defender's upper storage room (where the cargo hold is) feels incredibly empty. How about two more containers (legacy cargo hold and guild cargo hold)? d. Lower storage/crafting room: Right now, there are just a bunch of crates and some weird futuristic loom looking device where your companions craft if they're out on crew missions. I think this room would be perfect for storing a speeder or two. Disclaimer: I've bought none of the legacy ship upgrades, so I can't say with absolute certitude how they appear on my ship. However, I can guess well enough that they don't take up that much room, and even with all the upgrades, I'm sure my ship would still look pretty empty inside. I guess I really just want the option to make my ship a busier place overall. 4. More companion based content. Why not have 4v4 or 8v8 PVP warzones where you can actually pull out your companion? How about flashpoints or operations where your companions can help out? Also, you could have sets of companion-only gear (which might actually make presence a worthwhile stat in their gear since it would be similar to expertise for players). 5. Spread out CC skills more. This is more of a general complaint many people have about SWTOR PVP, and I can't say that I entirely blame them. The resolve system works as designed, but that doesn't mean it was designed very well. Think about all of the CC in the game right now (knockbacks, stuns, slows, mezzes, roots, pulls, pushes, and I'd even argue interrupts as a sage healer). I think a way to mitigate the overbearing amount of CC in the game would be to make more CC part of your skill tree. Sages, for example, could split up Rescue, Force Wave, and Force Stun into our Seer, Telekinetics, and Balance trees respectively (and that's just one possible scenario of many). Sentinels could split up their slow, force choke, and awe. My sentiment is that less CC provides a more fun and entertaining experience. 6. The greatly desired night-day cycle. This is one I've seen lots of other people post, and I'm stealing it here for my own list. It's not something that really bothered me while leveling up, but the more I think about it, the more I'd like to see it in game. Think about Kaon Under Siege. It was genuinely spooky the first time I played that flashpoint, and half of its atmosphere came from its nighttime setting. A night-day cycle would only enrich the game's setting and atmosphere.

I'm curious why you would think mounted combat, a KotOR "documentary" holovid player, and quests you can actually fail would suck. Number 8 is probably the the least likely to ever happen simply because it would be a lot of effort on Bioware's part for something most people would play through once or twice and never again. Would that make it less awesome if it were in the game? However, this idea comes more from a desire that SWTOR be tied in better to the first two games. I think mounted combat would just be awesome, period, and the risk of failure when you undertake a mission would lend it more dramatic weight.

Wow, nobody has anything to say about anything. Guess all of these ideas are terrible.

I've had a few more ideas that would work great in this game, at least by my own estimation. Some of them are pretty major, but some are fairly minor (but somebody out there will still make use of them): 1. Legacy storage. Give us three additional storage bays shared by all characters at legacy levels 10, 30, and 50, purchasable for 1 million, 3 million, and 10 million credits (or some other amount). There needs to be an easier way to share materials, schematics, and other items than simply mailing items. I don't want to have to log into my main first just so I can pull out archaeology power crystals on an alt. 2. Legacy codex. Yeah, the codex isn't vital by any means, but I just know it's going to frustrate me to have missing entries. Keep the current codex as is as your own personal journal of sorts, and then offer a legacy codex upgrade for 500,000 credits. A computer terminal on your ship will have every codex entry from every character on your server. Lore junkies and completionists unite! 3. Cosmetic mods. Every item (and I mean every item) gets a cosmetic mod compatible with all like pieces of armor or weapons. Like the look from a crappy green chest piece? Just take the cosmetic mod out of it. I'd even expand this system to ignore light, medium, and heavy armor requirements. While my light armor maybe protects me as well as toilet paper, I can at least dress up as a beefy knight. 4. More "popular" planets from the Star Wars expanded universe. Corellia, Taris, Korriban, Hoth, Tatooine, and the others were great to explore, but now it's time for Bothawui, Mon Cala, Kuat, Bespin, etc. What does Manaan look like now? What about Malachor V? Dantooine? All planets we saw in the first two KotORs. I'd really love to revisit them. 5. Player-made cantina band music/groups. This one gets its inspiration from LotRO where you can play music in game and even coordinate music across multiple people. Just create a folder in the SWTOR directory where players can upload their music files (maybe MIDIs - LotRO used the text based .abc format, and some of those player created songs sounded great on a variety of instruments). Speaking of music... 6. Unlock the complete SWTOR soundtrack for your ship. This one would be REALLY easy to implement. The basic ship controls could be another legacy unlock, but you have to play through different parts of the game to unlock different songs. Want to unlock each class's theme? Play through that class's entire storyline. 7. Mounted combat. Not exactly a revolutionary idea, but I still think that mounted combat could be extremely fun in SWTOR. Imagine a two-person speeder: one player drives while the other operates a turret. We could also have a PVP warzone where players zip around in speeders and others operate slower moving but powerful walker vehicles. Other players could operate stationary turrets. This is just a rough idea, but you guys could have a lot of fun designing it given the huge variety of vehicles in the Star Wars universe. Battle of Hoth, anyone? I'm probably dreaming, but I'll spit out the next idea anyway: 8. Holovid game player on your ship. This is another huge legacy unlock, and it would require a substantial investment on your part, and it's probably not "worth it," but it would be SO AWESOME. Basically, you recreate KotOR and KotOR 2 inside the SWTOR engine. Most of the voice acting is already there (you'd just need somebody to do, spoiler alert, Revan's and the Exile's voice acting). This could be done under the guise of some kind of "historical simulation." I have to admit that it's a bit of a pipe dream to imagine that you'd completely port over those games. However, what's more feasible is taking out select scenes in a 2-3 hour mini-game "documentary" where you can relive major scenes such as abandoning the Endar Spire, rescuing Bastila, piecing together the Star Forge's location, and confronting Darth Malak, and that's just for the first KotOR. You could even make it a trilogy: KotOR is episode I, KotOR 2 is episode II, and everything that happened in between KotOR 2 and SWTOR is episode III, and I envision each would take no more than a few hours to play through. 9. Less repetitive environments. Ship and cave environments are bland, uninspiring, and sadly forgettable. SWTOR has some really great and unique locations, like Tatooine, Taris, and Quesh. Unfortunately, those planets (which SWTOR does very well) are broken up by "oh, great, another identical space station." Unique environments > copied environments, and that's all I have to say about that. 10. More dynamic environments and encounters. This last one's a bit more difficult to quantify. I've heard from several people that the worlds feel sort of "dead." The NPCs generally just sit around. For starters, every NPC should feel purposeful. I'm not saying it's an easy task, but I'd at least like to see random guards doing something right before I show them the Jedi Way (these guards are standing between me and a data terminal? Death to everyone!). Have them talk to one another, maybe clean their blaster barrels because they're bored. More should be strolling along, making the evening rounds. Shop owners should be eating a sandwich over lunch break or calling out their wares. Don't allow SWTOR to continue to be an MMO populated by mannequin NPCs. Put a bit more attention into the game's tinier details. 11. Quests you can actually fail. I'm not talking about your bread and butter "retrieve this datapad from this bunker" mission. I'm thinking more along the lines of "save these refugees from slavers in a time limit," and if you fail, away they go. Alignment decisions should be based on effort, not results. Right now, you only get a conversation choice to save the refugees, abandon them, or maybe blackmail the slavers for a cut of the profit. I'd like more scenarios where you can actually be fighting your way to the bunker's dungeon, but you run out of time and the refugees are carted away, forever out of your reach. Maybe you didn't solve a puzzle in time. Maybe you skipped a room with an officer in it, an officer who carried a card key required to access the prison. Maybe you kill one too many guards when you were really just trying to sneak around, and the whole base is alerted now. The options are endless, and it would really spice up questing in this game. That's about all I have for right now, and most of these are ideas I've been considering over the past week. If I get any more, I'll post them here.

I imagine that your characters would still exist if you left and came back. I've never played an MMO where your toons get deleted because your subscription ran out. If they did, people would be that much more unwilling to come back, and the idea is to entice old players to return to the game.

Yeah, I'm not sure the SWTOR forums are the best for religious trolling. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure this game was everything it was advertised to be, even if it weren't everything the hardcore playerbase hoped it would be. This game is going strong. They just need to add a few more game features, expand the ones they have, and consolidate the player base onto fewer servers. Then this game can really start building a long term population and not just, as somebody else called them, the "MMO hoppers."

What is this? I don't even... If you make bad choices, that makes you "not a good person." I guess. What are you even trying to say? The Mass Effect 3 backlash was just silly. SWTOR was released early, that's plain to see, but so was KotOR 2, and that didn't stop that game from selling. Heck, just about every game gets patched numerous times after release, even console games nowadays. So what you're saying is that you don't want people to play the game six months down the road based on your personal experience playing the game at release, regardless of whether or not it's greatly improved by then?

Holy crap, I was looking forward to this game since the Deceived trailer came out several years ago, and I was hooked right from the start. In fact, I can honestly say I've never looked forward to a game more than SWTOR, not even Starcraft II. And you know what? I've logged in over 1,000 hours already. The game's biggest problem right now is that Bioware created too many servers back in December for the game's launch. The first month was great (at least on my server), and we'd get roughly 300 players on the fleet every single night. Then the numbers started dropping. At first, I'm sure it was just the end of the holidays and people returning to work. Now my server's sitting at about 100 at prime time, and it's starting to feel a little sparsely populated. Bioware needs to slash the servers down to about 1/3 of what they currently have, and they need cross server LFG/PVP queues. One of the most common complaints I hear about the game is that people just find it too difficult to put groups together. I don't have this problem since I'm friends with many of my server's PVPers, and I'm in a solid raiding guild. Still, I know others aren't so fortunate, and I remember how frustrating it can be to find people for heroic missions and flashpoints, especially on level. However, I think the game's finally leveling off population wise. Those who don't like what they see in this game have mostly left. The rest of us (probably about half the original player base) are looking forward to all the great content coming in the coming months. We just need more players on each server, and we're pretty much set. That's not to say that we each don't have a wish list of new content and features we'd like to see in the game, but most of the remaining players (and it's a substantial percentage of the first wave of subscribers) are happy enough with the game that they're going to stick around for the foreseeable future. The same thing happened in LotRO. 2-5 months after the game launched, many players left, and the servers felt kind of empty, and there were only, I believe, 9 of them at the time. Even with so few players, and sparsely populated servers at that, LotRO never felt like it was "dying." SWTOR just feels a bit worse than it did because it got off to SUCH a strong start, it pretty much had nowhere to go but down for a while. My prediction? This game is going to have a ton of stuff to do by the time 1.4 and 1.5 roll around, and the player base will hit its lowest point between 1.2 and 1.3 before beginning to pick up new players again. Trust me, EA already spent $300 million on this beast, and they're going to make sure it's successful. If you look at the quality of 1.1 compared to 1.2, it's night and day, and 1.1 was a huge improvement over the initial release. KP was relatively bug free compared to the nightmare of EV, and we have yet to run across a bug in Explosive Conflict. The audio issues sucked, but they got fixed within a week of 1.2's release. Bioware's already getting much better at patching. Yes, it sucked that ranked warzones weren't included, but 1.2 is still a very solid patch overall. About the people who quit because ranked warzones aren't in 1.2 right now, my sentiment is that if they were hinging their subscription on warzones, this game probably just isn't for them in the first place. You know what somebody in my guild said about Explosive Conflict? He's not even that into raiding, but he said he had a lot of fun, and he's looking forward to giving Warlord Kephess another attempt this weekend (got him down to 11%, but people had to hit the sack for early work days tomorrow). If 1.3 is as much improved over 1.2 as 1.2 was over 1.1, SWTOR will be a very successful MMO in the years to come. Because the game is almost fully voice acted except for the random text-based mission console, that's not innovative? And clearly games DON'T have to innovate. Modern Warfare 3 is a reskinned Modern Warfare 2, which was also a reskinned Modern Warfare, and people continue buying those games even though they're the exact same experience. So no, if a game mechanic isn't broken, why fix it? I'm glad other games like Monopoly, poker, or even chess have changed so much over the past decades or centuries. But you're right. I mean, you have an opinion on the Internet, so it's automatically valid.

Why would you even need a combat log for flashpoints? Heck, you can just watch somebody to see what they're doing. Explosive Conflict is probably going to be the first PvE content where we need everyone to really perform. EV, KP, and the pre-1.2 flashpoints had a lot of wiggle room if you had 1-2 questionable players. Instead of using combat logs for PvE content, they're far more useful for players when used in conjunction with training dummies. Players can try out different skill rotations and lock down the highest DPS rotation. If somebody is underperforming in an instance, it's pretty apparent without combat logs.

I've updated this post's introduction since it's now 1.3 and my 1.2 thoughts no longer apply. Anyway, here are my ideas for improving the entire SWTOR experience (warning: I have added a lot over the past few months): 1. Allow us to queue with 8 man premades for warzones. I don't even care about ranked warzones at the moment. Many quality PVPers are just sick and tired of playing with 4 random players. When half your team is an unknown variable, there will be many games when you just can't win because there's only player who just drags your entire team down. *Ranked warzones were added in 1.3 2. Fix Ilum and/or give us a new world PVP zone. Honestly, something as simple as Warhammer: Online's PVP zones would work fantastic. Two big keeps in the zone (they're already there as the Republic and Imperial bases), and a bunch of little objectives strewn throughout. Put some NPC guards at the objectives, a lot more at the keeps, add in some siege weapons, and you have a very basic but still fun PVP zone. Even if it weren't the BEST incarnation of that type of PVP gameplay, a passable zone would be better than nothing, and it'd help us hold out until you design something new and innovative. 3. Make PVP one of SWTOR's focuses. I know it's not what you set out to do, but players really latched onto SWTOR's PVP and made it one of the game's major features. Communicate with players about what they'd most like to see in PVP and then implement those features in future patches. One of GW2's early selling points is its World v World v World PVP. I don't expect anything so extravagant or huge as that, but quite frankly the PVP community needs a lot more than it has with SWTOR right now. I know I'm on a PVP binge right now, and I'm about done - I promise. Other than that, continue releasing new warzones on a regular basis, and even consider putting them out in between major patches to spike interest during otherwise slow times. 4. Cross-server queues, server merges, and free character transfers. This is pretty self-explanatory. One of the biggest problems with this game right now is how difficult it is for solo players to get into flashpoints, heroic missions, and other content. Also, players on low population servers simply can't get into warzones much of the time. Consolidate the player base, and players will stop quitting the game simply because they can't find anyone to play the game with. This is probably the easiest way to stop bleeding subscriptions. 5. Keep releasing new operations, flashpoints, warzones, and even planets. Don't make us wait until the first paid expansion pack to release new planets. Ideally, we should get a new planet every other major patch (every 4 months), but every 3 patches (6 months) would probably work just as well. Every patch needs a new operation, flashpoint, and warzone, but you can cycle warzones in and out every month or so to keep PVP varied. 6. More events, more lore, and more voice acting. Some players scoff at the amount of voice acting. Some just smash space bar. The fact is that the game's extensive voice acting sold this game to hundreds of thousands of players who would have otherwise continued playing single player RPGs. I'm hardly casual, and I loved the voice acting. Also, explore the rich and wonderful Star Wars galaxy, and learn more of what happened in the centuries between KotOR and TOR. 7. Expand the legacy system. Bind-to-legacy craftable items. Legacy driven storylines. Want to live out Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader? Allow players to confront their parents, children, siblings, allies, and enemies. Let us kill off companions. Implement something like Mass Effect 3's "Promote Character" option in multiplayer. Get a character up to level 50, and allow you to make that character another character's companion. 8. More superweapons. Need I say more? The Star Wars expanded universe is rife with things that can blow up all existence. We kind of maybe perhaps sort of get to see some superweapons in TOR, but most of the time it's "off screen" and doesn't carry a fraction of the weight of, let's say, seeing the Death Star in action for the first time. Remember the JK class story when you have to defuse the Tatooine "superweapon" that causes the ground to rumble? Yawn. Show us the machine in action. Show us something getting blown up. Give us some reason to care other than some character telling us we should worry. 9. Actual customizable ships and better space combat. I'm not talking about adding a better shield generator or armor plating. I'm talking about ship color, shape, size, type of armaments, everything. Think about the possibilities for space combat. A 24v24 PVP scenario with fully controllable fighters as two capital ships face off against one another. Players can land in the opposing ship's docking bay and try to make their way inside, fighting past NPC guards and other players alike to download intel, plant a bomb, rescue a prisoner, etc. The other team tries to complete their own objectives. Teams would have to divide their forces between defending their own ship, achieving space superiority in their fighters, crippling the other ship's defenses, and completing objectives on the enemy ship. 10. Mini-games. Pazaak, dejarik, and swoop/speeder racing to name a few. Give us gambling on Nar Shaddaa. 11. Jar Jar Binks kill simulator for your ship. Play a game on your ship's computer to fantasize about invading Naboo and committing genocide against the gungans. Want 10 million subs for your game, Bioware? That's how you do it. Other MMOs start from scratch to develop their IP. Even WoW's, LotRO's, and Warhammer's IPs paled in comparison to the wealth of books, movies, shows, comics, and other games existing in the Star Wars extended universe. Star Trek Online was the only other game with a similarly sized IP, but they lacked the raw manpower to get the job done properly. That's a problem you, Bioware, don't have. Pour money, time, and everything else you've got into this game, and you'll turn a pretty good Star Wars game into the best one ever developed. Added on 4/24: 1. Legacy storage. Give us three additional storage bays shared by all characters at legacy levels 10, 30, and 50, purchasable for 1 million, 3 million, and 10 million credits (or some other amount). There needs to be an easier way to share materials, schematics, and other items than simply mailing items. I don't want to have to log into my main first just so I can pull out archaeology power crystals on an alt. 2. Legacy codex. Yeah, the codex isn't vital by any means, but I just know it's going to frustrate me to have missing entries. Keep the current codex as is as your own personal journal of sorts, and then offer a legacy codex upgrade for 500,000 credits. A computer terminal on your ship will have every codex entry from every character on your server. Lore junkies and completionists unite! 3. Cosmetic mods. Every item (and I mean every item) gets a cosmetic mod compatible with all like pieces of armor or weapons. Like the look from a crappy green chest piece? Just take the cosmetic mod out of it. I'd even expand this system to ignore light, medium, and heavy armor requirements. While my light armor maybe protects me as well as toilet paper, I can at least dress up as a beefy knight. 4. More "popular" planets from the Star Wars expanded universe. Corellia, Taris, Korriban, Hoth, Tatooine, and the others were great to explore, but now it's time for Bothawui, Mon Cala, Kuat, Bespin, etc. What does Manaan look like now? What about Malachor V? Dantooine? All planets we saw in the first two KotORs. I'd really love to revisit them. 5. Player-made cantina band music/groups. This one gets its inspiration from LotRO where you can play music in game and even coordinate music across multiple people. Just create a folder in the SWTOR directory where players can upload their music files (maybe MIDIs - LotRO used the text based .abc format, and some of those player created songs sounded great on a variety of instruments). Speaking of music... 6. Unlock the complete SWTOR soundtrack for your ship. This one would be REALLY easy to implement. The basic ship controls could be another legacy unlock, but you have to play through different parts of the game to unlock different songs. Want to unlock each class's theme? Play through that class's entire storyline. 7. Mounted combat. Not exactly a revolutionary idea, but I still think that mounted combat could be extremely fun in SWTOR. Imagine a two-person speeder: one player drives while the other operates a turret. We could also have a PVP warzone where players zip around in speeders and others operate slower moving but powerful walker vehicles. Other players could operate stationary turrets. This is just a rough idea, but you guys could have a lot of fun designing it given the huge variety of vehicles in the Star Wars universe. Battle of Hoth, anyone? I'm probably dreaming, but I'll spit out the next idea anyway: 8. Holovid game player on your ship. This is another huge legacy unlock, and it would require a substantial investment on your part, and it's probably not "worth it," but it would be SO AWESOME. Basically, you recreate KotOR and KotOR 2 inside the SWTOR engine. Most of the voice acting is already there (you'd just need somebody to do, spoiler alert, Revan's and the Exile's voice acting). This could be done under the guise of some kind of "historical simulation." I have to admit that it's a bit of a pipe dream to imagine that you'd completely port over those games. However, what's more feasible is taking out select scenes in a 2-3 hour mini-game "documentary" where you can relive major scenes such as abandoning the Endar Spire, rescuing Bastila, piecing together the Star Forge's location, and confronting Darth Malak, and that's just for the first KotOR. You could even make it a trilogy: KotOR is episode I, KotOR 2 is episode II, and everything that happened in between KotOR 2 and SWTOR is episode III, and I envision each would take no more than a few hours to play through. 9. Less repetitive environments. Ship and cave environments are bland, uninspiring, and sadly forgettable. SWTOR has some really great and unique locations, like Tatooine, Taris, and Quesh. Unfortunately, those planets (which SWTOR does very well) are broken up by "oh, great, another identical space station." Unique environments > copied environments, and that's all I have to say about that. 10. More dynamic environments and encounters. This last one's a bit more difficult to quantify. I've heard from several people that the worlds feel sort of "dead." The NPCs generally just sit around. For starters, every NPC should feel purposeful. I'm not saying it's an easy task, but I'd at least like to see random guards doing something right before I show them the Jedi Way (these guards are standing between me and a data terminal? Death to everyone!). Have them talk to one another, maybe clean their blaster barrels because they're bored. More should be strolling along, making the evening rounds. Shop owners should be eating a sandwich over lunch break or calling out their wares. Don't allow SWTOR to continue to be an MMO populated by mannequin NPCs. Put a bit more attention into the game's tinier details. 11. Quests you can actually fail. I'm not talking about your bread and butter "retrieve this datapad from this bunker" mission. I'm thinking more along the lines of "save these refugees from slavers in a time limit," and if you fail, away they go. Alignment decisions should be based on effort, not results. Right now, you only get a conversation choice to save the refugees, abandon them, or maybe blackmail the slavers for a cut of the profit. I'd like more scenarios where you can actually be fighting your way to the bunker's dungeon, but you run out of time and the refugees are carted away, forever out of your reach. Maybe you didn't solve a puzzle in time. Maybe you skipped a room with an officer in it, an officer who carried a card key required to access the prison. Maybe you kill one too many guards when you were really just trying to sneak around, and the whole base is alerted now. The options are endless, and it would really spice up questing in this game. Added on 4/25: 1. The ability to interact with your pets. Why can't I pick up my tauntaun and tickle him or play fetch with my rakling? Also, please put in the ability to rename pets. I don't want "Pale Rakling." I want "Sir Charles the Face Eater." 2. Companions who do stuff. This is another no brainer. Every single time I go onto my ship, there's C2-N2, who tells me about putting some nice aroma into the ship's air or changing out the seat cushions. I never see him do any of that. I want C2-N2 to move around and do some of those things. Have the companions move around, play a game of dejarik with one another, watch a holovid, and actually work on maintaining the ship. This is the easiest way to make your ship feel more alive. Right now it feels static and dead. On that note: 3. Customizable ship interiors. I already made a suggestion about customizable ships, but I was really only talking about exterior options. Since we can theoretically "live" on our ships, we need to see some basic necessities. Right now, my sage's ship doesn't have any cooking area or bathroom that I can see. There are some unmarked doors that I'm guessing lead to those rooms, but I'd like to see what doors lead to when I mouse over them, much like my unused escape pod. Here's what we should be able to purchase for our ships (warning: this is completely fluff I'm talking about here): a. Personalized objects for our bedroom. I always envisioned something that looked more like Shephard's quarters on the Normandy. On my Defender, I get an uncomfortable looking bed, a really weird looking dresser / shelving unit, and a little Jedi meditation shrine looking area with empty pots (I couldn't even get live plants in there?). How about a genuine dresser, desk with functional computer (maybe where my legacy codex terminal is?), and some live plants in those empty pots. Also, if I marry somebody, I should get the ability to put their picture on my desk, alt, companion, or other player (if they agree to it). Also, some wall pictures would make my bedroom feel more homely. b. A med room with more medical equipment than a simple cot. I'm thinking a medical droid and some hospital looking equipment will do the trick. c. The defender's upper storage room (where the cargo hold is) feels incredibly empty. How about two more containers (legacy cargo hold and guild cargo hold)? d. Lower storage/crafting room: Right now, there are just a bunch of crates and some weird futuristic loom looking device where your companions craft if they're out on crew missions. I think this room would be perfect for storing a speeder or two. Disclaimer: I've bought none of the legacy ship upgrades, so I can't say with absolute certitude how they appear on my ship. However, I can guess well enough that they don't take up that much room, and even with all the upgrades, I'm sure my ship would still look pretty empty inside. I guess I really just want the option to make my ship a busier place overall. 4. More companion based content. Why not have 4v4 or 8v8 PVP warzones where you can actually pull out your companion? How about flashpoints or operations where your companions can help out? Also, you could have sets of companion-only gear (which might actually make presence a worthwhile stat in their gear since it would be similar to expertise for players). 5. Spread out CC skills more. This is more of a general complaint many people have about SWTOR PVP, and I can't say that I entirely blame them. The resolve system works as designed, but that doesn't mean it was designed very well. Think about all of the CC in the game right now (knockbacks, stuns, slows, mezzes, roots, pulls, pushes, and I'd even argue interrupts as a sage healer). I think a way to mitigate the overbearing amount of CC in the game would be to make more CC part of your skill tree. Sages, for example, could split up Rescue, Force Wave, and Force Stun into our Seer, Telekinetics, and Balance trees respectively (and that's just one possible scenario of many). Sentinels could split up their slow, force choke, and awe. My sentiment is that less CC provides a more fun and entertaining experience. 6. The greatly desired night-day cycle. This is one I've seen lots of other people post, and I'm stealing it here for my own list. It's not something that really bothered me while leveling up, but the more I think about it, the more I'd like to see it in game. Think about Kaon Under Siege. It was genuinely spooky the first time I played that flashpoint, and half of its atmosphere came from its nighttime setting. A night-day cycle would only enrich the game's setting and atmosphere. Added on 7/5: 1. Pet Cosmetics. This could be a great way to add atmosphere to the game while providing humorous homages to other IPs - think a fedora and coiled whip for a tauntaun (Indiana Jones), various Halloween outfits, etc. Pets are cosmetic, but that doesn't mean some employee at Bioware can't stay up long into the night designing all manner of silly pet costumes. 2. Multi-use Medpacs and Adrenals. With 1.3, I don't believe there's any reason to stay synthweaving, armormech, or any of the other crafting professions. Nothing is BOP. Nothing requires synthweaving to equip. Biochem, however, still has really nice reusable medpacs, stims, and adrenals, but they're BOP so others can't use them. For the vast majority of players, stims are fine because they last two hours, but medpacs and adrenals are a bit too expensive as we may potentially pop them every few minutes. Here are a few ways to balance crafting professions: a. (my preferred solution): multi-use medpacs and adrenals. Greens could provide 5 uses and blues 10 uses or some variation thereof. They could be less powerful than exotech or rakata consumables. b. (equally viable solution): multiple consumables per crafting mission. Three consumables per crafting mission would allow crafters to pump out reasonably priced medpacs and adrenals, and more players would start using them more often. This would actually be a boon to biochem crafters - lower the price to expand the market. c. Give other crafting professions BOP and bound-to-profession items. Want the best belt and bracers in the game? Sorry, you have to be a synthweaver. Artificers could make best-in-game and unique lightsaber crystals. If this were the case, there would be a genuine incentive to pick up a crafting profession on your main besides biochem. 3. Random Faction Huttball. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before, but I'll reiterate this point. The announcer at the beginning of each match says the teams were picked "completely at random." As that stands, I should expect to get thrown into a game playing beside players whom I would normally consider my enemies. 4. Ship Training Room. I like the ship training dummies, but I'd like to one up that idea by implementing ship training rooms. Inside, players could easily test out new specs and skill rotations by changing their skill trees around for free. Once they step outside the ship training room, their specs revert back to whatever they were before they activated the training room. 5. Vehicle Garage/Showcase. Maybe this would only work with guild capital ships due to size constraints, but players (or guilds) should be able to showcase exotic and difficult to earn vehicles. Also, guilds could turn on the shiny by getting custom paint jobs on those same vehicles with an in-game vehicle color scheme editor. 6. Ability to disable XP on equal or lower level quests and mobs. I almost consider this a must have feature, and it's a problem that's bothered me throughout multiple MMOs. If I want to play ALL the content on a character, I inevitably find myself way over-leveled after a few zones or planets. If Bioware could provide us the option to simply disable XP gains for content that's on level or lower, we could continue to enjoy the game at the same difficulty while experience every single planet, mission, conversation, etc. that this game has to offer. 7. Different name change priority during server transfers. Okay, I lost both my two most played characters' names when I transferred servers, and I'm reasonably bummed out about the situation. My main character has, by this point, over 50 days of play time. My second most played character is also level 50. Sadly, their names were taken by a level 37 and a level 1, respectively. Clearly, this is a great injustice because I had the misfortune of rolling on the twentieth (or so) most populated server in North America, which I might add was determined by Bioware during the early guild access back in December. Yes, this is just a retrospective look back on how I would have handled the situation differently, but here we go. Here are the players I would have given priority during naming disputes (you'll notice being first on the server is not up there): a. Pre-order players: these players came first, and they're the most loyal players in the game. b. Playtime: if I have 50 days of playtime, and somebody has 50 minutes of playtime, I think I should get priority for my name. Added on 7/6: 1. Guild Capital Ships. If player ships are our homes, then capital ships should be our guild homes. They should also serve as a base of operations for the guild, including all of the standard amenities (rest areas, GTN, player & guild cargo holds, repair droids, vendors, PVP mission terminal, etc.). In fact, I'd make all upgrades purchasable. Such upgrades could only be bought through the guild bank (which would promote the guild tithe & tax rates farther down this list). Such upgrades could also require guild legacy ranks, another idea presented below. However, the idea isn't just to make another Republic or Imperial Fleet for guildies to hang out in. You could do so much more with capital ships. Add in a tiny huttball arena (or similar sport) that guilds could set up and play among themselves, PVP arenas (1v1, 2v2, etc.), more social opportunities (pazaak comes to mind, though I'd also include cantinas for sure). For other cosmetic/social upgrades, I've already come up with the vehicle garage, but I'm sure you guys could come up with so many more. When a guild is ready, they could customize their capital ship with different turbolasers and shields, fill it with different NPC guards and fighters, and venture into some really sick hybrid space/ground missions (both PVP and PVE). I've already lined out the basics, but picture this scenario for a 16v16 PVP match: in space, 4 players in fighters on each team try to escort their own ships while defending against enemy bombers and transports. 2 bombers get close enough to disable enemy armaments. The transports come in once the shields are temporarily down and unload an 8 man squad into the enemy capital ship to plant bombs or retrieve data. For a PVE operation, I'd bump up the numbers to 24 for an even more intensive experience. There's literally so much you could do with this idea - I'd really just take it and run with it. 2. Guild Bank Tithe/Tax Rates. To build up the guild bank, guild leaders could choose to tax their members to take a small cut of whatever their members earn while looting. For charitable members, they could voluntarily give a cut out of each looted corpse, security chest, etc. It's just a basic feature to enhance the guild experience. 3. Guild Legacy How many times have I watched a video where James Ohlen's telling me that the legacy system is designed so players can live out their individual Star Wars fantasy? Well, what about guilds? Why can't we have whatever we get for players (individualized story lines and legacy perks) but for guilds? It's just a rough idea, but maybe some guild will become the next Havoc Squadron. 4. More Conversation Options & Branching in Operations. Okay, the game's entire philosophy is to allow players to make choices to influence their stories. That is SWTOR's single largest premise as a unique MMO. Once you get to operations, there is absolutely NONE of that. What gives? There's some in flashpoints (there needs to be more, to be honest, but at least there's some), but in operations, it is completely dialogue option free. 5. The ability to mark items as trash in the field. This idea made more sense back before repair droid character perks came out, but it might still have uses, especially for those of us who never seem to have much money. Allow to bind some keys so we can mark non trash items as trash and send our companions off to sell them. 6. Slightly flashier spells. I personally don't care, but I know others do, so I'll just go ahead and speak for them. I mainly play a sage, but I have to say all of my skills appear pretty underwhelming. Disturbance is the least so because it looks like it has some "oomph!" factor to it... but let's look at our other skills. Telekinetic throw looks like I'm shooting ping pong ball sized rocks at somebody (not that threatening). My dots are nothing more than a quick wave of the hand. Even project is pretty lame now. Before, it was all "holy crap, I'm throwing this random toilet at somebody!" With the new animation, it's over before I even realize it. 7. Dual spec with limitations. I'm okay with paying for respecs. However, I'd like to change it so that I can get cheaper respecs, especially if I have two different play styles. On my sage, I enjoy both healing and DPSing, though I was a pure healer for about five and a half months until recently. I'd like for dual spec to cost half the normal price of a respec. It resets each week (sharing a CD with normal respecs) and caps out at 25000 credits a respec, as long as it's one of your two preferred specs. 8. More than 48 quickslots. With all of my basic skills, medpacs, relics, adrenals, and travel abilities, I have no room left for legacy or other PVE specific abilities. There's a reason I never use my heroic moments in PVE - I just can't fit those skills on my quickslots. Also, how about making heroic moments actually useful? 9. Legacy Crafting System. I'm positive I've mentioned this before, but the idea's simple: make bind to legacy item schematics. Your legacy should play an integral part in your SWTOR experience, so why not give us powerful schematics which require synthweaving, biochem, armstech, artifice, armormech, AND cybertech to create and use? For example, only players with numerous crafting alts could create +Forcepower augments or armor sets with unique set bonuses. 10. The Hutt Faction, already! Everyone wants a third faction. I can't see a good reason not to have one. Yes, it would require a great deal of retroactive work (definitely an expansion worthy amount of work), or you could make it so you have to reach the level cap before you receive a mysterious message telling you that the Hutts have become very interested in your accomplishments and would like to hire your services. 11. Crafting Material Specific Cargo Hold Bay. Just like how mission items have their own tab, give us a tab just for crafting materials from bioanalysis, archaeology, etc. It would help many of us organize and keep our bags orderly. If I conjure up any more ideas, I'll be sure to add them to this list.

All of the above and cross server, but I personally won't use a group finder for operations since 1) I'm in a raiding guild and 2) I wouldn't trust a pug with an operation anyway. With that said, that doesn't mean I want to remove that functionality for other players to use. If they want to pug an operation, good for them! I have no desire to prevent them from doing so. But yes, I imagine most players will use it for flashpoints, heroic missions, and maybe just "hey, anybody want to group up and complete some quests on Tatooine?"

My initial thoughts on 1.2? Healing is much more challenging but ultimately more rewarding. I've tried out both the new flashpoint (in hard mode) and new operation (in story mode) and found both to be refreshingly difficult. The second boss in "The Lost Island" was challenging to nail down as we figured out the 4-5 different mechanics and took my full Rakata group about an hour (about 6-8 wipes) to figure out, but we were also cooking dinner at the same time which added to the time it took to beat him. When we did beat him, it felt like an actual accomplishment rather than, "oh, another boss down." It's sad to see columi and tionese gear dropping in that hard mode since the flashpoint's difficulty is comparable to hard or nightmare mode EV/KP. While none of us needed a single piece of Rakata gear, I'd still like to see some Rakata pieces drop in that flashpoint because of the greater difficulty. With as hard as trash mobs hit in that instance as well, even basic pulls can wipe you if you're really sloppy. "Explosive Conflict" took about 90 minutes to beat the first boss in story mode. The group's sentiment was summed up nicely by somebody joking "I'm afraid to see this in nightmare mode." We spent about an hour on the second boss but had to give up since it was after midnight. Once again, the new PvE content is proving to be much more difficult than everything pre-1.2 because of more boss mechanics, more damage, and less healing. The biggest fear I had going into 1.2 was my sage healing nerf with regards to PVP. I'm definitely squishier now (marauders hit much harder, and I heal less), but I can still manage to pump out 400-600k healing, so I feel far from useless. I actually enjoy the faster pace in PVP with less time to react and adjust. I don't think there's any good reason why players should stick around in losing warzones since they will only get 30-40 commendations (if you win you easily get 80-110 commendations). With the huge commendation requirements for War Hero gear, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be fully decked out by the time ranked warzones finally do show up (I only have 1,000 ranked commendations right now). "Novare Coast" is definitely one of my two favorite warzones now (with Civil War), but I don't like how easily control points can flip. The close quarters action is a welcome change from Civil War's 30s jog from side to side though. The legacy system is fluff, but I still think it's neat, and I'm enjoying playing around with it. I just hope Bioware gives us bind-to-legacy craftable items in the future, especially so I can trade reusable stims for use in PVP or really any content (and I really don't want to roll biochem on my sage). On that note, crafting feels much more purposeful now, and I'm digging the cross-profession options. For example, my synthweaver requires some scavenged parts for armor and some slicing parts for augments. When players can't farm everything they need, they buy it on the GTM, and when they have to buy stuff on the GTM, the game economy becomes more robust. The new Corellia dailies are all right. The thing I like best about them is that you only get Black Hole commendations from the weekly quest, so I don't feel obligated to grind them out every single day like I did on Belsavis and Ilum. Those are my initial impressions with 1.2. There are some things I'd like to see changed or otherwise improved, but I'm rather pleased with the patch so far.

I hope Bioware implements a "crapshoot" queue option where you queue solo, but EVERYONE has to queue solo. Everyone's a pug, and nobody can join with a premade.

What was so terrible about 1.1? It took a mediocre area (Ilum) and made it slightly more worth our time to play there. 1.2 brought us the legacy system, some new PvE content, and faster paced warzones. I'm bummed out about the lack of ranked warzones too, but if that was the only thing keeping me here in this game, I'd find another game to play.

If you were only sticking around in the hope that you would get an extra free month of playtime, then this game probably isn't for you. I've said it before, and I'll continue saying it to all the people who really dislike this game (or any other game). It's a freaking game. You play it because you enjoy it. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. If you like playing the game, great. If you don't, there are other games out there. It's hilarious how difficult some people find it to stop playing a game. I've done it with Aion, LotRO, AoC, and Warhammer once I got bored with those MMOs. I've even gone back to some of them after a year or two to give them another go. Instead of complaining and whining about how much I didn't enjoy them, I went and looked for other games to try out. If I don't enjoy a game, I won't play it. I'm not sure why such a large chunk of the gaming population doesn't get that. It's almost like they enjoy being unhappy.