Yes he should have stayed dead. The reveal of his survival had me audibly groan while I rolled my eyes. That said, I could imagine some imp characters of mine that would have joined him way back when, if such an option had been available.

Yeah, fair point. I still doubt I will really get that same feel of independence that the smuggler and bounty hunter had in the vanilla story content. The choice seems to be between remaining independent commander either as a loyalist or traitor, or to get an "official" position in your old faction with both the hunter and smuggler. I'd have liked to remain independent but start using my old title too. My Smuggler would love to be able to call herself captain again, fly her old ship and stop taking everything going on so seriously. Give me some options to play dumb with the mandos and profiteer off of the war plz.

This probably. Besides the chosen one thing, it'd also just have been nice not to be forced to be the commander. My female smuggler would realistically have been out of there in no time, flying away with Gaunt, Hylo, Vette and Kaliyo to go find her old crew and get back to mischief. Give me the same story, or a similar one, but working as a volunteer or merc under Lana as commander or something, that would have been amazing. Also I hopefully wouldn't have had to play the boring weapon-building story featuring New Satele and Marr's broody ghost.

Says a lot about Bioware that what people are begging from them, the former masters of video game storytelling, is all but one measly action sequence. I too hope for cool moments, even more I'd like if they really differentiated between lightsaber/non classes and made some cool scenes with our pew-pew characters too. Even though they were cool, it always irked me somewhat that my ranged characters often fight in melee range. Let my smuggler make some street-wise maneuvers or let my troopers blast them with heavy fire!

1. Play the game and have fun. 2. Repeat 1

Just played the part where you have to fight mind-Vaylin when taking the throne. On this character I had kept the holocron to summon Drammath. During the fight he could not wield his lightsaber, I saw the red armor icon by his icon that said the message in the title, I assume "Claw" is the name of his weapon. He could still heal my character but he just stood still without using any attacks on Vaylin during cooldowns.

I'd actually love some new faces, but I'd especially like some unique ones for Cathar and Togruta, they can look really dopey with most of the current face shape options, especially the male options.

Still no Anri goggles? Aw.

I could see that with some characters. I play my consular as very "serious" light side Jedi, ethereal, blunt, determinant. She doesn't really joke. Yeah, me too. I wouldn't want it to be too overbearing, like every single Twi'lek going "yo sis, we the same huh?" to my Knight constantly, but a couple of remarks here and there would be neat, just so that the story gives you the illusion that the race choice is not only cosmetic. I always found it to be a bit of a pity that Vette never asked my Knight if she wanted in on her purchasing of artifacts mission for her people, when she brings it up after the heist mission with Gault, for example.

Don't think they'll ever "fix" the vanilla storylines to reflect more race/class combinations but I am hopeful that more such references might be put in here and there. I was quite pleased that my consular was recognised as Chiss during the traitor storyline, even if most of the dialogue was copy/paste regardless of class and only really made determinant remarks based on being a force user or not. When my consular asked "am I not already part of the Ascendancy?" after defeating the sniper lady my first reaction was "uuuh, no? Why would you be? You're a force user" but I don't really know much about Chiss society. I hope any future race-based dialogue flavour will bother just a tiny bit more to reflect your origins.

Agree with this. There are certain weapon/class combinations I would love to have if the game could allow it in the future. I'd love for my powertech to be able to use rifle, my operator to carry just his pistol or for a warrior/knight to use a double-bladed lightsaber while retaining their original abilities and proficiencies.

Imagine the heist quest for that gas-giant gold deposit ship, but instead of one short quest it's a longer storyline where you gather a crew with old companions to succeed. Gault and Vette for example but also Risha and Mako would make sense, even Andronikos could have been included if you needed an experienced pilot and Koth wasn't available. Not sure where Corso would have fit in but I always thought it was a pity that he didn't have a role to play with the Zakuulan seperatists, it would have been an interesting place to take him as he was very opposed to seperatism previously. Lump him in with the locals fighting Arcan/Vayling and some character development might actually occur.

Rather, they completely stopped the concept of "side quests" so any relationships taking place from then on would have to happen during the storyline.

I don't think you can. When i zoomed around trying to locate all three crates for the first time all the enemies just swarmed her without her health going below half.

My light side SW is that way because he's a genuinely empathetic man. Sure, honor is a part of his philosophy but honor can be bent to suit the morality of an individual too, for example the Mandalorian clans appear to have somewhat variable codes of honour. He's a pragmatist too though, but not in regards to lives lost or taken. He's a pragmatist in the sense that he knows how the empire works and what he needs to do to attempt to reform it. He is a Sith, he believes in power and strength and that those who are willing to lead should be able to if they prove their worth. He beleives however, that those with power has to follow codes of ethics, that those with less power aren't just tools to further the goals of the selfish. Ultimately he becomes disillusioned with the Empire and wishes to join the republic. If he could be allowed to he would form a new force-school to challenge the Jedi (who he generally views as cultish, like the imperial Sith) within the legal framework of the Republic.

I have to say that I disagree with this by now. Initially I thought it was nice with the letters but when that character runs arond your base with you it feels really damn weird that that's the only way they ever communicate with you. I wouldn't mind the occasional letter if they still had occasional interactions with us. I'll once again make the suggestion of using Lana for our "default" scene companion (seriously, Hylo even taking over her role is starting to piss me off) and then voice the romance companions as well. Make variables that track your romance options and give you a dialogue option on who to bring with you on the mission. If you don't have a romance then Lana will come along, or whatever other mission companion they invent.

I've been requesting some old-companion involvement in new story content. I don't think this particular update was the worst at it, Rivvix, Krovos and Arn are at least familiar faces. Actually the two-companion structure is one I think Bioware could utilize in this regard. Have a "story" companion that accompanies us but let us choose a companion from our own roster to follow along too. If Bioware were to focus on, for example romanceable companions, it would limit how many characters they have to do voice-overs for and any other odd companion; non-story based ones like Treek and old companions with no romantic content, could just be silent during the mission. The voiced ones would then provide commentary and interact in scenes. It would help to make Arcan feel like a legitimate companion also.

Maybe he'll surprise us and go steal a sith artifact next.

Risha didn't

This is probably not a spoiler, but just to make sure. It's a technical reason, not a narrative one.

Hopefully we'll be given the option to end her for good too. The only way to make a character narratively unrevivable to Bioware seems to make them determinant.

While the BH isn't really my favourite class story, it was one of the first ones I completed and love it for that time I first started playing the game. I agree with most of your points although I don't think the entire companion roster is rock solid. Blizz is fun but I feel like his conversations are a tiny bit bland as he's just excitable and funny, I kind of wish they'd have written some minor character conflict between him and the hunter. Most would also agree that Skadge fookin sacks, he's introduced way too late into the story to really feel like a part of the BH team and his interactions with them only extends to be a single "*** who's this fool?" moment. I've been playing a female BH for the first time since after new years, very enjoyable too. I like the Torian romance too and I intend for this character to be my Mando character while I'm also replaying my male BH with the sole purpose of making the same character as the old one, except not Mandalorian. Funny thing is, this class was actually my intrduction to the Mandalorians so I did not understand what clan adoption meant back when I first got the offer from Gold-Armor-Dude. Had I been more familiar with the Mandalorian culture I'd have refused him back then. I had a long break after winning the Great Hunt on my first BH, where I completed the story with my first Consular in the meanwhile. The reason was because I felt like the early investment I had in the story had concluded with the Great Hunt, so I lost interest in going back to "normal" bounties. I still liked most of the story but I think it only really picks up again after your pals got pwned on Nar Shaddaa and you get into the vendetta phase of the story. The reason why i picked BH as one of my first classes was because I wanted to play as a more "neutral" option in terms of faction alignment, and the male voice sold me on the class over the Smuggler class.

I'm not sure what you read in my post, but I don't disagree with any of that. I too was done with Valkorion & co. a long time ago. What I want is just for the old companions to at least interact with the story in some capacity, regardless of what form it takes. As an example, a portion of the upcoming story material will be about the Jedi, at least for republic characters and imperial saboteur characters. Instead of it just being Arn and Tau, I'd like to have the option of bringing class-exclusive companions like Nadia, Jaesa and Ashara along, or Kira and maybe even Guss, and have them offer up opinions, conversations and just be a part of this Jedi story line. I hate how most characters return is a one off thing, there is no reason why we can't have new stories but include the companions that we originally had as our cast, besides writing ambition and the limit of Bioware's funds.

Funny that you should mention this, I'm actually of the opposing opinion, that I wish they'd stop jumping the story forward random intervals. My only specific hope is that they start using the old cast of characters again instead of inventing new ones for everything. For example I'd have loved to be able to use any of Shae/Torian/Akaavi as my companion in the mando flashpoint instead of temporary companion #5. He could have functioned as the default for players that have none of the old ones I mentioned. I don't think the additions since Ossus have been bad I just wish there was more to it all. Onderon and Mek-sha would have been more flavorful with an additional sidequest or two involving commentary from Jakarro, Gault and Hylo for example, this would have been great for my smuggler character too. Give us a few optional things to do that aren't just objectives for random NPC characters here and there. We've had bit of a taste of the potential with the added Shae/Torian/Akaavi commentary to the Dar'manda dude on Mek-sha. More of that and with more detailed conversations would make the stories feel more alive and add to the sense of replayability.

Just tried, happened to me too.