Hello everyone,
as a member of guild that has strong RP history, I'd like SWTOR to bring us some tools that would help us to set up our own events. Support for RP and player events is an "easy" way to let players to find their own fun in the game and keep them around even without popping lots of new content to the game.
TL;DR: I want some tools and features that would help players doing RP
Chat bubbles
This was discussed from all sides and I think I've seen something about this being implemented someday. It's not crucial but it would help and make RPing a little easier and more fun. I think an easy option to turn them on/off would be a good idea - that way players can turn it on only for the event, keeping the screen clean rest of the time.
Own event related NPCs/objects
This might be one of the most wanted features, at least from my point of view. Fox example, right now I'm organizing simple RP contest for in-guild bounty hunters and I have to do everything by hand - I'l have to pick an existing NPC that will server as a target and hope that it's far enough from ppl and won't interfere in quests. If there was a feature to place own, customized NPC (set class, level etc) somewhere, set a list of players that can attack it, it would make the event a lot easier. Adding some loot in it would also be a big help for events. Same applies for any other objects, like placing treasure chests. Such NPC/object would have some lifetime after which it would be removed from the world automatically (to prevent location/planet/server being flooded).
Subguilds/groups
Well, our situation (and I think it's not just our case) is this. We have officer for each class department who takes care of the class business, like helping new members leveling or organizing RP events. I'm officer of the BH class and one of my guildmates brought in the idea of forming the Mandalorian clan there, which would be in fact RP group for everyone interested in such thing.
For this, it would be useful to have around feature of forming such RP groups with their own structure (for starters maybe just in-group titles, that might/might not be displayed on public - I can imagine what mess it could do) that would not interfere with the guild or anything else (classic groups, ops etc). It's a pure RP tool to make easier even in-guild RPing. However, should it allow cross-guild groups, it would be even more useful.
Customizing your look
I remember how cool it was when we got this feature in SWG. Main idea is simple - there would be a special screen for your character where you'd be able to wear anything that would cover the gear you have on you. Anything that is equipped on this special screen have it's stats ignored and serves only as a customization of your look. That way, you'd be able to have your Rakata gear equipped but wear something else so you don't look like everyone else.
That's also related to the feature of colorizing your gear. I'm not sure if this feature ain't already in some stage of development so if it is, ignore this part. I'd like to change the color and maybe even pattern of the gear, probably the same way I can do it in Mass Effect as it would be sufficient. Believe me, when there's 30 same looking BHs at one place, it's just not cool
Setting own storylines/quests
Oook, that's not simple at all. Implementing a tool that allows players to make their own quests is not easy task and I'm not really sure how many players would even like such tool. But for RPing it's a sweet feature. The only thing that I'm not sure about is the current way most of the quests work. Simplest way would be a terminal like those for heroics, daily missions etc. Advanced might be done with some predefined dialog options, however that would be a lot harder to implement .
That's it. I have some more ideas in my head but I think this will do for now. I hope someone finds this interesting and maybe even useful for the game. I think that giving players the opportunity to make their own content in the game is a nice and easy way to keep them occupied before the new official content is ready to get released. And from what I've seen around, there are ppl with pretty cool ideas for RP events that might be a lot better if they had some tools to help them. So, feel free to comment
Didn't noticed any changes until a friend told me... I'm not watching the hotbars much as I remember what I have under which hotkey and also remember how long the cooldown is. It's looks strange but doesn't bother me at all. I've seen worse... I'd suggest allowing ppl to fully mod their UI so they can mess it up as they wish. It might save Bioware some time