Is there a real solution? We've got PvP with literally NO matchmaking system. Sure, there are the level restrictions, but otherwise "matchmaking" only consists of putting people into a match until the match is full. No other considerations are given to the K/D ratio of the player, the gear of the player, the class of the player, or anything else. The only thing that might "fix" matchmaking is the introduction of actual matchmaking. Premades, for me, suck. Because I play with a buddy once a week and we don't have a guild, PvP is a total crap shoot. We'll either get some good matches, or we'll be up against a tight, unkillable team. There's not much in between. If we're going against premades, I'll get on my healer and he'll get on his tank and we'll see if it makes a difference. But when you start a Hypergate match, the enemy premade rushes your pylon to block (but not capture) and nobody from your side comes to correct the problem (or can't because of massive cross-healing), the game is basically over in the first minute. Then you either quit or you stick it out for the next eight minutes of rinse and repeat. I generally don't disconnect, because I feel like it's unsportsmanlike. That makes me a sucker, probably, because the enemy premade is also being unsportsmanlike by not letting anyone out of the starting area on my side. I guess I don't blame the premade for being drnk on power. And I don't blame people on my own team for dropping, because there's nothing fun about having your face pushed in the dirt for a quarter of an hour straight. Clearly these two types of teams shouldn't be competing with each other at all. But that's the way it is. There is no fix, and there will probably never be a fix. So we all play until it becomes untenable, and then maybe we finally buy Xcom2 or something.

I've been sinking bar stools into couches and walls so that only one is visible. Looks like a tiny side-table.

I have mine in the Nar Shaddaa anterroom. It's STILL too short. But I maneuvered them right underneath some Basic Ceiling Lights, so now they look alright. Not 100% amazing. But alright. You can robably clip some other ceiling items through them for a similar effect.

In my old Dromund Kaas Stronghold, I had my Orlean Fortune Hunter parked in the garage. After moving to Nar Shaadaa, the bike doesn't show up as a placable item. Even when I look at "all", it's not on the list.

I'm actually considering leaving this server after two years because the faction imablance is so bad. I have characters on both sides. Republic stomps face. Imperials bend over and take it. Every game. Republic side bores me. Imperial side is frustrating. Maybe it's that I'm a West Coaster playing on an East Coast server, and my timing is bad. Either way... yuck.

I've been playing since launch, on and off. After two forced server transfers, I ended up on Ebon Hawk. It's been alright. Except that my friend and I mostly do PvP, and mostly on Saturdays or after work. West Coast time. And despite whatever argument people want to make, those times seem absolutely dominated by Republic premades. I have Imperial characters and I have Republic characters. My Imperial characters are generally fed into a meat grinder or put into the middle of losing Hypergate matches. It's not unusual to play ten matches as an Imperial and not come close to winning even one. On my Republic characters, I could probably go make coffee or take a nap mid-match and still win. I'm sure things ebb and flow throughout the day, but at the times I play this is the case. I'm hoping there's a good "balanced" server out there where it's mostly a "challenge" to win, despite what side you're on. I don't expect the matchmaking non-system to function any better than it does now, or that there won't be newbies or premades. I just want a reasonable chance that I can actually play the game and not "roll or be rolled". I've heard Harbinger is the place to be. Any thoughts? *Edit: Also, not having to wait 20 minutes for a queue to pop (or forever for Ranked) would be a bonus!

Bioware needs to fix the matchmaking. There are people (myself included) who lpay this game for the PvP. On my server, the factions are horribly imbalanced. Today I played ten games and we didn't get even close to winning one because the enemy teams had VOIP. And maybe a hive mind. They can say "Ohhhh, it's too hard to make cross-server queues" or "the engine wasn't built for cross-server queues", but that's what programmers are for. Hire some and fix it. And it's not JUST that the matches are a one-sided faction rapefest. Frequently I'mm be facing people on my same faction in a four-man, and there will be two healers on one team and none on the other. What gives? The system can't even figure THAT out? "Oh, it'll make the queues slower if people have to have X number of healers on a team," you say. That's not what I'm talking about. You have a pool of 8 or 16 random people from the same faction. Look at that pool and divide accordingly if possible. Fix it. The more time that passes with the problems in PvP left unaddressed, the more people leave PvP, and the smaller and weaker he community gets. Has Bioware actually punted PvP to the sidelines like GSF? It'd be a shame, because PvP can be a lot of fun when you actually live long enough to step out of the starting zone. FIX. IT.

Huttball is the bee's knees. Maybe the bee's upper thighs, too.

Hypergate. You know who is going to win the match in the first two minutes. Then you're either getting slaughtered or on E-Z Mode for the rest of the match. If your team is getting slaughtered because the enemy has mad DPS, you can't turn it around. You won't be able to get near the orbs, and you won't be able to get near the enemy pylon either because you're too busy death matching in the middle for no good reason. This map brings out the worst in people. Nobody's responsible enough to guard the pylon. A good portion of the time, people just cap it and walk away. Or leave my poor healer guarding by himself. Which is not only silly, but horribly boring. Which is, I guess, why nobody bothers. And once the enemy is in the lead, you'll never ever be able to convince enough people on your team that they HAVE TO capture the enemy pylon to win. They just won't do it. Maybe it's because the tunnels on the side seem too far away, so they just run through the middle and get caught up in random fights. Maybe it's because this map is a self-defeating spiral of misery and destruction that's sucking the life out of the universe.

I back this idea. It's actually what I thought the point of Strongholds were before they actually came out; showing off your Legacy, companions, and all of the cool gear you've picked up along the way. What we got instead was a bunch of new stuff to decorate with, which is cool but has little relation to our character's achievements in the rest of the game. It would be fantastic to be able to plop my alts into the Stronghold and have them hanging out with a few non-holo companions and maybe mount a blaster or two on the wall. Just stuff to think about going forward...

This is what I thought Stronholds were all about before I actually saw them; a place for my Legacy to get together outside of their abstract family tree screen. I also assumed there'd be ways to show off the gear and goodies you'd collected during actual gameplay. I like the hooks and the new decorations, but being able to place alts, companions with gear, and maybe mount a blaster rifle or two on the wall would do a lot ot integrate Strongholds into the rest of the game.

In real life, I am happier if I don't look at the comment section below news stories online. In SWTOR, I'm much happier if I switch to anything other than general chat. Back in this old man's SWG days, MMOs were the domain of nerds. Now it's for the sweaty masses. But it's not all bad. You just have to filter a bit. That being said, I probably wouldn't still be subbed if I didn't have a couple of real-life friends who play too...

I have mastered ships of each type and I recently (well, over the last year) have dabbled in a "rail-gunless gunship". I chose the Jurgoran, and instead of a railgun I gave it interdiction missiles and cluster missiles. Now that the ship is almost maxed out, I'm really enjoying it. I have to watch my thrusters pretty closely, but I feel pretty durable and I love the quick one-two punch of the missiles. I also feel like there's a bit of a "surprise" factor, since most people don't expect a gunship to come charging at them, guns blazing. If you do this you'll want to max out your turn speed as soon as you can, otherwise you'll get chewed to bits pretty quickly. I suspect some folks will think I'm a dolt for skipping out on a core feature of the ship, which is why I don't talk about this stuff in matches. But it's fun to fly and I feel like I top the charts in my Jurogan as much as I do in any of my other ships. Currently I'm running a Sting for kills, a Bloodmark for healing/combat command, a Razorwire for support, I'm training up a new bomber, and the Jurogan has taken a heavy/defensive fighter role. Is anyone else using a similar build?

Hey hey. I've been playing since Day 1, on and off, and I have six-ish characters in various states of levelling on Ebon Hawk. I joined an RP server because I've always found that to be a fantastic end-game. I really enjoyed RP in Galaxies, and was hoping for a similar experience here in SWTOR. And while there are some things I love about SWTOR , I find roleplaying (or just about anything to do with chatting) to be an eyesore and a chore. Most of the fun of RP for me is trying to make people laugh, so my usual MO would be to throw a joke into someone else's conversation and let them take it from there. We're not getting speech bubbles, and without them I find that I have a very difficult time finding who is speaking if there are more than a couple of people in a room. And once I suss out a conversation and figure out who is talking to who, I have a hard time inserting myself into that conversation. There are workarounds. Everyone's got a name over their head, so I could say, "Oh, hey. Aren't you Darth Screwball? I hear you're really into Twi'lek snuff holos." I could also message people and say, "Hey, can I RP with you guys?" But I miss the days of laying down under a shuttle and calling for help, or "drunkenly" interjecting into someone else's public conversation at the cantina. So I'm here for tips, tricks, third party speech bubble software, or even just polite suggestions to go stuff it. What'cha got?

It's called "the captain's chair". Vents out the dorsal side.

As a scout, the thing I fear most are other scouts. Sure, a gunship can one-shot me, but I can take out a gunship once I know where he is. And he's probably thinking he's getting one-shifted by me, even though it's three or four shots and a missile point-blank in rapid succession. I was actually thinking that the game is remarkably balanced, but maybe there just aren't as many gunships on my server. There are only one or two gunships on my enemies list, but there are even more strike fighters and scouts...

I'll second Retro Thrusters. Blast back, and by the time they roll out of the loop you can already have a lock.

The reason I don't RP more in this game is because it's an eyestrain. Digging through chat logs is not my idea of a good time. We have a system to tag enemies in the game. I still don't see why we can't use it to tag friends (and have their dialog pop up in the color of the tag). That, at least, would let you pick a few people out of a crowd. I love this game, but in the long term the lack of a social canvas is what will lose me...

TV writer. Turning 40 this year, so you've got me beat. I keep reminding myself that when I was first introduced to Obi-Wan, he was a 65 year old ******. So I'd like to think we'll all still be holding lightsabers for a few more decades...

This is my only gripe, really. If you don't manage your mouse the whole match, you naturally end up dragging the pointer way off to the side of the screen, which makes correcting from a turn super wonky.

I've got blisters on my eyeballs!

"Make your own level" is flavor of the week. It wouldn't surprise me at all if EA plans a bit of open-world business. Maybe thats what the theorized player housing is about. Cartel Coins basically saved this game, like them or not. People like to customize their characters and their character's property. I know I do. And if Planet Customizotron comes out, I'll probably be there. And, as for SWG, it had everything SWTOR doesn't -- a fun social aspect and open world. SWTOR has everything SWG didn't -- functioning quests, tons of customization, buttloads of content, character stories... They were very different games that both happened to be "Star Wars". They both have/had good points and bad points.

I really don't know how people manage to RP in this game. As tempting as it is to try, I'm held at arm's length by the chat system. Every time I try to participate in RP in a group environment, I always feel like I'm scrambling to figure out who said what and when. Like many people, I've been hoping that the speech bubble problems would be fixed, but the more time passes, the more I think we're just not getting them. And then, the other day, I realized that I don't NEED speech bubbles. I just need a way easily identify who I'm talking to. Sort of like the way you tag friends and enemies in combat. In fact, EXACTLY like that. There's a system that's already in-game and is used to tag people for identification. Each of the icons used for tagging has a unique color. So what if you tagged your buddy "Darth Buddy" with the blue shield, and as long as he's tagged everything Darth Buddy types will be blue in your chat box? It's not as glamorous as a speech bubble, but it would help keep track of groups of six or eight people, and that's probably more than you're going to need for any given conversation. What do you think?

Too bad I have no point of reference since I've never seen Coruscant. They really ought to let us invade one day...

I've played my fair share of MMOs, and in the end I usually end up getting sucked in by the characters in the community and the characters they create. I mean, that's what MMOs are all about, right? After taking a break from SWTOR for almost a year, I came back to find some pretty cool changes. One thing that hasn't changed, though, is the perplexing lack of support for socialization. I'm not just talking RP, but RP needs some love too. To start with... Speech bubbles. The other day I walked into the cantina on Nar Shaada and saw some fun RP going on. I decided to insert myself into the conversation, but by the time I figured out who was actually talking, the moment had passed. I spent the next fifteen minutes in a frustrated haze trying to keep track of who was responding to who. I left the cantina, took some Advil, and decided not to try that again until something changes. I know some people will worry that speech bubbles will cause lag or be obtrusive. Fine. Toggle them off. This is the only MMO I can think of where you're expected to tab through sixteen people just so you can find the one you're taking to. Second: Social Points. What a cool idea. Unfortunately, the most effective way to obtain them is to run Black Talon until your eyes bleed. And I don't know how many of you have run it more than a few times, but it is possibly one of the least social experiences I've ever had. If you're lucky and you're a pro, you just hang out for fifteen or twenty minutes eating cashews and spacing through conversations while everyone else in your party silently does the same. If you're unlucky, you sit and drool waiting for the conversations to finish. And the poor level 10 dudes who've never seen the story just get yelled at for trying to watch the story play out. How about adding more "social adventures"? Star Wars is full of diplomatic missions and trade negotiations. Maybe let us participate in those, and offer unique buffs or perks to your side for successfully negotiating peace treaties (or sabotaging them). Finally, I'm sort of "iffy" on the idea of restricting emotes via Cartel Coins, but the more the merrier, I suppose. Still, why can I be paranoid or poke someone until the game kicks me for being AFK, but I can only sit in a chair for five seconds? Someone should comb through the emote list and adjust the a imagining cycles. There are a good number of fun emotes that get short shrifted. Again, I'm having a blast and there's plenty to do, but a year from now when I just want to sit in a cantina and shoot the breeze, will I have the tools to do so?