And there are no other forms of easy communication? Look... the folks who want to game the system in this way are not going to be stopped because you don't allow cross faction chat channels in-game. In fact I'm sure that this is happening already -- in general players seek the paths of least resistance. They are like water in that regard. So in the end IMO this is just a matter of convenience and making it easier to have a richer game experience. Now if you want to say that on RP-PVP servers you can't do this or even make it more restrictive so you can't even make characters on both sides, cool with me -- though making such changes retroactively seems unlikely.

This is so, so true. For a while they tried to play balance whack-a-mole and then they just gave up and created 2 different rule sets -- so everything in PvP worked differently. Of course that just created its own set of issues... It also differed significantly from the norm (until the recent addition of the i-Stuff) in that it essentially had no end game. Longevity came from the creation of new characters (which I think fit well with the mindset of its players and the genre, but I probably believe that because I liked it ). With the Legacy system I think BW is trying to put an element of this in their game. It has a very traditional (read "that other game"-like) endgame, but it also has at least some mechanics which will encourage alts.

Careful with that statement. This honor easily goes to City of Heroes IMO. I played that game for 7 years and had, when I left 40 active alts -- characters that I played at least once a month -- across 3 servers. And I was by no means considered aberrant or even at the high end of the alt scale. I don't expect SW:TOR to approach that level -- but I do hope it breaks out of the silly one main/one faction rut. Also, the notion that offering players the option to do something means you are forcing them to do that something is... utterly incomprehensible to me. There are lots of things in this game that I have no interest in and will never do. Including things that would make my character more powerful -- so what? If I choose not to do them, that's on me, not BW.

Two opposed factions != same player can never play both. When I'm playing my Republic character, I'm playing my Republic character -- with his/her own motivations and world view. Same for when I'm playing my Empire character. One person (me) is perfectly capable of playing a number of characters and keeping the separate in my head. I have multiple characters on both sides -- I don't consider one a main and one an alt -- they are all just my characters (and yes, I know this means I will never be uber -- not my personal goal). It seems to me that the notion of "guild" here is far more restrictive than I'm personally used to (but I never played "that other game"). The game I did used to play handled this wonderfully. I played with one group of people (my guild if you will) and we formed multiple in-game groups on both "sides" of the game. The game allowed us to connect these multiple groups together into alliances and rivalries so there was even an "in game" reason for why they were related. This ultimately enriched our experience, both in the game and as friends outside the game -- it certainly wasn't damaging as I've seen others here suggest. The game also provided tools which made it easy for us to communicate with each other, see who was playing on what side, and shift around to form teams which again meant we teamed with each other *more* than we otherwise would have (certainly much more than I've seen in this game). This is the one and only reason why I played that game for 7 years. Some folks in our "meta-guild" only played on one side or the other. Some (like me) had lots of alts spread across many of the connected sub-groups. Some focused on a few or even one character exclusively, some were inveterate alt-a-holics -- the game supported any of these play styles and the fact that it did made it better, not worse. Choice in style of game play is always a good thing IMO -- especially in an MMO. I'm hopeful that this is what they will achieve -- or at least that this is what they *want* to achieve (otherwise I'd personally get bored and wander off -- I just can't stay focused on one character/side/story for any length of time).

OTOH there are some of us who love playing both factions, but don't ever want to spend the time necessary to do say... nightmare mode ops. I don't consider myself "locked out" of doing that content -- I simply choose not to. The nice thing about a game like this is that there is always something to do. You may not want to do all of it -- and that's not a bad thing. If you want a game that only has exactly those things that you personally enjoy.... make it yourself.

I personally would pay -- real life money -- to make this possible.

Whoever had 3 in the pool wins . On a more serious note, seems to be hard to find much to complain about with this one -- options and lots of them. Though how come it doesn't pay my bills!! I blame Lebron. No, no you are thinking about this all wrong. This clearly shows that BW knows nothing about PvP and hates the Republic. Get with the program.

I understand the need to have a more binary poll, but my response is more nuanced that love it/hate it. Like -- I like the new effect used to depict that an individual power is on cooldown. This is much clearer than the previous incarnation. Note that I didn't have a major issue with what was there before, but I would occasionally find myself trying to use a power that was still on CD and now I don't. Dislike -- I dislike the use of the same bright, flashy graphic to depict the effects of the *global* cooldown. Use of the effect here causes two issues for me. It obscures the activation of powers that become available (often due to procs or status changes) while the GCD is in effect. Further the flash at the end causes all 4 of my ability bars to flash, every 1.5 seconds. That's a lot of flashing. I would prefer the old graphic here. If you could combine the new graphic for CD and the old for GCD then I think you'd have a winner. If the two must be the same however, I'd go with the old one. So in the end I voted thumbs down.

This. I'm never going to argue that the game shouldn't have raiding and a form of progression at max level. I'm also never going to really participate in said systems because I hate raiding with a passion -- just not for me. So I dearly hope that the Legacy system provides something interesting for those of us who prefer to play lots of different characters.

Overall I agree with most of this. I actually like the graphics, but to each their own and I don't PvP at all so I cannot comment on that aspect. On the macro front, the thing I *really* miss (I'm an ex-COH player) is the ability to create chat macros. Something as simple as a target calling macro or ready or gratz or.... I've taken to using my G13 to create some of these, but some just can't be created. The UI is woeful, but I'm am hoping that will get fixed soon (but perhaps I'm over optimistic on that count). Overall though I still love the game. Immensely entertaining and that's all I ask a game to be .

First of all, thanks for the update. But regarding the quoted section above.... we are not on high population servers by choice. We (many of us) are there because Bioware put us there. So while we can choose to create characters somewhere else now so we can actually play the game I'm hoping you'll understand that this isn't a thrilling prospect. We pre-ordered your game. We took the time to create guilds for pre-deployment. We got early access as an incentive. To now be in a situation where that early access has actually trapped us on a server that is stressed to the max making it so that we must abandon that early access and pre-created guild is... not ideal. So we are left wondering why? It appears that BW over-concentrated the initial guild deployments (I understand that this is 20/20 hindsight, but that doesn't change the perception). Personally I'd love to be on a lower pop server. I'm just not thrilled at having to toss my character and guild to do it. So I'll bear with you (what choice to I have), but I'm hoping the situation resolves itself soon-ish (and I don't think it will, given the holiday gift season and all).

I have the same question. I'm guessing the answer is "wait for the GM to get in", but I figured I'd check. Also, what level of membership/permission is required to invite guild members anyway? Is it really only the GM that can do that?