In summary, many different people don't reply for many different reasons. ( Add me to the "gen chat is off" group. Trading usually too. ) However, this is NOT something new "nowadays". 20 years ago in Everquest, a game that emphasized the multiplayer aspect FAR more than swtor, it was still normal to not chat with randoms. Most people stuck to guild chat, with about 3/4 of the guild rarely even talking there. Most groups were formed from members of the same guild. Raids were almost entirely a single guild, or an alliance. Most all social aspects were more out of necessity: Camp checks, providing/looking for services, etc. The game was built to practically require a group to do anything, yet plenty of people still soloed, even if it was actually worse xp wise, just because it was preferred. Such is just the way of things.

You have to complete chapter 1, not abandon it. That's the chapter that flags your character as not having companions, which is what screws things up. You need to complete it to unset that flag. ( You will also need to reset the phases/instances after. )

Unfortunately, they have decided that some things are worth spending more money on than their servers. At launch, there was WAY more people playing, with way less issues, and that was a fresh launch game, not one with years of improvements. It's just a simple reality of things: Subs are way down, and the cartel market brings in the bulk of the cash. So, naturally, they spend the money on making new CM stuff, and things targeted at keeping subs are deprioritized. Also, ignore those whining that there are lots of other threads like this. Clearly, it needs to be said over and over again, since it just isn't getting through to Bioware/EA. Just keep your money, and either they'll learn, or they'll have to start looking for a new job. ( Most likely the latter. After more than a dozen MMOs, I've seen this time and again. It just keeps getting worse, until finally they shut the doors a couple years later. Only seen 1 single game survive the death sprial, Myst Online, and that's a very special case, and it's also still not really alive. )

1: Easily. If you have the right XP stuff, you can do it on JUST the class missions. Most likely, you will need to do like 1 or 2 other missions per planet to keep up. 2: It'll be pretty obvious. If you ever run out of quests, check your ship. It'll have something new to move you along. 3: Too many people were legitimately stacking the wrong stat, so they just combined all 4 primary stats into "Mastery". 4: No 6: In any game, when they up the levels, there will be an equivalent inflation in prices. Higher level mobs drop more money. Higher level items sell for more. Higher level crafting is worth more. So, naturally, prices go up. That being said, some things are relatively cheaper. For example, 65 has been the cap for quite awhile now, so augments and augment kits are down a fair bit on price since most people have them already. 7: Be aware you will only get the Jedi. It's based off of the community, and how many people make light side or dark side choices. Light side, as the devs fully expected, has taken a sizable lead. With less and less people making those choices ( Mostly from having done it already, but also from people quitting ), it's pretty much a guarantee at this point. 8: There are solo versions to many, which are almost impossible to fail. Then there are tactical, which some can be quite easy, but others quite difficult to solo. Some HMs can even be soloed, but others are actually really hard with a full PUG. Generally, the older the FP, the easier it is. 9: Yes, max 1 companion at a time. ( Influence makes a big difference. ) Dual wielders tend to perform the best. Melee tend to be a bit better than ranged, but this matters much less. Influence pretty well and trumps all though. Comms really work the same, they're just called something like data crystals now. 1-50 mods are dirt cheap though, 2 each. So, a full set of gear is like 2 quests worth of the "Common" crystals that you get left and right. I recommend holding back on spending much though, it's not needed for leveling, and it's really nice to have the full 1,000 saved up when you hit 65. When you get to Rishii, you will also get 3 boxes of 99 Common crystals, save those too. The moment you hit 65, you'll be able to buy a nearly complete set of the basic gear. Doing heroics at 65 ( now easily soloable due to level sync ) to level up the 4 base commanders in KoTFE will get you a good amount of the uncommon, and even enough of the top tier comms for a piece of gear or 2. From there, it's basically the same as before: FPs and OPs. 10: Rather poorly. It's bleeding out people left and right, and the quality has been consistently dropping. KoTFE has even consolidated Republic and Empire into 1 single faction "The Alliance", removed all variability to story, and each new chapter brought new bugs and issues. ( For example, todays patch had severe ability lag, and invisible walls behind doors and severe texture z-fighting/flickering. ) There's also virtually 0 replayability in KoTFE since it all is the same. Rep, Imp, Dark, Light...doesn't matter. So, servers have been slowly bleeding out. ( This does have the side effect though that more of the people that are left, are much more interested in the game. ) It's kind of good you don't have a friend to play with too, as KoTFE mostly locks anyone out from even joining you like was possible in older content. ( You just get teleported to an instance, no door for your friend to join you. ) I recommend just playing through once, then unsub. Oh, if you're on one of the heavier populated servers, you will sometimes see other people out and about, but they'll just be speed running from A to B usually. Key areas though will usually have a bit of a population, such as the Fleet, Odessen ( KoTFE hub ), and the latest piece of content. ( Such as the new recruitment mission. )

Dec 20 is still Fall. The way they worded that, suggest launch in fall. With the announcement not until Oct, I would say Dec. is a likely release time.

The point is to make it very clear WHY you are leaving. If I just stopped and walked away, it could be because I lost my job. Or my computer broke. Or I moved to somewhere with bad internet connection. It could be any number of reasons. However, coming on and saying the low quality of the story in KoTFE, as well as the virtual abandonment of all things besides, while massively reducing the amount of content delivered, and dropping the quality of content, is why I am leaving: Now they realize that that dip in subs wasn't a fluke. As for the be back in a few months: You know how many SWG devs said that about the CU and NGE? What about the Warhammer MMO devs after launch? Tabula Rasa, Hellgate: London...the list goes on and on. Honestly, the majority of the time when someone has actually left...they stay gone. It's just the people that say they are GOING to quit, but haven't pushed the button, that come back over and over. The one's that take the effort and hit the cancel button, are very hard to get back. Retention is the most important number for an MMO.

The devs care. That's not some stupid threat like you often see of "I'm going to quit!" or "I'll quit if you do/don't do X!"...that's a "I have pushed the button. You are now making less money than before. People have to vote with their wallets, and I just did." This also starts to matter more to players, when you start looking around and see that more people have actively pushed the button. I have as well for example. ( Though, oddly...my account says I have until May 2017, even though I did a 6 month sub back in May this year...It does indeed say cancelled though. ) You may also notice by my forum number, that I've been here since day 1. What you may not see, is also the fact that I am a CE owner, and never left TOR. It took quite a lot to lose me, but they've managed to do it. We also still hope they manage to fix things and get back on track, but they have to be told what we think for any chance of that happening. Yes, the forums are a small portion of the total audience and such, and is more negative than many sources...but that doesn't make it immediately wrong. It's a piece in the puzzle of trying to figure out what your audience thinks.

Just an FYI, compared to plenty of other games, there's very little. I think we have 9 OPs, then a little over a dozen world bosses ( most of which are trivial due to levels. They're more like a tough named that needs a group. ) For comparison, the Everquest expansion "Planes of Power" adding something like 20 raids. A single expansion. That was even proper raids too: 72 people, 6+ hours each. ( All while adding lots of solo and group content, and more area than TOR probably has in total right now. I really miss the amount of content we used to get in stuff. )

It's only a couple spots here and there. I recall something for my Chiss once, when meeting another Chiss. It also seems like there was something early on that mentions you being a pureblood for the inquisitor. Overall though, it's virtually non-existent. Especially for something that originally was not supposed to be possible. For example, my Jedi Knight was a pureblood, and not a single person noticed. Oh, and as it applies to Star Wars, Race and Species are synonymous due to the extreme ambiguity of the 2. No remotely satisfactory definition has been found, and the ones out there would allow both to apply equally well to SW aliens. For example, they can all breed together. ( As mentioned, Sith purebloods are really Sith + Human, just where there is enough Sith genes to affect their appearance. ) Most everything in SW is some variation of Human.

It's a quite small part of the population that still bothers with raiding. We're coming up on 2 years since the last OP was added. Needless to say, most of the people who did them, are long tired of them. It's also been a year since the last gear level increase, so those people have also largely stopped. For raiders, it's more like a couple weeks. 4 days to hit max level if they take it slow listening to the story. Couple more days to get gear up to entry levels. Week and a half or so to complete all ops. ( Likely first try every time since all of the other people in a raiding guild will have all of the ops down to perfection at this point. ) So, no. If it's raiding you care about, it's best just to go elsewhere. TOR has raids, but they're more of another thing to do, but don't stand on their own. They used to come at an OK pace, like 2 a year, but as I said, they've pretty well and been abandoned at this point. Even worse, as mentioned, TORs population is currently on the decline. Their current expansion just concluded, and a sizable portion of the people that stayed for the Story, are now leaving. My guild at launch had over 100 people. It now stands at 0 subs, and only 2 former subs have logged in recently. ( Me and a friend...both of which pulled the plug with chapter 16. ) Mind you, none of the people left the guild itself. Just quit the game.

Except the RoTHC story was still better than KoTFE, and more sensible. Not particularly great mind you, but still better. KoTFE is all "Plot Armor" this, "McGuffin" that, and lets throw in some "Deus Ex Machina!" Mind you, that's when the story is even progressing. If you want to talk about side adventures that did little to move the story, that was half of the KoTFE chapters! That should have been quite obvious though when they went with the ol' "Lol, it's been 5 years and the world around you has changed!" That's right up there with lost memory for a story starter. ( Sort of the same. You can say you lost memory of the last 5 years. )

No, it really wasn't. And that's one of the issues. Though, there was also that it was a BAD story for Bioware, was extremely short, and just generally lacked anything outside of the core story besides a couple minor trinkets. All while being the most buggy expansion they have put out. ( Launch day had less issues. ) It felt more like the free content updates you would normally get between expansions, instead of being a once a year expansion with no other content at all that entire year.

That's a problem with game development: It takes quite awhile to make this stuff, so when you do something different ( IE moving to KoTFE instead of normal expansions ), you are also starting on the next one before you ever hear the feedback. In this case, it was a miss...and that means at least a sizable part of KoTET will be a miss as well. They're probably scrambling to change what they can, but there's only so much that can be done.

You forgot where he saves the player and does exactly the same as if you had kept him happy instead, negating any choice.

Once you complete 16 you can get them back now. Same terminal to get back companions that starting KoTFE takes away.