It has potential, we'd just have to make sure the action doesn't devolve into the two teams basically playing team deathmatch.

While the icons usually give you an accurate idea of what a weapon looks like, I too would like to see a weapons preview before actually investing the credits or commendations into a new saber or gun.

And this is a problem how? The themes used in the Star Wars films apply to characters and organisations that haven't been born or don't exist at the time of TOR, and since music is a narrative tool in Star Wars, it only makes sense that they write all new music for the game. To apply to these new characters, moments, themes and organisations. Frankly, I find it very refreshing to play a Star Wars game where the Imperial March or Duel of the Fates doesn't kick in every so often. And if you understood why the music in Star Wars was used in the way that it was, you'd be more likely to agree that the new music (over five hours of it) was composed with the best interest of the story and the game in mind. If you want your music ripped straight from the film soundtrack CDs then you're more than welcome to play the countless games that (almost) exclusively use the music from the movies, or make your own playlist in your media player of choice consisting of classic Star Wars music and play whichever you feel is most appropriate while playing, with the in-game music turned off , of course. That said, the core of Star Wars' music, the Force theme, pops up at regular intervals when playing through the story with a Jedi character, so the classic themes do get employed where and when appropriate.

Not to mention I don't think everyone would appreciate having a guild leader (much less an entire guild) pressuring you into going out to grind, because hey, there's a really sweet costume you can buy once you get to Guild Level 5 and you wouldn't want to let the guild down, now would you? *glower glare*

Or you could just accept that you haven't the slightest idea of how game design and keeping your publisher appeased works. Or you having a blatant disregard for the Star Wars lore, either or both. A Rodian simply wouldn't be accepted in Imperial society, ergo, none of the existing class stories would work. And even within the Republic many simply don't trust them since countless Rodians end up as gangsters. And even fewer trust Trandoshans. Plus, again, designing these things would cost time and money. And any stroll around any crowded place reveals most characters are human, most players therefore don't want aliens and thus, making Trandoshans or whatever playable would be a waste of money as their inclusion wouldn't bring in enough new subscribers to make up for the effort done. At the end of the day EA is trying to run a business. They're not going to waste tens of thousands of dollars making all the needed models and systems to give whatever "freak race" you desire enough variety to avoid constantly bumping into clones, write and voice new reactions from NPCs across the many planets in the game, perhaps even make new helmet and glove models to fit their bodies, and at worst, all new class stories, if it's only going to appeal to a minority, no matter how vocal they might be.

Pretty much what Chazdolt said. Just take a stroll around your local Fleet station, Republic or Imperial, the vast majority of characters are white skinned humans (or Miraluka, but same thing really) with brown or black hair. Most players are so dull that they just model their characters after themselves. If most people can't even get themselves to roll a Mirialan, Twi'lek or Zabrak, let alone someone of a different skin colour than their own, then it's pretty safe to presume that making playable Rodians, Sullustans, Trandoshans or whatever the hell else would largely be a waste of resources as only a small minority would actually use them. PLUS it is a hold up since last summer in an interview with TotalBiscuit, Daniel Erickson explained that "freak races" would need their own classes and stories (since people around the Star Wars galaxy treat them differently from humanoids), and that would obviously take a whole lot of time and resources. Time and resources better spent on adding more humanoid aliens and expanding the stories of the existing classes rather than making new starter planets and chapters 1-3 for the new "freak race" classes.

Oh sure, but even that has its flaws, especially for the 360. A single DVD can hold at most 8.7GB, TOR is currently already 21GB in size. So people playing TOR would probably regularly have to stand up to swap discs once they get to a point where they can freely travel planets. Plus it would be tricky to release a new disc whenever a new major update hits TOR. (And let's not forget these can be in excess of a gigabyte as well, again, not ideal for people who bought their console with only the smallest possible hard drive) So all in all, for a game the size of TOR a PC still is the most convenient method of playing.

Not a fan of the level cap increase, but everything else more than makes up for it. Hopefully we'll also get some extra character slots so I can actually MAKE a Cathar.

So how much story and lightsaber and ground based content did you enjoy in X-Wing vs. TIE-Fighter? Oh that's right, there is none. Because Lucasarts chose to focus purely on the space combat in that game. Why can't you accept that TOR chose to focus on the ground experience for TOR for the most part? There is such a thing as spreading yourself too thin. This game took five years to develop as is, adding a fully fledged space experience would have required a whole load of extra talent and time as no one on the current TOR team has any experience with such titles. It's a choice they made and personally I'm glad that they did because the ground content is very enjoyable to me and the current space missions make pleasant little five minute long distractions. Sure, I would've been happy with more space but I don't feel that TOR ~needs~ it since there's other games that fill that niche.

Well think of it this way, to anyone watching at home who doesn't have TOR yet, would them mentioning the addition of a card game really make you jump out of your chair or couch and proclaim "TO THE STORE! THIS has made me decide to get The Old Republic!"... yeah, don't think so. That said, I'm really liking the look of the new space mission and will gladly play it once it comes out. Less than thrilled about an increased level cap though.

Well, they've announced that they'll be adding more species before the end of the year (hopefully with extra character slots since I've used up all of mine on my usual server!) So let's hope that one of them will be Cathar. They actually fit the requirements set by Bioware for making a species work as playable. It's almost a given that Torgruta will be playable so might as well give Cathar as well. What really is going to be interesting to see is what species they'll use for Imperial classes that aren't Inquisitors or Bounty Hunters that won't upset the lore too much.

So you're basically going to quit because you don't get a lot of vibroswords? Vibroswords almost every padawan throws aside the moment they become actual Jedi Knights? Considering they ~have~ to make a lightsaber in order to actually reach knighthood? The blade that marks them as fully fledged members of the Jedi Order both to their peers and to the galaxy at large? How sensible and mature of you.

I can't see it working, particularly Xbox owners aren't used to having to install 20gb+ sized games onto their consoles, some Xbox units don't even HAVE that much file space to start with. And for an 80gb PS3 it also is a serious amount of filespace to consume that will only increase with every update that comes out. Especially after a first expansion pack I could seriously see TOR eating up about half the storage space an 80gb PS3 has to offer, and considering that's not the only game to feature added content and/or DLC on the PS3, I can't see too many PS3 owners willing to sacrifice half of their console's hard drive to a single game. And then of course I'm not even getting started over controller inputs. Sure you can have USB keyboards and mice, but how many people can comfortably use both a keyboard and mouse from wherever they usually play their console? If a game requires additional peripherals to play well it's ideal to box them with the game, and a keyboard would make for a pretty darn big box... and even then most would still have to buy some sort of table so they can actually play on their couch. So long story short: Yeah...no.

Yeah, sorry, no, I've read fanfics that felt more Star Warsy than the prequel trilogy did.

You have no understanding of how the TOR soundtrack works. This Empire is NOT Palpatine's Empire, thus, they don't use Palpatine's Imperial March, and instead they went and wrote their own motifs and and themes resulting in a soundtrack with over eight hours of original music rather than most Star Wars games which lazily rip their music straight from the Star Wars soundtrack discs. And in my opinion, this helps make it feel like you're in the Star Wars galaxy over three and a half thousand years before the era of the films. It's Star Wars, but different. In my opinion the new music does its job more than adequately, invoking the sense of familiar themes without actually using them (such as music used on Hutta frequently using the same instruments heard in Jabba The Hutt's theme without actually using the theme). On topic: The less used from The Force Unleashed 2 the better, the TFU duology is in my opinion some of the worst Star Wars games ever put out there, to the point I'd rather play Force Commander. And really, I'm not sure what you mean with more Star Wars in TOR, topic creator, as in my experience, TOR simply oozes Star Wars. Edit: And please, dark and gritty is so overused these days, let's keep Coruscant as is, shall we? If you want dark and gritty go play Warhammer or something. (Not to mention, how do you want to mix dark and gritty with Star Wars if ESB is Star Wars at its grittiest? This shouldn't drift into Blade Runner territory)

It would be a bit of a hassle to add new areas to existing planets though as no matter how small they are, we'd have to redownload the whole planet in a patch. That said, at the Guild Summit Bioware did say they'd be adding more RP areas in future content but no word on whether or not it'd be instanced, so you'll have to take your ERP to your ship still for the time being.

Well, odds are your ideas will never make it into the game since almost all the voice actors signed long term contracts with Bioware and as such, are still actively voicing content in the game, at a last report in January they were voicing content not meant to go into the game until mid 2013, so it is pretty safe to say the story will continue sooner or later and that the expansion pack story was written before TOR was even launched.

Well to be fair, in an interview around... January of this year, they did say that the voice actors were already voicing content that's not supposed to go into the game until mid 2013, so I'd say it's fairly safe to say that we're good for content for at least another year.

And why would a Sith artifact be on a planet that has never been colonised and doesn't even have a clearing large enough to land anything larger than an X-Wing on? There's got to be a logic to a story, plus all other classes would need a reason to be there as well... on this planet with no towns, people, or anything.

It would help if you stated your reasoning why. As I said, it would seriously increase the production costs of the game as EVERY line of dialogue for EVERY player character would have to be recorded by two extra people.(And this is simply the Sith Warrior ending up in the Jedi Knight story, giving a Republic Sith Warrior his or her own story would REALLY push up production time and costs) Along with additional responses for NPCs and also finding out a way on how to handle the companions. Some companions of Imperial characters pick up are devoted to the Empire to a degree that they'd gladly die for it, I can't see them tagging along with a defector, and you can't just hand them all five of the companions of their counter-class. Not to mention, you honestly shouldn't expect this to be in the first expansion pack even IF Bioware for whatever reason saw merit in that suggestion. In an interview around the start of the year Bioware already said the voice actors were already voicing content that wasn't meant to be in the game until mid 2013. So odds are all the stories and quests (and by extension, all the planets) for the first expansion pack already have been written, designed and voiced. So if you want to push the first expansion pack back to 2014, go on right ahead

And watch as you regret that wish as the expansion pack brings a ton of people back, bringing back the queues. ;D That said, I really wouldn't recommend a switch of faction as that would lead to a LOT of extra writing for the teams. Because an NPC would react differently to an ex-Sith than someone who was born and raised within the Jedi Order. Not to mention I doubt a redeemed Sith would magically lose his Imperial accent so the voice acting would get doubled, too. And really, why planets like Dagobah? It's just a swamp, nobody lives there, there's nothing to see, discover or do. All you could possibly do is slaughter the local wildlife.

Just log out then whenever you leave the PC. If not deleting your character they could still give, I dunno, all your money to a random stranger, delete everything in your inventory, and so on. If you want to avoid people doing things to your characters out of spite the best thing you can do is log out. Or not incur their wrath.

Yes, TOR should bring down the servers right now to implement this even though they said they'd include it in 1.3, the rest of 1.3 can wait but this must be put in right now because someone on the internet demanded it! Seriously...

So? Did you also go knocking on the doors of the Warner Bros. movie lot because you already pre-ordered tickets to the Dark Knight Rises? Insisting you are allowed onto the set, get to read the script and give ideas to the director just because you already gave the studio a flimsy $10 or whatever a ticket goes for in your area? It doesn't really work like that. EA's investors gave them millions to make TOR with, you gave them at most $200 so far. That's not even a percent of the investors gave, so I don't think that quite entitles you to total transparency into the future development of TOR. Now if this game was crowdfunded through Kickstarter or Rockethub, then yeah, then you would be entitled in more transparency since you are an actual investor in the initial (and possibly continued) development of the game.

Bioware has no obligation to be transparent in its development process to anyone but its publisher and investors. Secondly, I'll just have to quote Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation here, and the TOR fanbase embodies this like no other. "Fans are clingy complaining dips**ts who are never ever grateful for any concession you make. The moment you shut out their shrill, tremulous voices the happier you will be for it." Not to mention, I'm sure the people who have been making video games for about as long as the average player has been alive know a bit better what's best for this game than the aforementioned fan. Especially skimming through the suggestions forums here, there is a very loud group who'd like nothing more than to see TOR completely retooled into the disaster that was SWG.