I'm not sure what the problem is, whats so bad about getting in a group to do the Ziost Open World Boss, it is not difficult and doing mechanics actually makes it worth something rather then going to a vendor and spending coms or getting a drop off some mob somewhere (if there is a drop for it). I'm not sure why people bother to play an MMO if they are not willing to group up to get something of value (this WB spawns every 20 min and has no lockout and takes less then 5 minutes). To each his own though... You are not forced to have BiS (190/192/198) to do dailies and "story mode content", you have several options The 178 from L55 basic coms leveling vendor will do fine Buy a main hand 186 from GTN for 25-30k, well worth the price and no main difference from the 190 that most will see doing dailies and tacticals. Craft and reverse engineer the barrel/hilt yourself, the 186 can be made this way. Run Ziost Open World Boss for 190* MH, also the Enhancements are optimized*2 Run Ops get 192, TOS can take less then an hour if everyone knows "how to play their class" (ie dps can dps 2.5k on bosses, tanks can taunt, heals can heal, and people can not stand the "fire" so to speak) Purchase a 192 MH from GTN, these cost a lot because the Materials (or the main one) is only obtained from running 16man SM last bosses or 16Man HM OPs each boss.** * 190 gear - Ziost 190 Gear are very similar to 192 Elite gear, in fact most people wouldn't see a difference, this is partially because the Enhancements are optimized*2 *2 Optimized = more secondary and tertiary stats, less endurance..this translates into better role completion (more heals, more dps, better defenses, etc). Token gear from OP's are also optimized. MK-2 Enhancements*3 from OPs are optimized (except tanking gear for whatever reason). *3 Mk-2's = Operations drop Mk-2 gear, these are the same as Elite coms gear, except they have optimized Enhancements (except tank gear). 192 Token gear from OP's are better then 198 Coms gear for 2 reasons*** They are optimized*2 (see above) They are set gear, they give you extra bonuses for your class/roles ***while I know people think more HP is better, for your roles more heals, dps or tanking mitigation is better, in every case. This is a hard one for a lot of people to understand unfortunately. ** Unfortunately, instead of having 8man drop 1 of each thing it should drop and 16man 2 of everything it should drop, they think that 16man is harder and reserve higher drop rates for 16 mans, unfortunately this is not that case and a skilled group of 16 players make the 16man easier every time, so their logic is flawed. Even 16 players that have no idea what to do it is easier, even if they cant beat the bosses, but that's another story. Point is 16 man should simply drop 2x everything 8 man does. The game should do a better job of explaining stats and roles, basic rotations (2.5k dps on bosses), etc. Unfortunately, what KotFE is doing is removing stats to make it "easier" to understand gear, however this is not the problem, there is no reason to make it easier (it's already very basic as it is) by removing stats, people just need to understand what stat is what and how they work...Education within the game itself. Raids/Operations are not as scary as people think, the people are not all ******es like people think, There is so much more then just Dailies.

I think the issue here is not that the mount is cool or not, it's that its CM. Instead of getting items for playing the game the majority of decorations, outfits, weapons, companion customizations, mounts, pets, regen, emotes, etc are all from CM. Why not put half of them in the game as incentives to actually play the game. I understand that the CM is the only reason this game is alive (this is a fact), but why do you think that is...you only need a Cash shop (technically) if you cant provide enough content or reasons for people to stay subscribed and play the game. Of course this has more to do with the initial design of the game, but that's a whole other issue. Anyway, I'm not saying you can't have a cash shop, i'm saying it should supplement the games income, not be the income. People will subscribe if they feel the subscription is worth it, make it worth it. note: I do not believe that KotFE "story" expansion is the right direction, the only way story driven content would work is if they could release a Ziost sized patch every week all year, once a month wont cut it, not with no "other"/"mmo" content to go with it. On a side note I am one of the people who spend $100 a month on the game, to support it, but based on the KotFE info we have so far I have dropped that to $50, and will probably be just my sub after if they don't get their heads out of their *** and make mmo content.

good luck with your time guesstimates, you are probably double the real time (watching everything). You do know that raids is what WoW was mostly about right, yea they had other things, but Wow was a raiding game, since they started moving away from it, their subs have dropped, they even acknowledged they made a mistake with the last 2 expansions and the next expansion has been stated to go back towards what made wow great. today's MMO's are poorly designed and tired, innovation is needed but sadly companies are not innovative and stick with trying to be the next WoW, so they are all the same tired games. bioware has sadly screwed its current customers in favor of trying to get new ones, they should have done both, not just one, then there would be way less issues with this expansion in general.

I think you are sadly mistaken, I see and know what you are saying, but it will not like that in any way, it is one story with very little differences between choices, adding an extra mission if you choose an option, even 1 every chapter, does not really make the story different in any way. Dialog that leads to the same places after the conversation , even if it leads to a single extra mission, is not really choice. Also, being forced to make choices to get extra missions or to get affection or light/dark side points takes away any self choice as it is.

I actually mentioned that the "daily areas" are no upgraded and they can't hurt you in most cases, even yavin after the expansion will be a major disappointment). I am aware that the OP's and FP's are upgraded, and I'm sure they will be fun for a few runs, but I have played them a lot since launch (All the ops on SM<HM, and NIM's) and just because they will drop relevant gear does not make them fun anymore.

Yes it does, where story is a layer on top of the world not the world itself (just like a single player RPG), but it's too late for SWTOR, they are stuck in the WoW MMO design world and can't see past it for the life of them. Sadly, even WoW has acknowledged their mistakes with the last 2 expansions and are trying to not make those mistakes with their new expansion...unfortunately SWTOR following in WoW's footsteps is still 2 expansions behind and will make those same mistakes, instead of learning something.

No, there will be none, I'm sure they mentioned this, with the no new multi-player content.

Why are you worried about the hood and hair, Lana had a robotic hand/forearm but no one said anything about that.

Contrary to what the "Story" people want to say and the Dev's this expansion in no way has lasting choices that matter except within the limited confines of the "Linear Story that is KotFE". That being said, I'm sure the story will be fun the first 2 or 3 times, but once it's done, there are no choices that have lasting effects in any way.

Sounds like to me KotFE is a truly linear experience from start to finish. Yes you can have an extra mission here and there based on choices (that are all similar regardless of class, just different dialog/action choices (force persuade, etc), but you will end up playing the same story with all your characters. Then in the end instead of having repeatable content like daily areas, FP's, OP's, you have nothing, like Ziost and the console, where you have to wait until the next chapter release...just this bubble story expansion that sits on the side of the original game... ...so, what is there to do for the expansion after you finish the story? What's new for me to do that I can repeat, that will keep me going between chapters or at all. It doesn't look like I will even have a daily area on "new" planets or even visit them again (if they are like Ziost) after I complete a/all chapter(s). I don't understand the point of it all other then "a one time per character story"...and yes, the story is the same for EVERY CHARACTER CLASS, while at any given decision point each class might have something unique to say, the outcome is the EXACT SAME. So, again, I don't get it, what am I to do after I complete the story? (old content re leveled (OP's and FP's) and old daily areas that cannot hurt me don't count).

Exactly, easier to keep customers then get new ones, in any case you can imagine, including SWTOR.

Further, they need to move away from the slotted and tabbed storage bays, this is completely early game design model, should be by weight or volume. "Bank" Space, why do they use bank, this is star wars, futuristic, space, again not fantasy mmo x, it should be called "cargo space" or something like that not "Bank", I know they wanted to make WoW player feel at home, but even they can figure out what the "Banking" system is with different names, names that actually fit with the game lore. They changed Raid to Operations and Dungeons to Flashpoints, i think they could have changed Bank and done away with slots, tabs, mailboxes, etc. Stacks: this is 2015, stacks should be unlimited ( or between 2,147,483,647 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 depending on how you use the variables, even word size or smallint, short, int16, whatever language your using is 32,767 to 65,535 more then enough for stacking purposes). I think stacks are stuck less for technical reasons and more for that's how it's done in x game(s) before, so they keep using it over and over again, even when there is no reason to do it.

1) I'm sure there thinking on this is if they added it to fleep people might not use strongholds 2) There shouldn't even be mailboxes int he first place, this is star wars, not fantasy mmo 78, we should have datapads with mailbox functionality 3) I'm sure this has to do with making sure people don't bring more then the amount required into FP's and instances, but they should fix it for strongholds/guildships 4) I really hate loggin off on planet and then showing up on the orbital station... 5) the spawn immunity for 60-90 seconds whatever it is, when you log into fleet or port to fleet sometimes is insane 6) Again, like mail all weeklies (not dailies, just weeklies) should not be physical missions but a tab on your datapad, that are always there with either an open or completed next to them.

Why don't we just remove armor and give everyone everything because obviously people are too stupid and lazy to actually try and play the game to get things... ..dumbing everything down and not making things a grind (skill or time) or hard is the problem with games now days, *********** lazy *** people. Secondly, It's game companies having no backbone, not creating games that have depth and not requiring you to learn to play that is also the problem.

Datamining wouldn't exist if Bioware actually released information regularly, in a professional and informative way. Even when information is released at "Events" they don't update their site with anything, don't put the "new" information anywhere, they don't do anything to officially spread the information on their site or help separate fact from fiction. People are forced to use third party gathered information to get any information, there are only tow reasons for this: 1. Bioware is afraid to release information and spread it themselves, given many of the changes with 4.0 i'm not surprised. 2. They are incompetent and have no idea what they are doing, which doesn't seem far from the truth given their design decisions of late.