On a personal level I agree. I don't like the mixed colors. But there really are more than just RGB in Star Wars. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber_crystal shows there are quite a few colors in the lore. I just wish we would see more variants on the "normal" colors. I would love a viridian.

Gunslingers already do this when they do their sweeping blast thing (or whatever its called). So gangsta.

I agree. Even WoW does this with their monks-- granted its just their idle animation, but its something. But then again I dunno-- I don't think they even did forms right in this game. Juyo should've been jugg/guardian and Sentinels/Maras should've gotten Niman/Jar'kei. And why consulars/inqs don't use a form? Sure they don't necessarily need a full stable to choose from but it should still be recognized.

I have a 50 of every class in my sig. Not going to go into storylines, but I would say my ranking is thus (and I'll only do DPS specs just so we're comparing like to like) (also specifically for raiding and not necessarily ranked by effectiveness): Annihilation Marauder TK Sage Lethality Operative Sab/DF hybrid Gunslinger Vigilance Guardian Sharpshooter Gunslinger Least favorite: Madness Assassin Focus Guardian Balance Sage Concealment Operative Don't know or "Meh" (no order): Hybrid Sage Sab Gunslinger Deception Assassin No class is perfect and all of them have strengths and weaknesses. Like I hate the fact that annihilation marauders have effectively zero multi-target DPS, but I still find them to be the most enjoyable to play. And some people only find enjoyment in relative effectiveness. Some classes will parse better than others.

I leveled a thief to 80 in GW2 and I absolutely hated any sort of group PvE encounter due to the lack of the trinity. It was mildly novel idea for a day or two, but when squishy melee-centric classes become a liability then the system is fundamentally unstable. The trinity is good because it works.

Honestly I doubt the voice acting is that expensive. If you look at the imdb of those voice actors they are normally working on like 10 projects at a time. That leads me to believe that these guys are probably making good money but not great money. And honestly how much work is there? Jennifer Hale is a big name voice actress, especially with Bioware (maybe she's got a bulk contract with discounted rates at this point) and how many hours of voice acting did she put into this game? And she's 2 primary characters (Satele and Fem Troop) with a couple small Bastilla cameos. A dozen hours maybe and that's pushing it. Do you think these voice actors are making $500k an hour? They would have to if we are going to assume that Bioware spent "most of their money on voice acting" ($500,000 x roughly 200 hours = $100 million). Which is of course absurd. Jennifer Hale probably made $100k tops. David Hayter, Nolan North, and the other "big name" guys that were the class actors probably made $50kish. Lacey Chabert and all the small work side characters probably made less than $10k. Then there is probably a staff of background noise guys that we hear over and over again that make a modest yearly salary. Maybe some percentage based yearly royalties thrown in for everybody. And I feel these numbers are being generous given how many other projects these guys all work on. We aren't talking about Tom Hanks and big screen box office draw here. Could that all total up to a few (operative word being "few") million? Yes. Is that easily affordable for a game of this size? Yes.

It's not the most thorough piece of objective journalism ever produced, but it's a decent surface article.

I just hope they add a few of the pack items as individual purchases down the line. Let them be rare and shiny for a little while but let us buy them later.

I'm woefully disappointed in this decision and anyone that follows me on these forums knows I do not complain much at all. In fact, I've been accused of being a bit of a fanboi. Woefully disappointed.

I have to say I really like the jedi one, but the sith one leaves a bit to be desired. The destroyer set is still better looking imo. I might get the jedi set for my assassin's Azshara though (not paying for it obviously but off the GTN).

To all the "it's just a content patch and should be free" people-- when has a level increase ever been free in an MMO? No this doesn't sound like some big massive epic expansion. Not all expansions have to follow WoW's model. EQ1 released a TON of small expansions like this over shorter periods of time. Legacy of Ykesha I'm looking at you. Now we don't know that they plan on releasing expansions faster or not. If they release 3 $20 expansions in relatively short order over a year or 18 months is that not the same as one big $60 expansion but we just get to access parts of it sooner? Sounds like it to me. New content is awesome and I'm glad we're getting it.

I have finished 6/8 of the class stories. I would rank them thusly: IA > SW > Smuggler > SI > JK > JC. Empire stories are just better. You say afternoon cartoon? JK is the very definition of cliche afternoon cartoon. JC tried to go the more mature route but fell flat on keeping it interesting. IA is good enough to be its own full feature film. SW is amazing if you actually RP it (by that I mean making choices based on the situation and not full dark or full light). If you just mash the dark button it's cheesy. Although I tend to agree that the overarching empire bits leave a lot to be desired.

While they're at it-- the Jedi crews don't even have beds.

I have a i5-2500k, HD7770, 8gb DDR3 64-bit Win7 machine and I crash maybe once a day after a lot of hours (6+). I have a buddy with a machine little better than a modern toaster that crashes roughly every hour. It's not just 32-bit machines.

Elemental and energy use force crit. Your sage should have the elemental proc, not the internal. You're missing out on about 15-20% crit on the proc. Not a huge massive difference, but definitely a noticeable one. I have heard that if you put in a ticket and ask for a swap they might grant it so long as it "hasn't been too long". And no tooltips. This was all learned by trial and error by parsers.

From Tibbel on the Lethality Sniper subforum on MMO Mechanics (Thread is here. Post is #209): Summary (for lethality specs anyway) is: EWH: 33.4 DPS. DG Boundless Ages: 49.3 DPS. DG proc relic: 49.4 DPS. So yes. Dread Guard is BiS for PvE.

Gunslinger/Operative -- I think it's easier to justify a 30 meter range with pistols than a sniper rifle. And operatives fit the sneaky role far better than scoundrels. Knives = quiet. Shotguns = not quiet. Vanguard/Merc -- Trooper just gives off the biggest tank vibe to me. Soldier smash kind of deal. Bounty Hunters are more opportunistic and fighting from range seems to depict that better. Guardian/Mara -- I could go either way on this one, but I'm going to detract from the consensus. Jedi = protectors and the single saber thing just vibes better. Sith are more aggressive and dual sabers depicts this-- although Juggs make a case for the menacing. Shadow/Sorc -- This one basically hinges solely on force lightning. I have a 50 sage and a 25 sorc and the sorc just feels so much more right than spamming pebbles. And the shadow reminds me of Satele and I dig that. I love Satele.

If you consider a tacky snowblower with Christmas lights and your unwillingness to pay for it being ripped off I dunno what to tell you. It's in no way forced on you at all.

And if we stripped away all revenue then we wouldn't have a game at all.

No. It's a cosmetic item not required for gameplay. And the revenue of those transactions goes toward producing new content for the game.

It's just the lag.

+1 to Darthbuckets. Dread Guard Boundless + Dread Guard Relic relative to your class (see Buckets list) are BiS PvE dps right now.

Totally not true. Full dex build single saber/scout/guard was what the power gamers were running. Max difficulty and nigh unstoppable. The answer is clearly a dps guardian (light side Revan) or dps jugg (dark side Revan).

I'm still here. I do hope that our first expansion will address a lot of problems though. We need better crew skill involvement and we need more sandbox. But I shall remain.

As someone who isn't flying the "omg its pay 2 win!" flag, this article does hit on a lot of important points. The ship droid stuff should have been given to crew skills. Going with a comm booster would have been a better idea than straight gear.