I'd really like the Crafting skills to keep whatever sorting method I selected instead of continually defaulting back to Difficulty every time I ride an elevator, change zones, switch characters, etc. I prefer my recipes to be sorted by Level most of the time. I don't mind what the default is, but why oh why does the UI not simply persist my choice from zone to zone? Very frustrating.

..and repro'd the problem again, a few minutes later, by having Guard active while going up an elevator (which changed our zone).

... possibly confirmed; just happened as I left a Group instance with my friend guarded. Upon exit, the "guard" bubble effect stopped showing. When I removed the Guard aura from my bar and tried to re-guard her, instantly received "target is already guarded".

Just updating and bumping this post; I'm running into this problem with a pair of level 20 Bounty Hunters. I'm in Powertech spec; my friend is in Mercenary. Guarding usually works, but sometimes - seems like it might be related to entering/leaving story zones? - she becomes unguardable. I can guard my companion, her companion, or no one at all.. just not my fellow player. I have to log out and back in to fix the problem.

Just handled with a 46 Assassin (Deception/DPS) and a 45 Sorcerer (Corruption/Healing). Usually I run Khem as a tank so I can Maul things but it simply didn't work here. Assassin pet: Talos (heal mode) Sorc pet: Andronikos (ranged dps) Positioning: I set the Sorc and Andronikos at one corner of the large 'square' that makes up the entryway this beast of a boss fights in, then told them not to move -- for anything. Once Talos started healing, he wound up about halfway down the opposite side from where the Sorc was stationed, a positioning I might call "less than ideal". Other: I flipped my Deception-spec Assassin over to Dark Charge (tank stance) and I was wearing nothing but DPS gear. Combat: Pulled with Discharge (to lower enemy accuracy), then kited like a fiend. Used my sprint move when the cooldown came up; threw Force Shroud to block the Draw In / AOE death field, when able; used Unbreakable Will to slip the movement lock the boss has. My kiting strategy boiled down to "run up and down the opposite side from my Sorc healer". We'd tried this with Khem in DPS mode; didn't work at all. I had to have Talos out to take some of the healing burden off my Sorc. Fortunately Talos can also self-heal, so if the boss drops a fire probe near him, it doesn't matter too much. My Talos was wearing his stock gear from where I found him, too, so don't think you have to load him up to the gills to make this fight viable. That said, I can't imagine ever doing this quest again. What a pain in the rump! This Champion was of an entirely separate class compared to other things that have been fought to date.

Some things to consider; Cross-Server Group FInders are very, very good Allowing people to find groups across multiple servers lets people on lower-population systems enjoy the same breadth of gaming options. Same goes for people who play in unusual timezones (after midnight for east coast, for example). This works best for task-specific groups - finding teams for flashpoints, for example. (Also works best when people are simply placed together, rather than polling through a list of possible members. WoW's dungeon finder was rickety at first but became an example of how to do this right.) If you're letting people pick members from a group list, you should let individuals set LFG comments. That will help people explain what content they're looking for, what they're spec'd or geared for, if they have any particular goals or time constraints, etc. (FFXI's comment system worked well for this.) Auto-refreshing windows are very useful! Sure beats having to re-open the group-finder all the time. Having functionality similar to, or as an extension of /who, makes logical sense. If you can filter /who by area, by level, by name, by class, etc., then a group finder should have similar options. (Particularly if you're allowing people to select others from the group finder, rather than auto-building parties for various events.) (FFXI didn't have a group finder; their /who plus LFG comments did the job. Of course, that was quite a few years ago, and things can be done better now.)

There is nothing wrong with voicing displeasure, nor is there anything wrong with voting with your feet. There is nothing wrong with claiming you're leaving, then staying through patch after patch, maintenance window after maintenance window, complaining all the while. This, too, is acceptable. There is also nothing original about this process, which is probably what irks other readers. Anti-posts lead to support-posts; people on different sides of the aisle needle each other; it's the circle of forum life. It happened on WoW's forums. It happened with EVE (though the community there is generally hostile to malcontents). It happened with EQ, EQ2, Ragnarok Online, Ultima Online, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, World of Tanks, and it happened for MUDs back in the early 90s. Any time you create a community and invite player opinion, some portion of that opinion is going to be negative. And some portion of those negative responses is going to be dedicated to "I AM LEAVING AND HERE'S WHY YOU SHOULD TOO ARRRRGH". For if there is a universal truth, it's that misery loves company.

I can't really tell if it's full-faced; I'm stuck with Light armor and the corresponding piece is Heavy. Can't even see it on my character model with a ctrl+click. Perhaps it is! ... though it doesn't explain why all my companions behave identically. And I've no way to disable the modulation. =)

Excellent suggestion - it looks like his headpiece is doing the modulation. After I took his headgear off (and talked to him a couple times) the game realized he was back to his bald, beautiful self and his voice was restored to normal. So I guess what we really need is a way to 'hide head slot' (or some equivalent) for our companions, if we want their normal voices back. Additionally, even though only Khem has headgear on, my other two companions also have modulated voices. I wonder if it's all tied together?

My Khem sounds nothing like his usual self in 1.2. All his speech comes through like he's got a mask on, or as though he's talking through a holo-communicator. I miss his deep, rumbling commentary.