If you're lvl 70 I had the same thing happen and the workaround is easy: open galactic command window, go to the story chapters option, and use that to start the story. If you aren't at lvl 70 with that character... no idea, sorry.

Since psandak explained the rest I'll just add: The Belsavis and Ilum daily areas have been there since launch, and were intended to be used by players to gear themselves for fps and ops when the level cap was still 50, so they are comparable in difficulty to the rest of the game. If you could solo to 50, you should be able to solo the dailies and bonus quests on Belsavis, Ilum and the Black Hole with the gear you have without much more difficulty than you have had to this point. Once again, excluding the heroics, which are easily avoidable. If you have alts anyways, I'd highly recommend finishing the class quest with at least one character, to both see how SWTOR finishes their personal storylines as well as opening up the bonus questlines. However, I know you can do at least the Black Hole and Ilum dailies without completing the class quest, if that's your decision; and, as I said, you're looking at a payout for just the soloable dailies of about 90-100k per day between those 2 areas (Ilum and BH) for about 1.5 hour time investment (less once you gear up a bit and get more familiar with the missions). Get enough creds together to buy 53-54 gear from the GTN for your character and companion and the rest of the daily content will become easily soloable as well (minus the heroics, of course). Then you'll be able to build your bankroll faster and be able to more comfortably finish training your crafting and companion skills without feeling like you are always poor.

Ok, from this post it really seems you need more starter tips than the intermediate advice you're getting. So, please take the following as the suggestions they are meant as... and apologies in advance if this is all stuff you know and for the length. Now, I can't really tell what your goals are, or why you're concerned about lvl 9 mats. Are you looking to be self-sufficient? Master all the companion skills? Just enjoy crafting? Or do you feel that doing your own crafting is the easiest/cheapest way to go? If it's the last then that couldn't be further from the truth. Crafting is a massive... MASSIVE credit and time sink, especially if you're unfamiliar with the game, which it sounds like you are. I'd avoid it completely until you have at least one max level character under your belt. So, my first advice is get your favorite/highest level character to 55, gear that character up reasonably well so they can make quick credits consistently for you, THEN go back and start crafting/"companioning". Instead of using "lvl 49 rags", I suggest getting yourself a cheap set of adaptive armor (last I checked I think you can get a set of the cheapest stuff for less than 5-10k per piece). Then use planetary comms to buy the mods you need to fill them up. It will be much more cost effective in the long run. This goes hand-in-hand with my general advice when you first start out: stockpile planetary comms. The only time you should even consider any other reward is if you are almost completely full or they offer a purple (or blue, always get the two mixed up) box or item you specifically need. The other rewards aren't nearly worth it IMO, and you can always find better stuff on the GTN to fill in the gaps. If you've been solo questing to level to this point, you should have enough that you might even be able to completely mod out your first set of adaptive armor with lvl 49 mods. Once you're geared that way, it should become much, MUCH easier to finish your class quest than using "rags", lol. Do so, because I believe you still need to finish the class quest to unlock the Belsavis bonus and Ilum quest lines. These quests can be soloed and will open up the dailies as well. Most all of the dailies on these planets are soloable, some with more effort than others, but when they are heroics they will let you know so you can avoid them. These dailies (and the Black Hole as well) will award "classic" comms, which you can use to buy mods that are a bit higher grade than the ones available from the fleet planetary comm vendors. They'll also allow you to get some credits coming in. If memory serves (I haven't done Belsavis dailies in awhile), you can typically net 125k+ in about 1.5-2 hours of dailies on Belsavis (I want to say it's more creds and less time, but I'd rather undersell than over promise... plus, it gets faster as you get better gear and more familiar with the missions), and around 50-60k for 20-30 mins on Ilum in addition to the comms. A couple days of doing that will get you and your primary companion well geared, have a fair amount of credits in the bank, and should have you leveled to around 53/54 (just to make it easier on yourself). At that time, I'd recommend spending your money and upgrading your equipment to lvl 53/54 gear and heading to Makeb or wherever and finishing the trek to 55. That's when I'd go back and start working towards completing your companion skills and/or gearing up alt characters. Now, someone mentioned the dailies get boring after awhile... that's true. However, it also sounds like you have yet to make it that far yet, so boredom shouldn't be a problem for quite some time (if repetition gets to you THAT quickly, MMOGs in general probably won't hold your interest for long). At any rate, while you're still building a bankroll, having all those dailies available for varieties sake gives you options whenever creds get low. It's not the most efficient method, but if you're limited to strictly soloing then it's actually pretty close, especially once you've geared yourself up a bit. Also, another credit sink that could be contributing to keeping you "credit poor" is spending them on missions for gathering skills when you don't need to. Gather as you level, ESPECIALLY for slicing. Slicing is all profit if you're collecting those nodes/boxes as you go, and ONLY doing missions if you find that you've fallen behind where you're questing or when you get to the point in your crafting that you need the missions for a specific reward. It's bad enough having to pay to level the mission skills, even worse having to pay to learn new schems AND for the mats to craft them from the crafting skills... make the leveling from the gathering trees as cheap as you possibly can! Hope I've explained that all well enough, and that it helps somewhat... and good luck!

City of Heroes/Villains did. You actually had the ability to toggle XP gain completely on or off at any time you wanted. However, in that game with the enhancement/invention system it actually made sense, because there were recipes that only dropped/were rewarded for TFs if the actual PC was in the level range. So you'd have farmers that literally got to a particular range for the drop they wanted then farmed recipes with that character in that level range endlessly. That said, whenever I hear people complaining about double XP I think about all the easy fixes: play level capped characters, unclench your sphincter and skip some of the world quests you've played probably a dozen times before already, try RP or PvP or space or OPs or something outside your comfort zone (who knows? you might actually like it), spend some time getting datacrons or achievements or otherwise exploring stuff IG you wouldn't typically do, better yet, explore the magic, mysterious land many of Clan Pasty know only by the terrifying name "outside", put in some extra hours at work getting overtime, or doing some extra chores for your parents so they'll give you more in your allowance, cry to offline friends about how TOR is wrecking your fun by making the level grind shorter, if you don't have any real friends, cry to online friends in PMs, emails, tweets or FB posts about the big meanies at BW making you get double XP against your will, spend a weekend being a good Samaritan helping out lowbies (or just people legitimately asking for help in chat)... most of all though, quit whining because maybe 1/2 dozen weekends out of the entire year you have to change your playstyle just a little. All that took, like, 5 minutes off the top of my head, too. Guess we've made it easier to whine than actually think. It's really no wonder we live in a world where governments have to actually waste time, effort and resources putting laws into effect that many of us would just consider common sense.

This. Demanding "balance" is a slippery slope that ends up as a "be careful what you wish for" cautionary tale more often then not. "Balance" is an illusion, if not just a flat out excuse, created by a generation that honestly doesn't know how to accept losing, gracefully or otherwise. There is just no reasonable way to "balance" 8 different ACs that each include 3 distinctly different trees, to say nothing of how many hybrid combos are available, in addition to all manner of equipment and buffs available.... and this doesnt even take into account groups and their random make-up, or the varying grades of player ability (or lack thereof) in a way that will make everyone happy. Well, short of totally homogenizing all the classes, which would pretty much defeat the purpose. At any rate, ask SOE how capitulating to every possible whim of every random pvper to offer up a complaint worked for their game- they bowed to every request brought their way and still had nothing but the constant QQ'ing on the pvp forums about how all their demands were ignored when they were turning off the lights.

Oh... snap! Just goes to show no matter how large you think your epeen is there's always someone with a bigger one.

What do Empire and Republic do on PvP servers? 8v 1 gankfests? Faceroll players 20+ levels lower then them? Sit around trying to create really clever names that try to involve "pwn" or "nub" or "sauce"? Come crying on the forums every time they lose claiming every other class is "OP" because losing in pvp is such srs bsns they can't handle dying? Sounds like an immature snoozefest.

1) Because pvpers whine about EVERYTHING. The next game that managed to keep pvpers "happy" would probably be the 1st. Not until they find a way to develop a game based wholly around pvp with permadeath corpse looting and where everyone gets their "I win" button and uber-1337 pvp gear at log-in and no one ever actually loses (trash talking NPCs with the usual pvper names like Ipwndj00 complete with hatetells and /ragequits would probably do the trick, can't imagine it'd be that hard to fool the pvp crowd). I'd love to see it just because maybe the rest of us could enjoy a game that spent time on content instead of patches perpetually spent on nerfs and "balance" to appease the QQers that got facerolled chasing after FotMs. 2) SWG didn't have space combat for the 1st year + after launch, then went and made it a paid expansion that STILL felt like an afterthought... all the way till the end. This is one where I just choose to blame GL, LA and the suits instead of the devs. Most of these sorts of high-budget games based on popular licenses are going to be pushed out early and incomplete because they would rather get those downloads purchased and subs coming in to keep the overpaid fatcats purring rather then worry about providing a quality experience for the paying customers. 3) Someone mentioned it, but KoTOR wasn't big on space combat to begin with. I'm not sure where they stuttered in their pre-launch comparisons of SWTOR to their prior console versions, but apparently a lot of the QQers missed all those memos. 4) And for all that people say they want space combat, I remember a lot of empty galaxy and not a lot of interest in actual piloting in SWG. There was a whole lotta QQ but not much pewpew when it comes right down to it.

/sign to both this and the OP. I thought the 'dressing room' feature was pretty nifty the 1st time I saw it, but the limitations are frustrating. Be a nice QoL improvement.

There's a reason for that: it's the "average Joe's" who pay the bills. It just seems there's a lot of you who don't get a lot about this process. It's a business. If people don't buy the games and pay for subs they wouldn't make the games. So it's the "average Joe" you have to thank, for the number of games out there, the production quality of those games, not to mention the number of games (or, in many cases, the fact that they were) developed around a particular popular license are available (LotR, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc... you think Lucas allows any company to use his stuff that doesn't have the potential to make a tidy profit?). Besides, if the good old days were really that good... they'd still be around. I mean, seriously, I'd feel bad for those of you out there that felt running for weeks just to get to a named boss spawn point to sit around for hundreds of hours camping in the hopes that some oh-so-precious piece of rare loot would drop as "entertainment" if most of you didn't insist and persist in coming off as such a sad little group of whiny elitists. I mean, you all talk about games like EVE and Rift and whatever else with such passion... why aren't you still playing them? By all means, go back; believe me, I don't think 99.9% of the 'average Joe's' who like their games to be recreational pasttimes and their RLs to involve the sun once in a while will miss you.

LOL. I really think it's one thing BW didn't take into account (or... maybe they did, who knows) when they made the decision to make cut-scenes and voice acting play such a prominent part of their game, is that it's just one more thing that they aren't going to please everyone with. I like the male Consulars voice, but it fits the character *I* wanted my JC to be: the holier-than-thou pompous jackwagon a lot of the 'canon' examples of the class strike me as. I've even caught myself mouthing "sounds dangerous. I'll take care of it" along with him more times then I'd care to admit But I can also see how it won't fit everyone's playstyle or preferences. As far as the character gender issue... well, if you force yourself out of your comfort zone from time to time you might find yourself enjoying the view. I run the whole gamut myself: I love playing big, ugly non-humans, though after SWG so thoroughly screwed that option for so long I now tend towards humanoid male toons for my mains, but I also enjoy playing female characters (for the same reason a few have given- more fun to watch, and this game gives the added voide-overs which IMO makes it even more... interesting ). For the most part it's only creepy if YOU make it that way, like the guys out there playing female characters that insist you treat them like girls (*shudder*).

Actually, MMOs tend to be lacking because they try to pander to everyone, instead of trying to please any one select group. On one hand it's what has allowed these types of games to become so pervasive and give us so many differeng options... on the other it gives basement-dwelling tards who spend 20 hours a day, 7 days a week on a *game* some ignorant, elitist notion that they are "hardcore" at something besides BO. And THAT is what is really sad. The other reason is also because that same crowd, playing 24/7, blows through content intended to take people with actual lives months of playtime in weeks, then they come to forums much like these, QQing their little hearts out about how there's "nothing to do". So instead of bug fixes, QoL changes and overall betterment of the game we get "hardcore" stuff for the epeen waggling 1% (at least I hope the number is that low, the worlds in pretty pathetic shape if it's much higher then that).

Yep. Welcome to the wonderful world of MMOG's, where the loud, ignorant 25% dictate the play for the rest of us. Can pvpers just go away and ruin a different game with their constant, pathetic QQing now?

Ok, I honestly wish people would specify whether they are Republic or Imperial when asking these types of questions, it would make answering them accurately, and potentially trouble-shooting why they are having issues, much, MUCH simpler. If you are Imperial... I have no idea, as my highest Imp is currently lvl 19, and can only point you to threads like this one to help you further. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=261530 If you're Republic... well, it isn't a mission dropbox-type terminal, it's a big Twi'Lek named Lt. Ma'laa standing next to a dropbox to the north end of the interior circle of Carrick Station. Hope that helps.

Yes, with the caveat that every game has room to improve from launch.