I know, Blizz almost had me rolling BH...

So let's address it this way: let's say story mode puts you up against some tough elite. As an Annihilation marauder, I'm pretty confident with Quinn backing me up. I just need to keep my DOTS going, and in most circumstances I can go toe-to-toe with even the nastiest elites, burning them down over time. But how would I handle the same situation with Rage? Let's say I'm going against Vengen. Seems like I'd double jump him, but wouldn't my attack be kind of wasted against a powerful single target (because of AOEs)? Once I've popped the initial jump/smash attack, seems like I would be pretty open to getting smacked down. Anyone have any thoughts?

My character likes Baras. She's going to kill him, but she respects him. She always figured he'd betray her anyway.

I'm also curious about this, and was actually just about to post something. It seems to me that Rage is great for PVP, but I'm not sure about its PVE utility. I speculate that it's decent for clearing out trash mobs, but not so good when you have to go toe-to-toe with an elite or story boss. I'd love to get the inside scoop from someone with experience though...

Make sure you go full Dark Side during the conversion scenes, though, or else you might get stuck with the lame Light Side version...

I am taking my time, and also enjoy the game. Yup.

Who is the best companion in the game and why? Also, what is your favorite moment with that companion? Here's my choice: Warning: due to the nature of my choice, certain details may be offensive to some readers. Viewer discretion is advised The companion: Dark Side Jaesa Willsaam Why the best: In my opinion, Jaesa Willsaam (Dark Side version) is one of the more subversive characters in a video game. Here's my read on her: you know that stereotype of that really sheltered (Mormon, Christian, take your pick) girl who finally escapes to collage and then goes completely off the rails when she walks into her first kegger? That's Jaesa Willsaam. Except instead of going crazy on beer or pot, she's gone crazy on the Dark Side. Instead of getting hammered and ending up in some strange boy's bed (although she does that too, see below), she gets drunk on mass slaughter and evil. Don't believe that take on her character? Remember what the first thing she asks you after to turn her: can she finally go find a boy and get <<bleep>>? As the entire purpose of the first act of the Sith Warrior story, she could have been vanilla and bland (maybe the Light Side version is). I think this is a really bold character choice and I commend BioWare for giving us a blood-crazed ex-Daddy's Girl. She's like the virginal Final Girl in a sorority house slasher movie -- who ends up teaming up with the slasher and killing everyone else in the house. Jaesa's also fun because she shows a different side of the Jedi - the repressive, controlling, patronizing side. You get the impression with her that she never had a moment of freedom in her life -- until your character came along. Also, she yells "More nerfs to the slaughter," which cracks me up every time I hear it. Best moment: My favorite moment with Jaesa came when I noticed on her little portrait that she wanted to speak with me, so I went to her room on my ship. There, she breathlessly described how, on shore leave, she hooked up with some random guy and rocked his world. Oh, and she may have also murdered him in cold blood, but she couldn't recall. Bonus sexual politics section: I don't mean to get too risque, but Jaesa has an obvious sexual perversion thing going on. It's not just that she is herself a sex-crazed blood junkie; it also has to do with her romance options. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you play a male Sith, you can 1) murder her "dad," 2) corrupt her and turn her to evil (including sexual evil), 3) completely dominate her mind and her world, and 4) through the romance options, <<bleepity bleep bleep >>. My only complain about this: I play a lady Sith. BioWare, when are the same-sex romance options coming, so I can complete Jaesa's "transition to the dark side" ?!?

I tend to look at this issue in another way: This is an MMO, right? The goal is to have people group up and do things together. At least, that's a big part of playing an MMO. The primary responsibility for that grouping should not be dumped on the player, either by forcing her to spam the chat channels for an instance, or her spam the chat channels for a guild. Instead, grouping should be effectively supported by the correct game mechanics. At the basic level, these should be group-finding tools, travel-mitigation tools, and other system features that remove barriers to entry for grouping. When you're no longer playing in the kiddie pool, you get more advanced tools, like many of Rift's features. I think the ultimate goal is to not force players to group in order to advance, but to give them reasons to want to group, and then make that seamless and easy to do. Probably the best grouping experience I ever had was way back in the day, in City of Heroes. I don't know how they did it, but there was literally a "find group button." I would log in, click that button, and in less than a minute I kid you not I would get a group invite. I'd then meet up with my team mates, and we'd just tear through town together, doing whatever. Often it was killing high-level mobs for XP, but sometimes it was running instances. I think part of it was a culture of players who wanted to group and were interested in helping lowbies. But to me, that was the easiest and most fun MMO group type experience: click button, go. SWTOR should think about that kind of model: you should have four-mans just running around, getting into trouble, tearing up the joint. Good times.

In one of the concept art pieces for the interior of the Sith starship was one of those glowing Sith pylons, covered in runes. I think it was on a pedestal or a table or something. I know that, at some point, we'll be able to mess around with our ships and add things to the interior -- when that happens, I'd love to be able to add a pylon, and any other creepy Sith artifacts I can get my hands on.

I'm level 41, and I still haven't hit Social 1 yet. I still have the intro question that teaches you how to get social points in my tracker because I think it's funny. I have grouped on my character - twice. The second time didn't grant any social points, though, because it was a heroic that didn't have dialogue options. Look, clearly I could be doing more. I could stand around by the flashpoints and spam the chat channels for hours, looking for groups. I could stand next to the endless Heroics, spamming the chat channels in the hope that there are three others out of the 30 people on planet who also want to do that particular heroic at that particular level on that particular planet. What about my guild, you ask? Oh, the ones who run flashpoints all shot up to max level in a few days and have no interest in doing the kiddie stuff that I need. BioWare - grouping sucks in this game. I'm not talking about the actual heroics or instances themselves - I like grouping with others, and have found the few times I've been able to do it to be quite enjoyable. It's just too difficult to get into groups. After playing this game for a while, as well as many other MMOs, I think this is where my difficulty is coming from: 1. There are too few people to generate a good group pool. When I'm on any particular planet, I rarely see the number of other players on that planet exceed 40. That's too small of a number to generate enough potential partners for particular heroics. I'm not sure if its sharding or just not that many people play the game or what, but that's how it seems to me. 2. There are too many Heroics. It's just overkill in the current system. They're scattered everywhere, they're only relevant for a limited level range and there's no quick travel system to get to them. Most Heroics I've done is after I've leveled way past them, and I return to solo it for kicks. 3. There's no system to assist in grouping. No quick travel, no LFG. Sorry, but I play games for fun; spamming chat channels is not fun. "But you need to work for it!!" the hardcore players say. "No," I respond. "Now go shave your neckbeards." So BioWare, what I think you need to do is THROW AWAY ANY PLANS TO ADD A WOW-STYLED LFG SYSTEM AND GO WITH RIFT'S SYSTEM INSTEAD I'm dead serious. Since you have nothing now, don't make the old mistake and think 2004. Here's how grouping for most things works in Rift: 1. I go someplace where some open group thing is happening 2. Someone else comes to the same place 3. We are now grouping ...But since that may not be possible, at least not for the next couple year's worth of content, how about this: I still think you should try to think outside the box and not to replicate the same LFG systems that have appeared in other games. This is just a random idea for getting more players into the Heroics: 1. What if Heroics weren't just instances that you went to on particular planets, but things that you collect? Bear with me. What if, in running around, say, Taris, you bump into a Heroic missing giver. Doing so unlocks that Heroic in a new, nifty Heroic management interface. From this interface, you can select specific Heroics you want to run or have the system assemble a group for you for any Heroic, same as any other LFG system out there. Once the group is together, you teleport right to the Heroic. BUT: for fun, what if there were also rare Heroics out there that were harder to find? Maybe some are only accessible by maps or keys that drop randomly? What if some are just in out of the way places, like Holocrons? If those Heroics also had really rare, interesting gear, then suddenly there would be motivation to find and run them. Make gathering Heroics similar to gathering Achievements. Finding really rare Heroics and completing them should unlock special titles. Obtaining a certain number of Heroics in your list should unlock titles, or open up new tiers of other Heroics. Eh, whatever. Since I posted an idea about grouping, 10,000 hardcore fanbois will be all over my case about not working hard enough and modern MMOs are toooooo easy and and BW will close the topic. But that's for reading!

I think the option is simple: through crafting, be able to make really, really cool and unique items that you can get no where else. Also: support crafting in-game; i.e., why not have fully-voiced crafter quests that put you on adventures to find rare ingredients at the high levels? Also: as you move up in your profession, the game should unlock various passive bonuses, skills and other advantages for your character, so it's not just about making "stuff." Also: tie crafting into your light/dark side choices. So if I'm really dark side, I should be able to unlock some really cool items in my crafting fields with good dark side flavor. Just a few thoughts.

I'm dark IV; my eyes were already yellow so I didn't notice that, but they're red now. Also, lots of little veins are on my face, and some shadows and such. It's actually hard for me to make out all the corruption, as I gave my Sith a face full of scars to begin with. But you can't miss the red eyes.

I agree, I'd like to run them but there's no one around to group with, and all the members of my guild are already end-game. The best I can do is come back several levels later and solo them, but at that point it's just for the story (if there is one), and not for any XP or item gain. I'd love to see these scale, to allow us single players to run them solo if no one else is around...

I'm guessing that you probably haven't had enough (any?) experience with the real thing to tell the difference... but I'm actually female, yes.

What a strange thing to post. Horns? Sith corruption, as I see it on my Dark IV character, is red eyes, some veins, pale skin, dark shadows here and there (around the eyes, mouth)... so, as I posted, it's a matter of extending the color pallet down from the head. And I WILL see the corruption... if I'm wearing more revealing armor, which I also want BW to add more of.