The server I am on (Trask Ulgo) managed to get quite decent RP just by setting a common planet for everyone to meet up at (it was Nar Shadaar, now Voss). Some people organised server-wide events to kick things off and keep things fresh. Other than that guilds fill in the blanks. I do my best to run guild RP events about once a week in little 5-or-so part series, and all that took to set up was coming up with a storyline and saying "hey this is going on on saturday, whoever wants can show up". Maybe you're in the wrong server but in mine I have found quite a few people willing to RP if you just start. Can't remember the last time I wanted to RP one night and didn't manage to find any. As for the "themeparked" thing well... that's what imagination is for as an above poster said. In tabletop RP best you have is a little plastic figure to depict your position and a character sheet, you fill the rest in. Want a BH with a carbine? Roll a trooper or agent. Want a imperial soldier? Agent has trooper looking stuff at high level, or some of the heavy armour looks decent. I have a doctor with a shotgun, OOCly that's an imperial agent wearing white with the first PVP blaster rifle.

In a recent Q&A they announced they would no longer be doing the timelines. They added all the places as a "rough guess" of what they would need for filling in the backstory but felt that the current set fully fill in that backstory. They did say they would do more background type stuff along the same lines but not filling in those missing dates. Its a shame, I know, I was enjoying them too.

The game engine lets you run around naked shouting "lollolololol". That doesn't ruin RP.. because RPers don't do it. As any good RPer isn't going to use force choke when playing a non-FS character and IC. As for lightsaber... its better the new way. Means you can RP a sith, have a red saber, and not have to worry what LS/DS options you happen to choose while leveling. Giving players more options = good for RP.

The reason I heard, which makes sense, is that the other flashpoints were designed with repeated run-throughs more in mind. Having a great deal of story would mean it would be a pain in the endgame running through them for the 10th time and spamming space over the same voiceover. But I do agree with you, I'd love to see more BT type flashpoints, ones with a real compelling story instead of just a vague setting for an extended dungeon. I see why you need conversation-light ones for doing dailies and HMs but that's no reason why there shouldn't be some story based ones as well aimed at occasional play-throughs.

Well your ingame class does not necessarily have anything to do with your RP character. We (or at least most) RPers completely ignore the current ingame story so why not more. Why does your OOC choice of what you want to do outside of RP have to effect your IC abilities? If you want to reach the end of your chosen classes storyline but have no interest in playing someone able to throw force powers around why not? It doesn't make sense to tie IC ability to how much RL time you have to play the game.

I ended up running a local police guild in SWG and it was singly the most stressful time I have ever had roleplaying... or in a game for that matter. It *can* be fun, sometimes fantastic but there will always be stress and hassle. The problem basicly stems from people seeing the police as a good source of quick RP when bored (which is fine) but not willing to follow it through. So they see the police enter and emote thinking "I sure hope they dont check me for spice"... then when the good RPer policemen ignore that they become more overt, talking out loud about their crimes and trying to get caught. Then inevitably fighting the police, getting kicked down and arrested. Then they quickly get bored and log out. Even more any attempt to apply a punishment leads to arguement... even if they are sentenced to a day imprisonment with police there at all times to RP with they will refuse. Many won't even want to come back to the police station so you're left "pretending" to arrest and process the criminal. And that would happen several times a week. People purposefully get arrested then refuse the rule of "IC actions IC consequences" that was in place in the community. I lost track of the amount of hours I spent in talks with the communities leaders over people complaining two days of imprisonment is unfair for attempted murder. Eventually it drove me to quit, as it did my predecessor and everyone who came after me. In hindsight what you need to do is organise things with criminal guilds much better. Talk to their leaders to organise crime sprees that you can investigate. Have it so the criminals try *not* to get caught. Say they break into a house to rob it, you show up an hour later and investigate. Maybe haul suspects in for questioning, interview witnesses and so on. People get much longer RP and if it is organised then the perpertrators know the punishment going in for if they get caught. One thing we did do that worked well for us is use alts to hold events for large crime sprees. Alts that nobody cared if they went to jail or got shot and killed evadng capture. That way your guild members get fun of policework without the grief that always followed. tl;dr I've been a leader of a police guild and it is incredibly stressful with the sheer amount of grief you will receive. Coordination with a criminal guild before any crimes is needed to keep everyone happy.

It really depends on the situation. Anything with more than two people really needs to be PvPed or it gets too slow. Even with just two people emote fights can take a while. The problem with both is both parties trying to hard to win. With emotes this leads to neither person ever going down, or even worse poweremoting. With PvP it leads to people spamming their best attacks without any thought it the IC situation. The best system I have seen is a mix of the two. Actual damage is dealt using PvP but it is broken up with emote descriptors. Emote fights can be very well done but I find it best for the two people to agree who "wins" first, then the emotes are just about putting on a show for the audience. Another problem with PvP is when your IC skills do not match those of your character. You may be RPing a moisture farmer, mechanic or bartender but have a fully leveled BH character. The other may be RPing a legendary solider but have a low level toon. It makes no sense for you to wipe the floor with them but in PvP you will struggle not to.

The RAM is kinda on the low side. Windows 7 uses about 2-3 Gb in idle processes. That doesn't leave much for swtor to use. Also is your processor at least dual core? That's all I can notice.

1. Its currently disabled for maitenance, should be back soon. 2. Kinda. You can unlock certain titles by completing some special mission objectives or as you level. They are not listed for you to complete. 3. Some quests will only add your dark/light side points when you complete the quest and turn it in, same goes for social points and companion affection. 4. The ingame items you get are clearly listed, all just fun emotes its up to you if you think its worth it. The VIP lounge and vendors are pretty empty and dull IMHO, so I wouldn't get it for that. I think there are plans to add to it in the future so then it may be worth it. 5. There are no cross-faction chat channels. I don't know about /whisper or /say but I know emotes do comes through so I assume at least /say works.

The only good RP use of bios is as added descriptions for character, such as "Has a scar on left cheek" "walks with a limp" "has a single eye missing"... basicly things you can see or notice instantly that the game mechanics do not let you portray. There is no need to have your character's detailed history for all to view, it makes no sense IC for me to walk up to you and know you were bullied by a twi'lek as a child and that's why you joined the military. My character *does* have a full bio with history, character traits and quirks. I keep it as a document on my computer for reference so as not to contradict myself. Only other people who have seen it are my RP guild's leadership who looked it over to make sure it made sense. Everyone else has to work that stuff out by asking.

The main reason I know of is people who are friends with someone who is an RPer but don't RP themselves. They still roll on the server to play with their friend. I don't really see a problem with it as long as they are not doing anything to disrupt other people's RP then its fine. You might also get people rolling who think maybe someday they will get into RP, like when they reach the endgame and want something else to do, so roll on an RP server so they wont need to reroll if they ever decide to RP. On my server the general rule of thumb is that general is all OOC, generally used as with all servers for gathering groups or asking questions. Its not exactly IC to carry out conversations that everybody on a planet can hear with complete stranger anyway. Local (/say) is used IC by roleplayers, never seen anyone use it for any other purpose so far.

All the flashpoints I have played have been fine length-wise. They have all taken roughly an hour or so and that is great, I want something substantial when I go for these. If I want a shorter group section I do a herioc 2 or 4. One hour, even two, is not a huge investment in time and can still fit it into an after-work play session. Also.. it never ceases to amaze me how many people on this forum use phrases like "most people" "99%" "everyone" when describing their own personal opinions.

I use the Saber Marshall's upper and lower robes. They are plain black with a few small red glowing gems/lights on the vestments. I beleive they were from Herioc quests on Droman Kaas or as the final reward for the bonus series on Balmora. Orange gear so you can upgrade it to whatever level.

I actually have used Synthweaving items I have produced quite a lot during my progression (now at level 31). Although the green items tend to be useless and the blue ones are worse than stuff you get as quest rewards they are very useful at filling in gaps in your gear. For example I rarely seem to get decent belts/boots/gloves, so I'll have amazing vest but really rubbish "extras" so its nice to be able to balance that. I can only assume others are doing the same as I have managed to sell quite a bit of my crafted gear on all the tiers I have reached so far. But yeah, I think on my next character I will go for Biochem. Synthweaving is good but you only really need it once every few levels, at least stims/healthkits you can use all the time.

Most of the time the missions are the same, particularly side-quests. However sometimes you can effect things, mostly whether or not a fight occurs, sometimes how many take part in a fight. The choices also seem to change the post-mission mails & rewards you get. LS/DS options do seem to make much major changes a lot of the time. For example I just had one in which I could (LS) do some busy work to get the quest item or (DS) just attack the owner of the item and have a quicker but harder combat.