This makes me want to reconsider supporting this game, and I've been playing since the November 2011 beta. Service down for a significant part of the day, and BioWare/EA doesn't even acknowledge it? Very disappointing. Not even an apology from them.... sigh. Too busy self-congratulating, apparently. Not sure they deserve my money anymore...

The normal companion summon is already pretty quick — 1.5 second cast — but I just stumbled across a way to do it nearly instantaneously: summon while mounted. Since mounting a speeder takes 0.5 seconds, this may make switching companions at least twice as fast as the normal method — very handy for quickly changing gear among all your crew members while outside your ship. I've been playing since beta and I just accidentally discovered this. I asked around my guild and on my server and no one was aware of such a trick, so I figured I'd post it here.

I love the game, I really do... been playing since the Nov. 2011 betas and I've been subscribed almost the whole last 2 years... I have many characters and I like most class stories, planets, etc... but the mob density on Makeb is incredibly annoying. I fail to see how having the planet so littered with mobs that you can't get around without aggro-ing something every 10 meters does for game play. How does having to constantly evade things you don't want to fight enhance the experience? Sure, it's kind of nice to have lots of things to kill when you're leveling - but the leveling curve on this game is famously gentle and slight, and on the other hand, once you're max-level and are simply trying to get around to do dailies and such... it's just aggravating. Please, BioWare, I know I'm not the only one who feels this way... you've already nerfed some classic operations, nerfed some of the original flashpoints, and in most cases that I'm aware of, the changes make complete sense. However, I just don't understand how making Makeb (and to a similar extent, Oricon) such a pain simply to get from one end of a zone to the other does anything for enjoyment. It's not about the difficulty, either - taking out packs of "trash" isn't hard at all. It's simply the fact that, if I want to try and go around said packs on my speeder, I shouldn't have to run into more and more and more (and more!) packs of trash every which way... and then somehow remain stuck in combat afterwards, until I get tired of waiting for combat to drop and finally decide to /stuck it. It's absurd. Thanks for listening, Churro

I like this game with a passion and would love to see it succeed and continue for many years to come. I will tell you one thing though, guys - as a former subscriber of that other MMO from the company whose name also starts with a B... one of the reasons why I think they managed to keep me hooked and subscribed for years was that they always seemed to push the bounds of gameplay and their creativity, perhaps especially in quest design. Not necessarily in big dramatic ways all the time, but they seemed to always find some unique or interesting way to keep it fresh. I get that you guys thought "story" was going to be the thing that your game brought to this field. You may have been wrong on this account, but I don't really care either way, as we all agree the story in this game is strong, and the other absolutely essential thing - combat - is also fine. Still, what I'm referring to is more elusive and difficult to describe... it has to do with quest design and combat mechanics, but if I could explain it in one way it would be thus: to always be willing to push the limits and create something truly original. Again, it does not be one big dramatic utterly-game changing (pun intended) thing, but if a few of these creep up into the game, the game will really start to stand out from its competition - especially with F2P coming. Perhaps you guys discuss these things in your internal meetings and you already know all this, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it. Also, I didn't read this whole thread, sorry. To give some small, not-altogether original examples, other new MMOs have incorporated "true action combat," "active dodge" abilities, and on select missions you are transformed into a creature or disguised as an enemy. I'm not saying TOR should let us dodge all over the place immediately, and none of these things make or break their respective games IMO — but these are examples of what I mean about "thinking outside the holocube"... Congratulations on a great job so far, guys. Looking forward to next year's content.

I think Doc and Hol... er, Tharan and his holographic sidekick are awesome and hilarious. From the moment I first hooked up with them, they were my favorites and I felt like their personalities were so well established without a lot of dialogue or backstory needed - nothing against the Trandoshan. If you don't like them, it could just be a personality thing. But of course, because many of you are gamers and thus petulant man-children by definition, you're gonna call 'em dumb and bland, even though you've never designed a companion character for a video game... you know, never wrote dialogue for one, never designed the actual 3D model and built it, textured it, animated it, voice-acted... you get the idea.

Moving backwards is the second-slowest motion your character can make, after walking-speed forward movement. Some people recommend unmapping the S key altogether but I just conditioned myself to strafe sideways instead of moving backward, and I can quickly get outta the way whenever needed.

What, this game isn't perfect??!!! AS A PAYING CUSTOMER, I DEMAND PERFECTION! Isn't the customer always right??!! And am I not YOUR customer, who you should be working to please 24/7/365 lest I go to your competition? From whom I will also demand perfection, for I am Mighty Customer... hear me roar. I might be an imperfect human being, who has thought/said/done stupid things like everyone, but I will demand perfection of others whom I expect to cater to me, even as I myself am incapable of ever being fully perfect. Thus, imperfect citizens demand perfection of their imperfect government, and imperfect governments demand perfection of their imperfect citizens. Imperfect religions demand perfection of their imperfect followers, while imperfect followers demand perfection of their imperfect religions. Imperfect people demand perfection of their imperfect relatives, while imperfect families demand perfection of their imperfect members... Oh, sorry - too heavy? But seriously, great game so far; been playing since beta and found only a handful of bugs, and then only one that started to drive me nuts for a minute.

Absolutely will continue; don't know for how long or at what point I'll get tired or need a break from TOR, but right now I see myself keeping an active subscription for most if not all of 2012.

Seems most game forums, at least the official ones, are like this - whiny QQers braying loudly, thinking they speak for everyone. There's already a thread about exactly that here, on this same board. And no, those posts aren't typically deleted, though sometimes I wish they were. If you take a bit of time to wade through the crying though, you can find some incredibly helpful posts.

You know what they say about opinions... they're like a body part that we all have... I guess the art of choosing something without ridiculing, making wrong and dissing what you don't choose, is an art that hasn't been discovered on this planet.

A thread full of praise and free of QQing? I must have woken up in some sort of parallel universe this morning... I also love the game, been playing since the 11/11 beta - I have played other MMOs and, while I don't feel compelled to dump on them just because I found a more awesome game, TOR will be hard to knock down from my #1 spot.