What's so great about pants? In this game, they most often resemble jeggings, frankly. Give us some pants with a little room to breathe, and then maybe they'd be worth actively trying to get for an inquisitor or consular.

The main problem here is a horrendously bad design decision, making first/character names unique by server, being compounded with the way they chose to implement Legacy/surnames, which server mergers showed were both bad decisions. The trouble is the game relies on that unique first name way too much. Names should never have been unique. They should have tied identity to account names or an ID code generated for each character or account. There are plenty of game-world explanations that would work with such a system, since the Republic and Empire would both likely have communications codes or ID systems for their citizens. The in-game mail system would tie in quite nicely to an ID system, in fact. Now thanks to bad initial decisions, we're stuck with shoddy band-aid measures that only complicate things. Actually, no, it's more a matter of laziness and convenience for the devs. They could have chosen to implement an ID system and unlock both names, but alas... Here's an idea: work on an ID system to roll out, and let anyone have the names they want.

The trouble is all tier 6 crew mission types for materials lack yield ratings above abundant, unless you have slicing-discovered single-use missions for wealthy yields. What they need to do is add the bountiful and rich yields to tier 6 missions.

Yeah, I posted that many of the new schematics make gear at the wrong level compared to the previous items in the set, but I suspected this might be one of the reasons why. They probably messed up the naming on items that belonged with different (usually lower-level) sets, which may also mean that some sets don't really have all the new matching pieces they should. Good luck seeing it fixed, though. After all, the Armstech custom 50 pistol still requires low-level materials as far as I know. Obviously, crafting blunders are on the low priority list for fixes, compared to say PvP and group finder bugs.

After collecting several of the new Synthweaving and Armormech schematics for custom belts, boots, bracers and gloves released with 1.3, some of them are for gear at levels lower than the main pieces of the same set. For example... Synthweaving: Fortified Phobium Boots are level 31 (Chestguard, Greaves and Headgear are 35) Reinforced Chanlon Handgear is level 27 (Chestguard, Greaves and Headgear are 31) Knight's Crusade Boots are level 23 (Chestguard, Greaves and Headgear are 27) Warlord's Boots are level 15 (Chestguard, Greaves and Headgear are 19) Traditional Brocart Gloves are level 43 (Vestments, Lower Robe and Headgear are 47) Consular's Boots are level 15 (Vestments, Lower Robe and Headgear are 19) Ablative Lacqerous Boots are level 35 (Vest, Leggings, Headgear and Waistcord are 39) Ablative Laminoid Gloves are level 19 (Vest, Leggings and Headgear are 23) However, some of the new Synthweaving schematics make gear that is at the same level as that established by the chest, leg and head pieces that existed prior to 1.3: Marauder's Gloves (19), Ablative Lacqerous Waistcord (39), Sentinel Elite Gloves (43), Resilient Polyplast Gloves (50), Sorcerer's Gloves (19), Anointed Zeyd-Cloth Gloves (50), and Fortified Electrum Handgear (50). Armormech: Chanlon Onslaught Boots are level 23 (Chestguard, Greaves and Helmet are 31) Commando's Boots are level 15 (Chestguard, Greaves and Helmet are 19) Polyplast Ultramesh Boots are level 47 (Jacket, Leggings, Headgear and Gloves are 50) Polyplast Battle Gloves are level 43 (Jacket, Leggings and Headgear are 47) Agent's Boots and Gloves are level 11 (Jacket and Pants are 15) Those new Armormech schematics I've seen so far that are at the same level as the chest, legs and head of the same set include: Fortified Lacqerous Armguards (39), Gunslinger Elite Gloves (43), Polyplast Ultramesh Gloves (50) and Electrum Onslaught Belt (50). Now, this is by no means a complete list, but I think from these it's easy to see some of the problems -- or at least inconsistencies -- that these off-level gear schematics cause. 1. Same-set items require different materials to craft. For example, the Polyplast Ultramesh Boots require materials similar to items in the Polyplast Battle set. 2. All set pieces are not available at the same level. This isn't so bad, except that in some cases it may mean getting an augment-slot crafted item earlier than the others, which then needs to have an augment kit upgrade to be in-line with the later-level pieces of the same set. 3. Confusion between sets. Looking back at the Polyplast Ultramesh and Polyplast Battle items, if an Ultramesh piece has the same level restriction and crafting materials required as a Battle set item, it's easy to mistake it for part of the wrong set. Again, this isn't a terrible thing, but it may mean some people buy or craft the wrong piece for a set and become disgruntled at having wasted resources on something they or their customer did not want. It would make much better sense if all same-set items were at the same level and used the same materials as the rest of the pieces in the set. Then again, as far as I know Armstech still has a level 50 custom pistol schematic that requires materials for a low-level custom pistol. Hopefully corrections to such crafting inconsistencies aren't such a low priority that they linger too long and cause more problems once they're fixed.

I have to agree with the OP. From http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20120320 -- one of two high-profile postings on the subject that both appeared to the vast majority of readers to promise the feature would be widespread, not extremely limited to endgame items: Clearly, that final point was extremely misleading at best, and patently false at worst. "Wide variety" my left foot! Even if they retracted/clarified this, most people missed it. I was looking for information about this promised feature pre-launch, and I certainly didn't see any retraction. For such an important correction, they should have made it a higher-profile announcement. What makes things even worse, even the existing mod gear schematics you can learn result in items you can't RE to at least get materials back. That leaves crafters trying to crit for augment slots with potentially huge piles of junk orange gear shells that aren't good for much other than vendor selling for token amounts of credits. At least with purple gear, you can RE extras to try to get back some materials. All around, it just seems like the ideal we were led to believe would be delivered is nothing like the true state of the crafting changes introduced.

OK, but it's not new looks, just more craftable oranges that are the same visuals. They're not adding outfits, they're just giving endgame levels more to choose from without giving up stats in the name of choosing a look they like. The way it's stated, it sounds like there will be more visuals to choose from, but that's not the case.

In the news about 1.2 crew skills, the devs have said this about REing orange gear: Um, this is a contradictory statement, no? You can't add more outfits by REing existing outfits to learn to make the same thing; it just means they're craftable (and augment-capable on crits) as opposed to being drop-only. That means no new looks added, just more of them are craftable. Am I right in my reading of this? So, are they adding more dropped mod gear with new looks, or does this simply mean all the existing looks can be used in endgame with the addition of them becoming craftable with augment slot potential? What about outfit visuals that are only available in green/blue/purple gear? Will it be possible to learn orange versions of those?