Basing a game on the stupidity of the world's greedy-ass companies for subscription-based models of giving us back what we already owned/had is dumb in the extreme.

Never played that far, so ... never knew those issues existed. Explains why almost all RP guilds I've seen are running their own storylines that have no connection at all to the actual game we're all playing, other than being Star Wars.

I too would like more OT/PT inspired appearances. Stop chasing 'The new Thing' designs from "current" stuff so much. And yes, INSPIRED appearances, not direct lifts, but do it for us older OT/PT/Legacy fans too, not just the new Disney era content please.

REPOST FROM THE LAST CREDIT THREAD :: TRIXXIETRISS POSTED: This is, by far, the best suggestion I've seen to handle this issue. It's the least intrusive and highest "bang for their buck" option to handling all of the credit issues. I don't like the tax idea for gifts, in this post OR from Bioware themselves. I don't really like the COD fees either, as I stated earlier, but they won't make me quit the game, but I still don't like them. Funnel players to your credit sinks, curb market manipulation on the GTN and inflation will slow and eventually reverse. We don't need to implement numerous new systems that are subject to possible flaws and bugs to be exploited, that potentially cause major issues with normal everyday players. Hit the problem at it's core and stop trying to build new systems that don't exist anywhere else in the MMO space. Give us things to spend credits on that we'd like, and most of all of this goes away. To the issue where CM items, Hypercrates and the like, are being used as currency now Trixxie's idea of Legacy binding gifted/traded items stops that in its tracks, without the taxes issue. What good is a currency you can't trade? Don't over complicate the game, it won't retain customers.

The Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy that just recently came out in the past couple of years deals heavily with Force Sensitivity in the Chiss. Now, of course it's 10's of thousands of years later than this game, but, I'd suggest reading it, or finding a summary of the dealings, because it makes a huge difference.

I don't know. I've never managed to finish it, personally. I was stuck in the palyer-exodus, where it eviscerated the RP guild I was part of, and once my friends left, I left. I've come back several times, but I've never made it through both stories on any character. I focus on the original content and ... don't get to end game. I lose interest as I try and juggle the story at that point and I don't want to try and skip it, because I won't know what is really going on at that point, soooo... Eh.

If you browse any of the credit selling sites, they tell you their delivery methods in their details. Whether it is 'in person trades' or 'Mail box delivery' or what not. The proposed taxation on secure trades and mail box deliveries are a great way to curtail activities, and burn through additional credit stores for sure. Personally, while I approve of the changes for that, specifically, I do not approve of the way it affects normal people trading things. I've seen several people on Star Forge lately asking for help with companions, and in response several players will offer to give them credits to buy gifts from the gift vendor to rank them up. I've seen several players on the starter planets offering credits and items, for free, to new players. How will this be affected? Will they tax someone trying to trade, for free, a large stack of companion gifts? Will they need to calculate the additional cost to ensure the newbie they're helping has enough to buy the item? Will this also affect trades between guild mates? Are they going to somehow implement a tax on just giving items away to another player? There are countless other questions to be asked on how normal gameplay and interaction between two people will be impacted in an effort to hit a small subset of problems. Most of the changes to help the economy are, and should, solely rest upon the GTN and an effort to ensure people use it more often than not. These kinds of changes to the fundamental player-to-player trades is going to be a problem, and while I personally very, very rarely, if ever, trade/buy outside of the GTN, I am concerned others will be annoyed by this change. Also, on StarForge specifically, there are people that have resorted to trading/dealing in Hypercrates as a currency. Unless they're taxing people on simply trading items like that, these changes won't affect them at all. If the other changes work out, these trades will stop happening, as normal credit values will once again be beneficial as an exchange medium. Bioware needs to be careful with their efforts here, because few things will drive players away faster than messing with their bank account.

*Reposted from the 7.2.1 thread* From my 25 years of experience in MMOs, I find that Player to Player trading to avoid the GTN/AH type taxes are actually a very small subset of the population. Every game I've ever played, all of the major credit farmers and the richest players unanimously use the Auction Hall/GTN system to buy and flip, trying to control the economy to their benefit. We don't need to initiate some in-depth player to player trade taxation system on the mailbox or regular trading/gifting, because as you attempt to do that, you'll also have to start taxing the Guild bank system as well. If not, people would gift or trade credits through using a guild bank deposit/withdrawal permission to by-pass that tax. It begins to encroach into so many other systems that it becomes a draconian mess. You have to also look at the broad player base of Preferred/F2P players and how badly it would affect them. The current tax on Quick travel is too expensive and hits the wrong demographics for a credit sink. Changing this to scale with level or bank account percentage is probably a far better choice of a taxation. Lowering the credit rewards for dailies and conquest and all of those activities is a great step in the right direction, helping stem the flow of credits into the system. They need to look over all rewards from every activity and possibly implement diminishing returns attached to player Legacy to lower additional repeats of the same things when it comes to raw credits. With the number of characters you can have per server, if you max out each character for dailies or conquest, those credits for your Legacy bank account add up real quick. The best and most effective way to fix this problem is focusing on the GTN tax avoidance itself, which, IMO, is squarely resting on the 1b cap on prices. I'm not sure why they didn't start with that as their attempt to fix inflation, hopefully it isn't because they GTN can't be fixed, but given how the majority of people play the market, it will have the largest impact on credit removal. Like others have mentioned, I have some items I'd like to sell, but the going prices are higher than the GTN. Instead of bothering to sell things on the Fleet trade, I just hold onto them, as I'm not spending the time to sell them that way. It's easier and more intuitive to just use the GTN and go about your business. Players who like to try and corner markets are going to focus their efforts on the GTN as well, which burning credits out of the system. Raising the tax from 8% to 10% is probably a good idea too. An additional idea that comes from the City of Heroes/Villains auction system is a scaling listing fee. CoH Homecoming uses the same AH system the game had while it was live. There, as it stands, there's a fixed credit cost on all items posted, based on "base item worth" from the game vendors. If your Listing Fee scaled to your Posting price, you're paying far more out of pocket to list your items for higher prices, cutting into your profits. In CoH/V that fee is not recouped on a sale ( I don't think anyway ), and if you de-list the item you lose it as well. It keeps postings low because few players want to eat that listing fee as it cuts into profits. Despite there being many, many ways to just farm income, in the millions at a time btw, prices there are stable and aren't inflating on the regular, because trying to raise the price just eats your profits. Something similar could be implemented here to assist in lower the exorbitant posting prices. There's nothing to discourage over-inflated postings, as the base listing fee always remains extremely low and does not scale and relisting the same crazy prices makes little to no difference at all to people using the GTN. Another avenue for it, is as others have suggested, we need more Legacy unlock options that just eat credits. Whether that is allowing Global unlocks of CM items using high amounts of credits instead of CCs, or new perks that give benefits at high costs. Another 5% speed on mounts or Rocket boosts for 10x the current max price for example, or allowing some CM only systems to be purchased with an exorbitant number of credits. That may cut into CC sales a bit, but it would be a temporary solution for long-term stability as once the credits in game stabilize, fewer people would be willing to spend their more rare credits on something extremely expensive like that. All in all, the current market situation will stabilize itself and begin it's deflation as more and more people have their credits burned out of the economy and fewer coming into it from normal gameplay activities. I think the fix is squarely on the GTN itself, rather than a complex system of taxation across numerous gameplay systems. Lower income, possibly add diminishing returns on legacy collections each week, and a higher GTN cap to catch the high end sales and things will start to come down. *End Reposted* I see some of the ideas I'm talking about here are being addressed in the next patch! I still think the fees on Quick Travel are too punishing to F2P / Preferred and "poor" players/characters, but that's something else entirely. While I don't like the intrusive option of taxation on personal trades, as long as it's applied based on items, I suppose that's fine, it hits the taxation avoidance problems people are pointing out. - CoD taxation is fine as well, provided these two systems aren't going to cause weird bugs. To answer the posted questions posed: 1) I like the GTN system fine, for the most part. Sorting is good, visibility is fine as well. I can't say there's a whole lot that I "like" other than it's a decent, functional system. 2) Dislikes! I hate searching for "pale blue" as a dye option, and getting a) Anything named Pale and b) Anything named Blue. That's an example anyway, if I wanted to search for everything with an individual name, I'd search it that way. It makes finding only what I want extremely annoying at times. I dislike waiting an hour for my sales to reach me, but that's just a personal time thing. That, I think, is my only major concern with the GTN at this time from a systems stand point, other than the price cap of 1b, and my previously aforementioned non-scaling posting fees. Once things begin to eat credits on the regular, I think everything will be fine. 3) I would like a 'Bidding' system implemented, ala WoW's AH system, instead of Direct Buyouts only. If I could post something for 3 days at 1000 credits, with a bid option I would do that on some of my items. That way if someone only bids 1500, it will still sell, even if someone doesn't want to pay 10,000 for my buyout. Keeps my inventory from cluttering and saves me from having to re-list again later. It'll help clear out some of the things that just sit on the GTN too... and it'll help stabilize prices in the long-term I believe, as it will start showing the value others place on items, vs what the poster feels they're worth. 4) N/A 5) YES! "Last sold for X" prices listed for items, for example, the last 5 - 10 sales, both per unit and total 'bulk' price. If people are buying, say, Warzone Adrenals for 5,000/adrenal consistently, and those are flying off the GTN at that average price per unit, I'd like to know. That way, I'll wait until I see more adrenals listed closer to that price rather than someone buying all the lower-priced ones to flip at 10x that amount. People can see that "Pale Blue and Purple dye" sells regularly and often at 40k, they are less likely to splurge on that 150k listed one, because they know it'll likely stay closer to the 40k price. It'll curb flipping significantly if everyone can see those previously sold prices rather than an inflated credit grabbing listing. It'll give people more information to decide if they want to wait a bit and see if the average is posted again or not. This allows for more market transparency and helps BUYERS more than the sellers. Potentially keeping prices lower, and therefore having fewer credits being tossed around like crazy. As it stands, I currently sort by cheapest per unit, and buy my items that way. That's really the only metric I go by, other than trying to remember what I've seen the items sell for in the past. I just want as much transparency in the market as possible, allowing me to make more informed choices on what I buy.

**EDIT** Moved this entire post to the new sticky post regarding the Tax Inflation problem, it's more relevant there.3

I really do miss the old Ravage animation too. It was my favorite saber ability because of the feel, it's why I played a Juggernaut instead of the other melee classes. I'd love to have it back, keep the current functionality, that's FINE I guess, just make it powerful and look awesome again. Please.

I tried lots of different work arounds, the one that finally, after hours of messing around, was for me to change my wi-fi network to a completely different source (used a mobile hot-spot) and it finally refreshed the launcher. Not sure if it was the network change or if Bioware forced an update to the launcher for people like me. Either way, I can play again.

Yeah. I can't reinstall the game, I don't have the bandwidth left after downloading it the first time and updating it.

I was able to log in with the launcher earlier last evening. However, since around 5am CST the launcher just doesn't work. My internet is fine, I can log in here (obviously) but my launcher is busted, it does the "checking for launcher updates" part, loads the artwork, but when I hit enter the circle just spins forever. Very frustrating. I'm on a metered connection, that is slow as all heck. I can't download the entire game again, what am I supposed to do?

Okay, seriously... Your post on how to get the companion was worded horribly. It stated 'complete 3 group finder activities'. So, I did. I got the achievement, but apparently the prerequisite was that you had to do 3 dailies? That's totally bogus. There's no in game notification that details, other than the achievements, your progress towards it. I completed the achievement, I want my companion.

There's a pair of blasters that are available Republic side that were moddable, that are no longer available on either side after the changes to the planetary currency vendors. I can't show you or give the name because the servers are down, but I'd really like them to come back. They're orange and have 'Silenced' in the names, they came from Balmorra.