Thanks man I appreciate the input. It'll help me prepare for the new expansion. You're right, I'll study up a bit about the changes rather than worry about gearscores for now!

Hey all, As the title says I'm a returning Founder who left just around the time before the KotFE/KotET period. I stopped back a few times to see what was happening, just lightly played through the Outlander storyline on throwaway characters, but was thankful not to take my two Sith mains through it - it wouldn't have suited them at all! I still got them levelled to 70 and then just waited it out. Basically I just want to lightly play SW:TOR now, but as far as I'm concerned storywise we're still basically in Classic, the old Red vs Blue. I won't mention other games by name but there are others out there whose story development I prefer now, and this is coming from a KotOR series/SW:TOR Classic fanboy. I just want to do a bit of PVP in the evenings (because I do like SW:TOR's PVP) , staying competitive. Anyway, my quick questions are... 1) Is it possible with the current gear reward system to be completely PVP exclusive or would I need to do the latest PVE content in order to keep my characters geared? I'm only asking because some of the best gear I saw on the Fleet had something to do with getting something from Iokath, somewhere I've never been. 2) WIll the new expansion in October 22nd raise the level cap beyond 70, and crew skills beyond 600? As I say, I would ideally like to stay competitive, but only really for PVP. That's it really. I am basically an old PVP commendations guy, from SWG Restuss to SWtOR Classic. That was a simpler time! As I say I avoid the latest story stuff in this game, and I don't really want my PVP gearing to be reliant on something PVE. Thanks for reading!

Have to say that as I was playing it just really felt like the Outlander was supposed to be a Jedi Knight, probably male, probably human. Following on from the KotOR series. Except this was nowhere nowhere nowhere near the same quality as those. It didn't seem suited to non-force users or dark siders. But then even the Jedi Knight is supposed to SERVE the Republic, not create his own dynasty! It was very lore breaking, and not in any good way. I like my Star Wars to be Star Wars, Jedi & Sith, light & dark. Mandalorians, Purebloods, Smugglers, Troopers etc. Each with their own perspective/beliefs which can't easily be forgotten or compromised in the blink of an eye! I found the Alliance to be far too happy clappy. It seems heavily inspired by Disney and Star Wars Rebels. Star Wars storytelling at the lower end of the quality spectrum. Those were probably my biggest gripes.

Just to say I finished Story mode of both KotFE/KotET, and I have to say...wow...just wow. I'm so glad I didn't take my mains through that mess. There was some imagination there in the story and some funny decisions and lines. But the Outlander, the Alliance, Republic/Empire collaboration. becoming the ruler of freaking everything... Not for my mains. They would never fit the Outlander's persona or story. They also wouldn't be fighting cheerfully alongside the Republic, their age old enemies. I'll be keeping them in 'Classic SWTOR' thank you very much.

Thanks for the input guys. I consider my mains too precious to take any risks as the last poster said I'll take an alt through and not really consider it a continuation. In my head canon my Sith are still running around basically at the end of Act III in the class stories! I'll take an alt through the story and see what I make of it. But this whole Outlander/Alliance thing is kind of gamebreaking

Just as the title says. Returning Founder here, missed these expansions almost completely due to pesky real life haha. I've got two Sith Pureblood mains, a Juggernaught male and Sorceror female. Complaints I've heard from KotFE and KotET are that your lovely evil characters get put into the cookie cutter role of the Outlander, and that you lose most of your original classic companions. Much of the story I've seen on Youtube has been distinctly 'meh'. Pale imitations of the one and only KotOR series. So, should I hold off on my mains, and just muck about in the expansions with an alt sometime, or is it really essential to play through it to keep my characters current? Cheers for any responses in advance

From an Irish guy's perspective - I think I show equal respect to those trying to play with an American/Republic accent or British/Empire. I rate them on ability alone. Absolute Best (NB all in order) Male Warrior - of noble blood, arrogant, powerful and he knows it. Female Inquisitor - crazy and beautiful, charm and guiile Male Trooper - solid, loyal, dependable trooper Male Bounty Hunter - cold blooded killer Average or 'Meh' Male Smuggler - funny flirt lines and reaction when ship is stolen haha Female Agent - agent's charming accent Female Warrior - not quite matching the male Female Bounty Hunter - ditto Female Consular - The only Jedi voice that I can really tolerate Female Smuggler - funny at first but gets a bit annoying Female Knight - childish and quite immature Female Trooper - trying too hard to be a guy Worst - as in I cringe when I hear them Male Knight - nasally, horrible, overcheesy American accent Male Consular - hardly tolerable, as others have said only works with an old LS sage fart, shadow? - hell no Male Inquisitor - just bad, sounds like he has a cold Male Agent - terrible, trying to be suave but just sounds effeminate (and also like he has a cold).

This exactly! The 'hero's journey' was totally overhyped with every NPC you spoke to in the Knight's story. That sense of being a hero in a single player game is all well and good. But in an MMO, going from 'killing' the big bad at the end of your story, then getting ganked in open world pvp by 'Ileikbigbutts' and friends, or by a couple of strong elites over your level, is pretty immersion/lore breaking haha. It's why I decided to retire from being a solemn serious hero in the KotOR series to become devil may care, villianous red Sith in SWtOR, and I'm having a whale of a time

Did anyone else end up going this way? This is true for me. Back in the days of the KotOR series, Revan & the Exile were canonically lightside heroes who saved the galaxy. They were powerful in the Force, whatever Jedi path you chose. Personally, my favourite iteration of Revan was Scoundrel/Sentinel, and for Exile Sentinel/Watchman. I felt this this kind of Jedi, the stealthed, behind enemy lines, elite Knight was more fitting to the renegade story of both Revan and the Exile who went to war instead of sitting back with the Jedi Council of the time. To this day I find the KotOR series to be the richest Star Wars experience out there, on par with any of the movies! I arrived in SWtOR on day one (Founder here) with high hopes of having the same 'Gray Watchman' experience, as I like to call it. Jedi in SWtOR didn't deliver for me... I think this comes down to story, gameplay and the 'MMO factor'. 1) Story Personally, I found both the Knight and the Consular stories in SWtOR to be lacklustre (feel free to disagree!). Particularly for the Knight, in the aftermath of the class ending you find that he/she was absolutely ripped off, and ultimately accomplished very little. Even with the plots aside, the Jedi in SWtOR are consistently depicted as being bland and linear. It's LS or DS with nothing in between, you're either a saint or a tantrum throwing teen. Ultimately it doesn't matter how you behave, because it has very little impact on your story or the greater galaxy. 2) Gameplay This is more personal for me. I found that I could never replicate Revan and the Exile in the way I wanted to. I liked the look of Jedi Knight garb (both Guardian and Sentinel) and many of their lightsaber moves (single blue blade, what can I say, purist here) but wanted the stealth of the Shadow and some of the force powers of the Sage. Of course I knew I wasn't going to get all this, so I settled on the physicality and aesthetics of the Guardian. Guardian seemed to be a logical progression. Revan and the Exile were frontline warriors in the Mandalorian Wars But their experience in the Jedi Civil/Sith Triumvirate/Unknown Regions seemed to hint at some need for tact, stealth and guile. The Guardian in SWtOR on the other hand seemed to be suited best to an all out war where frontline fighting was thick. Ultimately I was disappointed, by the same element as I'd experienced in Star Wars Galaxies... 3) 'MMO factor' Face it, Jedi are made for single player games. They are supposed to be superhuman, better than the rest, outnumbered and facing incredible odds, but still overcoming. That's what makes Jedi special. We loved the KotOR series & the Jedi Knight series for that. Okay, maybe The Force Unleashed took force powers to stupid/crazy levels (never played it but I heard about it) but still, the mystical powers of Jedi and Sith/the Force is what makes Star Wars special. When playing great Star Wars 'trooper' games, like Republic Commando or the Star Wars Battlefront series, we were playing Star Wars but from a different, military perspective. And it was awesome. Even though we weren't Jedi, we could still have a healthy respect for the Force when it was turned against us...fighing against a Jedi/Sith as a trooper in Battlefront anyone? Hella hard! Haha The problem with Jedi in MMOs is that you will never, ever, ever be that one lone hero, against it all. Despite all the hero worship that npcs give you when you complete your story, it's devalued by the fact that you are just one of the thousands of other Knights that make up the game. Because of MMO class balance, you can never be all that you want a Jedi to be, in one class. Other classes need to be on par with you, so Force classes are severely castrated in MMOs. Star Wars Galaxies had the same problem when new jedi popped up all over the place in the NGE.Jedi Elders in SWG were the ones who had worked to become Jedi and were rewarded by being superior to other players in the game. It wasn't always fair, and it wasn't as casual friendly but it was an interesting take in an MMO, one which reflected the ultimate Star Wars truth, that some people by fate or chance, are more powerful than others... Conclusion With all that in mind, after playing through the Jedi stories and being disappointed, I turned to the Trooper class. I figured I'd rather be an elite, special forces (but ultimately non-force) soldier fighting abover par than a lacklustre, castrated Jedi fighting below par. I had a LOT of fun with trooper, my favourite Repulic story. But in the end, I missed having a lightsaber and some powers. So I embraced the villian in me. I decided to make two Sith mains, a male Sith Pureblood Juggernaught and a female Sith Pureblood Sorceror. I figured one respresented physicality and the other charm and guile. I 'roleplay' them as two 'middle of the pack' Sith, and I'm happy with that as long as I can crack some 'mediocre Jedi' skulls! Truth is, Bioware invested so much more time fleshing out the Imperial world/classes than the Republic and it shows. While I hate what they did with Jedi, I love what they did with Sith Purebloods and Mandalorians. They reflect power and tenacity, if not morality. Bloodlines, Force Heritige and the Purity of the Sith were all elements that I found refreshing and interesting. Male Warrior and Female Inquisitor voice acting also blows all of the Jedi acting out of the water. I've never looked back, and play my Sith as mains to this day... TL,DR Jedi Knights are more meaningful in single player games where you can be THAT one, lone hero. Class balance here sends you back to reality and dictates that really, you're not better than anyone else. It's for this that just kicking back and playing a villian in MMOs is more far more enjoyable. Thoughts?

Just a note on this lads. Basically don't expect a fix for this to come in time but take action now with CS to get characters restored. I got a Consular and Smuggler restored on Harbinger then moved over a Knight from Pot5 to Harbinger to complete the 8/8, set me back 90 CC but meh. Cheers to David from CS for sorting this out.

Yeah so I contacted CS for a second time, and now they're planning to bring back some of my characters, notably a Knight, Consular and Smuggler. The Knight in particular was a year or two ago so I'm not sure if they'll retrieve everything. Anyone else had characters restored? How long did it take and how far back did it go? Basically I don't plan to play these 'rejects' again, I just want to refresh my damn Legendary Status hahaha

Basically if it isn't an issue with their cash cow Cartel Coins or concerning one of their subpar expansions, they won't be putting a priority on it. As a Founder who came from the KotOR series and other Lucasarts games, this is the 'third strike' for me. The 'first strike' for me is how they butchered/massacred the legacy of our heroes Revan and the Exile, instead of letting them die in a blaze of glory against the Sith. Far better it would have been if they could remain what we made them in the KotOR games, and they sacrificed themselves in...i don't know... a cataclysmic force explosion which set the Empire's development back 300 years, enough time to help the Republic get back on its feet with help from Carth, Bastila, Visas and Atton. The 'second strike' is seeing the Republic and Empire become the pawns of a Mary Sue faction, making all of our work irrelevant. Some people like classic 'Red vs Blue', they didn't need a 'Yellow' faction to come in and pretend that it's best. It cheapens and devalues everything that we've done, the characters that we've met and the crews that we've made. Then to have those characters actually forcibly taken away...no thanks. Far better it would be to flesh out the things that already do exist. Like okay, Sith Purebloods or Mandalorians are cool! How do the Sith feel about their Empire's Sith blood being watered down? What about the Mandalorians? Didn't Mandalore the Preserver want them to work with the Republic? What happened there exactly? Are there still Mandalorians who feel that way? Could there be an offshoot in the future? Mandalorian Republic Troopers anyone? The point here being that large plot developments with Mary Sue factions isn't always the answer. Fleshing out 'Classic SWTOR' could've been better. So, with all that said, the only thing some of us Founders had left was the legacy of our past experiences in the game, with each expansion moving us further away from what we knew. Our Founder/Living Legend/Legendary player badges are those little badges of honour which remind us - okay, things aren't perfect here but we're valued and recognised, and we'll hope for better days. So to have those badges taken away and for Bioware/EA not to be putting a fire under this. they're alienating first generation players like me, while pandering to newbies with microtransactions and Mass Effecty (not Star Warsy) expansions. If this isn't resolved soon it will become the 'third strike' for me, and I'll be going elsewhere with a rueful laugh and smile. TL,DR Bioware probably won't make this a priority but there are good reasons why they should, unless they want to alienate their first generation player base and most loyal subscribers.

This. It could happen again and it's not your fault. Don't spend anything over their errors mate!

I'm one of those players who deleted their characters to refine my playtime. Now I have time to play 2 characters. But I had Legendary Status and didn't try to cheat the system by using a boosted 60. I contacted CS, they told me to be patient and check the forums, now the forums are tellng me to contact CS. Seems a bit like a runaround! I'll be patient for a time...but I expect a fix for this soon.

Just an update on this, for anyone still in my position - missing their well earned Legendary Status. I sent a ticket to Customer Services and they contacted me to confirm that I wasn't using some kind of boosted 60+ character to run through stories. Of course I hadn't done that, I've run through all stories to completion from level 1 up. They said that they are investigating accounts that have legitimately completed all the stories even if they don't have the actual characters any more. We need to bear with them til it's sorted. But gawd this game seems to punish anyone who went wild and completed all stories but then decided to delete 6 and keep 2 mains. Playing in moderaton is not welcome it seems! I have no problem paying for a game I enjoy (if the service is good) no matter how many/few toons I have. I'll stlll support this game as long as we can regain the recognition that we're due. Anyone else still having problems?