1) He offers uncomplicated lerve - I'm not gay (nothing wrong with being gay either) but uncomplicated is compelling. Ashara is wounded and confused - too hard. 2) Andronikos is ranged meaning he doesn't get hit by the same stuff you get hit by, his strengths are your weaknesses and vice versa. 3) He likes you when you're bad which really is how a Sith should be. 4) He sorts his own **** out and doesn't come to you all the time to do the dirty work. 5) He uses very different stats I.E no force stuff so he very much only wants the **** you don't want (Ashara wants some stuff you want but not much - Enhancements mainly). Related he does tech damage rather than Force. At the end of the day he's easy and effective - both qualities I hold in high esteem!

- Sorry quoted the wrong guy before edit. Teens can and should be able to deal with the notion of death. However murdering your lover and unborn child would be a harder one to get over the line for a teen rating for sure.

I could envision Kaliyo "Disappearing" and a whole quest line following the intrigues of what happened in the unfulfilled hope of ever finding her again ... I like the idea of killing off companions as harsh as it is. So long as the game mechanics the companion covered are covered off in a new way.

When they say work they mean effort - not gainful employment. Effort can be fun as can recognition for effort. You know this I believe because it's not really hard to gauge given the topics context but you're playing semantics with the word "work". Do you only play games that require no effort? Of course not just as people who "work" at games aren't on the payroll.

That's a fairly altruistic way of looking at it ... honestly though I'm no saint and don't expect most other people to be either. Part of the gratification is having other people validate your efforts not just yourself. It's part of what keeps people hooked to MMO grinds of all sorts. Yes things change but past efforts should be validated in different ways when they do. Maybe with a special title or novelty pet reward for completing the achievement in the past as examples. It's not just the gratification of the challenge that counts for most people but also the recognition of it.

I have not received an email about this and appear to have missed the cuttoff. Is there anything I can do about that?

I find it interesting that when MMO company's don't compensate their customers for downtime they get criticised and accused of not listening to or caring about their customers and when they do compensate customers for down time they get posts like this. Bioware have set a precedent in compensating us for unplanned maintenance which means they will disappoint us if they don't compensate us for unplanned maintenance in the future. If anything it is a sign that the Bioware company has faith in its dev team not the other way around as they would only take such a step if they felt unplanned maintenances wouldn't happen often if ever again.

That's a very intelligent observation IMO. I agree. Ranged should be like snipers (not the class). Accurate big damage on one target with melee going in and hitting everything near them. The risk reward thing makes sense as it gives a reason for getting a melee class into the fray.

Damn I was just about to go for a run - now the servers are up I have an urgent need to procrastinate and play!

Well being an Aussie the downtime happens exactly when is my window of play time. But I'm fine with that for 3 reasons: 1. The game isn't officially released in Australia yet so they don't have any obligation yet to accommodate our play schedules 2. They are doing it to improve the game which is great. It's better than releasing the game as is and ignoring it after that. 3. It gives me a reason to do something else like go out, or go for a run or a walk or read a book etc... So all in all down time is a good thing. It's annoying when it happens but it is a better game for it.

I remember when it came in I was like "finally". It's a funny topic this because it reminds me of how I felt when I started playing WoW after EQ 2. I thought WoW was pretty buggy at the time and lacking what I believed to be some very basic features. I also felt the graphics were sub par. I never thought I'd see the day when a new MMO would be compared to the WoW feature set. As far as SWToR is concerned I find a very polished game at release comparatively. The story telling and quest lines are comparable to a standalone RPG. I don't just mean the cut scenes, I mean the dialogue options and the ability to change outcomes and quest options by choices you make in a fairly fundamental way. Something almost completely absent in WoW when it was released. Edit: As far as comparing SWToR with Rift I think both games had very good launches. Probably pretty equal though the RPG elements of SWToR are better than RIFT IMO and the Instancing and world engagement better in RIFT than SWToR. If anything SWToR is like WoW compared to Rift being more an EQ. Rift looks better on paper and has more features and better graphics but SWToR has more soul.

Yes yes lets compare service based commodities with a product based commodity...

There is a new breed of MMO coming out which excites me. Mainly level-less in design such as The Secret World. Also more open ended player centric games designed to eliminate the need for grinding such as World of Darkness. The Theme Park MMO which is the traditional model is very old now and somewhat boring. I like this particular one and it will probably be the last I play - mainly because of it's strong story telling and RPG feel.

Firstly WoW is and was always pretty buggy. Next just because one game has a particular feature doesn't mean all other games of the same genre should have the same feature set in order to be "polished". It may be a design choice by other games not to include features available in another game such as WoW. WoW doesn't have player housing for instance - does this make it unpolished? You play/ed WoW and liked it and that's great. You obviously feel that WoW is the standard feature set an MMO should have and that's your feeling. I don't agree. I see many of the feature set of WoW as buggy, unnecessary and often immersion breaking. That's my opinion. Each to their own.

Little Jawa Companions with Cannon Rifles.