A brief history of server events: First came Lukewarm Tauntauns, and the server hiccupped as the rwz queue came back to life. Next came Stanky Tauntauns, and the server lagged as the number of pub teams doubled. Finally came Spitting Tauntauns, and the server crashed as the effective pvp merc population centupled. Blame Nekron. QFT.

let me get this straight: we are spending our time purposely losing just to spite you? insanity.

Ignoring gape-being-gape for a second, we honestly did not receive your message about the AFKs. We saw the /farewell shortly before the pull, but that was all we had to work with. Really, this was just posted in jest, as it was one of those (un?)intentionally comedic moments that just so happened to be caught on film. Too bad you didn't stick around for the explosive dart sequel. We had high hopes and big plans for you.

Hi, Astraea here. Thanks for the random call-out on a random meaningless wz of which I have no recollection. Of the dozens of matches I play a day, you win some, you lose some, you take your lumps. Obviously, you win more when you're in a pre-made, as you can rely on the others to pull their own weight. Solo queueing, you get what you get. Since this was obviously a solo queue, it would imply I was likely doing some morning pvp -- trying to sneak in the daily before raiding, or other such obligations later in the evening. Typical morning pvp on our server consists of -- provided you're lucky -- 3-4 people who are both geared and experienced, and 4-5 sub-15k players of varying degrees of ability. I'd expect the match played out as follows, as so many of them do: one guy goes left, gets wiped, loses the node; two guys go right -- at least one, probably the only, healer in tow -- get wiped, lose the node. Perhaps possibly we cap mid. For simplicity, let's assume we do. At this point, our people run in one-at-a-time to either side and get wiped*. As long as your team can operate the proper speeder, with such little coordination on our team it's near impossible to recap. Very rarely does one have the dps to clear a node when solo queueing, and resolve bars are filled at every opportunity. The majority of cw matches are decided by who-caps-two first. Such is life. *this may have been the instance where the 13k merc decided to solo charge mid on respawn, spamming "I JUST POOPED MY PANTS!!!" in ops chat on every charge/death. It would be fitting, and is the only solo-queue cw I recall as of late (mostly because it was hilarious, in a facepalm-worthy sorta way). I'm not gods gift to PVP. We save that honor for Agape in our neck of the woods. I can't help that you were squishy, and whilst trying to, you know, win the game, I racked up more damage than you and yours. During my next loss, I'll make sure to stand on the uncontested node and auto-attack any red so that my numbers are more palpatable for you. I am certain this will contribute more to my team. Thank you for showing me the light. I queue when I queue, work with what I've got, and try and have a bit of fun whilst doing so. Lighten up, enjoy the fast(er) daily, and queue again later when my friends show up. It is, after all, a game.

And the rest of us? Yeah, we have no idea who you are.

Only campaign-level and beyond PVE and war hero and beyond PVP gear carry the set bonus in the armor (i.e. would transfer to your orange). Anything below and the bonus is tied to the shell itself. There are no plans to modify this in lower tier gear.

There's some really useful info here for those of us that are new. And for that, I thank you. There are also a lot of generally unhelpful comments in the "you suck -- when I did it I was 22 levels above the level cap! u iz dumb." vain. It's pretty easy to miss some of these things when you are new and unaware -- Nar Shadda opening up later being a perfect example. That's the thing with this game moreso than many of the others that I play -- there are quite a few helpful people around, but there is a **** tonne of "you suck noob. unsub!" in the forums and chat as well. Complaints about server populations abound, but it's really hard to get into a "social" game when every time you ask an honest "noob" question it's met with a *****ish response. Just sayin', a friendly community goes a long way, not that my two cents count for much.

My personal experience has been that DPS toons, such as the Maurader, are harder to start out with. They're fragile, don't have any significant/inherent heals, and soloing tough mobs can be a pain. Tank-y characters like the Jug give you more room for mistakes, and you can leave the DPS to your companions. I'm sure you'll get divided opinions on this -- the real answer, I suppose, is to play whichever one most appeals to you. They all work, have complimentary companions and if it's a story you want to play, you're more likely to enjoy it, no?

Indeed, it seems that I have. I think the trick is, if you go through skipping the "group" missions (as I did), you hit the planets on the fringe of the level requirement. This is all fine and dandy, except that it seems that the "bonus" missions don't unlock until near the end of the requirement. So in my particular case, I flew past Tatooine and Nar Shadda *thinking* I had completed them, when in fact upon revisiting, additional story arcs were unlocked. The completist in me wants to go back and hunt for the remaining missions; the grinder, on the other hand, wants to plow through PVP matches which award more XP in less time. Decisions, decisions...

I'm in the same boat with my Maurader. Getting toasted on the board-the-ship quest. I also have level-appropriate gear (30-33) on Quinn and myself. I didn't realize Nar Shadda opened up at 31, so I will have to revist. The problem I'm having is I don't have any of the Heroics or FP's completed; it's increasingly difficult to find a team (or, one that doesn't disband halfway through due to bad composition with relatively new players). I've been grinding PVP and soloing Heroics on the older planets as well, but it's slow going,