The Cathar (cat people) are reportedly the first new race being added. When the other servers die enough the hardware if needed will be re-tasked to the higher population servers and you will get the best of both worlds. In theory.

Couldn't agree more. There is no reason to take player's first choice away just because someone else beat them to it, no reason whatsoever that legacy names need to be unique.

The 1000 credit fleet pass should be considered a bonus perk, not a virtual requirement or baseline as suggested by one dev a few months ago. As for the group finder, while I do agree cross server would be the best way to reduce form up time (simply by virtue of having a far larger player base to choose from), I also understand their concerns that people need motivation to not to miscreants when they have the added anonymity of being on a different server. Anybody have any ideas on how to address that? I am inclined to think that for every person who does that, there will be more who play graciously, but then, I have been known to overestimate the maturity of the masses. If I am right however it would be another case where the good outweighs the bad but we are still being denied the good because of the minority of bad. Making travel less laborious would not break my immersion, in fact it would let me get to the fun parts with less hassle which would actually help it. Shouldn't the option be there for those who want it? When I think of Star Wars, loading screens and hoofing it across orbital stations does not come to mind, or it shouldn't..

Any plans to expand the use of the legacy tag to most if not all random loot drops? The legacy tag helps ensure the PLAYER that earned it can use it where it suits them instead of like myself having BoP schematics and rakata gear sitting in my bank rotting when I could use it on other characters. Millions of items went to waste in eq2 until the heirloom tag was utilized for general loot. Having random loot BoP can waste loot drops if the dice are against the players. Using the legacy tag would significantly reduce item waste while signature quest rewards could remain BoP. If the player earned it, what does it matter what character it is used on?

Making all custom gear adaptable was such a reasonable extrapolation I actually assumed they were talking about all custom gear. It made that much sense, my bad. Also agree totally with the op. Again I assumed (very rightfully) that the set bonus changes were applying to all armour mods so I went and dumped my atrocious rakata helm thinking I could maintain the set bonus and lost it of course.

That would be appreciated. It doesn't add anything to this game by making travel laborious like they seem to have a fetish for. At least once you get that one down a speeder point does open up. If they moved the speeder point and activation to just prior to the tanks you would only have to cross the open area where the tanks are themselves, in addition to the run you have to make through the caves with no speeder of course.

The crafting materials system is just plain horrible. I too have a ton of fabrics that I can't sell and not enough underworld metals. In addition to what you mention there is also the issue with the twin premium (green) materials needed for each tier (apart from grade 3 and 6). For scavenging for example, there are two metals and two compounds of each tier and no way to specifically harvest one at the expense of the other which invariably leads to people having far too much of one and not enough of the other. Combined with the general inefficiency of harvesting both from world drops (few efficient farming locations and low drops per mob) and from running missions (expensive and again low return rate), it all compounds into creating a system which is just plain bad. It is generally considered that crafting here is more expensive than it is worth with people easily able to obtain comparable gear through other means. Addressing these multiple problems raised by you and I would go some way to fixing that.

gah. Disregard. I'm so good I hit the quote button instead of the edit.

10 attempts isn't even close to a large enough sample to judge the percentage. I see a lot of people trying to second guess random systems with far, FAR less than needed to get an accurate assessment. I have been charting my RE success rate over the last few days, so far I have 133 attempts and currently I am at a 20.9% success rate. Even at 133 samples I wouldn't consider it a large enough pool of results and I wouldn't even be posting it yet but to demonstrate my point here. As a side note, until I hit over 50 results and the results started to normalize I was sitting under 12%. Keep at it, at times I have gone through 20 recipes without getting a success. It gets very expensive when you finally win that roll only to have it affix a bad stat. To get an earpiece I could use in operations on my Marauder it cost me over 600k and 3 successful attempts until I got one that was good. Which is another big problem, I completely agree with you that drop rate from mobs and missions of crafting mats is far to inneficient.

The random prefix system is just plain bad. I have lost count the amount of times I have spent tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of credits to finally get a successful RE only to have tack on a completely useless stat. Shield rating for my Marauder or Sniper and presence for items intended for hm and op play are two of the worst offenders. I don't know if being able to choose would be a good idea, but it has to be better than it is. Right now my schematic book is filling up with useless recipes, and yes there is a strict limit.

I am aware of all of the counters you mention and do use them actually. The point was all of those are factors that effect melee dps that do not effect (or effect to a lesser extent) ranged. Please note I actually think the immobility of a sniper does to an extent balance it against melee. Mercs for example however get the best of both worlds.

disregard.

I'll second that. It was one of the things I was hoping for the most with the 1.2 ui changes. As it is I am forced into sub optimal layouts.

If the fleet had a pvp vendor that sold all of the items then this would never have been an issue. So we are going to need to collect and store yet more resources? Why not use some of the ton of different materials we already have?

Agree on the horrible suffix items. I have many sets of armour stashed in my bank too, this includes crafted ones that I won't use because the stats. Having appearance slots would free me up to change my appearance at will without effecting my stats which as I raid I can't compromise on at the moment. It isn't even really an option to use un-augmented custom. Yes this would free all those loot drops to compete for appearance but it also frees up every crafted item to do the same. Would you mind linking the quote about 'gear skins'? How does it cost mechanics? What mechanics? You still need all mechanics as your 'stat' gear. Appearance slots only add the choice to obtain multiple new sets merely for a change in appearance. These are all sets in addition to what players currently have. Yes it opens up all those loot drops, 'as stated above' but all the crafted items that may have been disregarded because of it's stats or because of it's appearance are also made equally valid options. The custom gear still has many unique (textures if not models). Any shift would not move from custom to loot exclusively, it would also move to all of your crafted pieces. If there is a drop in custom demand at all it would be swallowed by the combination of demand for the other crafted items and for the fact that people will get multiple MORE sets, over and beyond the one stat/appearance compromise they currently have. The custom system isn't achieving it. It gives you some measure of choice yes but your still limited to those custom looks, and choosing to apply or not, a texture defined by an often questionable match to the chest. That is a very real reason, suffice to say, I am going to ignore your attempt to belittle my reasoning.