This is patently false. 1) MS does not collect any personal or private information on people. 2) MS does not sell any data. 3) MS is the only major company to guarantee your privacy. I think these people are getting MS confused with Google. Google's ENTIRE profit model is based on selling user data. Want proof? Go ask Apple why they dumped Google Maps (Lawsuit Vietnam of Google monitoring and selling data), or why Apple has been dumping Google search (Another Lawsuit of Google attaching to Safari browser on iPhone to monitor user activity), Siri uses Bing and Apple is replacing Google with Bing as the default search engine on their devices as the final contracts run out with Google. If you don't like MS that is fine, but at least offer a solid argument against them instead of making crap up. PERIOD. The only 'semi-accurate' thing out of this post is that there was an Xbox App issue that was the result of a bad driver BEFORE Windows 10 was released. If anyone thinks this could be the problem, go into the Xbox App and disable the DVR. (There was a driver that was incorrectly launching/hooking it in with all 3D content even when it was not being used.) BTW If you are citing Reddit, you might want to find a real source.

Also turning radius and incline negotiation features would be nice.

Ok, but is it really important? At some point, you MUST have challenge in the game. Even if it is the healers being a bit more proficient or you working extra hard not to die so you don't have to be Rez'd. From a 'theory' perspective, as you remove complexity from a game, it actually becomes less 'fun'. The struggle and overcoming problems is where you get the feeling of success and pride in what you accomplished. Think of it this way; why not just ask for a 'We Win' clicky that dumps out all the loot at the entrance? It would make things really boring. This game isn't that hard already... Which is why I am cautious about asking for things to make it easier.

We can make this easy for Bioware... Story - No Changes Simply add new advanced classes to each base class. Limitless in theory, with NO additional Story, voice, or content work, while adding in many new playstyles; mixing in, and adding new animations and abilities. Every proposed 'new class' in this thread could easily fit in an existing base class. Example: Teras Kasi fits perfectly into - Consular and Inquisitor. The advanced class choices for Inquisitor would expand to be: Sorcerer Assassin Mauler (Double blade lightsaber and unarmed, one blade of lightsaber turns on/off.) *Darth Maul Style Bonecrusher (Vibroknuckers with unarmed fighting style.) Using the base classes as 'categories', there is almost no limit to the advanced classes that could be added. With just Consular/Inquisitor alone, and off the top of my head, Bioware could add PoleArms, Pikeman, Lore Keeper, Researcher, Diplomat, etc. Balance - Better and Easier Next we give Bioware an idea to stop the 'balancing nightmare', so adding the classes will be easy to balance. Each advanced class would be balanced to two classes, one to be stronger than, and one to be weaker than. This creates a natural balancing mechanism even if there is a huge number of advanced classes. Something easier to imagine: Rock, Paper, Scissors - it is a simple triangulation that is fully balanced. So not only can they easily add new classes and keep them balanced, it is easier than what they are doing now with trying to balance every class directly to 15 other classes. This also will make all classes more exciting, as each class can have more power over 'some' classes, because there will also be 'some' classes it will have less power than. (Balancing 16 classes the way they are doing it now is just insane and makes the classes feel like cookie cutter variations, which they are.)

Um, no and no... All notebooks are designed to run at their peak efficiency, and whoever told you not to game on a laptop is giving out bad advice. They are designed to run as fast as they can, and with regard to overheating, even if the user blocks the air/fan vents, they will protect themselves and shutdown. I have been gaming on notebooks since 1998, using everything from entry level notebooks to gaming class that use full on desktop CPUs that got really hot. ----------------------- As for specification recommendations... You can get the game really well with an i5, 4-8GB of RAM, and a mid to high range dedicated mobile GPU. Use resources like (http://www.notebookcheck.com) to compare how fast the GPU is in the notebooks you are considering, and buy the best you can afford.

Let us make this simple, and give you some tools to do your own research so you can make an informed decision. The basics, listed in order of priority... CPU - Intel i5 or i7 - DO NOT buy a system with an AMD CPU at this time.* GPU - The fastest you can currently afford. (Don't bother with SLI or Crossfire)** RAM - 8GB is a nice number, but as much as you can afford. Monitor - Stick with a 1080p monitor - and get a nice size. Windows 10 64bit (A system with Windows 8.1, and you get a free upgrade to Windows 10) The rest of the computer can vary, as there is overall very little differences that will affect your gameplay. Now, what level of performance are you getting and what should you consider to be the minimum is the next step. This is where you will need to do some work and lookup the specific parts and their performance to ensure they meet your needs. CPU (Main Processor) This is where you will look up the CPU in the computer you are considering: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html Minimum Performance: 6500 Suggested Performance: 7000-8000 GPU (Video Card) This is where you will look up the GPU (Video Card) in the computer you are considering: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html Minimum Performance: 3000 Suggested Performance: 4500-6000 Here are a couple of additional resources that can help you find what CPU/GPU you should be able to afford, and remember that you can buy a non-gaming computer if it has a good CPU and put in your own GPU/Video Card. (Ensure it has a PCI/e Slot for the GPU and has a 450watt or better power supply.) Best Gaming CPUs for the Money (This is a monthly feature, and it is fairly accurate; however, ignore all AMD suggestions, just skip over them..) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html Best Video Cards for the Money (This is a monthly feature, and it is fairly accurate in picking the best in each price range.) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html * The reason to avoid AMD CPUs is that they perform very poorly in per core thread operations compared to Intel processors. So in a game like SWTOR, where the game is CPU heavy and is only using two Cores of your CPU most of the time, it is going to run much slower on an AMD CPU. You can see this represented in the single core thread performance tests: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html (Right now in computing in general and in gaming, we want faster CPU cores, not necessarily more CPU cores.) ** SLI and Crossfire are usually more of a headache than the performance they provide. With Windows 10, the concept of SLI and Crossfire will slowly go away as the Windows NT GPU scheduler will handle the GPUs. This was supposed to happen in the days of Vista, but NVidia went bonkers and locked their drivers to prevent Windows from doing GPU SMP as the WDM/WDDM was designed to do. After AMD bought ATI, they also locked their drivers, so even though Windows has supported GPU SMP features since Vista, it hasn't been able to use them until Windows 10, where Microsoft is forcing NVidia and AMD to allow it. (So if you want to run multiple GPUs, wait a bit for the next generation of technology and for now, just buy one faster Video Card, as it will meet your needs.)

A native Mac client would be a considerable amount of work, and even after putting in that work, there is a 99% chance that it is still going to run slower with more issues than running the client by booting into Windows on your Mac. There are key architectural differences between OS X and Windows and there is a reason games run faster on Windows. Extreme example, even a full OpenGL game developed for OS X will probably still run faster on Windows even with a sloppy port. I could give you tech details about the WDM technologies in Windows that give GPU thread control over to the NT kernel or how OS X still using additional frame buffering that slows down all realtime screen writes and on... Your best option is to use as 'little' of BootCamp as you can (seek alternatives) and boot, into Windows 8 or Windows 10 on your Mac hardware. Sadly Apple does intentionally throttle Windows performance with their supplied bootcamp drivers, so avoiding them is essential to get the best Windows performance. (Reference: There was an article that benchmarked Windows 10 a few months back on the new MacBook, and it ran much faster than Windows 8. However, when Apple 'adjusted' the BootCamp a few week later, Windows 10 was once again as slow as Windows 8 on the same MacBook. ..and yes as Mac owner you should complain about these antics to Apple, as they only hurt you.)

Essentially, Undying Rage from Marauder is the SWTOR version of Force Rage. (It has changed a bit over time with the removal of the health loss, etc, but still is functionally similar. PS... I remember playing Academy the day it released. It had brilliant fight mechanics, that I would love to see in a game like SWTOR someday. It also was an early Xbox Live title, and I was lucky enough to meet up with a few new friends, that like me, were trying to find every tick and mechanic of the game. We started before most people, and were good early on, which gave us a bit of godlike fame. We were very much care bears though, and would protect anyone getting picked on, and often spent time teaching others. BTW Never liked or used Rage, always ran a Mix of light/dark abilities, enough to have strong pull/push to keep from getting thrown off a cliff and to counter force manipulations, also a bit of drain for groups, some saber and some choke. My main offense were my dual blades or using the environment to dispatch someone off a cliff. (Miss that game, might have to dust it off because of your post.) BIOWARE would be smart to look at older games like Jedi Academy, as some of the mechanics could be implemented in SWTOR and might offer other ideas for Abilities/Powers. (Even though the game appeared to be realtime, many of the mechanic would work just fine in the SWTOR engine with a synchronized GCD - which was in Academy, but hidden from the users.)

So people are moving from a WEST COAST server to an EAST COAST server to have a better PVP experience. Wow, that is the dumbest thing I have read all day. Has nobody ever heard of latency and how it affect realtime gaming? Latency is one of the main things that gets you killed in PVP, and if you live on the West Coast or have a lower latency (ping time) to the West Coast server and move to an East Coast server, you may have more people to play with, but you will be the idiot getting your face smashed in PVP because of the difference in your connection. East coast players will own you. This needs more attention, because maybe players do not realize they are crippling their gameplay. (East Coast PVPers have to be laughing so hard they are spitting soda.)

Add Damage Taken/Mitigated/Avoided to the Scoreboard. (Or some variation, so we know who was doing a lot of work to keep us alive.) In Warzones, if you are an effective Tank, the only thing that shows this is the Protection statistic, which many players also use to get their badge and aren't using it to help, and they stop taunting/guarding when they hit the cap. However, I know some amazing Tanks that take a ton of damage, do great crowd control and positioning and give their life time and time again to help the team meet an objective. Yet, at the end of the match, their name appears in the middle or at the bottom because they weren't badge farming and they don't have huge damage numbers. Why this matters? MVP votes and respect. I did an informal check of MVP vote differences recently, and people I credit with saving the match would have far less MVP votes than average for their Valor and Character age. So, please show everyone on the scoreboard how much damage was taken/mitigated/avoided, it can't hurt. PS This is also a problem/design-flaw now as not all Protection is shown on the Scoreboard. Utility Protection Buffs that protect teammates in addition to Taunts and Intercede/Guardian Leap protections that aren't accounted for on the board, or accounted for properly. (There is more to tanking and protection than just using Guard.)

Add Force Boost as an alternative to Rocket Boost (Same ability, Same Timer, Let Everyone Use Both.) One thing I dislike about the Legacy Rocket Boost, is that it doesn't offer a thematic variation for force users or decedents of force users. Dressing like a Jedi Master or Sith Lord and having rocket jets shoot out of our sandals just looks odd. Use the Force Speed/Run Animation and maybe add the sparks to the ground like SWG used so doesn't look exactly like Force Speed. -M

Which brings to mind, 'real' choices like Bioware was famous for doing in KOTOR. We all remember killing off or leaving behind companions. I know that a lot of the story and 'hard' choices were removed from the game during development because they didn't want to make things too permanent for players that were coming from tradition MMO structures. So SWTOR originally was to have more consequences and 'optional' story lines that deviated much more than we have seen. One thing specifically I remember the developers talking about was the Companions, and that originally, your story did have the option of Killing them and not letting them join your crew. The option to do this and the story changes that allowed it were removed because they were concerned that players would be upset if they killed off a companion that they might later on have wanted. So, they at least realize this was a mistake or at least should have been allowed later in the story line when players were no longer new and understood the consequences of their choices.

Just a side thought. The 'human' and other races do not age the same in SWTOR as they do on earth; which gives a bit more flexibility in the timeline. Also there are ways of extending life from cybernetics to tricks of the force. PS Back on Earth, with our current understanding of aging, there are children being born now that should live to be 150 to 200 years old.

With the robe up, I don't remember anything that keeps the hair. (You may be able to use a headgear piece that doesn't cover the face and displays under the hood, like the mask/breather you see on Malgus. However, there are numerous Sith robes that have the hood down. Off the top of my head: Destroyer Set (1200 Cartel - expensive) Dire Eliminator (GTN maybe came from Cartel, don't remember) There are also SEVERAL lower level robes that have the hood down and some even look like the Destroyer, but with slightly different coloring. With the outfit designer, you can use the low level robes, and get some really nice looks without spending a ton of credits on the GTN. Shop the GTN for robes, check out the Light/Medium/Heavy armors of all levels, you should find several options. I think there is even a couple of Heroic mission rewards that are low level robes with the hood down if I remember right. (Also check Comm vendors on the planets that have robes, like Tatoonie. -There also may be more information in the guides online, so try a Bing/Google Web/Image search like: swtor hood down robe Good luck, -M

One 'ironic' thing to note, is some of the reasons given for the nerf was that Flyby/Orbital didn't fit thematically with the class, yet on Rishi several of the missions are 'Flyby' strikes as a part of the storyline because the character is a 'Smuggler'. And yes, Bioware, you need to do something, this profession is no longer 'fun'.