Your Assertion: LOTRO = A single MMO that has a player base even smaller than SWTOR's YET so happens to represent an accurate sampling of the entire MMO "industry" #logicfail

What part of THIS $18 MOUNT IS NOT AN ACCOUNT WIDE PURCHASE LIKE WoW'S VANITY MOUNTS ARE do you people not understand?!?!?! You can't compare the pricing of this speeder to WoW's vanity mounts because WoW gives the mount to EVERY ONE of your present and future characters!!! I would buy it in a heart beat if it was an account wide unlock. BUT IT'S NOT!!! At this price it is a rip-off just like the Life Day pack.

In general, a well-run corporation will do the minimum it believes is necessary to differentiate itself from the competition and/or maintain profitability. In the case of SWTOR, we have already seen EA try this tactic several times; with the obscenely priced Life Day gear, and the availability of Grade 7 ship parts on the Cartel Market (the P2W argument). Both cases led to quite an outcry among players leading to quick apologies on the part of BW. To me, the addition of new incentives to pre-order the expansion points to only one thing: the number of pre-orders fell short of some internal metric that EA demanded. The 5 days of early access wasn't enough to stir player interest so they are trying a bigger carrot. EA is first and foremost interested in its bottom line; whether or not their customers feel loyalty or satisfaction with their experience with EA is somewhere far down the list of priorities. EA will give their customers the minimum they feel is necessary to maintain profitability and will ruthlessly exploit any avenue to increase their profit margins at the expense of their players, if necessary. There is a reason why EA is one of the largest game companies around. They are really good at being businessmen.

"...we can reassure you that the gear you've obtained in our current endgame will continue to be relevant after the expansion is released, and it will provide a great bootstrap into the higher-level content offered by Rise of the Hutt Cartel. You won't be replacing your Dread Guard gear with gear you pick up as you level, and thanks to improvements in the way item power is calculated, we won't be handing out any entry-level gear at the new level cap. " http://www.swtor.com/community/devtracker.php Why don’t you learn to search/read before adding to the avalanche of threads QQ’ing about the minutia of RotHC? Especially since THIS VERY POINT has been directly addressed by a Dev post (caveat: whatever a Dev’s word is worth these days). If Dread Guard won’t be replaced by gear acquired while leveling to the new cap…neither will BH/Campaign; since the difference between Lvl 26 to Lvl 27 mods is only +3 to each stats/mod. BH/Campaign might be the new Recruit gear (the absolute bare minimum necessary to squeak by at the new endgame) but it isn’t likely to be irrelevant either. This is a traditional MMO, precious gear you've worked weeks/months to obtain will suddenly and painfully be made obsolete. Get used to it.

I think this would be an amazing idea. Limiting BHs to pistols only is against canon as is limiting force lightning to Sith. I'm not so sure about using mirror class animations although obviously some weapon specific animations would have to be shared, but being able to use weapons of the mirror class should be something that can be implemented with a minimum of effort. I would go a step further and also add light side/darkside restrictions to shared mirror class abilities along with legacy level restrictions. I.E. having a LS consular spamming forcestorm would kinda be ridiculous. Racial unlocks already force us to level up 50s on both Imp and Pub if we want to use the faction restricted races on the other side. This would simply give us more incentive to level characters and reward those of us who have reached Legacy cap. This would be a nice perk restricted only to those of us who have been playing a long time and have put weeks of our lives into the game. Rewarding loyal supporters is good business practice but unfortunately it's something that BW doesn't seem to know how to do (all we get for the 1 yr anniversary is fireworks? ugh).

I'm gonna make an argument for keeping the current system of sending bound end-game mods through Legacy Gear to alts. 1. HAVING MULTIPLE ALTS IS A CORE GAME FEATURE SWTOR was marketed as being a "story-driven" MMO with a heavy emphasis on leveling multiple alts. It was never designed to appeal to the raid oriented segment of the MMO population like its contemporary, Rift. Unlike almost every other MMO, you simply cannot experience the majority of what the game has to offer if you only focus on a single "main" to the exclusion of alts because the core differentiating design conceit of this game (class stories) are locked to specific classes. 1.2's introduction of the Legacy system simply reinforced alt leveling as something the Devs wanted players to do. Leveling an alt to 50 simply makes leveling the next one easier, through the self-application of multiple class buffs, XP boosts, Inheritance/Birthright gear given as Chapter rewards etc. 2. END-GAME GEARING/COMMENDATION SYSTEM Once all my companions are fully kit-ed out in full Columi or Rakata and even BH gear, what am I to do with the extraneous gear/coms? The game does not provide any means to exchange the gear/com rewards I receive from running ops and HM FPs for anything useful to me other than gear that I either already have or is lower tiered. Even as a crafter I can't RE most of the mods/shells I get for useful mats unless I have multiple alts with the appropriate crew skills. Without the ability to send bound mods to alts to RE into useful mats or a way to spend coms/tokens for things that benefit me, there is no incentive for a geared player to run T1 OPs or even HM FPs thereby reducing the pool of available players; something that is already a problem with the "low" overall game/server population sizes even after the mergers. After a certain point, even BH coms don't buy much of anything that is an upgrade (ex. Hazmat Implants/Ears @ 350 BH coms/piece don't provide a sufficient stat upgrade over a Rakata piece to be a must buy to anyone but a true min/max'er, especially at that price.) Finally, simply having extraneous bound, end-game mods in sufficient quantities to gear up an alt must mean that the player must have already done the content multiple times in order to acquire the mods in question. Hopefully that also means that the player should be sufficiently acquainted with the fights to perform other roles (or the same role with another class) with some level of competence or at least familiarity. At the very least it would make it easier to run KP and EV over and over again learning the nuances of how their newly minted 50 performs at end-game. TL;DR - SWTOR has never been a game that emphasizes hardcore end-game raiding. Why should a player who has already experienced most/all of the endgame content be subjected to the full gear grind for each of his alts that he has already experienced on his first character? The player has already paid his dues. Even though transferring mods is an unintended consequence/perk of the legacy armor system, the rest of the game increases the rewards for each new alt a player levels. What's so wrong about continuing that trend with end-game gearing?

I think I've gotten really lucky with FP groups most of the time because I usually don't have problems with ninjas, but I had the exact same experience as the OP yesterday. I was tanking SM Taral V on my Vanguard and after downing the first boss, an Aim shield dropped. I needed on it but so did the other two Sages in the group, one of whom won the shield. I demanded to know why they had needed on the shield in the first place since their class can't even use shields and the sage that won the roll replied that he didn't know what the heck he was doing and was just following the lead of the other sage in the group. OK...fine...how you could get to level 30 something and not know what your class uses is beyond me, but I explained that you only roll need on items you can use and greed on everything else. The sentinel in our group piped in also asking why the sages had needed on the shield. The other sage (who had also rolled need but hadn't won the shield) typed "Well I rolled need because I wanted to give it to Qyzen".... At this point I was about to lose my temper so I asked the sage who had won the roll to trade me the shield. He typed, " oh I guess teammates come first before companions?" and did nothing. I waited for a few more seconds then to told them to L2P and that if they wanted to ninja stuff they could go find themselves another tank. If you are DPS it is in your best interest not ninja stuff from the tank, because if he gets pissed and leaves group or vote kicks you, he can find another group or DPS right away....whereas a DPS has to sit in queue for another millennia lol Add Jessicalife and Fatk to the list of ninjas in this game.

I farmed that 3 champ mob for weeks trying to get that chest piece to drop before finally getting one. I believe BW took out that chest piece out a couple of patches ago (1.4) if memory serves. If you read the patch notes, there is a blurb about changing the drop rate/quality of drops from champion mobs that have a quick spawn rate. Since that patch, I've only gotten blue gear from that champ mob. Before 1.4 I saw that piece on the GTN for 20k or so. Now I see them for several hundred thousand. I guess if I'm ever desperate for cash I could sell the one I have

It took TWO of you to stun-lock the entire team!?!?! Oh my Godzzzz...L2P NOOB!!! I can perma stun the entire enemy team before they even hit accept on the Warzone pop-screen. Before BW listened to all the bads and nerfed OPS into the ground I could even grab the Huttball when it spawned, throw it up Hail Mary style into their end zone, vanish and catch my own pass for a score. ^ I laughed so hard when I read this. BW should make this the new Lvl 55 ability for Operatives just to troll people Thanks for the lolz.

Rankings of the stories I've completed or at least gotten past Chapter 2: Memorable Story Lines: IA One of the few times in a video game where I totally didn't see the plot twists coming. SW The last cutscene after the final story fight made all the tedium of leveling through boring planets worth it. Nothing else I've experienced in any game I can remember has ever given me the incredible sense of awesome power and magnificence as that scene. Meh Story Lines but Other Factors Made Up For it: BH Pretty standard checklist storyline but Mako...Mako, Mako, Mako. Oh and Blizz. Terrible Story Lines: JC Personal preference but I hate the female voice actor's voice. UGH. And the darkside story. Chapter 1 left me wondering why the Jedi Council didn't have me arrested for treason. Chapter 2 was better but still bad. Chapter 3 is far better but still only mediocre at best. Haven't gotten past chapter 1: JK- liked it so far Smuggler- my own personal Chewie!!! SI- on the fence. Hate Khem though; can't wait to get another comp. Trooper- ARGHGHGGHGHGHGH!!!! Whoever wrote the trooper story must have gotten his/her idea of the military from watching bad 80's action movies. Special Forces soldiers DO NOT go around announcing that they are Special Forces. Heck, if a civvie in a combat zone knows someone is Special Forces, or they even SEE a special forces unit, the SF guys have probably already failed in their mission. The only ones really into all the "Ooorahh" "Rah RAh" BS are line infantrymen...ground pounding grunts who are a dime a dozen and die just as quickly. The more elite you are, the less rigidly you follow all the useless regs desk jockeys put in place to give the grunts something to do. /end rant

Same issue here. I have a i5 2500, 8gb ram, 560ti, running SWTOR off an SSD. My graphics card is running the latest driver 306.23. Before 1.4, I had every single setting maxed out averaging 50-60 FPS. The game ran perfectly smoothly. After 1.4, same settings, 60-62 FPS, but constant stuttering, lagging to the point it makes me feel sick. It's not a ping issue, b/c I'm getting the same ping as before 1.4. I tried multiple combination of settings, turned off bloom, textures etc etc. Doesn't help one bit. Maybe it has something to do with the new shadows they implemented, b/c indoor environments lag constantly, while outdoor environments are still playable. I think I'm gonna have to stop playing for a a couple of days until they fix this. Bugged sounds I can deal with, even bugged quests can be worked around or skipped. But when the game stutters so badly I feel nauseated, that is a bug I simply can't deal with.

Lol you're right about that Ravijari guy from from the Prologue. I completely forgot about him since it's been so long since I started my sage. I've hated the Consular story so much in Acts 1 and 2 that I've had a really hard time summoning the motivation to play her (although i must say, Sage healing absolutely ROCKS!!). Completely off topic, but for me the best "opposite of expected dark/light alignment" class to play is the Lightside Sith Warrior. A light side warrior is completely awesome in a snarky, know-it-all, sarcastic, highschool ****** kinda way. Don't know how my Sith elders don't strike me down, but it's fun taunting and smirking at them the whole story long. Plus Vette completely falls in love with you. That's a win in my book

Lvl 44 Dark 3 Sage here. To me going Dark doesn't make sense with the Consular story, at least in ACT 1. I supposedly have this special power that allows me to shield people from mind control, yet after I break the spell and set them free...I... kill... them...? Where's the rehabilitation? Where's the second chance? Why would I kill them when I can send them off to be a hermit somewhere and meditate on the evil they have done while being mind controlled? Doesn't make sense to me that the Jedi Council doesn't send someone to arrest me or at least investigate why everyone I am sent to save ends up dead lol. I have more Jedi blood on my saber than Malgus does. Act 2 and 3 make far more sense to me as a Dark Jedi.

I've had the complete opposite experience. Like you I'm also a Founder (and additionally participated in 2 closed beta). During the first server merger, I lost 2 character names in 12. This merger, I kept all my character names. Then again I've always gone far out of my way to find unique and obscure names from history and mythology to decrease the likelihood that someone else might also have my name. Based on your forum handle, you do not share this penchant which is probably why you and many others like you, lost your characters' names. Secondly as far as lag goes, whatever they did last night to the game engine in addition to server mergers fixed the horrendous lag I'd always experienced in high pop areas like the fleets. I never could PvP before; now I can Example: Pre-Mergers Imp fleet 140+- people on: 20-30 FPS with very slow loading character models and near constant lag. Post-Mergers: Imp fleet 195 people on 60-62 FPS, instant loading character models and no lag. (i5 2500k, 560ti, 8gb ram, Intel 520 SSD if anyone cares) The worlds are full of people running everywhere...it actually feels like a MMO again for the first time since launch.

I lost 2 names in 12 during the voluntary server merges, and managed to get through this one without losing a single name on any of my 8 characters from Drooga's so I feel very lucky. My sympathies to anyone who lost their names during the mergers. The first time switched servers in WoW I had to give up my main's name, which I loved. Ever after that I have always gone out of my way to find obscure, exotic sounding names from history and mythology so the likelihood of someone else having the same name would be remote. Losing a favorite name can be really painful.