I have only played a JC through Act I of the story, so I freely admit to not having the full picture but I do have some thoughts about this. The JC storyline, at least in Act I, is about sacrifice. Your character gives up their own strength and power to shield others and is "weaker" as a result. A lot of players don't want or like that; they want to be the strongest they can be. A lot of them, and I'm going to be biased here and say that this is particularly true of those who play Sith for the most part, do not understand the idea of sacrificing for another. They'd just want to kill the infected Masters and show how bad *** awesome they are. It challenges the typical MMO approach/story of getting to be uber-strong and just smashing your way through whatever the danger is. At least for most of it, the threat is one you can't fight directly and that turns off a lot of people too. There's also an aspect of redemption; the corrupted masters have done some bad things and many players feel they should be "punishing" them (back to the killing thing above) rather than healing them. I may be off on that, but that's what I've taken away from people talking about this in General or even in other parts of the forums.

I play mainly Republic, but I have a few Empire characters as well. I will openly say that I am heavily Republic leaning in my play and personal philosophy. The only reason I play Empire at all is because of friends of mine who play that side that I want to talk to/game with. I've noticed that most of the pro-Empire posts here have to insert hypotheticals or brush off parts of Imperial doctrine/culture that undermine their argument. IF the Emperor was good, IF the Sith were fair and noble minded. IF this and If that. They aren't; no amount of what ifs will change that. The reality is that the Empire is rabidly xenophobic and genocidal, elitist to an extent that even humans who can't use the Force are second class citizens and can be slain on a whim by their Sith overlords, and that any social mobility is an illusion unless you're a Sith. Because even if you're a Moff, some punk Sith can still decide to part your hair with a lightning bolt and it's his right to do so. And even if you are Sith, you can be murdered by your fellows (who are encouraged to do so) if they want your stuff and it will be institutionally ignored. Playing Empire side, I've lost count of how many missions I've had to do that are all the result of Darth Ponderous or Lord Pretensor's grudge/pet project/cause being put forth and dozens/hundreds/thousands of lives and millions of credits wasted by the Empire. That seems pretty corrupt to me. The OP also castigated the Republic for allowing slavery in other governments but the fact that the Empire openly enslaves hundreds of millions of people is all right somehow. There is no slavery in the Republic; it is illegal and those who practice it are criminals who are pursued and prosecuted when caught. If there is slavery in parts of the galaxy that are not part of the Republic, it is not their job to make other governments do what they want. They control their territory, their citizens, and their laws, not that of other people. The Republic is flawed; there's no such thing as a perfect government of any kind but any one that is based on the activity and will of the populace will be as flawed as people are. The Republic as an institution is more fair, more open, and more capable of change and advancement. There will be corruption, because some people are corrupt but it's not the institutionalized and accepted corruption of the Sith Empire. The corruption can also be expunged more easily; in a democracy, the government can be overthrown whenever the populace wants it to be and change effected. If the people want it and are willing to buckle down and do it, all the structures and systems are in place to effect change. It's not that it is perfect but that it can be that way if the people try hard enough. Reformers in the Republic build support, win small victories and build on them, gaining momentum until change is effected. Reformers in the Empire are killed. In the Empire, there's no reason to want to change anything and even if you did, there's no way to do it without a coup d'etat, the structure doesn't support that kind of thing. The more terrible parts of the Empire are, in fact, essential for it's functioning. The Empire needs slavery; it couldn't afford to do all the things it does if it had to pay for all that work/food/equipment. The Empire needs xenophobia because it keeps the ruling class from completely disintegrating into paranoid massacres that would fracture it immediately; it creates a boogeyman for them all to unite against. The Jedi and the Republic work the same way for that purpose. The Empire's evil is part of the institution and thus any attempt to change it would have to fundamentally remake the institution itself.

I should preface my comments by saying that I haven't read any of the books you're talking about. My Mandalorian experience has essentially come from the movies (which I'm not entirely sure even ever have the word Mandalorian come up in them), the 90's Star Wars books (when I was a kid), and the KotOR series of games. I'd also state that this is just my opinion; I feel it's got a solid basis but it is just that. I know that for me, my biggest problems with the Mandalorians don't have anything to do with them fighting/killing Jedi or Sith. Jedi are mortal, death happens. I'm fine with Jedi and Sith being killed by normal people; particularly if they're careless/sloppy/weakened/etc. That's how fighting works, no matter how good you are. There are two things that bother me about them. First, it's that they spout a lot of what seems to be crap about honor and fighting worthy opponents and then act like cowards. I remember a companion conversation with Canderous Ordo in KotOR I where he glowingly tells you about some orbital dive attack he was in against a planet that had no defenses anyway and talks about that as an example of how great the Mandalorians are. (It has been a while since I played the game, but I think I recall the gist of that conversation) Okay, you can sucker punch people who aren't able to fight back; what does that have to do with honor or proving your strength? Similarly, in their other conflicts that I know of (mostly in the games, including TOR) the Mandalorians surprise attack, usually when there's an existing conflict happening so they don't have to fight an already engaged professional military. As I recall the history of TOR, that was their involvement in the Great Galactic War. That's just personal though, there are some people who like that kind of culture and they're welcome to it. The larger issue for me is that the Mandalorians aren't original. I'm going to get lots of hate for even saying this, but this warrior culture thing was done in mainstream sci-fi/space opera before Star Wars and that's my (personally) biggest problem with them; they're Klingons with a different color palette and not as tight pants. Fewer head lobsters too. Warrior culture based on personal honor and glory in combat? Check. Talking big about fighting directly and with honor and then sneak attacking? Check. Idiomatic sayings based on those of Earth warrior cultures? Check. Their own made-up language? Check. Disdain for those who are "sneaky" or "underhanded" despite doing the same things themselves? Check. Strong 1st quarter team that fades in the second half? Check. I think that's one of the big problems with the Mandalorians for a lot of people. They've been done before, some would say better, some would say worse; but either way they really feel like taking a chunk of someone else's universe and trying to shoehorn it into Star Wars where it doesn't necessarily fit.

"I sense something; a presence I've not felt since- *suddenly and dramatically turn away*" Perfect way to end any conversation; particularly those you didn't want to be part of in the first place.

All right! Not completely wrong! That is interesting, what you said about Darth Marr. It might have been that Marr didn't know Malgus' intentions as a reformer; I'd imagine he hid them well. It might also have been that both Darth Marr and Darth Malgus wanted to the "the one" to change the Sith Empire, not "one of the ones," if that makes sense. There's a pretty strong only one person at the top thing with the Sith, even if they're run by a council while the Emperor's on the can (or whatever he's doing). Not to break from lore, but I suspect is the main reason is that the writers and developers didn't want Darth Malgus on the Council for the whole False Emperor thing or other storylines. So even if it made sense, they wanted to keep him as an inside-outsider.

I think for some of them it's an issue of programming and time allocation. For the starting planets, since the PCs won't have their ships yet (or lose them in the Smuggler's case), Bioware just never made a cinema of the character's ships landing on Tython/Ord Mantell/Hutta/Korriban and thus when you go there later, it can't show you landing on the planet, so they do the orbital station work around. I could be wrong, of course, but that's my suspicion. As for other worlds that have them, your guess is as good as mine on that front.

Apologies in advance if I'm mistaken in my lore here, I am not a Sith expert. I think politics played a big part in why Malgus wasn't on the Dark Council (please correct me if I'm wrong and he actually was at one point). In the lore I've read, he went against the Council on more than one occasion. He was successful in what he did so it was overlooked in terms of punishment but it was something that wouldn't sit well with a lot of powerful Sith. He also was married to an alien, even if he did eventually kill her, and the Sith are racist enough to hold that against him. So you have a very powerful and very skilled radical who had ignored your authority before and has widespread support among certain parts of the military. I think they took a look at that and assumed that the second he was on the Dark Council, it would be bloody coup d'etat time. It might have been a smart move to put him on it though. Making him part of the system might have blunted his radical edge a bit and made him try to work within it, but I don't think the other Sith on the Council would be willing to take that risk.

There's a grand tradition of big guys in massive powered armor with tiny, tiny heads in sci-fi. I'll admit to not liking the looks of most of the helmets I've had with any of my characters, so I usually turn them off. Sometimes the armor can make it look a little strange but I also just like seeing my character's face in dialogues instead of a helmet; I want to be the hero, not my armor. I do also run with Body Type 2 so that might make a difference. I have tried Body Type 3 as a male character before and just thought it was too over the top.

Jedi Knight - Kira started a running sabbac game when Ramza (my male JK) got his ship, even bullying C2 into playing. T7 is way ahead of everyone else (little droid has no tell). - Doc keeps trying to give Ramza advice and lines to use on Kira and has appointed himself his "mentor in the ways of women." - C2 never puts more padding into any of the seats in the medbay or Doc's quarters and always gives him less food than the rest of the crew, as he thinks Doc is a "disreputable ruffian."

Dromund Kass. Not sure what it is exactly that makes it so displeasing to me but all my Imperial characters bogged down after getting there because I just disliked playing on that planet so much. I had to make myself play through it with a "grit your teeth and get it over with" mindset.

It seems to me from reading the link there that playing a Gray Jedi is more along the lines of a role playing character choice than a rules/game play element. All of my Jedi characters have some Dark Side points for one reason or another, and in conversations with the various Masters I don't always agree with them, but I don't see how that makes me "gray" as much as a different kind of Light Side. I think a bit part of it is the basis of KOTOR I and II. While certain characters would express a Gray mentality, the games systems rewarded extremes more. Since those were the basis for TOR, I'd assume that theme carried through. One thing you might want to consider as a way to keep to a fully neutral position and still access relics would be use the Diplomacy Crew Skill to earn whichever way you wanted to go for relics and allow your conversation options to be whatever you wanted.

A lot of good comments here but I think the biggest one to remember is that one of the big things that MMO players often cite as something they enjoy is character customization. It's one of the reasons games like City of Heroes stuck around for years well after the bulk of their play group moved on; you could customize the appearance of your character to an almost ridiculous extent. Adding weapons like the axes is a way to offer players a little more customization. I'm not planning on using them for any of my characters but I think it's cool that they're out there as an option if people want them. Makes a nice alternate weapon too for any one who wants to RP a Jedi/Sith who's "turned away from the Order" or started following some new ethic like the Mandalorian honor code or what have you, since the lightsaber is such a symbol.

I think it's actually a technical thing. From what I've read, there isn't a skin that was made for Togruta females to be that bare and still have their skin color and markings, etc. So they put the body suit thing on there as a place filler since they didn't have a skin for her. The developers/artists just never got to making one or it was never implemented if it does exist. I read that on another thread when they first put out the adaptive armor rules. I don't know if any of the other female companions are like that or not.

Very happy to see these little changes too. I know there are things other people really want and have been talking about for a long time, but since I started playing one of my big things has been companion head gear. I'm ecstatic that we'll be able to hide their head gear. For me it'll add a lot to the cinematic quality of the game and the visual appeal. The companion color matching is also a great thing. No more companions looking like patchwork hobos! My Trooper's companions can look like a military unit!

KOTOR: The graphics might look strange now but for their time they were fantastic and polished. I played this game a lot; several playthroughs making different choices and such. I've loaded it onto every computer I've had since I bought it and played it through once. I loved the characters and the story; it was incredibly immersive and fun. KOTOR2: It was a prettier game and the game mechanics were an improvement but it felt unfinished, rushed, and somewhat schizophrenic the whole way through. The root plot was very intriguing but it was also quite muddled and never fully fleshed out or made sense to me. There were whole plot lines that just kind of petered out or ended abruptly with no real conclusion, making the end product feel anticlimactic and very rough. It's a game that I wish was better than it was because I wanted to like it more than I did.