Whether I feel out of character or not isn't (strangely enough) as much of an issue for me at the moment as this: That's how I feel about this new approach to the storyline on the whole, and I had held out hope that while it was a single plot, that they would put a bit more effort into still giving it a unique feel than just substituting a few lines here and there. To me, this just sounds like a maybe slightly more in-depth, yet glorified, world arc. The same things would happen there. A line would shift, what they called you was different, but in the end you approached it the same way as anyone else in your faction. The way that the endings are addressed is highly disappointing, at best. Like I've said before, I get the reasons why the stories are going more uniform now. Knowing why, though, doesn't make it less disappointing. It may be a good plot, but if it's basically a World Arc+1, and that's how they plan on doing every Chapter from here on, I see this ultimately hurting them where the story fans are concerned. Quality only matters if it's high enough to warrant repetition across alts on a game that heavily encourages alting.

About what I was expecting, but disappointing all the same. Thanks for the answer, Darth_Exar. Naturally I'll give it a playthrough once just to see where this all goes, but I know not to worry over my Marauder or Sniper at the moment.

I don't doubt that it might be good, especially if the IA writer was behind it. But is the beginning/introduction the only difference between each class' version of the plot? I'm honestly curious and stuck waiting until the 14th as I preordered late. Do they take into account the different ways each class would approach any given situation throughout the arc? IE does Agent's variation play more in subterfuge and infiltration where a SW is more direct offensives?

So is that the only real difference between each class, or in our class's case each 'ending', for Makeb? The opening scene or so? Has anyone finished the story on more than one character by now to know? I have three Imperial characters at 50 (Marauder, Sniper, Operative) and only one Republic (Sage), but my Republic character is a static-duo character with someone who seldom plays anymore. I don't have issues waiting on them to be able to play her through Makeb as I have other characters, but they're all Imperial. Quick aside: The only other Republic story I can really get into is the Knight and I was slowly working on one but had to push my Operative to 50 during the Double EXP weekends because she was closest. I wanted the free gear even if it goes obsolete fast in Makeb. So the Knight isn't an option because I have no drive to go do the same sidequests again at the moment. I know the story is great though because my Sage's duo partner was a Sentinel and I saw every bit of the plot, other than things like Holocalls/Ship Holocalls as it doesn't let the people with you see those. If the only difference in the Makeb plot is in the opening, I don't see a real reason to even bother with all three of them. I'll just pick one and go with it. Likely the Operative as I had an easier time leveling her overall, if only because of heals. Vaguely off topic, but related: The only reason I preordered Makeb at all was to do a sort of "for science!" test of how I like their faction plots. If the way they execute Makeb's doesn't impress me enough, then that may be the end of the road for me anyway. I find personalized, individual plotlines more interesting than the faction/one story for all (if the game lacks factions) that other MMOs use. The reason would be just that: because nearly ever other MMO does it. I'm still playing a few of them. The reason I was really into TOR despite some bumps and issues was the class stories and how they fleshed out the overall plot more with each character you completed. Also, it made alting fun, and I'm an altoholic. If they're done with class quests for the forseeable future, and a recent interview seems to confirm that, I may end up unsubbing until such time as they return. If they never do, well, I've always said the Agent story alone was worth the money I sank into the CE. The LS Warrior and Knight story were just icing on the cake.

I played a LS Sniper to 50 and I'm working a LS Operative now. Some variation between them to a point, but I have never felt any draw to play DS. If I don't outright hate my character and reroll, I bore quickly. That said, my impressions of the crew are somewhat colored by that lens, so if you intend a DS Agent, your mileage may vary. Kaliyo: I loved her from the start. She reminds me of Jack from ME2/3, and while some people I've talked to in Guild and General count that against her, I count it as a point for her. I really liked Jack's character, and I actually really like Kaliyo's character even as a LS Agent. There are times she mouths off, or hates my decisions and loses massive affection points, but I like that she isn't afraid to tell me so, unlike some other class companions. IE Quinn, in the SW category. One thing that annoyed me about Quinn is that he was so by the book he seldom stood up to me if he disagreed with me. There also seems to be a bit of a camaraderie between a Female Agent and Kaliyo in regards to men, given the quips she makes about the Agent and the main NPC you interact with on Balmorra. I like her sarcasm, and her tendency to run her mouth. Some people really hate that. She seems to me to be a character you either love, or hate. My Agent wasn't always the most patriotic thing, especially in regards to Sith (which she really highly disliked) and smarting off to them usually amused Kaliyo. Vector: Also loved him. Maybe not as a love interest, I'm a bit ambivalent on that, yet, but he amused me. Sure, he talks a bit strangely, but I sometimes get the vibe that he may be playing that up a bit to intentionally mess with people. I didn't finish his -or any companion's- story arc so that may actually be stated outright at some point, I don't know. I just haven't gotten around to grinding all that affection yet. He had some pretty funny quips of his own, and I have no serious complaints about him, other than in his romance, but even what little I started of that didn't seem as bad as some class' LIs. Lokin: Crazy old scientist. Loved him too. I didn't drag him as much as I ought, so I missed hearing him comment on most things beyond Taris' arc, but I liked how he seemed to mostly just do his own thing. I liked that he seemed a bit crazy, while also seeming to care for the Agent and the rest of the crew. Temple: ...a bit too idk, clingy or 'yes man' ish for me. Seemed to need validation from me rather often. Reminded me of Quinn in a way, but without Quinn's redeeming dry wit. *shrugs* Probably my least favorite Agent companion. SCORPIO: I love her voice. Her personality is a bit almost two dimensional. That's probably intentional, but while her quips about killing me and all were funny at first, she didn't amuse like, say, HK-47 in the KOTOR days, or whatnot. Still, her VA is really good.

This may get long winded. I apologize in advance. JC was my first class to 50, and in the time since, I've gotten a SW and IA to 50. I duoed the JC with a JK all the way up, so I have seen the vast majority of that story as well, barring a few CS that don't play (holocalls, etc). I can safely say of those four, the JC was easily the weakest story for me. There are several, several reasons, and I tend to ramble all day when this is brought up. I'll try to keep it concise. Act 1: I actually enjoyed the premise of this act moreso than the following two. What completely gutted it, however, was the fact that choosing to shield each master had zero consequence whatsoever. Your companions and others keep impressing on you how this is risky and you could easily kill yourself but absolutely nothing happens. As mentioned by someone else earlier in the thread, if they'd even done a temporary thing like Voss, that would have been something, but they didn't. I never had any kind of weakness or consequence as a result of my choice to save these masters, ostensibly with my own life force. This is supposed to be a unique, rare power, and yet the consequences weren't just glossed over, they were largely ignored other than lip service. Except for Voss. I appreciated that, but then again Voss is good on every character I've had at that point so far. There should have been some kind of consequence, and that alone might have solidified Act 1, at the very least, as a good plot. Er, Persona 3 spoiler ahead, doubt anyone cares but: The Rift Alliance: I didn't care about them at all. I'm completely serious. The only people I really cared about was Nadia and her father, and the outcome of that little arc was moving somewhat. The rest of them, I can't even remember their names, or what they wanted. The only impression I can remember lingering to now was that for the most part they were typically whiny political types and I wanted to airlock them. (Thank you, President Roslyn for making airlock a verb. <3) The Emperor's Children: This was another plot thread that had potential, but fell flat for me somehow. The twist I kind of saw coming, unfortunately, which probably deflated it a bit for me. But aside from that, each of them, I suppose I was meant to feel some kind of pity for, or something, but mostly I just didn't. Again. I can't really offer a solid logic behind why for this particular instance, so I can understand if you dismiss this particular reason as trifling. Duoing with a JK all the way to 50 certainly didn't help me, as I found what was going on in his story infinitely more riveting than my own, which only served to magnify my boredom, I believe. Personally, in a story, I like to have my characters go through some really rough patches, often with bad things happening to them. If there are never any real dire consequences in a story (or ones only mentioned and never seen) it tends to come out feeling flat overall to me. I suppose I like the 'trial by fire' thing. JK/IA spoilers: Last, the romances. To be frank I'm not that into the LIs for nearly any of the female classes, but the JC has probably some of the least interesting. Tharan is the type of 'charmer' that is actually more irritating than not to me, and that doesn't go anywhere, regardless. Iresso really didn't intrigue me much, either. Zenith would have made an actual interesting romance, but was sadly unavailable. Long story short: Had Act 1 had the consequences they kept harping on, I would probably rank the overall JC story somewhat better than I currently do. As is, it's definitely at the bottom of the list of the ones I've finished/seen finished so far.

I think what needs to happen now is a serious, concentrated effort on getting this question relayed to the team: "Is any class specific story content ever coming? In any other expansion, at some point in the future? Is this 'faction specific story' the mode of the plot going forward or something just for RotHC?" I've stayed subbed to this game since the beginning despite there being many moments where I was frustrated or unhappy with several aspects of it. I have three characters at cap. I loved Agent's story so much I'm now doing the other AC just to go through it again. What I don't love, what already bugs me, is repeating the side quests and world arc that are the exact same for every character on that faction. Oh, sure, there might be a snippet or a line difference but that's not enough to matter at all. The planet arcs are also, frankly, not that interesting. Voss is probably the only one I really enjoyed in that regard. I knew that Makeb would be faction-specific (I seem to recall this being announced a while back, actually) and that had already dampened pretty much any interest I had in it. Once I've done Makeb on my SW, why should I bother taking my Sniper through it? There's not going to be anything going on there that at all touches on the various endings, goals, and stated aspirations of either of those characters, I can almost guarantee it. This game encourages alting, but what makes it less irritating than in other games is the fact that every class has a different, unique story that shows a facet of life in the Star Wars 'verse. Some stories were weaker than others, but they were at least unique. If this move to faction-specific storylines is the norm from here on, I honestly don't see how you can expect people to play (several) alts through a plot that only mildly changes based on class. Frankly, if class specific is out, then I will likely be dropping my sub after finishing up the last few stories I care to see. The world arcs have never been that compelling to me, and despite any claims to the contrary, I have sincere doubts that Makeb's will be anymore enthralling than the rest. How my Agent moved forward after the choices made in Chapter 3 is of infinite more importance to me than a glorified world arc. The class specific story was one of the major selling points of this game pre-release. It is what Bioware, and all the fans, pointed to the most in trying to stand this game above the other MMOs that were coming out around that time and beyond. Now, it seems they are trying to brush it aside and are unwilling to give the fanbase -a decent sized portion of which is only here for those stories- an answer. Generic, mediocre faction plots is something I expect in say, Rift. It is not what I wanted or expected from TOR when I preordered it, but if that is the new direction, I would most definitely like to know.

I've only run BT since F2P, as I was staring up some alts to take advantage of the chance to actually get Heroics done for once. However, the very first H4 I attempted to do since F2P went live was a garbled mess I haven't seen the like of in years. There was myself and one other player, who had started the call for the quest, and then we picked up two others who were in the same area once we got there. The problem? These other two players couldn't even say 'Hello' in Group Chat, and when the leader tried to mark targets or call out any kind of strategy they would both just dive in mid sentence, or before he even got the marks off. One kept running off in random directions from the party and pulling more than one group of elites back. They wouldn't protect the healer (me) and left that to the leader while they attacked whatever suited their fancy leading to too much damage being done to everyone for me to keep up, and that was if I lived. Both of these 'others' were Marauders, and I have a 50 Marauder so I'm not hating on the class, more stating I know what could be done. By that level I know you have at least one survivability skill in Saber Ward, and I'm almost positive I had Rebuke by then, too. (If the names are off, forgive me, been on my Sentinel more recently, not the Marauder.) They weren't using either skill at any point. I did this on my Marauder when she was 'younger' and never took anywhere near that much damage and when I did start pulling hate, up went the defensive skills. Any attempts to call them to wait or offer suggestions was met with more absolute silence. The leader and I were the only two who even attempted to speak or work out strategy. I tried with humor and at last just straight asking, so either they were willfully ignorant, or spoke so little English they didn't care, which I don't buy. Most people who can't understand you at all will attempt to tell you so, or used to. The worst part: Turns out I couldn't even get the quest (some area quest) because apparently it has a hidden progress prereq on the world itself, and I only stuck around to help them out. Ended up being more trouble than it was worth, really.

Before I start the rest of my reply: I'm subbed and have been since the beginning. I had several guildies, family members, and friends who had all been subbed for varying lengths of time in the past, but for one reason or other had unsubbed before F2P. Once it was announced, they were excited to come back and just poke around, and of course realized there would be some restriction to their accounts. That wouldn't have been near so terrible except for the fact that none of them can get their coins without resubbing. One brother has checked for sure, none of his. My old duo partner, same issue, and he should have a good chunk. Making former subscribers resub just to get their coins is a bit inane, imo. Even FFXIV didn't require someone to be subbed up to the end of 1.0/release of 2.0 to get Legacy status and that game tanked harder than this one. You needed 3 months, wherever they fell, and you were good to go. Bonuses and whatnot when 2.0 goes live. For any 3 months of sub. Why is it that Bioware and EA are essentially making these returning players (of which there are many) resub just to get their coins? The whole allotment of coins to current subs/returners was really a big point for a lot of people, and it's turned into another point of contention now. Some of the tension at the moment would be alleviated if they'd just give the returning players their allotment that way they could lift some of the more bizarre restrictions this game places. I see nothing in the comparison chart that says this is bugged, and in fact remember seeing a little 'ad' on the main page about resubbing before Dec 20th to receive your coins so obviously this is WAI. I'm all for restrictions on Operations, Ranked WZ, and GTN slots (more because of RMT on that last), but basic UI slots and just to hide your headslot or customize your colors/companion looks? Really? That to me is just a bit of a silly, petty restriction. Honestly I think even normal mode FPs ought to be available to free people, or at least permanently unlockable for the account; there's some nice story in some of those. LotRO doesn't restrict your Quickslots, dye colors, headslots... in fact I've never been in a game that moved to F2P that had so many random, mind-boggling little restrictions outside of the 'norm' that I would expect. So I'm actually a bit upset about this, myself, because if they'd only been given their coins without having to resub, I would have had several more people to play with once again. They might even have resubbed at some point. But this petty little condition on receiving their coins has turned them off before they even got their feet wet in the game again to care. I think it would've been a smarter marketing move to give the previous subbers their coins, whether they had a sub at the moment or not. They'd be more likely to stay, unlock some restrictions and then buy more coins for those little silly gambling boxes, or other things instead of logging in, looking at it all and getting discouraged and promptly logging back off.

I think you just seriously made me consider making my Operative a Chiss, too. The Shrine of Healing was far too awesome as a Chiss to go for something more generic. :/

Well, I don't know if it's specific to Chiss, but the entire bit with the Healer/Mystic on Voss does take into account your Chiss-ness when she begins to question you. It may also play similar for other alien races and while I've also just rolled another Agent (reverse from you: first was sniper, this will be an operative) and she's a Miraluka, she's all of level 1 so I have no idea how that scene plays for her. But it does seem to let you allow for your Agent feeling discriminated against because of their race. I thought it was pretty neat. In a more RP sense, the racism compounded with previous acts' events had brought my Agent to a point of feeling utterly expendable and unimportant. I thought Voss allowed both of those to be addressed to some degree.

This line right here. I've often said that making the choice that lets you hear this requires a magnanimous frame of mind in your Agent, and the quote shows it well. I loved that line so much. There are a ton of good lines in the IA story, but this is probably my favorite, or one of them, barring things my sieve of a mind has let slip. The IA story on the whole is grand; I am usually not a 'spy story' type of person, but something about this plot dragged me in and held me there (through many 3-4 AM gaming sessions) for nights on end. Had to see how it ended. Couldn't rest well until I did.

Oh, goodie! Theme song thread! I love finding theme songs for my characters in pretty much everything ever. Sith Warrior (LS) - The Messenger by Your Favorite Enemies (Full version, not the Chaos/Cosmos split variations) Imperial Agent- Hero by Skillet And since both of the above are LS and both by the end are actively trying to create massive change in the Empire, they kind of have a 'tag team' theme song: Seven Devils by Florence and the Machine. I have several other characters, and a Sage at 50, but I've never been able to really pin a theme song down for my Sage unfortunately.

I would have liked to have had a Pureblood Jedi, but at the end of the day, I never could find a face I liked on the female ones. I was going to roll one as a SI and get to 50, get the unlock without sinking the credits, but since I never found a face, that plan never got off the ground. It's a shame, too. The male Purebloods have a lot of neat faces, though.

Former XI Vet. Can confirm this. Fun game, but in the last few years when I tried to return and my 'network' of people had quit, breaking Limit on a new character I had created well.. pretty much became an insurmountable wall. It was group or bust for everything and while that sounds good on paper for community, the reality is not what people with pink tinted shades try to claim. The reality was, most people still didn't speak in a group outside of: 'Shadows down, Provoke.' Or other largely auto-translate filled status updates/calls for for various abilities. The most talkative group I was ever in was Japanese and while I couldn't understand a word of it, they at least tried to include me with emotes. But by and large it was just a silent camp-grind while leveling. Guilds (or Linkshells, as it were), then as now, were how you really made friends and a network. Shoving people together to do anything past 10/20ish even when they'd rather not, just led to more jaded feelings and silence than it encouraged talking. My Friend List got filled by guild mates, not people I partied with in the Dunes or The Boyhada Tree. Even after Abyssea when leveling became ridiculously fast and done in Book Burn raids, there was still not much chatter, even though the demands on individual attention and skill had dropped. That said, I like grouping when I feel like it, but only when I feel like it. When it's forced I'll either skip it, or do it grudgingly and largely in silence so that I get it done efficiently and quickly. I do usually join calls for Heroics, as doing them along with the solo quests tends to keep you overleveled and I like that. Making them required to leave is not the answer you are looking for, though. Some people prefer to group only with friends/family, some people just don't like group content or have young children that may demand afks at any given moment and don't want to be a burden. It may be changed now, but last I tried to queue for Heroics in the Group Finder it only specified a world, which wasn't helpful as you'd sometimes end up with people who weren't on the quest you were, or had done it already. Maybe allow it to specify? If they've already done this, then ignore that part. I honestly haven't opened that panel in about two or three months.