And gosh darn it if Chevrolet would only stop using tires! That's so stolen from Ford! Basing a new design on successful previous designs isn't theft. It's good planning. If you try to re-invent the wheel with every aspect of your product, you'll never complete it. The key is to ensure that your product has significant differences to separate it from the competition. In many industries, the significant difference is nothing more than a lower price. SWTOR has significant differentiators - story that people (maybe not you) want to pay attention to, voice acting that for the most part stands heads above the "which developer has the coolest voice?" hiring practice of most game developers, and a complex setting based on 30+ years of contributions from Lucas Arts, Bioware, and others. It also has some small differences in mechanics from That-Other-Game. Think the bolstering system for 10-49 pvp and the mirrored classes.

Thank you for the support. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who is frustrated with the ongoing sound issues in swtor. As noted above, there are some fantastic ambient sounds in this game. The humming of generators, the distant explosions, the crack of someone casting lightning storm. these things absolutely make the game. Unfortunately, they are so often missed entirely, due to the fact that most people have to turn the ambient sound off. Space missions are still wonky, my saber noise often follows me around incessantly, even when my saber isn't out etc. That one particular sound is brutal though, and unless the hero engine is worse than I think, it should be a relatively easy fix.

Black Talon and Esseles. The droids cut through the doors, and the excruciating sound of the torches continues long after the encounter. In fact in Black Talon you can hear it when you return to the Black Talon after completing the mission. This is a simple change to a parameter on either a function call or a sound file, depending on the tool used. It has been reported numerous times by myself and others in my guild. It has existed since before 1.2. It's the FIRST flashpoint new players experience. and such an annoying and basic bug probably does not give them a terribly good impression of the game. Get your backlog in order please. it's not game breaking, but it is certainly important enough to have warranted the 10 minutes of attention in the last 3 months it would require for it to be fixed

In a previous thread you described how threat and de-taunt mechanics work. However, you didn't mention what taunt does exactly. I ask because there seems to be some disagreement on the forums as to whether it has a threat component or not. The tooltip for the Sith Warrior simply says "forces the target to attack you for 6 seconds." This is a pretty important difference for tanks. If there is a threat boost involved, then taunt should be used regularly. If there isn't, it's more of a tool to get a mob's attention and away from someone else.

Your question can be interpreted in a number of ways: 1) Do I have to join the republic or the empire? Answer: Yes. You have to join one faction or the other. Even smugglers and bounty hunters are assigned to a faction. 2) Can I choose my skills as I level up, and therefore take some of the jedi abilities and some sith abilities? Answer: No, unfortunately. However, the classes are 'mirrored' so while the names and appearance of your skills are different, they actually do the same thing. For example a Sith Warrior has the ability called Force Choke, which holds an opponent above the ground and chokes it. Jedi's have something called Force Stasis, which holds an opponent above the ground and damages it. All of the class abilities are mirrored. Sith Warrior = Jedi knight, Sith Inquisitor = jedi consular, Smuggler = imperial agent, bounty hunter = trooper 3) Do I have to play my jedi to be a good guy or my sith to be bad? Answer: No. Bioware has taken a fair amount of effort to make it possible to play good, evil or neutral characters of all classes. Your jedi could always take evil options, and he or she won't be permanently penalized for it. Your story options would be different and your dialogues would be different, but you will still be able to advance your story and your character 4) Can I play a jedi of the sith 'pureblood' race? Answer: Yes, but only after you have 'unlocked' that ability.

Please change the daily space mission from "complete X Mission" to "Complete 1 of the 3 high level missions." I don't know the missions for Republic, but for Empire, currently the daily commendation mission requires completion of "Ascendancy Barrier." Having done this several hundred times now, it would be nice if we could choose to do EITHER Ascendancy Barrier, Clouds of Vondoru or Aeten Defense. This would provide a little much needed variety, especially for those with multiple high level characters.

Really? So, operatives/smugglers are stronger than troopers/bounty hunters? Things are definitely a little lopsided towards ranged, but that's what makes playing melee fun. I play juggernaut, operative and bounty hunter, and I much prefer playing the melee chars. I find my bounty hunter pretty dull. The issue for me is not that raids are generally easier as a ranged class, it's that my operative often ends up taking almost as much healing as our tank. Position is basically unimportant, as many bosses have 360 degree AoE that may not damage the tanking classes much, but almost wipes operatives out entirely.

the things I liked: - That both factions had to go to the same areas to complete the quests. This lead to impromptu world PvP at some points, and silent truces at other times - That there was no warning or instruction when it occurred. This lead to a lot of discovery, exploring and sharing amongst the community - The humour. from the news casts to the plague's mechanism for transmission, the containment officers rappelling in from the ceiling... lots of fun - The planning and forethought. It was a nice tie-in with the new flashpoint, there were lots of 'little' things, like the announcements, the droids in the hangars, that made it feel like more like an event and less like "Go here, do that, kill mobs." Things I didn't like: - The 'daily' quests. Some were ok, but doing them repeatedly resulted in a break in the immersion. In my opinion, daily quests should make sense to be done repeatedly. For example, a quest to kill certain amount of rakghouls or infected players a day would make sense. Doing the same research every day and killing the same ship captain does not. - The location - I love Tatooine, but most of the places I went were places I had already seen while leveling. Send us to the little used areas of Alderaan or Hoth - The rewards - This was a bit of a let down. Two colours of the same pet, a cool customization that isn't tradeable and only has a 1/8 chance of being for one of your companions, and colour crystals which are only really relevant to the force-using classes (because non-force users barely ever even notice the colour of their blaster shots). These all felt a little underwhelming. The rewards were easy to get, and so shouldn't be anything too crazy. Simply making the companion customizations relevant to your character would have made a big difference. Overall, I thought it was a lot of fun and I look forward to more events like this.

Unbelievable. Kaliyo loses 2k health everytime I get on my speeder. If I actually want her to tank anything, I have to remove her earpiece and implants every @@@ time I get on and off my speeder. I am a big fan of this game and Bioware, but this should have been fixed months ago. Please submit bug reports for this. I will be, again and again, until this is fixed.

I'm glad that I'm not going insane. I thought that the theory was that concealment was burst DPS and therefore not sustainable. However, when I played concealment, I found that as long as you throw in the odd rifle shot and keep stim boost up, energy management was not an issue, meaning concealment can keep its burst dps going pretty much indefinitely. I'm hesitant to mention this, because if the devs do something to address it, it will be to make energy management more difficult for concealment, and operatives have enough problems in PvP as it is. The other issue I am finding is that boss fights are rarely just beating on one target incessantly. The boss disappears, brings in adds, knocks back etc. This seriously adversely affects the lethality spec, a lot more than concealment. Concealment can jump back in and immediately get their damage up, while lethality has to get both dots on, weakening blast, get TA procs again, and then start cull. Darth Severis in hard mode Battle of Ilum is a good example of this. He disappears, then when he reappears dart and grenade are gone. I shiv for TA, dart, grenade, weakening blast... and he's gone before I can get a cull off. Meanwhile my friend has backstabbed with acid blade, darted, shived, lacerated twice, doing way more damage than I have. Don't get me wrong - I am not asking for boring TanknSpank boss fights. However, the way lethality is set up at the moment seems pretty useless.

I leveled my operative with the intention of playing a healer, but due to my guild's spread of level 50 characters I've been playing mostly DPS instead. I went lethality spec, while my friend who is also playing an operative has stayed in concealment. We often run in the same instances with the raid damage meter running. I am disappointed to see that my DPS is always 5-10% lower than my friend's, despite being better geared. I expect this when clearing trash mobs, because the mobs are generally dead before I even get to use cull, and with elites I often only get to use cull once. But I thought that on boss or champion targets where I get 2-3 minutes of straight damage, where I'd have my dots and weakening blast up constantly, I would put out more DPS than my friend. However, it doesn't happen that way. I'm always 5-10% lower. This confuses me, because I find that lethality is not really viable DPS in PvP the level 50 bracket. It is POSSIBLE to run lethality operative in PvP, and it can be useful, but I have found that you are struggling for tactical advantage procs and you're too squishy to be in close range to get shivs in. You're more of a support role with your slows, and your dots are useful against those ball carrying tanks. I figured that this meant that lethality was better suited for PvE, but as my numbers are invariably below my friend on concealment spec I have to think I'm doing something wrong. I'm hoping someone out there has some tips. Generally I start a boss fight with shiv (they detect stealth so hidden strike isn't possible) then use that TA proc for stim boost. I follow that with corrosive grenade and poison dart and weakening blast. Shiv is usually up at that point so I use it and hammer the target with cull. From there I cycle shiv, dart, weakening blast, cull and corrosive grenade as best I can, trying to keep at least 1 tactical advantage up at all times for the damage boost. Any tips on rotations, builds or gear that might improve my dps, or is lethality just not worth using? (edited for some clarity, Wrote the original late at night)

But I have to turn it off because every time I log into the fleet all I can hear is the persistent jet boost sound. Please fix this. It can't wait until 1.3+. It's loud, annoying, and it is destroying the immersion you have tried so hard to create with story and character.

Agreed on both the sound and the loading. Do you find that the volume goes up and down throughout the mission? For example, in Ascendancy Barrier the sound starts extremely loud, and then about 30 seconds in it drops low, then a little while later it's deafening again. I sent in a detailed bug report about this on the weekend, and I did get a response from CS in game asking for more details, so I think that's a good sign.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Because this way you can use all those Biometric Crystal Alloys to make beautiful augmented belts and bracers for all of your companions! Well, all those companions who need strength or will power.