You know... a case could be made that this will make players better. Getting to spend more time with your entire tool set and passives before group play can only help, not hurt.

Meh. I am enjoying the game. Sorry you aren't.

I do find it bizarre that gaming companies gravitate so closely to Twiter to release information. I honestly didn't think people use it much in the USA. Even my teenagers have given it up. Either I'm really out of touch or Community teams are. Hard to say.

Everytime I design some old dude with a full white beard, and get called Padawan on Tython, I chuckle a little.

"Cannon" establishes rules. Imagine if Disney declared that despite what happened in the previous movies, now all Jedis have halos and all Siths have horns. The general public would guffaw and rage and say, "THAT'S NOT STAR WARS!" Cannon allows people to play mental games with fiction and create "what if" scenarios that can be logically answered. Han's Kessel Run mistake comes to mind. It's easy to say, "Lucas made a mistake with Han's boast." but it's more FUN to say Han knew what he was saying and explain it away. When something is cannon, you can expect those events and characters to be referenced in the future. Let's take for example Ben Skywalker. He was in dozens of books. Meticulously developed and groomed, and even shepherded a little by Lucas himself. Now that he's not cannon, we have to wait to see if Luke fathered him or not according to the movie. If, according to the movie, he didn't, then that character is gone. It's not that he won't be in a movie, it's that it's just over. He won't be in anymore books, comics, movies, nada. So yes, we still have the stories he was in to enjoy, but we can't really look forward to his continued journey. It was just a story that was pinched off. When something is declared "cannon" it's sort of a guaranty of consistency. Yes, it's all useless knowledge since it's fiction... but the promise of consistency adds a sort of "reality" to things.

Playing Devil's Advocate here... But Sidious' strength came in the fulfillment of the Sith Destiny to control the galaxy. Even in the movies, Palpatine admits that he wasn't as strong as his master and had to kill him in his sleep.

I guess in my mind, the reason they created the "Legends" tag was so that they could sweep the old stories under the rug and insure that every new piece of literature or film released would be "Cannon." They shut down a lot of active projects when they were making decisions, from books to games. When they decided to keep SWTOR running, I interpreted that as a either "It's cannon" or "It's so long ago in the storyline, we'll address it when we need to." The Old Republic story line offers something that the modern stories do not allow for, and that's a galaxy where the Force isn't nearly as rare and where Sith society as a whole can be addressed. People LOVE the Sith. There's a HUGE market for Sith stories, merchandise, and fan service. Hell, my 13 year old son LOVES the ideas behind the Sith, where they don't just pay attention to their "feelings" but forcibly channel them to accomplish goals. He loves the mystique, he loves the color scheme, he loves that they armor themselves instead of using robes. The lack of Force users in the primary movie sagas makes sense in the bubble of that time frame and tells a great story. However, with Disney releasing a movie every year between now and who knows when, they will be looking for additional ideas to explore. A young Han Solo movie makes sense, even a young Boba Fett makes sense, but do people really want to see a young Wedge Antiles movie? Probably not. Star Wars is primarily about two things: family drama and The Force. They can't keep building new movies off of "the big three" so they will need to explore new options. With that said, there's a part of me that thinks Kylo Ren is either a Revanite or Revan himself. I've heard "Ren" is a title/name bestowed upon those who are members of the order of "The Knights of Ren" so I can imagine that over the course of 3,000 years that word could have lost its original translation (and gone from "Revan" to "Ren"). I know it's a stretch, but the Old Republic is just too rich for them to ignore forever and completely. Also, I have a friend who says, "IT'S ALL CANNON!" He says there's no need to argue about what actually happened and what didn't, and that it's all about what you enjoy in the moment, anyway.

I thought they weren't based on your level, but on your class story progression.

I am curious if it's intentional design that you drop 208 gear/mods from the harder version of Star Fortress, but seemingly expect players to be geared better than that before succeeding in them? Please excuse the question if you regard 208 ilevel as a character getting geared for them.

Regarding the changes... I'll give them a whirl, but if the game feels more grindy when I'm doing solo stuff, it would be a hard change to swallow. Please remember that this isn't a genie that can put back in its bottle later. Everyone knows how subscription games work. You captivate people, but when the spell is broken (by a perceived bad change or release of a competitor) you end up losing them for a year or more. I'm used to one thing, and if it's not as fun as it used to be, the spell will be broken and I'll start looking for other stuff to play. That's not a threat, or an accusation. It's just how us 30-somethings play MMOs nowadays.

I don't want to just jump into this argument, but it's worth noting that with about 10 minutes of solo playtime a day you can generate enough gold to pay for your monthly sub there for starters. There's a redonkulous amount of stuff you can do solo in WoW, and quite frankly it's a little unfair to even compare the two games on that metric.

A work around I found was committing a single point at a time. It (sometimes) works.

http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/1a8gtl

Honestly... the number one thing I find this game missing is a real source of information. I assume your data is stored in such a way that fan sites can't mine it well, but when I try to find out what's purchaseable with, say, Daily Coms, I am on a google search. Even then, it's hard to find much more than generalities. I can't go to a single knowledge repository on the web because they are ALL a wreck compared to *other* mmos out there. And yes, when you are new user to this game, it makes the game have an air of low rent and community disinterest. A game as complex as this NEEDS a good data-driven website backing it up. If the community has failed to generate one, then it really should be something your company tackles instead.

Thanks for the info. I noticed the other thread about the broken blasters and worried people would think my thread was being passive-aggressive. Space missions are actually one of my favorite parts of the game. I think they are an awesome distraction and mini-game. I want the top tier of ship gear, but it is costly enough that if it's going to be replaced soon I'd rather not burn the effort.