So, I bought the Series 808 Cybernetic gear for my Sith Warrior, and I noticed the light on the front was flashing really rapidly. It reminds me of in sci-fi movies when they find a crashed ship or something, and there are all sorts of flickering lights that can't seem to stay on. Then I noticed my textures looked kind of crappy, and realized my graphics settings were turned down, so I set my texture quality back up to high. When I did this, the light on the chest started pulsing in a slow and deliberate manner, which is great, because now it doesn't look broken. The only problem is, when I go into a conversation, the light still flashes really fast and looks broken. If I want it to look right anywhere, I'd want it to look right in the cut scenes. So, my question to anyone that knows is if there is a way to fix this? At first, I thought the rapid flashing was just the way the armor was, but since it changed in game when I adjusted my settings, I'm wondering if there's some setting I'm missing that might fix it in the cut scenes too? Does anyone else have this happening to them? If I can't find a fix, I might decide to pick up the chest piece from one of the other series. Probably 512 since I don't like the things on the back of the 505 series. Before I do that, though, I'd like to hear feedback about whether the other series also have this issue. Thanks.

Yea, I get that. I meant it was an oversight that BioWare really thought Sith Warriors would be okay with not being Darths. I mean, the iconic Sith Warrior is Darth Vader. Pretty much every powerful Sith in the canon uses the Darth title, for that matter. Darth is the most iconic Sith title of all, and it was crazy for them to think either Sith class should not earn it.

That's an incredibly narrow view of the situation. Everything that was happening in the Old Galactic Market Sector was partially her fault. The Migrant Merchant Guild was trying to launch a terrorist attack on the senate tower specifically to send her a message. She accepted a bribe from a dangerous coalition of criminals, and when she didn't hold up her end of the deal, citizens and Republic Security personnel payed the price. Many more would have died had you not intervened. Further, you have only her word that her opponent would have been bad for Coruscant. She's already displayed terrible judgement in getting into bed with the MMG, so why would you trust her assessment of her opponents integrity and the efficacy of his policies? Regardless, it's not your place to make such a decision with the limited and circumstantial evidence you have on hand. It should be a matter of inquiry for the Senate, who can investigate her dealings, determine her guilt, and punish her accordingly. Should the Senate or the people examine the evidence and determine she acted in the best interest of Coruscant, surely she would make it through the situation just fine. If she truly had evidence that her opponent was bad for Coruscant and her policies were more efficacious, she ought to have been able to secure backing from like-minded individuals through hard work and campaigning. She chose to take a shortcut instead. She was also in no position of absolute power, nor would her opponent have been had he won. If his policies were truly so terrible, they would not have made it through the Senate anyway. Citizens need to trust their government, and transparency is the only way for that to be possible. It's not a good thing for a government representative to be able to act illegally at their own discretion. If the system can be subverted at will by those with power, there may as well not be a system at all. Finally, the law is the law. She broke the law, laws decided upon by society at large as represented by the duly appointed government. Laws may not always be right, but you don't fix a system by secretly subverting it. You fix it by exposing it's flaws. At the end of the day, if the Senator was truly in the right to do what she did, it would set into motion an effort to reform the law, a better outcome than having a shady law on the books and shady senators willing to break it for the "greater good." As for Lovers and Secrets, I think Spanios and Moracen are obviously on a dark path, based on how quickly they are ready to make dubious decisions to protect themselves. First the bribe, and if you don't accept the bribe, Moracen seems ready to attack before Spanios talks her down. Given that, I don't disagree that letting them continue, especially if you accept the bribe, is a dark decision. I find other instances of Love = Darkness more reprehensible. For example, if the Jedi Knight becomes involved with the Matriarch of the Twi'lek village, that's considered dark. It'd be better if instead of getting involved romantically being an automatic dark side choice, they tested our resolve to doing right in the face of the attachments we made. For example, when the Knight becomes involved with the matriarch, it should be neutral. Later, a choice should come up where you must decide between the interests of your new lover, or some greater good. Choosing the interests of the Matriarch should be dark, and lead to appropriately dark consequences. Choosing the greater good ought to be light, perhaps at the cost of your new relationship. This would serve better to illustrate the dangers of attachment.

I don't mind the comments for most companions, I don't even mind the ship droid talking to me when I board the ship. But playing with a healer companion is annoying. Every time you buff, get off a mount, walk through an instance door, change zones, etc. they feel the need to comment on healing that 1%.

I'm sure that's the reason, but it's a bad reason. Especially since part of the nameplate is class icons. This has always bothered me too. I don't like big long titles, and I don't like titles that come after the name with a comma. So the "Name, Knight of the Republic" is a doubly bad for me. Also, I'm a Knight of the Jedi Order, not the Republic. If we can't have Jedi, we should get a simple "Knight <Name>" title. It's an established title for Knight rank Jedi, used in a few places even within the game itself. In fact, I'd prefer Knight over Jedi anyway. Darth was added into for Warriors after enough people complained about the oversight. I suppose not enough knights have raised a similar complaint about this title. Perhaps it's because in the long run we still get Master, which would be the equivalent of Darth. In fact, if I recall correctly complaints were made to make sure Knights got access to the Master title even if they were dark side. Apparently, it used to be that you would get General instead if you were dark. From what I hear, now you get Master either way and General isn't acquirable? A shame, because I'd like a "General" title.

Start with Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command, collectively known as The Thrawn Trilogy and widely regarded as one of the benchmark stories in the Expanded Universe. Heir To The Empire was recently republished for a 20th anniversary edition, with special commentary from the author.

First of all, I think you need to be very careful using The Force Unleashed as an example. Remember that the effects of the force in that series were greatly amplified. It's right in the title. It wasn't just Galen either. Although he is an exceptionally powerful wielder of the force, pretty much every force user in that series used the force casually at titanic levels of power. The events of The Force Unleashed are cannon, but perhaps the details are a bit exaggerated. Leland Chee, I believe, once said that each medium is like looking at real events through a differently distorted lens. I believe this was in reference to the original Clone Wars Animated Series, in which Mace Windu took on an entire battalion of SBDs with just his fists and the force. Obviously what really happened that day was not Mace Windu imitating The Flash by machine gun punching 1000 SBDs into scrap. If we must use The Force Unleashed as an example, we should use the events as described by the book, as they would be more grounded than the game. I read the books, but I don't remember how the fights were described. Further, even using the books, we should likely assume that the scale of the lightning wasn't quite as magnificent as portrayed, but the event of it effecting Vader would have still happened. Next, in regards to Mace Windu, I don't know that I believe Sidious' lightening killed him instantly. Actually, many people aren't convinced it killed him at all. We don't see his death conclusively. If Darth Maul can come back from his defeat in the movies, Windu can survive that attack. Instead, what we see is Windu unbalanced by a one-two punch of being attacked by Anakin, then lightning and force blasted into the distance while he was off balance. The lightning's effect on Sidious may be telling of the level of power in use at that moment, as well. I'm not sure the lightning itself caused Sidious' decay, it may have been drawing on the dark side that did that, but either way it speaks to an incredible level of power. He also kept the Jedi Order's premier combatant at bay with the force of the attack. It could be argued that Sidious' deformation was a ruse to bait sympathy from Anakin and the people of the Republic, however. As for Luke, we know that the Emperor's stated purpose was to turn Luke to the dark side. Thus we can assume the level of lightning was at least not fatal in an immediate sense. We might assume that Sidious would prefer not to excessively damage his future apprentice. However, Sidious isn't one to make death threats idly, and he did tell Luke he would die for not slaying Vader. Also, Vader clearly feels his son is at immediate risk of death, and is moved to intervene. I take from this that the level of force in Sidious' attack was substantial, but only fatal in the longer term. Even dealing with this lower level attack, Luke was effectively crippled. Granted, he was not fully trained to the level a knight of the old order would have been, and likely wasn't prepared for such an attack. Still, it says something that after being driven down by Luke, Vader is able to withstand a continuous assault of what would have to be Sidious' strongest lightning, hold onto him, move under his own power, and throw him into the reactor. Mace WIndu under similar circumstances was unable to defend himself from a force attack. Also, Force Lightning clearly doesn't behave exactly the same as regular electricity, so it's exact effects on circuitry may be unknown. Force Lightning, for example, seeks it's target even over great distances. It does not seem to be drawn off to conductive surfaces. It can be drawn into a lightsaber, but this is likely a force technique of it's own, or perhaps a side effect of a lightsaber's containment field. When a lightsaber takes a hit from lightning, it's circuitry seems unaffected. As such, we might assume that circuitry is damaged by direct hits from force lightning as it would be burned away, but it may not be drawn to, travel through and overload a circuit like normal electricity. This might in fact indicate that a mechanical being would be more resistant to the negative effects of a lightning attack, as their mechanical limbs might be capable of shutting down pain, which is a major factor in the stunning effect of the attack. The attack might also cause muscle spasms in biological limbs that might not be a problem for mechanical equivalents. With that in mind, it might explain why Vader can fight through the attack without being crippled, but still comes away with damage having been done. I don't think it is possible to separate Vader's ability to resist lightning and his suit's specific advantages and disadvantages without a direct canon source. The examples we have are all of the two of them together. We never see anyone else use Vader's suit, and indeed, the suit is so much a part of Vader, it may as well be considered an aspect of his being. That said, I think we can say that Vader has a greater resistance to lightning as opposed to an unarmored opponent. Both basic electrical attacks and standard force lightning should be assumed to be less effective against Vader because of the additional layer of resistance offered by his armor. In the hands of a specialist like Galen or Sidious, Force Lightning can overcome this resistance and stun or damage Vader. Vader's suit should also be noted to have the disadvantage that if it does take significant damage, it's failing functions will impede Vader's ability to function himself.

They cut them off so they don't transform into a giant murderous cat beast when the moon is full.

Like I said, I respect your guys' desire for games that canonize the existence off all the players. That's cool, and I'd be all for a game trying to pull that off. That's not this game, however. So it's not a solid place to base arguments from. It's totally okay to have preferences toward games where the gameplay is as canonized as possible. That's fine. What I find narrow minded is the assertion that that's the only right way to do it. I'm sorry if you think that's offensive, but it's how I see it. When you see your preferences as rules that ought to be adhered to, that's narrow minded. Your rules stifle creativity. It's like looking at a Picasso and claiming he's doing it wrong because he broke free of the traditional rules of art to create something out of the box. Hell, it's even worse than that, because doing it this way doesn't break any traditional rules, it's how pretty much everyone does it. The kind of stories that would exist within the structures you define would be incredibly limited and boring to me. If you can't see how it's narrow minded to say that doing things in a way other than you personally prefer is "wrong" or "bad" then... Well that kind proves my point on the whole narrow minded thing. You can say it's not for you, but making a value judgement on how creators use the tools they have to create something is very rarely appropriate. Doing so in the face of people telling you they personally enjoy the result is downright closed minded. As for the Jedi thing, yea there are a lot of Jedi in comparison to the Vader and beyond era, but not nearly enough to account for even a decent fraction of the players in this game. A mere 300 years ago the number of Jedi had been reduced to a paltry few dozen. At the height of the order's power, which was just before the clone wars, there were less than 20,000 Jedi. That may seem like a lot, but remember the population of Coruscant alone is ballpark 1 trillion souls. That's one planet in a galaxy of hundreds or thousands of known, inhabited planets. Your chances of seeing a Jedi anywhere other than their temple is astronomically low, even at the best of times. And SWTOR takes place at a time far from the best of times. So yea, the entire premise of this game relies upon hand waving away the player population.

I mean, you're totally free to your opinion that everyone is doing it wrong. I honestly think it's a bit narrow minded. When playing games a major part of the suspension of disbelief is understanding the line between gameplay and story. If you can't set aside the thousands of players running around to understand that in the story there were never that many Jedi period, I mean... I don't know what else to say. I'm sorry? It sucks that you can't reconcile the two things? I find your view of things stiflingly limiting. You don't think our characters should have major roles because you either can't or won't accept that not every individual player needs to be accounted for in the story? Frankly, I think that would make for terrible stories. Especially in a Star Wars game. The Star Wars universe is one built almost entirely on stories about heroes. I don't want to be a moisture farmer watching the war on the holo. Hell, I don't even want to be the pilot out dogfighting TIE fighters. I want to be Luke, making the Death Star run. At the end of the day, more power to you if you prefer games where the gameplay worlds most closely represent the story worlds. Have at it if you want to be just one in a crowd of millions in some persistent world like EVE, Second Life, or Mortal Online. But to say that anyone who doesn't do it that way is doing it wrong? I'm sorry, but no. You are fighting a losing battle there, and I'm happy to fight on the other side. This is the way a lot of developers do things, and I find it narrow minded to dismiss it out of hand. I think most of us are perfectly capable of resolving the game world and the story world into two different headspaces, or at the very least ignoring the conflicts. Especially if doing so allows us to experience the kinds of epic stories developers like BioWare want to tell. I want to be a hero on an epic scale, AND I want to be able to play with a big group of friends when I like. I don't think it's especially fair of you to judge that as "doing it wrong." Anyway, you're right that this is probably veering a little far off topic. I think we get the gist of where each other stand, and I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Yea I totally agree. Like I said it should be at the behest of the player how the relationship dynamic plays out. It would be a lot better, in my opinion, if once you "confirmed" the relationship you got a range of dialogue choices for that relationship. Like in the Mass Effect series, you would have a moment in time where you and your crew mate commit to a relationship, and then future discussions with them are dialogue trees where it's always a part of the relationship. Still, like I said, that's a general shortcoming of the game. Our options are pretty limited when it comes to really defining our characters' personalities. It would certainly be nice to have more control, but barring that there should be a wide variety in how the different relationships in the game play out. As someone who never wants kids, and looks dubiously at the prospect of marriage, I'm totally with you on the annoyance factor of that being the assumed end goal of a relationship.

Agreed. My only 50 is a Bounty Hunter. (See, I was able to do it once! I wanted to romance Mako but I powered through with a female BH anyway and romanced Torian instead. I just can't bring myself to do it again.) I suppose that's the nice thing about Mandalorians, right? They seem to value strength, and I've seen plenty of their women on the front lines. I don't think Torian would respect you if you weren't strong enough to take control. I didn't read the article that was linked about the dynamics of the relationships in this game, because I don't want to be spoiled any more than I have to be. But I did want to mention that I don't think it's necessarily bad for female characters to have a "traditional" style relationship. Plenty of women out there prefer that kind of relationship. I mean sure, our female characters are warriors and heroes, but maybe they like to go back to their romantic interest and drop the weight of the world for awhile and just be taken care of? Of course, I would say that ought to be a choice of how the player plays it, but the whole game is a little lacking in truly broad changes in characterization. Also, there's a right and a wrong way to do that. I can't really speak to the specifics, because I haven't read the article or played all the romances.

I appreciate the thought you put into what you had to say, but I wanted to respond to this thought first because I think it's important. The truth is, it's not about the inability to romance a character. It's about the ability being there, if I just make a certain choice at character creation, and not wanting to be forced into that choice. It's about the fact that when I make a male character, I can't connect with him, but when I create a female character, I'm taunted by the presence of a companion I want to romance, and could romance, but not with the character I want to play as. It's not like I can't play Gears of War because Marcus doesn't get with Dom. It's about having to choose between two things already in the game that I enjoy, and that compromise putting a crimp on my enjoyment. Honestly, if these were single player stories I could power through in ten hours it wouldn't be as bad either. I could at least just run through it twice. But with the scope of this game, it just kinda sucks. I have to say, thank you for really taking the time to think about what I said. For finding a way to relate to it on some level. That's really impressive. Most people just barrel right past that stage to the "Gotta prove my point" stage. Story telling is a big part of my life. It's where I find my joy. I love to write, and I love to read. I love serial fiction from TV, to comics, to books, to movies. I connect to stories on a level that brings me a great deal of joy. I will honestly cry at certain spots in Harry Potter books. Hell, I've shed a tear to moments that unfold on a single page of a comic book. I invest. So yea, it's important to me. Knowing that there's a bit of story that I know I'd love immensely, but I have to make a choice to reduce my satisfaction with the rest of the story to get to it, that really does bother me. And it's not that I'm just enjoying a story either. I'm a part of it, that's the spirit of the game. In games like this, I can't help but invest myself into the characters I create. I can't help but want to identify with them. I'm a straight male that identifies more strongly with female characters, and that puts me in a place where my choices are restricted in a way that I feel is frankly unfair. All I want is to get the same level of enjoyment out of this game as I would if I identified with male characters, and I don't think that's unreasonable. You do seem to get the good reasons for opening up companion romances to everyone. Mainly that they created a lineup of romantic interests, and that we should have unfettered access to those options. That there aren't enough romance options to restrict them and still cater to as wide a variety of tastes as possible. But I think you seem to have trouble grasping what's become a core concept of any MMO with a story that you interact with personally, and that is that your character is a hero, and often THE hero. It's not just this game. When you play WoW, and you kill the Lich King, you are the guy who killed the Lich King. Or at the very least your raid group is the group that killed the Lich King. There can't be a million people who all killed the Lich King. Unless an MMO is one of the few that are based on the idea of a persistent world with no quests, just a bunch of players making their own way and their own stories, they are all pretty much based on that concept. Farmer Joe doesn't lose his shovel 100 times a day and spend his whole life asking adventurers to recover it. When you do a quest, your character is the one that did that quest. The other players in the world are a gameplay consideration, not a story one. Which brings me to... Then how do you explain that there are thousands of people who are Black Bisectors? In that public quest, are communications breaking down constantly, the senator forgetting the alliance the last player forges, and the systems he repaired now broken again? In an MMO where you interact directly with the story, you just have to accept that those other players aren't canon. If you go through a mission with 3 other players and all of you are different classes, you can make that work, but beyond that, you're pretty boned without an alternate universe theory. It being "your story" is the only way it can work. There is no other explanation that holds up. I do respect your opinion, so don't take this as an angry rebuttal... But frankly, who are you to say what an MMO should be? Single player games aren't all about making my story. Gears of War is about Delta Squad, it's not my story at all. In fact, I'd say MMOs as a genre offer a lot more in the way of making the story personally your own. BioWare used the MMO format to deliver a great story driven game, and I appreciate that. I also enjoy the concept of games like EVE Online where it's more about a universe where the players are less heroes and more inhabitants, making their way in the universe with and against one another. I don't see why there shouldn't be room for both.

The difference is I'm making an argument for choice and you are making an argument for the restriction of choice. You have the burden of proof in this case, because you're arguing against choice. And despite you having the burden of proof, I've provided a litany of reasons how it makes sense to open romances to everyone, and all you have is "I don't think it's good story telling practice." An argument, by the way, which is more full of holes than a termite colony. I was never going to make that post, it wasn't planned at all. I wasn't going to talk about how it makes me feel because I feel that I have plenty of good arguments based on logic rather than emotion. But the emotion is a part of it. The fact that it's important to me is not insignificant. When I made that post, I came here just to talk about my feeling of disappointment at not being able to go forward with the JK story with a female character, because of how much I want to personally experience Kira's romance arc. That's all. It was just going to be something like "Man, I tried to just set the issue aside and enjoy the game, and I couldn't do it." Then I come here to make the post, and I'm faced with being told that my desires are bad story telling and I should just be fine with how things are because it's realistic, and I should be fine with an unrequited love because that actually happens. I'm being told that my disappointment is invalid or misplaced, that I should be cool with it. I'm being told what good design practices are with seemingly no regard for the feelings of those excluded by them. That post came from a real place of serious disappointment. This game, it's almost like they had my picture on the wall and a mission statement of "Make this guy incredibly happy." This game is as close to a dream game for me as has been produced since KOTOR 1 & 2. As far as I'm concerned, it surpasses 1 & 2. That puts it firmly in the running for my favorite game ever. But there's this one issue, and it keeps me from enjoying this game on the level of stupid mindless happiness that I could easily have otherwise. In KOTOR 1 & 2, I modded the games so I could romance the ladies with my female character. That's not an option here. So I'm at an impasse, unable to really fully enjoy a game that should be my favorite game of all time, because of one problem. And when I come and talk about that problem, I have to validate why I should be allowed to have the choices that allow me to enjoy the game? I have to be told that I should just accept it and be happy with it because it's somehow better story telling? You know what good story telling is? Good story telling is telling a story in a way that allows your audience to derive enjoyment. What I propose opens up that enjoyment to a wider audience, and you're claiming that's somehow bad? You're saying you support SGR but then you turn around and go "Oh, but no, not with those characters, honey. Get your own." and it comes off like "Well that looks like a perfectly good water fountain over there... Why don't you use that one, this one is ours." Can you seriously say that your concept of good story telling matters to you as much as the freedom to experience the content I like matters to me? Do you really believe that I should suffer in silence to preserve your sense of structure? In what world does your sense of wishy washy story telling balance against the overt joy that such a change would bring to people like me? You as much as state openly that you don't much care for the story, but you're in here arguing for the dictation of how those of us that love it ought to enjoy it. It's just not cool.

It's not that simple. What if I don't want my female character referred to as a man? What if she isn't cross gender, but gay? Am I supposed to be happy with my female character having a male voice? If not, what happens when we get to the romances and there are no lines recorded by the female voice actress?