All I know is this seems like a waste of resources and time that could be dedicated to actual game and engine improvements. If I wanted a Sith Juggernaut playstyle, I'll roll a Sith warrior and have him or her be a Juggernaut. If I want an IA playstyle, I'll roll the IA class. I just...don't really get this, I guess. It seems like a solution to a problem that didn't exist.

Is this something that will help add certain ambient elements to the planets and zones? Right now, they feel weirdly soulless. It's my ONE biggest gripe with SWTOR-- these gorgeous planets and the only thing happening are static mobs standing around waiting for you to shoot them. No weather, no night/day cycle, very, very few roaming neutral "critters" (like little ones, birds and bugs and stuff)... it would help a LOT, I think, if the planet ambient elements could be added. These are alien worlds that should really WOW! us, and yet... :/ eh, there's just not much going on with them. Again, not even remotely sure these changes are capable of making those things happen, but one can hope. I log into other MMOs - ESO, LOTRO, WoW (as much as BFA is a mess, ugh), GW2, etc--the worlds feel far more alive somehow.

I kind of liked annoying her with my Light Side IA. He would purposely snark at her and then flirt with her and she was all sorts of mad at him constantly... I think it would be fun if she came back as a romance option (IF you didn't kill her in your storyline). My IA would probably continue the weird love-hate with her just because it was hilarious. I kind of have to wonder if he didn't actually dig her in some twisted way, though, insufferable as she was.

I want Thana Vesh for my IA. I had so much fun annoying her with his flirts

Will do I'm an author myself, so I'm really anticipating the plot twists everyone keeps mentioning (I keep hearing the AI is one of the best in the game). I appreciate it when a game offers good writing, because it seems to happen so seldom.

It definitely makes me sit and think a few moments before making the decision. Playing a LS agent is, if nothing else, pissing off Kaliyo so far--she seems to disapprove of every conversation option I've made. Fun stuff I just came from ESO and have only played this game briefly before, and I'm only level 42 on my IA, but the choices here seem to weigh more heavily than they did in ESO. They had some choices here and there in that game, but nothing that really stuck with me as having much impact on the character I was playing, or the NPCs themselves.

You could be right--I'd have to double check, but it was still fun to cringe at getting a verbal slapping.

This isn't a doom and gloom thread. This isn't a "what needs to change to help the game grow" thread, or anything like that. This is simply a shout-out to whatever writing team was in charge of the IA story arc. This is my first time playing through it, and I'm leaning LS--my agent just doesn't see the use of making a bad situation worse by casual murder and bribery. Up until Balmorra, (I did Nar Shaddaa first), this was all going peachy for him. And then (no spoilers as to what mission or exactly what happened ), I made a LS decision on Balmorra that saved the lives of innocent refugee kids, and the officer who gave me that mission found out what I had done and he gave me a verbal thrashing (and punished the NPC who talked me into it). I actually cringed a little. But it was awesome, because it's nice to see my IA's choices come back to smack him in the face sometimes. Well played, Bioware. Excited to find out what happens further down the road, and if I get into more trouble

Haven't yet experienced it in this game, but I have in many other settings. I have checked out swtor-rp.com but it seems largely "dead", unfortunately. Thanks for the link though.

I'm a female (married, a mother to a toddler, the whole nine yards so to speak) but I tend to roll male characters for several reasons: I get "hit on" less on a male avatar, for starters. I also tend to like their models better, as most games make female characters look like super models that could barely lift a 5lb bag of flour, let alone a heavy sword or gun or what have you. And since I roleplay, there's less pressure with a male avatar to somehow act "sexy" or "cute" or whatever most RPers tend to assume a female character "should" be.

Agreed, more options for features, hair, tattoos, face styles, eye color, etc... I'd be willing to spend my monthly cartel points on that stuff. There just aren't enough options for some of the race/class combos so it's hard to make a cool looking character with many of the races.

My spouse and I want to make some RP backstories for our characters (S.I. and S.W.) but we're fairly new to the lore of this particular IP. We've seen the movies, of course, and watched the videos on the site about some of the big events and such leading up to the game, but there's so much Lore we're not sure where to start when it comes to actually writing our own little character stories.

EQ2 also does this with the Freeblood race. Not saying it's wrong or right, just that EA isn't the only company to implement charging for fluff race.

I haven't played much yet and only have a SI to level 17, but so far I really dig that class and the story line for it. It's just sort of fun to be able to play a bad guy in an MMO since most of them only give you factions that are sort of "neutral" or completely good. Plus I want to know when Lord Zash tries to betray my Inquisitor, because I know she will. I just don't know when or how

I can't speak for the Republic side, but I'm pretty newish too (only played to level 14 at launch) and Imperial side, I see quite a bit of RP in the Galactic Fleet every time I go there. The server seems pretty busy. I would ask in General on Republic side if there are any RP guilds recruiting, since I think that's the fastest way to get into the RP scene.