No, I didn’t forget about it or anything.  Just takes longer to put my thoughts together on it than just for the Cartel Changes.  But honestly, Dulfy did such a good job of summarizing the whole durn thing I really didn’t think I had much to add.  Seriously, check out their commentary.  I do have some opinions to share, though.  Read on:

This level-syncing thing sounds great on paper but really I think it’s kind of a shame.  It’s a new feature that automatically reduces your character’s stats and abilities to the level of the planet they’re on.  I see the point of it: it’s to help friends play together even when their levels are ridiculously far apart.  The other side to that, though, is that if I want to take my level 60 pastry chef and go to Tython and help my friend power-level her new level 2 muffin-baker, we’re out of luck.  No more going back to the starting planets and striding around like an invincible god.  This bothers me because it defeats the purpose of leveling up at all: to attain a feeling of progress by becoming stronger than the opponents who used to challenge you.  I think material gatherers are going to feel the hit the worst here.  This will seriously impede their ability to move about lower-level planets at will for those crucial mid-level mats. I also do wonder, though, if my apprehension here is just the fear of change.  I mean… any Guild Wars 2 player is already familiar with this scenario (though not being able to out-level areas I’m having trouble beating was one of the reasons I left that game).  Seriously, it’s not like I ever go back to Korriban and just hang around (unless I’m handing out cartel market goodies to newbies because I’m bored).  It might be fun to be able to go back and team up with a new L1 just to see the content again.  Who knows?

Streamlined leveling is still just a buzz-phrase so far.  The idea is to make it easier and less painful to complete the storyline missions before the player dies of old age.  I can get behind that.  But so far I still haven’t seen any kind of concrete explanation about how they’re going to make that happen.  They talk a lot about how it won’t happen — it won’t be a continuation of the x12 XP, and it won’t be retiring the current missions in favor of something new.  But what the crap is it, and how will it supposedly make it faster, easier, and/or less painful to push a new character from 1 to 60?  Still don’t have an answer to this yet.

The more I learn about how they’re consolidating stats, the more I like it.  Mastery replaces all main stats.  Critical and Surge rolled into one stat.  Still just sounds like it’ll be tons easier to equip yourself without feeling an urge to put your fist through your monitor.  My gaming buddy Tohru and I always lose tons of valuable play time together on the fleet trying to figure out what to upgrade and with what, every five levels.  Anything to make that less of a hassle has my unilateral approval.

Crafted armors and weapons now start at blue level.  Well.. I can’t really justify my elation here, but I am elated.  No more wasting time/mats crafting and reverse-engineering dozens of greens to finally get a blue-level blueprint… likely for the wrong stats.  Lazy of me?  You bet.  Do I care?  Not a jot.  This is going to equal a bigger, better selection of useful equipment on the GTN.  Heck, we might even be able to find trooper armor on the GTN now!  I know, crazy!

I don’t care what you rename them to, they’re still Commendations.  “Data Crystals” my ass.  What is this, Babylon 5?

Companion changes are balm to my soul.  Okay, so companions don’t need to have their gear replaced or upgraded any longer.  Their stats are improved based on the player’s level, and the player-character’s affection (sorry, influence) level with that companion.  So… no more wasting time and commendations data crystals commendations on the fleet keeping my companions’ armor and weapons upgraded?  And it finally gives us a real, gameplay-affecting impetus to improve our influence scores with our companions?  How does anyone still have a problem with this..?  Better still, it’s sounding like all companions can indeed be cycled through DPS, tanking, and healing roles now.  So I’m not stuck dragging Quinn along with me because my Sith Warrior needs a healer, even though I’d much rather be making time with the delicious Jaesa.

New Companions for sale on the Cartel Market.  Sounds like fun, really.  Buying a pet Akk Dog, as the example showed, and being able to use it as your backup in a fight sounds pretty neat.  I expect these market-bought companions won’t have much in the way of spoken dialog or story arcs, and that’s fine.  Frankly I wouldn’t want too many more needy companions to suck up to, no matter the novelty value.

There was mention of some new graphic options too, though really I’m not hurting for frames per second in this nearly-four-year-old game.  Exciting stuff all around, really.

But don’t let that stop you from screaming “NGE!” over and over if it helps you cope, I guess.