It really is more team-focused, which is why we liked it. And being able to re-assess each round who should go first was nice, like if someone needed to go due to injuries, maybe someone is now in melee combat, or whatever. The one person that was last wasn't stuck going last each round. And on the flip side, if someone who didn't need to go first rolled highest, in Saga you have to voluntarily give up your slot to go behind someone else, whereas in Beta they can just choose not to go first this round while still retaining the PC slot.

I guess it depends on your group. I could envision some groups having more than one person arguing that they should go first, but with our group, we came to an agreement fairly quickly, and it worked well for us.

And yeah, I don't see why you couldn't adopt some of these rules for Saga as well.

One of the main complaints is that each book will be stand alone. This might sound cool, as it means you don't need the edge of the empire in order to play the next expansion. but when you buy the next book, you're paying for all the basic rules a second time, as the book will contain EVERYTHING you need to play. I'd prefer a smaller book without reprinting information from the first released (cheaper), or the same sized book with more unique material.

Say what you will, but saga released countless books based on Class and Era, and no one complained that they had to buy an additional book for all the cool jedi powers, or for rules on playing a cyborg. As it stands, if you have a player who wants to play a jedi, and one who wants to play a scoundrel, you're going to have to have both books anyway. Since most people's chief complaint is the lack of a jedi class, I assume that most people who bought this book will be buying the jedi one, at the least.

Take white-wolf for example. They are a very successful gaming company. They had many games that used the same mechanics, and all of their books for each of these games contain the core system mechanics to play. If you wanted to play vampire, werewolf, mage, mummy, demon, hunter, changling, and wraith, you were paying for the same 50-100 pages worth of material 8 times.

They rebooted the system a few years back, and this time, when they released their new system, they made 1 book as the core book. It had the rules for character creation, and gameplay mechanics. Every other book (the 8 listed above, plus others) could be purchased played with the use of the corebook. It means you needed 2 books, minimum, unless you wanted to play regular humans (provided in the core), but it also means that if you want to play 3 or 4 of those games (like many of us will with the new star wars system), you saved more in the long run.

I guess its an argument of where to reward the casual gamer or the completionist. Unfortunately, until i hear some stronger reviews and they release a finalized version of the first game, i'll be neither.

Fact is, any system that has a new core book fo every type of hero pales in comparison (In that regard) to just about any system I've ever played.