Well it looks like cross faction chat is now out of The Old Republic. I guess it was too much to hope for it being kept in especially after some interesting experiences I have had in WOW with people in PVP making characters specifically on your faction to start arguments over PVP.
Bit of a shame though as I know a lot of my friends want to try out both Imperial and Republic and it would have been nice to chat with them while we were playing different factions. I guess I was hoping the testers would have been a bit more mature and not start slating each other cross faction... Should have known better.
Never know though we could get something like real ID going forward maybe.
Zetter