Lies. Lies I say. You don't know women. You're on a forum for an MMO.

Oh stop hitting on her. She's probably a dude and even if she truly is a chick you're not gettin lucky.

Ahhh okay! Gotcha. It's all good then.

I was referring to "free means costs no money". I took that as you being rude.

Am I detecting a bit of jerk here? DarthRik, thanks for pointing that out to me.

Where did they say TOR would be a free download in November? It was my understanding that you would still have to buy a copy of the game but you just weren't required to carry a subscription.

Again, 3 million subs lost in less than 2 years was not expected. This has never happened before to WoW. They have never lost this many subs from one expansion to the next. I don't even recall a time right before an expansion where they lost a million. Also, keep in mind that shortly after Cataclysm came out WoW's subs began to have quite a decline. They lost 2 million in Cataclysm's first year. That's not pre-expansion blues. That's post-expansion disappointment. Unless Mists of Pandaria comes out and totally amazes people you can probably expect about a 1 million surge in subs followed by another decline over the following 12 to 24 months. I really see WoW dropping to half of its peak or lower by 2014. I really enjoy WoW but I think some people are strangely in denial about a decline that was inevitable.

Yeah I'm still not sold on the idea of Guild Wars 2. I've done my fair share of checking into it and I just don't see where all this hype is deserved. Maybe I'm missing something. As far as WoW is concerned I do feel that what WoW is going through is definitely age but I think that's the problem with the whole market. I don't think it's just the fact that WoW itself is almost 8 years old. I think it's the fact that the MMO market in its entirety has failed to produce a new gold standard for MMO design. Now that is all in reference to themepark MMOs. Sandbox MMOs are, I feel, not going to shine because the technology and methods just aren't there right now to create a truly robust, entertaining, player driven world in an acceptable timeframe. I feel that sandbox MMOs are the future of the market, just not the near future. People have waited a long time for this corner of the industry to evolve and right now they just see more of the same with a couple good or at least interesting ideas being overlooked simply because they were in a game that it itself didn't do so great. They automatically dismiss what was in it as a failure instead of dissecting it. I just think that with MMO after MMO failing to hold people and the top MMO losing quite a few people in a relatively short span it's probably a sign that players are growing tired of the same old thing. These players don't seem to be going to other MMOs. They just seem to be walking away completely. If WoW itself is what they were tired of I would have expected other MMOs to be growing.

Not the 3 million they've lost over the last two years. That's way too many for an expansion to make up for. MoP will bring some players back but the question will be how many of those 3 million will return and for how long? I feel that this along with the struggles of other current MMOs is a solid indication that the community is growing very tired of what we've been given.

This has never happened to WoW before. They may have had a rough start but once that ship got fixed it was smooth sailing for them. Blizzard enjoyed more than half a decade of amazing growth for an MMO. They never experienced significant losses as far as I know. Any time they did lose subs they were quickly replenished and I don't recall a time after the first year that they lost over a million subs at any point in time with the exception of that temporary issue in China. The last couple of years have been losses with no regrowth. There is no regional issue to attribute this to. It is purely player disinterest. Mists of Pandaria will certainly bring some people back and maybe some new players but you'd be crazy to expect it to make up for the 3 million they lost and I would think it doubtful that this next expansion will stabilize the numbers beyond 6 months.

It's shocking to many. You can't just focus on the recent 1.1 million losses. You have to look at the 3 million losses in less than 2 years. The game has lost 25% of its subscribers since shortly after Cataclysm released. This isn't simply about World of Warcraft. It's being viewed as a strong indication of the market in general. When all other MMOs are failing to hold onto subscribers and adopting a F2P model AND the king of the hill has lost 3 million of them in less than 24 months people are wondering what's going to happen next.

I don't know that it was ever said that your Republic and Imperial characters both had to be level 50. I know it was said that you would want to have characters on opposing factions but that's all we know at this point last time I checked.

Cross-server or not... if you're DPS you will be waiting for a group. Queue times in WoW even with cross-server are really not much better than they are in TOR now with single server. At peak hours provided you're making yourself available for a wide range of dungeons your wait time is 5 minutes to 30 minutes. At off hours you could wait an hour or more. That's pretty much what I experienced with my 32 DPS Mercenary and my 50 DPS Juggernaut the last two days. Cross-server works great for PvP because there is no group composition being adhered to. As long as the game adheres to group composition for PvE, sorry but if you're 'DPS-only' I'd suggest doing something while you wait. The system we have now is far better than what we had which was basically standing in the fleet and spamming general chat. Now you can passively look for a group while you do other things. It kills me looking at these same people who complained about spending hours on the fleet to not even find a group are now able to go play in the world while they let the game do the finding for them and they still complain. Nevermind the exaggerated claims I've seen. On Alderaan I was reading general chat and this guy was claiming "I've been waiting for over 2 HOURS!". On my 32 DPS Merc I queued up for the only two flashpoints I was allowed to and in less than 40 minutes I was in a group. This was done during off hours. I only had DPS checked. Furthermore, the first healer did not click the ready button so the group failed. Immediately after another group popped. Myself and the same tank from the last group but with a different healer. I'm not sure if the other DPS was the same. The group was ready. As soon as the flashpoint loaded the new healer quit. The group leader put us in queue and seconds later a new healer arrived. We cleared the place. TL: DR? Cross-server helps PvP, not PvE thanks to group composition. The tool we have is much better than standing in the fleet spamming chat all day. Exaggerated claims cause me to take such complaints less seriously. I'd rather they work on other things that need far more attention.

Don't feel bad man. I live in the States and this stuff never goes on anywhere near where I live. I'd have to go halfway or all the way across the country to see them.

It maxed my settings out right in the middle of the fleet when over 250 people were around. Needless to say I rushed my PC to the hospital.

Oh gawd please don't bring that word back. I still have bad dreams about the pre-beta forums.

Ah okay. So open task manager and force the program to end, then reload the game?

I very much enjoy the group finder. My queue times were anywhere from 25 minutes (level 31 DPS queued for a single flashpoint) down to as little as 5 minutes (level 50 DPS queued for every flashpoint available). To me this is completely acceptable as a DPS especially since I can now do other things while I wait for a group. I have not yet attempted to queue for an operation or planetary destination. I did experience one problem with the group finder. During a run through SM Lost Island my character became stuck in an emote. I couldn't move. Nothing I nor my groupmates tried worked. So I quick logged to see if that would fix it. I ended up out of the group, outside the flashpoint entrance, and unable to be invited to the group I was just in. This was more than a little frustrating. I hope something like this can be fixed in the future so that a manual logoff does not automatically boot one from the group at the very least. There are a couple of additions I would like to see. Both of them would be added to the Group Finder panel directly underneath the check boxes for roles. First, I would like to see an average wait timer so I have an idea of what to expect at that time. Second, I would like to see the names, roles, and classes of the people I am currently being grouped with. If nothing else this should help me see how close I am to having a full group. If doing so runs the risk of people leaving the queue because they don't want to run with a certain class composition then at least show what roles are currently being filled.

Lol nice.

When you do please mail me your credits. They shouldn't go to waste.

I've had no such issues. Strange.

Seriously! I'm with you. I love it. I do still wish it had an option for cross-server queues but I'll take it. Being able to run these flashpoints on a regular basis has really brought new meaning to me for this game. I didn't even mind running the same flashpoint back to back on my level 30. I was just thrilled to be able to do them at the appropriate level instead of outleveling them and then powering through them.

Yeah I'm with this guy. I understood that hundreds of server forums would have been a nightmare to moderate but now that we're down to less than 30 active servers I don't see how it would be a problem.

Personally I'm just happy that we now have an automated system for grouping that also shuttles me to the area / FP / Op. I can do other things while I wait instead of spamming chat or setting tag on me that hopefully someone sees and wants to do the same thing I want to. I ran four flashpoint in the span of a few hours. Three on my level 30 and one on my level 50. I ran more flashpoints today than I have since 1.2 dropped.

Sorry but once Adam Sessler left that was pretty much it for me and G4 when it comes to games. All they have now are a couple of guys who look like they may be held at gunpoint to talk about videogames, another guy who likes to make a mockery of the MMO business more often than not, and ofcourse the attempted sex appeal of Morgan Webb who stopped being any kind of sexy when she started going for supermodel thin. Videogame journalism doesn't really exist on G4 anymore. It's about appeal now and not to the crowd it was originally intended for. I agree that TOR and Bioware have some pretty big problems right now but G4 is one of the last places I want to hear that from.