Very good point. After the Eternal Empire stuff...no.

Kind of the same for me - I used to spend around $100 a month on top of my sub. Compared to some stories I've heard, I didn't think that made me a 'whale,' though of course it is a lot more than the basic $15. Since 5.0, that $100 has dropped to... $0. Personally, I wanted to support the game financially not so they would invest in new development, but just to keep the lights on. (I'm far from finished with the vanilla content, so I don't need new stuff.) The sad thing is, EVEN BY THAT STANDARD they've failed. All I want is to play the original content, and that seems to me like the bare minimum anyone could ask for. But no...even that's too much for Bioware to deliver. Heroic quest quest-givers and conversations removed, bonus series quests no longer available to do when they should be story-wise, boss fights in story instances not adjusted for level sync...and of course the DvL pop-ups distracting from the experience of any and everything (story, exploration, combat, etc., etc.) I'm the least demanding player they could possibly hope for...all I want is the vanilla content, the development of which was already paid for and completed. But...no.

Speaking of quality of life features, any news on an option to turn off the DvL pop-ups?

Nope. Late last summer, I started playing a lot more than I had before - there was a new game feature that massively increased my enjoyment and desire to play. But since 5.0 and the DvL pop-ups, I haven't played at all. I have to agree with this reddit post - DvL is a "a cheesy flea market quality game gimmick," and I'd add, the pop-ups are intolerably obnoxious. To quote further: I really don't ask for much...specifically, I don't ask for new content, because I have so much left to do with the vanilla content. But removing or impacting the vanilla content...at LEAST they shouldn't do that. Just leave the original stuff alone. I would really hope an option to turn off the DvL pop-ups isn't too much to ask for...

I can only speak for myself, but unless 5.2 includes an option to turn off the DvL pop-ups, it won't be the great return of me. I haven't played since 5.0 due to that.

Here's hoping that one of the updates will announce an option to turn of the DvL pop-ups!

I completely agree. The DvL pop-ups are just an inexcusable distraction in what's supposed to be a story-based game. We need an option to turn them off!

I've been posting pretty frequently since launch myself (though my purpose has always been to give feedback to Bioware, not contribute to the community). But yeah, I'm fed up with the current state of the game, and I've got only ~30 days of posting privileges left... (And yes, in hindsight I regret switching to a 6-month subscription in October.)

Any news on an option to turn off DvL pop-ups?

I hope an option to turn off DvL pop-ups will be one of those new things!

A way to turn off the DvL pop-ups. That's it. If they don't make that change, my sub remains cancelled. (Also I used to buy $100 of CC probably about every month...I haven't bought any since 5.0 hit.)

I would agree that story is the core of the game. But there's story, and then there's story. The Eternal Empire garbage completely disrespects and trivializes (or, attempts to) the original story vision of the game...not to mention all the other things they've done to tarnish and dis-integrate the story - climactic bosses syncing to paltry levels, bonus series quests being thown out of order, heroic turn-in conversations removed, the stupid DvL pop-ups... So, since the devs hate the game so much, why are they still here?

What I don't get is why the current dev team is still here...I wouldn't work on a product that I hated, personally. They clearly have no love for the core of this game, so what exactly are they sticking around for?

Any chance of an option to disable DvL alert pop-ups in a future update?

I'd like to use Command Tokens to enable an option to block the DvL pop-ups. I mean...I'd like to have that option without Command Tokens, but I'll take it any way I can get it.

Eric - I won't be buying the saber, but I would pay 7,600 coins for an option to block DvL pop-ups. Any chance of that?

Same. I basically haven't logged in since 5.0, and of course my subscription is cancelled. As far as what would bring me back, simple: a way to block the DvL pop-ups. I would really hope that's not too much to ask for. I don't care about RNG gearing, because I don't do endgame...I don't even care about new content, because I have years worth of play time to go with the vanilla content. Just let us block the DvL pop-ups.

Can't argue with that! But while they're at it, I REALLY hope the next unforced error they correct is the DvL pop-ups...as in, giving us an option to block them.

Any word on introducing an option to turn off DvL pop-ups? Thanks!

Why...?

There's what people SAY they want...and there's what their behavior actually supports. If someone 'wants' to be a triathlete but sits around eating potato chips and then says "But I didn't WANT a flabby gut!"...well. The vast, overwhelming majority of people play this game like insensate morons - whether they played it for one month at launch or since then, or the whole five years. I know; I've watched them do it for years; I've read them posting about it here for years. Well, Galactic Command is 'content' (or whatever it is) designed for insensate morons. Cause and effect. (And when I say people play like morons, I don't mean that they're clickers, or casuals, or millenials; I mean they just play mostly compulsively, blind and indifferent to the splendor of what the game was offering them.)

Actually, they didn't walk then - they walked after the backlash from the ME3 ending, and when it became inescapable that this game wasn't performing as hoped. So...close to five years, I think, or a bit longer, after they became part of EA.

It sounds like you're saying "a product's failure in the market," i.e., financial failure (not sure if that's what you intended). I'm not blaming the consumers for that - in fact, I don't know if there's any financial failure in the first place. For all I know, the game is now doing better than ever financially. I'm blaming the consumer for the recent/current direction of the game itself - which from an artistic standpoint, yes, is a failure, especially compared to the vanilla content. The customers ultimately dictate what gets made, by what they pay for and support. (This is in line with your quote from Steve Jobs. According to him, asking people what they want would lead to failure because by the time you got it to market, they would no longer want it. But it would still fail precisely because...they no longer wanted it.) The only reason Bioware is giving people crap, is because that's what people's behavior is supporting. Think of it this way: in 2011, James Ohlen said something like "We'll have 500 planets by 2025!" And he meant full-scale, vanilla style planets. They were talking about taking the class stories to chapter 12. Now: if Bioware had got a steady 10 millions subscribers, do you think we'd be seeing a mono-story, no new pvp zones, no new operations? Of course not. If there were an audience for 500 planets and 9 more class story chapters, Bioware would be creating them. There isn't. MMO is only a label. I think it's pretty obvious that creatively, Bioware didn't have much interest in the MMO genre - they wanted to tell big stories in a big setting. I think they hoped that the Star Wars IP would let them get away with it. It might have made more business sense to make a real MMO (and probably for a different studio to make that real MMO) rather than a single-player story focused game with some MMO stuff tacked on. But I love the game that actually got made (at least, earlier iterations of it), and a real MMO likely wouldn't have interested me at all. So if that was a failure, I'm glad it happened. That's true. But the fact remains: if what the market wants is crap, then the market is to blame for wanting crap.

I'm not sure you fully get my point. That isn't a type of player. Those are ALL the players - statistically speaking. Sure, there are some, like me, who aren't like that. But the number is so vanishingly small as to be irrelevant. The problem isn't that Bioware catered to the grinders, the space-bar-ers, the people whose only goal is to get to hit the level cap as soon as possible for no reason. It's that there's NO ONE ELSE for them to cater to. I don't agree. Bioware hasn't failed to learn anything. You're making it sound like they have a choice. They don't. They CAN'T focus on people who believe in the original vision - THOSE PEOPLE DON'T EXIST. Well again, there's a tiny fringe, but not enough to support a game like this even in maintenance mode. I'm not only talking about locusts. This is an important point to understand. For example: people who have been subbed since launch and created their fourth set of alts to do the DvL event certainly couldn't be described as locusts. But: If you deliberately participated in the DvL event, even if you've played since beta and never let your sub lapse, YOU are a mindless, button-mashing lab rat. (Or at least, you're acting like one with this game.) That's right...YOU. The way YOU play the game, by rushing through things and not appreciating the artistry, by showing your willingness to do the old content over and over simply because you rushed through it so fast the first time - is why the quality content stopped, why the class stories never continued, etc. It's not really even about staying subscribed or not. It's about how you play the game. And just to clarify: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with playing a game like a mindless, button-mashing lab rat. That's your choice. It could be a fun release or whatever, I guess. Just realize that there are unavoidable consequences as far as what developers are going to give you if that's how you choose to play.

Bioware did make some bad decisions, even from the start. But the bulk of the blame rests with us - the players. Go all the way back to launch. Bioware made a game (as was their specialty) to get immersed in, with story and characters and environments to be savored; a game to take one's time with. But by and large, players didn't do that - they mindlessly rushed through it like button-mashing lab rats. Eventually, Bioware got the message, cut the immersive stories and environments, and replaced them with content for mindless, button-mashing lab rats. I suppose that's kind of harsh, but that's the truth of it. EA and Bioware did exactly what we told them to. We could've told them to do something else; if we had, the class stories could have continued to Chapter 12, with full new planets, all of our companions still with us with full new conversations, with plenty of full-scale flashpoints and operations and pvp zones, etc. But we didn't want any of that, sad to say. So they didn't give it to us.