[Pistol user with force choke???]

It's nice how people actually read the boards instead of jumping to conclusions.

Some of the threads get pretty massive. Many people don't see the point of trying to digest a thread that is more than a few pages longs.

 

Further, it is not the community's fault that Bioware has not published a blog detailing much of the information from the guild summit. Many of us can't watch a live stream during working hours in the US.

[So who stuck around?]

Except all you doomsayers seem to have missed the fact they have released numbers, 2M sold, 1.7M active subs, which is an 85% retention rate.

That was a month ago. The numbers have changed. The last time I saw reported sales from retail outlets, the sales for TOR slowed immensely after the first 2-3 weeks.

 

Another way of looking at that is they lost 15% of the subscriber base in the first month. That's a pretty steep loss rate.

 

We'll know more in May when EA has their next quarter end conference call.

[So who stuck around?]

Yeah i like the part where everyone he knows makes 8 characters, so obviously that means the entire 3.3 million...LOL.

You know...I can hate on TOR with the best of them, but that was really bad.

 

OP: I doubt we hear new sub numbers until the next EA quarterly conference call. That should be in early May.

[April Fools SWTOR event?!?!?!]

I don't think April Fools Day fits in the Star Wars universe

[PTS players: where to post?]

A couple of weeks ago they announced that the PTS forums would be closed if the PTS and live game were on the same version. The PTS will probably be back this weekend with 1.2 on it.

[Combat logs 1.2. Parsable outside of game.]

Bioware is attempting to respect the privacy of the individual player. It's something that Blizzard didn't give a thought to.

 

If you are truly in a guild that absolutely must have all 8/16 raid members' logs to figure out what is going wrong, then it is not that difficult to upload and compile all those logs into a parser. I'm sure within a month or two, there will be a conversion for ACT or a website plugin to allow it.

You give up some of your privacy when you do things in a group. They could implement this so it only records the group/ops team. If you don't want to share your combat log, then don't join the group. You get your privacy and I get a combat log that tells me what everyone in the team did.

[Combat logs 1.2. Parsable outside of game.]

They pretty directly do not want that.

 

The devs spoke in the summit about wanting to give players a parsing tool for personal use and not a tool to be judged by. The arguments for and against are well-established but, SWTOR took a pretty definite stance and it even seemed to meet with a mostly positive reception in the room.

Just more developer double-speak. On one hand they don't want people to be judged or compared to each other. On the other hand, they want to create competitive ladders for pvp.

 

Further, that's an unrealistic ideal from the Devs. As soon as the logs are available, a log aggregating website will pop up and allow people to compare their logs. People will be judged. There is nothing the devs can do to stop it.

[Bio says no to macros at Guild Summit.]

Woohoo! Score one for the good guys!

And here I was thinking the opposite. If they are not going to implement macros, they need to do something about the number of abilities we have to use. I'm not as nimble as I used to be and I'm running out of comfortable keybinds.

[Combat logs 1.2. Parsable outside of game.]

No, I just wanted to roll my eyes at the post in general, but there is a minimum character count... Your post wasn't an invitation to a discussion but a statement, presenting opinion as fact... I'll not be dragged to that level if I can help it ... hence.

 

It was a statement of my opinion. Have we gotten so far away from discussion that every opinion needs to be qualified with "in my opinion?" This is a discussion forum. I am expressing my opinion. If you want to discuss why you think I am wrong, feel free to do so.

[Combat logs 1.2. Parsable outside of game.]

Again I question your mmog experience if you think minimum gearing requirements were always a part of mmogs. Outside of elite raiding guilds it was not normal at all and for quite a while.

I question your experience. Players adhering to minimum gear requirements have existed since MMOs were started. The heavy emphasis on it is relatively new, but the requirements always existed.

 

I have played extensesively with logs and without logs and there is no doubt that meters with logs provides the worst overall gameplay environment.

I respect your opinion. I believe the exact opposite. I enjoy number crunching and tweaking my performance based on real numbers.

 

I understand not having a meter of what everyone is doing is more challenging and possibly difficult but I do not mind that challenge.

That's nice, but unrealistic when they are implementing combat logging. Most guilds that are raiding current content will require people to send their individual combat logs for parsing. Why make it more difficult for them?

[Combat logs 1.2. Parsable outside of game.]

Lol no. It makes no sense that a character can detect and log all combat around them with 100% accuracy. That makes no sense as game feedback.

 

The half arsed / half baked combat logs are holdovers from MUDs where mmog devs were too lazy to do them right.

 

Again it makes zero sense from a game play or a playability perspective to capture everyone's data. You should learn how to play the games not the combat logs.

I know how to play the game, thank you. You are not getting the point I am trying to make. There is nothing in this external combat log that has any impact on playability of the game. Having a personal combat log will not suddenly make the game play differently.

 

The point of adding downloadable combat logs is to allow number crunching. The largest segment of the gaming population that uses these numbers are raiders. They've implemented a tool but only did it half way. An Ops team will now need to compile 8 or 16 different logs to get the information correctly. It is a poor implementation. If they are going to implement this feature, make is so it records what happens to the entire Ops team rather than just an individual. That way only 1 (or 2 if there is a distance issue) logs are required. I still won't be able to see what you are doing unless we are in a FP or Ops together. I will only be able to see it after the fact since I will need to upload the log to an external parsing program. They are not adding in game DPS meters or the capability for an add-on to parse the combat log in game.

[Combat logs 1.2. Parsable outside of game.]

No its something I have experienced and seen others experienced in chat on many occasions and one of the reasons why I stopped playing Wow

Grow a thicker skin or run with your guild mates. That is the point of a guild, right? Of course, if your guild mates are spamming you, maybe you need to find new friends.

[Combat Log Format?]

The PTS will probably be up later this week. You'll get a chance to try it out very soon.

[cross faction trade/auction sorry if its been asked]

Just to be clear -- unlike in WoW, you can trade with your own characters on the neutral GTN? Meaning, if my BH puts something up there, my Smuggler can buy it?

Yes. I do it all the time with my Agent and JK. Some things sell better on the Imperial GTN, others sell better on the Repub side. It's good to play both sides.

[1.2 is "The Messiah of all Patches"]

Then why did so many people leave Rift?

I stopped playing because there wasn't enough stuff in the game that differentiated it from other MMOs.

 

That said, Rift is doing well enough that Trion secured $80 million in VC money and is expanding to new regions. While it is not a WoW killer, it is a respectable MMO that is profitable.

[1.2 is "The Messiah of all Patches"]

It's really the same crap with the people in this community. They refuse to understand things and it's honestly like beating a dead horse. You can't compare a game at launch to a game that has been out for years. You can only compare the same 2 games at the time they did launch. To explain why yet again is pointless. People don't care to open their minds. Also, building an MMO takes countless time and resources. It's also the same technology used for all the other MMO's.

 

I'm leaving it at this. :-/

 

Oh, and don't forget all the customization and other item changes to that list. Actually, plenty is missing from that list but theres too much to even remember.

 

EDIT: THANK you to the smart people in this thread who are also stating what I just did before I did. I missed your replies originally, otherwise I would have quoted quite a few of you.

The same could be said of trying to compare games released in 2004 and 2011. There is no comparison. What you don't seem to comprehend is TOR is not competing with EQ 2002 or EQ2 2004 or WoW 2004. It is competing with WoW 2011, Rift 2011, LotRO 2011, etc. Comparing features of current games is entirely appropriate. Comparing strengths and weaknesses is entirely appropriate. Whether the particular strengths or weaknesses of TOR keep you playing or cause you to unsub is up to you.

[Combat logs 1.2. Parsable outside of game.]

How about the fact that i don't want top see my chat log filled with someone blaming the healer for raid wipes because their healing is .05% below what some jerk with a 25 hit webpage says.

They aren't implementing a live damage meter. It is a combat log that can be saved to disk. Besides, if you are in a raid, I hope you're in a guild that can manage to see all of the angles involved in a fight.

 

Or you're pugging Operations. In which case, you deserve what you get for pugging.

 

The fact is that for every fine upstanding person who would use this information to help others there are 100 that will use this information to belittle and exclude.

Please stop repeating horrible anecdotal evidence that you heard from somebody else.

[Combat logs 1.2. Parsable outside of game.]

Your "right way" is completely opinion.

 

Keeping the log personal is a good move in my opinion. In a guild setting, uploading a log is not a difficult thing to do. I think it's a good mechanic in allowing the community to police themselves.

I've been involved in MMOs a long time. I've played in guilds at all levels of competitive raiding. You'd be surprised how many good gamers can't figure out how to send a combat log that doesn't need massive pruning.

 

If it was my guild and I was running with you, a few runs and I'd know you weren't pulling your weight.

That was kind of my point. The personal combat log is useless. You would need to have me in a few runs before you could figure out if I knew what I was doing. Now, if you took me on a couple of FPs and were able to parse my DPS, you would have both your personal observations and real numbers to make an informed decision.

[1.2 is "The Messiah of all Patches"]

So your comparing it to games that have had time to add things. Ok, just making sure.

 

May I suggest checking out other MMO's at launch. You may see a pattern.

May I suggest you actually pay attention to context. Rift had more features at launch. Rift launched 9 months before TOR, had a significantly smaller budget and shorter development time.

 

If you have something constructive to add to this discussion, please do so. There are plenty of pure feel good threads I am avoiding because I don't want to interrupt the party.

[1.2 is "The Messiah of all Patches"]

Please provide sources for your rants. Thanks.

Please provide proof that I am wrong. Thanks.

[Finally an SGRA update]

I would imagine they just want their sexual preference represented

While this sounds nice, I doubt there would be this much general angst in the community if it was true. I suspect there is a healthy contingent of guys who want to see girl-girl action.

[1.2 is "The Messiah of all Patches"]

Yes.

 

I think many of the features were being worked on before launch, before the crying.....back when they "weren't listening" to the beta players.

To have this many new features this soon means most of these features were supposed to be available at release. Unfortunately, BW couldn't figure out how to make the hero engine work correctly until after release, so they didn't have time to finish the features they are releasing in 1.2.

[1.2 is "The Messiah of all Patches"]

Care to give an example of a MMO launched within the last 6 months with more features?

 

Or are you comparing it to games that have had more time to add things?

I know it is a little outside of the 6 month mark, but Rift was released 9 months before TOR. It had more features at release. It didn't vary from the WoW model, so it didn't keep my interest for very long.

[The Part About 1.2 Skipped Over]

Love your sig quote btw

 

It's a shame that the good doctors know how to "talk the talk" but their latest game at the moment struggles to "walk the walk".

Thanks. I love the quote. It's a very cool game design concept.

 

Unfortunately, Bioware did a poor job of learning from the mistakes of their peers. Many of the major flaws could have been defused with better communication and better peer analysis to make sure TOR didn't repeat avoidable mistakes.

[1.2 is "The Messiah of all Patches"]

I present you with the new hater mantra...

Nothing new there. Most of us have been saying these things for months. I'm not going to give Bioware credit for botching their timeline so badly that they have a mega patch ready to roll 4 months after release.