I have done several solo Flashpoints and I just feel they're very easy even without the Support Droid, I never had to even use Kolto Tanks in boss fights and I've only died once in the many FPs I've done.

Same issue here, hope they fix it.

Neither did all the other DC members, by the way, by the end of the SoR prelude you kill a rogue DC member, I'd say they're not big deal.

I like the "ancient great empires" trope in fantasy or sci fantasy, but like all good things it can get old really fast if it's overused.

This is not a thread, is a series of videos released by Bioware settin all the background story for SWTOR, they touch into KOTOR, a little bit of KOTOR 2 by mentioning the Mandalorian wars, they also cover stories that happened in comics like the Exar Kun and Naga Sadow stuff. All the videos are compiled into a single video

Sounds like a case low-grade trolling more than harassment. I only heard of one case of harassment when one person costantly stalked a friend of mine and wouldnt stop, even if my friend would make new alts to try to avoid this it was still happening. The worst part is that Customer Service did nothing about this, and the big guilds looked the other way instead of shunning the stalker, all of this ended up driving my friend away from the game.

So after losing like 80-90% of the subscribers they had at launch, the winning strategy is to treat the remaining bunch of loyal customers as pariahs? uh... ok The blur trailer shows they're trying to do some marketing to brig new players in, but existing players will be always more important, because they're actually getting money from the existing players for once, but also because existing players will do marketing for them for free, try to bring in friends and family, which is very valuable when you consider the larger gaming community see swtor as a joke/failed MMO.

You have no clue what you're talking about don't you? Swtor lost millions of subscribers shortly after launch, me included. People won't go anywhere? In what universe did that happen besides the one in your imagination. I came back after a very long break because of the x12 Exp bonus and because I found a good deal on amazon, also I upgraded my computer and wanted to see how swtor runs now. Im sticking around until KotFE is released but after that I'll be taking another break from the game, probably come back in january or whenever they decide to start releasing more episodes.

"Spoken like a true idiot" - Overseer Harkun

Yeah, but expecting them to do what they said they were gonna do is just very entitled of us, haven't you read all those articles saying gamers are entitled horrible people? must be true! Also, you're not a game developer, you don't understand how things work here so you can't complain when they leave you hanging and give no explanation. Don't forget that a game dev was harassed, that means we're just not worthy of getting updates anymore, because we're all guilty of what one person did, and we can't really blame Bioware if they don't want to engage with us anymore.

Backers are in no way shareholders, not even close. To compare them seriously is to demonstrate no understanding of crowdfunding. Studios have no obligation of to be so transparent and open unless that was promised as part of the backer rewards or was promised as a stretch goal.

Self loathing gamers are just curious little things (I guess all those articles saying gamers are horrible terrible people from sites like kotaku and polygon have taken their toll on some) Also they already tried a game without official forum, it was called warhammer online, guess how well that went.

I thought that was the same thing... Im so confused

Im mostly challenging the point that some people have brought up, that because of that unfortunate incident, Bioware is justified in either shuting down communication or keeping it at a minimum. Also, Im very confused about something, is Jesse Sky the creative director, or is it James Olhen?

This is the official info so far http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=818247

People have been pointing out on this thread and others that they know more of the Legion expansion than KotFE and the only attempt at a response is "Bu-But Blizzard was not so communicative before" Also, some other companies that are very open have crowdfunded games "But they have a different funding" so what? Many of these companies are developing MMOs too, different funding or not, they'll be competing on the same genre. "But a dev was cyber-harassed!" Ok, that's bad and a serious issue, but is it really ok for them to stop doing their job to communicate because of that? it all seems to be people making excuses for Bioware, it's like they want to be treated like pariahs instead of customers.

That's what others here are making it sound and I'm responding to them, who knows what the real reason is for the lack of communication, the bottom line is that other companies are much more open.

With many studios going with open development, open communication and transparency, we'll see if Bioware shutting the door down on their customer face and saying "we're too good to talk to you" is the least damaging path.

At the end of the day other companies keep a much more open communication with their customers, even with all the cyber-harassment that is going on, that is the bar that customers should be using to measure how well Bioware community and marketing team works. I've seen a lot of online harassment in the past year, I mentioned John Bain aka Totalbiscuit denouncing harassment against himself and his family, most likely because he was involved in the gamergate controversy, or Milo Yiannopoulos, a journalist that according to some articles reacived more than 10 death threats after writing an article about it too. The worst thing is that I never heard of any of these people sending online threats to be tracked down and made an example, which is pretty depressing how easy they get away with it.

I don't say that companies should not protect their employees, but since other companies are much more communicative with the playerbase Im assuming there are more reasons for the lack of communication other than "keeping people safe... from hate mail" I don't think Swtor players are such bloodthirsty criminals that a few more yellow posts or dev blogs would have put many lives at risk, you know what I mean?

I really don't give a rats *** if SWTOR is Legends, like you confirmed, according to the creator himself SWTOR never happened to him, or happened in another universe. What worries me is that Disney might not allow any new Legends content and intend to phase it out, I'd love the Old Republic franchise to continue beyond SWTOR in future years, since there are millions of fans that love this Era, there recently was a poll in the official SW page to pick a character to make a 6 inch statue and Revan won by a landslide, none of the other characters, including Disney's Rebel series even came close to him.

Should I take that as "Yes, they feel contempt for their audience/customers"? I am aware of the case of cyber-harassment a developer suffered, it was not the first time a Bioware dev was cyber-harassed actually, it has happened in the past to Bioware devs and devs from other studios, even youtubers, basically anyone with a small amount of internet notoriety can't even fart without getting hate mail, or harassment or death threats. Currently you could set up a throwaway email account or twitter account in a few minutes and use it to tell a dev or someone else you'll do them harm and I doubt you'll face consequence, that is a very sad state of affairs but that's not excuse for a company to shut down to its customers, I see other studios, small, medium and large that keep their customers engaged and make them feel valued, that's the right way to go about it.

If I recall correctly Peter Moored said that they won those awards because gamers are homophobes? lol Talk about not taking ownership of any of your issues.... also talk about feeling deep contempt for your audience and customers.

I have no doubt this is how they think, and I don't think this attitued is going to last long without hurting their business. With all this new narrative of video games making people sexist, racist and a revival of the 90s argument that video games breed violent individuals, Im sure many developers see gamers as animals. But at some point, paying customers are going to be fed up with being treated like potential criminals or pariahs, since the millions of Bioware fans had nothing to do with few cases of cyber-harassment that happened and should not be blamed for the actions of a few. This "We're too good to communicate with you" attitude is only going to end up hurting their business. While cyber-harassment or cyber-threats are bad, I wouldn't say they are extreme since that would be putting them on the same level as being harassed or threatened in real life, on the internet that level of harassment is possible because apparently it's untraceable, I never heard of the people that threatened the life of developers being tracked down and prosecuted. Seems to me you can just tell someone you're going to harm him on twitter and get away with it, that is a sad state of affairs, but shutting down communication or just say the minimum that you can say seems to be the wrong way to go about it. Maybe it's because I've followed many crowdfunded games, they seem to be a thousand times more transparent, making your customers feel valued and keeping them engaged seems like good business to me.

I agree but this is not a Bioware issue, it's an internet issue, I see devs from other companies being the victims of cyber-harassment too John Smedly, formerly from SOE, latrr Daybreak Studios, had people send him pictures of his father's grave, other SOE dev had received pictures of the front door of his house. I know people that are very small time youtubers and have maybe a few thousands subscribers or twitter followers and they get death threats, I know journalist that as soon as they publish an article they get threats too, also large youtubers, John Bain aka Totalbiscuit, has a big gaming channel and said he's been on therapy for the past year because he keeps getting harassed or sent hateful messages, not necessarily by his viewers, hate has come from game developers, journalists, or random people that have nothing to do with video games. But even things being as bad as they are, if you're running a business around an online game with a community you should communicate with them as much as possible, a few cases of cyber-harassment are no excuse to shut down communication unless you want to cast blame over all the people that play the game.