Not yet, they are still working on the free transfers to targeted servers to fix the population problems. At a later time, they will introduce the ability to transfer where you want to go (most likely for a fee), but they haven't announced any kind of timetable for it. Hope that helps.

Recently, Joveth asked the "Lord Calypho" crowd what they wanted to happen with their "unique transfer situation". There was a cacophony of demands and concerns that flooded the forum and once the developers made their decision of where to transfer them, there were a lot of posts claiming that the developers didn't do what the "majority" wanted. Now I'm not claiming that "the majority" should always get what they want in an MMO. Many times, what the majority wants isn't feasible or even desirable to those who are responsible for making the game a lasting success. In some circumstances, Bioware just has to make the call and live with it. I just think this tool would help all sides involved in determining what this community is trying to communicate.

Absolutely, and what many people don't understand is that censorship is a "government thing". It's a government entity trying to control what someone says under the power of force and coercion. Private industries have every right to regulate what goes on with their own property. Like I said before, you don't have "freedom of speech" on someone else's dime.

I'm right there with you on all the chronic complaints, but some criticisms may be warranted. There are plenty of reasons to unsub from a game that doesn't involve being upset with it. I have unsubbed from many MMO's because of school schedules, trying out other games, financial difficulties and other "real life is intruding" reasons. Even if you left because of something you were mad about, the reason may get fixed and you may want to come back. All deleting the characters would do is assure that anyone who left would NEVER come back. And that's poor business.

It's a combination of both. Even if the game was immensely popular and few people had negative things to say, they still wouldn't want people posting anything to the forums that they don't have the capability of holding the poster responsible for. They aren't going to want spamming, profanities, advertising OTHER games on their forums, etc. It just makes a lot of unnecessary work for the forum moderators to keep the forums clean and on topic. They have every right to try to protect what belongs to them. Anyone who has something to say about "what they think of the game" has the capability to post about it before their subscription time runs out. Their opinion isn't going to change in the 60 to 90 days after they've stopped playing. The only difference would be that they would be able to post any and all of the types of posts I referenced above without the worry of having their account suspended or banned for violating forum rules. There's no point in allowing them to post after they are no longer a part of the community or a paying customer.

There are several other sites where you can get this information and talk in forums with people who play the games. IGN.com, MMORPG.com and G4tv.com just to name a few. Other than that, I believe you can still READ the forums to see what's being said, you just can't post.

Hey! I wanna play Gungans!

I nearly shot Diet Dr. Pepper out of my nose while reading this... Bravo!

Bioware can't prevent you from saying whatever you consider to be "the truth". They can only prevent it on their own property. You are welcome to go to any of a hundred other gaming sites and say what you want to say about them. They don't have to allow it in their own home.

You don't really havea correct grasp on what's "democratic". You do not have "free speech" at the expense of someone else's dime. You can't start a "protest" on the inside of someone else's business. These forums are owned by Bioware and they can dictate who posts and what is allowed to be posted. Knock off the 99% crap. You aren't "entitled' to your say in a privately owned forum.

I don't think that's entirely true. If it WAS true, we wouldn't have a community team for that exact purpose - to communicate with the developers on our behalf. I'm sure any company would want a clear idea what their subscriber base wants in the game. I'm not making any kind of demands, just offering an option that might help focus some of the posts with suggestions that are scattered among all the different forum threads. With a poll, not only can the devs see what's most wanted by the community, but the community can see it also. I think even the community is wrong if they think they have a strong idea what is wanted most in the game.

Could the community team consider the possibility of starting "Poll Questions"? We see on the DEV Tracker that members are the team are trying to answer some questions, but many are feeling left out or as if they don't have a voice. Perhaps bringing up some of the more popular topics in the form of a question that the community can vote on would create a greater sense of involvement for the subscribers and an opportunity for the developers to get their finger on the pulse of what's important to the community. It would also be an excellent tool for giving the devs a sense of what features we feel are more important than others so they know what to focus their work on and what features can be "back-burnered" in the meantime. As it is now, we have no idea what is actually in the works (other than the most recent patches) and many are still feeling like there isn't enough communication, although I completely believe that it HAS improved greatly in recent months.

Glad to see some players coming back. Welcome home

A mentoring/side-kicking system so it's easier to invite friends to the game and be able to play with them without rolling a new character

Ehh... I find myself on your side of the argument often, but I would say that if I were in their shoes, I would gladly trade a dead server for a 20 min queue any day.

Remember that I am only speculating, as are we all... Not a mass return, but however, I think the "Star War" IP does carry a certain level of loyalty that other fledgling MMO's do not. Under the right circumstances, and with enough hard work, I believe it's possible to recover a sizeable amount of the subscriptions lost, but I do agree it's going to be a long difficult road for them. They are going to have to get really creative and not give up, despite the abuse being heaped on them. I'm just coming up with possibilities as to what they are "monitoring" by waiting until the weekend to continue any further transfers to selected servers. As I don't have access to the data or the meetings they have, and since they are not sharing any of it with us, I start with the following presumptions: They AREN'T doing it just to irritate us They AREN'T lazy Bioware is a successful game company (however currently unpopular with recent game releases) so I find it unlikely they are just "winging it" They have some kind of genuine concern at the END of the transfers that they didn't at the beginning. They have the information necessary to make this kind of decision, knowing FULL WELL how unpopular it was going to be Clearly, I can be wrong on any or all of these. I'm just trying to work out what is likely with the information I have without making leaps in logic. The problem with most of these forums is that the posts are usually so wrought with hyperbole that serious discussion can't take place. There's also the anger factor, and when someone is in "rage mode" (not you), it's unlikely you are going to reason with them if you don't agree. Agreed, but once again, we have no idea what the actual numbers are or what the issues are they are having as they aren't about to share any kind of technical or procedural failings with us. I completely concede that they may be doing something wrong, I just have no reason to START with that presumption, myself. I'm completely aware that "crap happens" sometimes and depending on the possible outcome, a corporation is going to keep it under wraps as best they can. It may be just a simple mistake that had catastrophic consequences that some will use as "proof" of incompetence but others would just view as a mistake, nothing more. I'll also concede that you may be completely right about the data they could use. I honestly don't presume to be a statistical expert. I just don't understand what the previous populations on specific days, servers etc are going to tell you about a situation where transfers are given to the public as an option, rather than a requirement - it puts an extremely random factor into the equation. Most people would want to transfer to a populated server. But as I've seen from many of these posts, many don't want to, some WANT to be on a "medium population" server rather than a full one, some want to transfer to a different server once those transfers become available. All these factors - to me - seem like reasonable considerations before allowing transfer to a server that may already be full (if the active populations of those servers ALL decide to transfer over) IGN is now reporting another 400,000 subscription loss. So the possibility that they aren't cut out to run an MMO is completely possible. There's no doubt that the subscribers were fed up with waiting for results. the damage MAY be irreversible. So honestly, what is your evaluation. Do you believe that they are just incapable of running an MMO? Are they deliberately ignoring this information that you say is so easy to collect and use? What would you guess would be their reasoning behind taking this particular path to repair the populations? Maybe I'm overly optimistic, I can admit that. I have a little more faith in them as industry professionals. Personally I make the assumption that they have a really good reason, if they are willing to put up with the levels of negativity and hostility being spewed at them and their reputation as a company. But who knows...

I'm in the same boat. Both of my servers were destination servers, and I'm trying to get on a completely DIFFERENT server (from PvE to PvP) so I can play the game the way i want to play it. These guys are in a much worse-case scenario.

You're absolutely right. I had to actually look at the server list to see what you were referring to. I must have misunderstood something because I was under the impression that there was only one of each of the RP server types for each location and they they were ALL being excluded from transfers because they had no-one else to consolidate them with. It's possible I read it in someone else's post and didn't bother to research it for myself. I was going off of what other people were saying. My bad. I withdraw the statement.... You're the first to bring Ebon Hawk to my attention.

I didn't say it was "preferrable" only "possible". IF an RP guild wants to RP, there's nothing to stop them except themselves. And since there isn't enough of an RP community in The Old Republic to warrant it's own server. If you are wanting to RP, this is probably your only choice.

COMPLETELY agree. That's good customer service.

You aren't even TRYING to understand what I'm saying if you're going to jump to such an absurd conclusion.

All these points were made by me when you mentioned using the last 6 months as some kind of reference for what they are trying to accomplish now. All of these factors aren't in that data. Waiting the weekend AT LEAST allows the "weekend players" the opportunity to transfer (If it's the only time they play). This consideration was possibly made for ALL the servers. No matter what, it's more useful to them than the last 6 months. The last 6 months has nothing to do with what they are doing right now. being angry has NOTHING to do with it? Of course it does. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are angry. You can see it in your posts. I never said that it was unjustified. Hell, I'M angry and admittedly I'm in a better situation than you by pure luck of the draw. Since you're talking about metrics and samples I have to assume I don't have to explain how analyzing data works. Without actually having some way to factor in the Free Server transfers into the calculations, knowing what the trends of the last six months were is meaningless. Which trends are you referring to? Server population? Subscriptions coming in and going out? Won't those samples be affected by the fact that the server populations were still dead? The fact that they are doing the transfers and are doing them for FREE greatly increases the probability that people WILL transfer and WILL resubscribe but not at what rate. Once again we are BOTH simply speculating. We don't know what data they are using so we can't possibly say for sure whether or not they are using it correctly. And unless YOU have access to the "trends" you're referring to, then we're at an impasse. I'm not trying to belittle your point. I'm trying to understand it and I'm trying to give you other things to consider. "Being Angry" doesn't invalidate your point, but it would affect the possibility that you aren't considering alternative explanations. That's all I was saying.

You're leaving out several factors: How many people only play during the weekend and would only be able to initiate the transfer then (possibly not aware since everyone doesn't monitor the forums) Even though the destination servers have been given the green light, how many of those ACTIVE players have actually accepted the transfer? Will they accept the transfer at all? How many people are going to re-subscribe once it gets out that the server populations are MUCH better? What happend with THEIR characters stranded on a dead server if the destination is full and their friends are there?

It's not the same kind of data. The data from the past 6 months can't predict how many people will ACCEPT the transfer within a certain amount of time. In the forums there are posts by people who claim they refuse to leave their servers, there was one demanding to be sent back (which was REALLY weird). It also can't predict how many people will RE-subscribe, and be on one of those origin servers and ask to be transferred. I understand you aren't getting the answer you want from me, which seems to be, THEY'RE incompetent and YOU are a victim. And in all honesty, that absolutely COULD be the case. But claiming that analyzing the previous 6 months of data is going to give them some kind of insight into a transfer process that wasn't available when that data was collected shows me that you aren't really trying to understand and you're just angry. Which is completely understandable. It's a sucky situation and i hope they resolve it quickly for you.

The framework isn't the issue. The issue is the unpredictable nature of the players and WHEN and IF they will accept the free transfer they have been offered. Chances are, the destination server is at some sweet spot where they could either transfer another server or two at PRESENT levels, but if the other players on the OTHER origin servers (who may only get to PLAY on weekends) decide to transfer after they've allowed you in, may cause overpopulation, long server queues and players raging and demanding that they be allowed to transfer somewhere else. I already suggested some kind of temporary fix where the remaining servers transfer to each other so you can at least have people to play, but there's the possibility that there isn't enough to make a real difference (depending on how many actually transfer). Now granted, I'm only PRESUMING this is the situation, but at least I'm making an attempt to consider the possibilities. I'm not making assumptions that I'm being "picked on" because my server transfer isn't ready or that it's something PERSONAL (not referring to you). No matter what - SOMEONE was going to be picked last, and more than likely, it was going to be an issue because at the beginning, you have several population amounts to tinker with to make the transfers successful. Now we're at the bottom of the barrel and there aren't as many ways to manipulate the numbers. It sucks, but it's ENTIRELY possible that it was unavoidable under the circumstances.