I'm currently deciding between Opportunist's Bounty Pack's or Cluster's Nightlife Pack's. I believe the Nightlife packs are the newest, and I really enjoy the excitement of what I'm going to get. It's not so much a problem for me, I set aside "fun money" in my budget on every paycheck, since I work 24/7 and therefore won't have a social life for a few weeks. Which would you suggest getting, and why? I've gotten better rewards from the Opportunist's, but everyone says the Nightlife packs are better ingame. Is this true?

I'm only twenty two so I'm not sure that I was old enough to play Asheron's Call. I'm not adverse to difficulty, I just believe that the "quest to become the best" should be fun and exciting. Not bland and recycled. Asheron's Call (as far as I'm aware) came early and its gameplay may have been something new. New is usually good. Old is usually not.

Try taking a look at this: http://technorati.com/entertainment/gaming/article/how-and-why-star-wars-the1/ It reciprocates many of my intended points short of the WoW comparisons and instead uses the staff of game development to state why this game is failing.

I'm going to assume you're trolling due to the activity directed toward me on this post. If you're not. Thank you.

Let me rip a guy I know off when I used this to support my case: "I'm not going to debate whether or not The Old republic is, or is not a" WoW Clone". I will say, it does closely follow the formula made popular by WoW targeting the casual/theme park market – What the means to each individual is subjective, and not irrelevant to this topic. On that basis – There are what I consider to be –standardized- features as part of that formula (As seen with RIFT, and other MMORPGS). With the core features of such a formula present (Smooth combat system, simplified mechanics, casual progression pace, theme park style linear play). There are SEVERAL missing features I find very frustrating – A few things I’ve noticed: No Guild support, or progression – No Guild Banks, or Guild Quests, nothing that I can see that supports the incentive to join a Guild other than to expedite group creation, or for social aspects, and RP – This is a big letdown – Guild Incentives I think are important to creating a social atmosphere outside the usual gear grinding, and raid nights. No Ultra-Graphics/HD/AA – The graphics are very sub-par to industry standards, even so for this style of gaming, RIFT which is already over a half year old presents much stronger graphical engines, and capabilities – We are about to be in 2012 – Why am I playing a game with graphical qualities to rival the original Knights of the Old Republic circa~2003? LFG Support – This one is tricky, while I think that group match makers did kill a large obligation to be civil, and social – I also think that TOR lacks ANY significant form of group support – No I don’t want cross-realm LFG match making, as that produces a higher roll chance for trolls, and ninjas – But something to expedite the process would be more then favorable. Public Events – Now I’m not end game, and still have not scratched all the game has to offer – but I’ve yet to see much to indicate there are Public Events / Quests - This is a feature I enjoyed in WAR, and loved in RIFT – Why the regression? If a feature proves to be favorable en mass, why omit it? Poor RP Support – Aside from vanity items, there is no support for a play style that was touted prior to launch as being supported, there is very little interactive environmental objects, and the emotes are lack-luster –Player Housing – I don’t know why developers keep looking past this.. I think this is one of t he most sought, and neglected feature there is – and no, having the same starship as everyone else does not fulfill this desire. Did I miss anything? What features do you think are missing?" This essentially says everything I need it to "TOR has Regressed the genre... WoW pioneered it, RIFT Standardized it, then TOR SHOULD HAVE IMPLAMENTED IT."

Which is exactly what I said, so we agree on something. The success of a customer based industry is NOT based on ability, or functionality, or innovation. It's based on brand loyalty and the ability to propagate a powerful reputation regardless of whether you can support it with your hardware or not. Because when it comes down to it, there are so many people that are loyal to you that it doesn't matter if your products are clunky because they adapt to it and expect anything less than said clunkyness to be a problem. It's almost entirely based on appearances and the ability to streamline said appearance.

And so did WoW, how did WoW NOT make new things out of the old mainstream MMO framework that EQ had created?

Which words in my post don't share the same meaning as they should?

Does the same and lacks the features that make the game it is parroting popular and successful. I would PROBABLY play a WoW with a Star Wars skin, I am a huge Lucas fan and I love the Star Wars universe. SWTOR had an extremely long development time and emulated other games in a series of ways, it should have emulated some of the more successful elements that make these games great rather than crafting shoddy features and faulty game mechanics.

Sort of like Steve Jobs did from his crack research partners and genius prize-winning collaborates? Steve Jobs died and millions mourned the death of a man that took from other people and essentially gave nothing but shiny boxes and a fruit-logo relative to the technology world. You are remembered for your ABILITY TO PIONEER, not your actual doing so behind the scenes. EQ created the monster, FrankenBlizzard gave it life.

I never said I liked WoW, it's just a strong business model for proper success in the genre. YEARS as the top dog (which it still is) with extremely outdated graphics and what some people decide to ticket as "un-innovative features" and "recycled gameplay". In fact, I wanted SWTOR to be nothing like WoW, but then it decided to do just the opposite.

To refine my post once again, I've opened THIRTY+ champ bags and have gotten a SINGLE relic. Seriously! I kid you not, that's a LOT of hours dude, why would I not be mad after that?

Also, the days that a game that you PAY TO PLAY being compared to a job SHOULD have come to an end already. MMORPGs are a lot like a dead-end job, you invest time into them and you're whipped for it, you invest money into them and you're whipped for it, and all by chasing the chance of getting a purple digitalized piece of equipment. Upon receiving such a piece, you begin again, for the cycle was not complete. It's like sometimes we play to have a second job and we are surrounded by people who lash out at you for wanting to have a quality game experience with features made to let us have fun. Progression is one thing. A job = working to get something A game = a game

You disagree that the yearning for steamlined features of a massively multiplayer game DOESN'T in fact make you a greedy child? That my taking an inordinate amount of time to obtain gear through Champion Bags (which is the worst mechanic of all time) and wanting to get actual gear from it also does not make me a child? That because I want a simple reward for my efforts that I am in fact not a child and that the endgame in ToR is terrible and needs to be reworked or else the community will vanish just like it did in Warhammer?

SW:ToR has shown little to no innovative features. Obviously I don't hate it (because I'm here), but in the end it's a mediocre stock MMO with some flashy poshness. My point is that the game has TOO MUCH cosmetic features as compared to innovative ones that aren't tangible. There are a lot of huge problems with them game primarily due to the refusal of BioWare to listen to it's customers and operate as a dictatorial MMO developer. That is also why the game will never work out in the end. For example, the lightsaber stances? When BioWare revealed SWTOR way back there was actually a HUGE, thousand+ post thread over this exact issue. That's when the diehard Star Wars fans obsessed over lore vowed not to play the game, because such little features were never to be realized