Issues caused by insufficient hardware are not the same as software bugs. Everything you're referring to there was a hardware issue. As others have noted earlier, Blizzard were unprepared for just how massively popular WoW was going to be, and the game suffered at launch because of this. Also, while I didn't play WoW at launch I was raiding within the first year, on Friday and Saturday evenings and I did not experience any raid server issues like the ones you're describing, or any server issues at all from when I started playing, a few months after launch. Finally, WoW's launch WAS amateur hour - no other MMO launched at the time had gained subscribers anywhere near as fast. With 7 more years of watching successful and unsuccessful MMO launches to draw on, not to mention a budget far far greater than WoW's launch had, it's no surprise that from a technical standpoint TOR has had a smooth launch without the kind of hardware issues WoW had. What is a surprise is the vast number of software issues, many of which were noticed in beta but are still present in live.

The point isn't "WoW released a content patch at its 1st month", it's "WoW didn't launch with anywhere near as many serious bugs as TOR has when they started releasing content". I get that design on an MMO is handled by teams working on different areas, so delivering content doesn't mean nobody was fixing bugs in the meantime, and I even get that the content we've just received is stuff that was in development for months before launch and just needed the finishing touches before it could go live. On the other hand, I also get that this game was rushed out by EA in time for Christmas and as such launched a little before it was ready, and that the teams working on new content contain some people who would be perfectly competent as bughunters. Based on this it seems reasonable, at least to me, to temporarily retask those programmers working on new things to fix bugs in the things we already have instead. Not every problem can be solved by throwing more resources at it, but with the sheer variety of bugs in the game, more people working on them will lead to us seeing some fixes sooner than we would otherwise. I call that a good thing.

I don't understand how the launch of an MMO 7 years ago when, let's face it, people's expectations were a lot lower and there was a lot less competition in the MMO marketplace (and it was a lot easier to differentiate your MMO from the competition) is relevant to the launch of an MMO today, in the current MMO market place. Or, to put it simply, when WoW launched it wasn't competing against itself with an extra 7 years of development.

Yes, but the choice for subscribers isn't "TOR 1 month after launch vs WoW 1 month after launch", it's "TOR 1 month after launch vs WoW 7 years after launch". BioWare don't get points for mirroring or improving on what Blizzard did 7 years ago if the end result is still a game that has more crippling issues than WoW does now.

Yes, that is how game design works. It's also true that not everyone involved in creating new content would even be able to contribute to bug fixes - the writers, the people who create new art assets, etc. At the same time, there are coders and devs working on the new content who COULD be fixing bugs instead, and right now this game needs those bugs sorted a lot more than it needs new content, even if it does slow down the content delivery cycle further down the line.

Once you unlock your legacy on any one character, all your characters start earning legacy XP - even if you created the character before you created your legacy. On the other hand, if your main character is close to unlocking their legacy you might want to wait until you've unlocked it before making your second character so that you get legacy xp from the start on that character.

So my reward for subscribing from day 1 is going to be... a title I'll never use because I'd rather have something relevant to what my character has actually done, and a medal that will permanently clog up the bank of each of my characters. Yay.

If you really wanted to cover all the bases, your list should have had:

I am currently playing a Sith Sorcerer, with Khem Val as my main companion. I've had about 20 levels of dialogue to get used to him, and know what he likes and doesn't like pretty well. However, as others have said, the brief summary you get when choosing a dialogue option isn't always a lot to go on. As an example, Khem usually dislikes me accepting orders from ordinary imperials out of hand - he expects me to be dismissive of their claims and only agree with great reticence. On the other hand, a very few times he has gained approval from me accepting missions because the actual spoken line has me extolling my power. There was no clue before I chose that option that this particular line would have that effect. Put more generally, there are plenty of people who are roleplaying their characters through the dialogue (myself included most of the time) who would prefer to be flying blind when it comes to companion affection in dialogues, or at least relying on how well they know their companions. At the same time, there are also plenty who take a more mechanical view and just want to raise their companion's affection as efficiently as possible without caring too much what those dialogue options say about their companions (there may even be a few people roleplaying submissive characters who actually do choose what to say based on their companions reaction) and it wouldn't harm the former any to have an option to see what a dialogue choice would gain or cost you affection-wise before you made it, that was off by default and could be turned on, while it would help the latter group significantly. That said, unlike LS/DS points which do have that option, affection isn't a permanent change and can be easily bribed back up with gifts to counter dialogue choices.

I get everything except the part where you scoff at the notion of the Empire being evil, because yeah, we pretty much are.

Well, we really are a race that will convert or kill every living being. Less of the holy half-dead thing, though - we'd rather revel in life.

Uhhh, this isn't the Empire from the movies, the one that quietly subsumed the fairly progressive republic. The Sith Empire we're discussing kills all republic forces when they conquer a world even if they surrender, then go on to massacre any of the population who do not swear allegiance to the Sith Empire and enslave most of the ones who do. Those slaves are considered a disposable labour source, with no rights whatsoever. Their blood and death fuels our Empire's war machine to keep conquering and subjugating more worlds. All force-sensitives in Empire space must be sent to Korriban for training and Sith indoctrination, despite the harshness and high mortality rate of said program, regardless of the individual's age, ability or psychological suitability for said training - for many this is basically a death sentence as they lack the strength in the force or the ruthlessness to survive there. If they refuse to go, or if their family refuse to let them be taken (in the case of young children) they are killed. In short, we are not nice people

My collectors edition preorder arrived today, so I've got the boxed game, but no EGA yet Hoping I get an invite today.

I want to go mad with power, and the Jedi tend to frown on that sort of thing.