Without expertise a PvEer would have an unfair advantage in PvP because their equipment is better, which is unfair to PvP players. With expertise a PvPer has an unfair advantage over everyone because their equipment is better. Both are extremely flawed - if PvP needs 'progression' then it should get cross-server queues/ladders/ranked warzones and all that jazz. If not, then I'd prefer to see a level playing field. Whatever way you look at it, "just" removing expertise is not the answer.

Really? the example from the OP: - if you kill the slaves slowly = darkside. - if you kill the slaves quickly = lightside. That certainly isn't "stark black and white morality". It's different shades of black/grey...

- the class story line makes up a tiny fraction of the quests you tend to complete. - the side quests don't tend to have a lot of 'real' choices (it seems that normally you have a conversation - and either pick "do quest" or "don't do quest"... after the quest you get to decide whether to shoot him the back or not). I just don't find it works that well with a second playthrough... although I will confess that the class storyline is still an interesting element - but it feels like a film with loads of adverts in it.

The argument itself is flawed. The gameplay is story *driven* - which is fine/excellent/great. Killing 15 boars with an optional storyline >>> killing 15 boars "just because". The big question: when you remove the storyline is the underlying gameplay "good"? Because alts/the end-game can't be story driven.

^ This. Ignore everything else - that system is the only thing that will change the future of the game. They either implement it, or the population collapses. - players are going to leave this game for a variety of reasons, most due to unrealistic expectations, some due to petty issues etc. I honestly don't care why, but there are plenty of threads on this nonsense. - as the population drops, players on low population servers will start to find it more difficult to group. - some of those players will quit. - the remaining population will find it even more difficult to find groups. A "population death spiral". See: WAR, Rift etc. TOR has great single player content, but I suspect that will just give the game time. It's how they use that time to prevent it that matters.

After playing up to the 30s on both sides, this is very much a "republic thing": - Empire deal with Nar Shadaa as the only claustrophobic linear map. - Republic deal with the hell-hole that is Corruscant, get a brief respite at Taris before being slammed head first into Nar Shadaa. It just feels 'less linear' to level up as Imperial imho.

They are different technologies, and refresh doesn't mean the same thing. With an LCD display your screen is a massive grid of dots. A dot effectively 'glows' a colour and will remain glowing that colour until you tell it to change to a different colour. You can point a video camera at an LCD display without much trouble. With a CRT display your screen is the result of a beam drawing on it. Every 1/60 second the beam redraws the entire screen line by line... the image fades towards a black screen until 1/60 second later it is redrawn (ideally by that stage the pixel is black). If you point a video camera at a CRT display then you'll see blackness creeping up/down the screen. Hence a CRT constantly fades to black, whereas an LCD shows the picture 'the whole time'. For that reason a CRT refresh rate is very important as you may be able to see the black bits from time to time. For an LCD it doesn't matter much. Anyway, the end result is that an LCD at 60hz is an ~100% stable image, only let down by the response time of the LCD ('ghosting'). 120hz CRT monitors are very impressive pieces of kit - and I know other people that swear by them. Personally, I find the key to avoiding eye strain is 'vsync'. Turn that off and I'll get eye strain - 'fake 3d audio' also gives me headaches .

I'd be entirely in favour of tiered cross-server PvP with progression and all that jazz, if that's what people want. (doing this without cross-server queues wouldn't be a success story) But we don't have that, nor does it seem likely to appear any time soon... So I'd recommend stripping it all out.

Level 1-49 PvP is considered "much improved"/more fun etc. despite the removal of the 'uber weaponry of armegeddon'. Maybe the whole 'leveling up' system is about PvE progression/character customization/ego-stroking, rather than 'roflstomping noobs in pvp'? And maybe the point of being 'Elite warlord smasher with 100 days /played' is that you're actually better at playing the game than some noob?

- because you can be terrible in PvP and still get PvP rewards. - because PvE raiding is painful/annoying/frustrating/boring, and people like to spread the pain. - because devs can use locks on a PvE instance: "it'll take an average of 16 weeks for a player to complete this tier". etc. MMO 'end-game' design is firmly stuck in the 1990s. What do people PvP for? - to roflstomp opponents? - to get roflstomped? - to have a close, memorable battle? I play for the last one, and so I am bitterly opposed to the PvP tiering stupidity.

Are you more likely to stay in a game if: - you are playing your favourite character, and winning. [or] - you are playing a character "to make other people happy", and losing. Having people join the underdog realm, only to be unhappy and quit has a negative effect on the game. As to whether forum posts sway players, of course they do. Mostly in terms of 'where will I find it easy to get a group/healthy guild', and the answer is (naturally) the side with more people.

I think you're mixing up issues here: - the mortar has a 1.5-ish second setup phase within the animation, which appears to be mirrored in the background damage. The complaints about the mortar refer to imbalance vs the BH as 'death from above' does not have that lengthy setup phase. - there is a separate issue with ability delay/misfires. - there are yet more issues with channeled abilities and a bunch of timing issues (including the trooper's "full auto" finishing before dealing it's full damage). But afaik the delay with the mortar is not a bug (it's working perfectly) but the design is flawed.

The exact same issue you are describing is also happening to me (EU - Dune Bantha). I don't have frame-rate issues, or loading issues: - I do have a random black-screen flash, but that doesn't appear to have anything to do with this. - I also have an issue with certain sound channels cutting out (music stopping) and also some conversations being unduly loud for no obvious reason. I don't imagine that this is related either. Otherwise, it's all good - fraps reports a fairly consistent 60fps with vsync on - and everything runs like clockwork, apart from these infuriating lag spikes. It's possibly an ISP problem I guess, but I've never seen anything this extreme. (the spike duration = your ping, so 7000ms ping is a 7 second lag spike).

But it's also not a thing that they can necessarily fix - I haven't got a clue what would fix it, nor what the main issue is. [there are sooo many little things, but it might just be as simple as "bad boy syndrome"] For example, there are 4 starter companions for each side. - for republic 3 are male, 1 is an r2d2 clone. 2 speak human. - for imperial 3 are female, 1 is a weird alien. 3 speak human. I would have expected more players to play Empire simply because of that trivial difference on it's own (beyond silly/graphical reasons - people simply prefer to hear a female voice, so many people will feel "more comfortable" with the Imperial starter companions - and I assume more likely to continue with the character).

This is a crazy argument, how did the PvP game get into this state? You need tiered PvE gear to fight bigger bosses. You pick a team of players with the correct tier equipment, then pick the correct boss to fight against. You then farm for the equipment to fight the next boss... In PvP you usually get drafted with 7 randoms against a team of 8 randoms. There are no tiers, no bosses, no choice of opponent - often not a choice of team-mate either... So where the [bleep] did all this PvP progression/tiering nonsense come from? Given a choice between a match that comes down to the last second, or a match that you roflstomp win/lose - which is actually enjoyable/memorable? Why would anyone ever intentionally create or support a mechanic that reduces the chances of a great, memorable battle? -> Cap everyone's gear at tier 0 for pvp

True, but it didn't have to be 'meaningful'. Ideas: - a special teabag emote - sadly half the PvP population would happily spend the rest of their lives in pursuit of this. - a colour crystal that cycles between green and red or whatever. - a pet jawa. /drool - a hoverbike with green stripes. - standard orange PvE gear between tier 0 and tier 1 etc, that looks fancy. (just don't start with the giant shoulder-pads) - a 'pvp-special companion' and armour upgrades etc (not usable in pvp - but who cares?). HK-51 isn't in the game... and I think his personality would fit pvper's well (for both sides - don't lumber the pubs with an ewok). Anyway, it is what it is I guess.

In a movie - the key to a 'smuggler' is usually "don't ask what the cargo is" (and then they invariably discover it's a beautiful woman etc etc). In TOR, everything remotely smuggling-oriented seems to play out that way... - get me these boxes, oh... and they are full of illegal drugs!!! - get me these chips, oh did I mention they are for evil slave collars??? No, really, that's wonderful but could you just let me smuggle stuff without giving me a guilt trip and forcing a LS/DS choice on every possible occaision?

I'm probably missing something here, but... You enter a PvE instance with 7 other players, you all need to equipped appropriately. As your gear gets better you can fight better bosses. In PvP terms - you don't pick your allies, and you don't pick which 'boss' you get to fight against. So in what way is 'gear progression' appropriate for PvP? Surely the logical requirement is only to remove any scaling of PvE equipment in PvP?

Something missed: Travel time in MMOs is "downtime". Grab a drink, go to the toilet, stretch your legs, have a chat with the zone/guildmates. In TOR - for travel between planets you can't do that. You have to sit there and guide your character the whole way .

One point that I haven't seen mentioned - a number of people will pick empire as the "internet" are telling them: a) Empire is better in every aspect of the game. b) More people are already playing empire. So for someone without any pre-conceptions/thoughts on the matter, Empire is the more appealing faction. Which really doesn't help if there's already an imbalance .

Short FAQ: - is the broker saying that TOR is a failure? No, the broker is saying that his estimates for the performance of TOR were too optimistic. - isn't that the same thing? No. If I said you were going to win $10m, and you didn't - that would make me an idiot. Whether you told other people that you expected to win $10m is immaterial if I'm pretending to be an expert. - but this is accurate? It's a prediction. Or more accurately a revision of his original prediction. - are brokers always right? This statement is basically a broker saying that "they got it wrong the first time", so obviously the broker isn't always right... - so there's no problem? The underlying concern of the analysts, and some players, is that TOR is vulnerable to high churn (players leaving basically). Without knowing the retention rate, this is all guesswork. Basically, it doesn't mean much at this point.

The churn figures are "predictions", and it's not clear whether they have origin sales figures. But the underlying problem is that this is a 'downgrade' of their original predictions. Looking at some other stock predictions it seems some analysts were predicting a 'wow killing behemoth'... I think we'd all agree that a downgrade from that type of nonsense is entirely appropriate.

Not quite correct: - the sith are those kick-*** kung-fu Monks/ninja-assassins, who crack jokes and split skulls... but the quentin tarantino version with the blood spray and spikey heads! - the jedi are real monks. They pray a lot, aren't allowed relationships and, in this case, are about as fun as a toaster. For some reason the first group are more popular... who'd have guessed that?

o_O. What choice would that be? - I picked empire, and have an operative who is the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet - he just fights to defend his home and flirts a bit too much . - I picked republic, and have a smuggler who happily sells spice/slave collars, shoots first and has shot at least one character in the back in cold blood. Are the Imperial civilians "evil"? Is it wrong to protect them? What makes a bounty hunter more evil than a smuggler? You can usually make LS and DS choices on both sides of the war. You could argue that the sith are inherently evil and I haven't explored their storyline enough to answer that... but I always saw sith/jedi as a difference of philosophy more than 'one eats kittens, the other has a halo'.

There's a word to describe this type of thread 'denial'. When you design a system, and no-one uses it, the problem is not "our customers are idiots", your customers *are* idiots - but you should have known that already... The problem is simply that your perfectly engineered system does not achieve it's goal and is (from a practical point-of-view) useless. One solution is to work out what people would use, and build that instead - possibly discarding some brilliant work. Another solution is to bury your head in the sand and say that "people don't understand". As someone that's had to do it, it's incredibly painful - but there is no real plan B.