Wow, I just don't know what to say about that. There is no "indulgence in zeros", you can put away your tinfoil hat. In the tiny off-chance that I mis-typed a number, this is a directory listing of the archived log files from the past month and a half - straight from a command prompt. I don't know what other form of data evidence is going to be enough for you if you still don't believe it: C:\World of Warcraft\Logs\archive>dir *.txt Volume in drive C is New Volume Volume Serial Number is B680-056C Directory of C:\World of Warcraft\Logs\archive 02/06/2012 08:29 PM 465,781,005 120206 200607.txt 02/09/2012 03:34 PM 325,491,079 120208 204027.txt 02/09/2012 09:23 PM 321,349,445 120209 200243.txt 02/13/2012 08:04 AM 492,513,528 120212 200347.txt 02/15/2012 08:28 PM 372,602,791 120215 204139.txt 02/16/2012 08:53 PM 580,641,759 120216 195607.txt 02/19/2012 08:32 PM 600,047,272 120219 203141.txt 02/26/2012 07:34 PM 443,693,969 120226 195626.txt 02/29/2012 08:41 PM 402,348,285 120229 200326.txt 03/07/2012 09:10 PM 373,851,174 120307 194832.txt 03/14/2012 08:30 PM 412,991,509 120314 194555.txt 11 File(s) 4,791,311,816 bytes 0 Dir(s) 81,676,595,200 bytes free C:\World of Warcraft\Logs\archive> Yes, it's a LOT of data to capture for a single 4-hour raid. And that's exactly my point. I don't want to have to deal with the logistics of 8 or 16 people all doing that, and then pulling it together, and then redistributing it back out for anyone who wants to investigate something. There is just too much inherent brittleness in that process.

A personal log that must be combined with the rest of the logs from other players before it is of much use at all. And even once combined, it still won't have other important information such as when the boss summons adds or performs abilities that don't directly target a player. Hopefully the healer knows what killed them without resorting to a log. But sometimes things get pretty hectic and what you think is happening is slightly different from reality. In those cases, the log file removes all ambiguity. And no, you don't need a detailed analysis of every single wipe. But when you need it, you NEED it. There is no substitute. As someone in a guild that killed heroic 25-man Ultraxion and Spine before the nerfs, I can say with certainty that sometimes you MUST have that full picture in order to squeeze out just one more GCD before the wipe timer. Why would I exaggerate about wiping that much? Like most guilds that try hard to beat content on heroic mode before the nerf bat dumbs it down, 400 to 500 (or more) wipes on an encounter is not unheard of. We raid only 3 nights a week, maximum. So when it's time to work on progression, we know our strategy beforehand and it just comes down to coordination, tight performance and awareness by the players, and occasionally dealing with the bugs that the developers haven't fixed yet. Sometimes an encounter really does break that often. The only thing we can do is maximize our "face time" with the fight using the hours we have available in our schedule. So yes, that means 4 minutes or less per wipe, when we can. Obviously, that means wiping early when mistakes are made, and no ninja-afks. Nope, it probably wouldn't in the current content. But for this game to thrive and be any kind of draw for people who enjoy being challenged, the end-game content is going to have to get a LOT better than what we see there right now. There are some great concepts in some of the ops events, but they are all either far too easy or frustratingly buggy. Neither of those is fun for very long. There isn't a need to post summaries in a chat window. I don't even really feel a need for realtime dps metrics. I just want the information available after the fact, for those situations where I actually need it. Besides, spamming healing/dps meters is considered rude and my guild has a policy against it. I think you underestimate both the prevalence of my group's playstyle, as well as how beneficial it is for the larger community. SWTOR is a great leveling game, but you need a lot more than that to support a thriving long-term MMO. Everyone finishes leveling at some point, and it's no big secret that SWTOR has a huge problem with people loving the 1-49 experience and then quitting at 50 due to disappointment with the endgame status and direction. And yes, I do have other options. I have already exercised that. I am surprised I can still post here actually (assumed my subscription ending last night would terminate posting rights here too). What's wrong with wanting a game based on my favorite sci-fi universe from childhood to be one of those viable options? It's so damned close to being a great game at the level cap, and there are only just a few big issues left out there standing in the way. The combat logs implementation is the biggest one, since I think they confirmed at least agreement with the importance of the others, and agreement to address them properly (talking about mouseover casting with ops frames for casters, and HUD visible effects to highlight important buffs/debuffs/procs).

Are you claiming that I fabricated those numbers? I am looking at the files in my archive folder right now. 412,991,409 bytes for this past Wednesday night 373,851,174 for the previous week (we finished early) 402,348,285 for two weeks ago 443,693,969 for the week before that etc. And 30KB/s is exactly why not everyone in a raid/operation will want to be capturing their own logs. I run dual SSD drives on an overpowered machine. It isn't really affected by the combat log capture. But not everyone has that kind of hardware, and for more than a few raiders enabling combat logging can make the difference between an encounter being playable or not.

Those comments really make it clear that you haven't got a clue what you are talking about. Combat logs are not just a "few MB". I am the person responsible for logging and uploading my guild's nightly raids in WoW. A single night's log is just over 400 MB of data (we raid for exactly 4 hours in total). Many players with subpar machines simply can't afford the extra loss in framerate that comes with constantly writing out that much data. Progression-oriented guilds do NOT take random "smoke breaks" or "bio breaks" every few pulls. In fact, this is one thing that sets apart progression groups from casual groups. We have a 10-minute break exactly 2 hours into our 4 hour raid schedule. Never early, never late. Everyone knows there will be a break at that time, and the leadership knows there won't be any "ninja afks". It simply isn't tolerated. Likewise, I think you vastly underestimate just how efficient a progression-oriented group is when it comes to wipe recovery. Nobody "futzes with gear" or "runs back for consumables" mid-raid. When a wipe is called, you die ASAP and immediately release and run back for the next attempt. During progression on a new/tough boss encounter, it is normal for us to log roughly 40 to 60 wipes in a single 4-hour stretch. So you are asking this well-oiled and efficient group (who takes PRIDE in their efficiency) to leave the game between pulls (or every few pulls), upload their individual logs to some central location, then have the raid leader pull them together and correlate them in some hypothetical combining tool, and then publish the results somewhere for review. Saying that's "just an extra step" or "a bit of a chore" is a magnificent understatement.

Guess what? There already ARE cookie cutter specs in this game! Using that as an argument against a metrics tool (like raidbots) is silly because it is those very tools that allow the community to "discover" new spec options and creative playstyles. You can go there and see "hmm, there is actually an uptick in mages playing Conclave as Frost once they try it on heroic mode", and you can dig into it a little bit and realize that they are doing it because of the usefulness of Deep Freeze on Rohash's platform. The only other way you would have known this is to A) get really lucky yourself, or B) stumble on a forum thread where someone shared that knowledge. For the record, I played that fight as Arcane because I preferred it (and it didn't hold us back at all, seeing how we finished every tier this expansion around US #50 in heroic mode); although the knowledge of why DF was being used helped me tailor my gameplay considerably.

Finally, a decent compromise. I would be OK with that. An option you could toggle that prevents your combat data from being visible to other players. Enable it by default for all I care. Those of us who wish to use the functionality could choose to disable the toggle. An ops leader should be able to see who has their "combat log" flag turned on or off, but if they have their combat log disabled then the ops leader shouldn't be able to do anything about that (except find a replacement if they really care about it that much - and to be honest if you are in that much disagreement over combat logging then you really should find a different group to go with, because you can bet they are taking everything else MUCH more seriously). You could even make it such that only the ops leader could capture the group's log. So maybe like a "ready check", where the leader issues a "log check" asking everyone permission. Perhaps even not offer this for flashpoints or story mode operations groups (although I can see some value in those as well). That is all I am asking for. I have no desire to intrude on anyone else's gameplay. Just don't let your misguided fears of what might or might not happen intrude on mine. I happen to like the math and the challenge that comes from well-designed difficult encounters. You can't get there without group-wide logs - both for assessing your group's progress, and also for simply auditing the encounter itself. Most of the bugs found in WoW raids are discovered because the players have access to combat log data. That's why you see a raft of hotfixes in the first few weeks after a content patch, and why the game plays so smoothly for everyone else who gets to that content just a little bit later. And in case you haven't noticed, the operations content in swtor is insanely buggy. Players are literally left guessing what went wrong most of the time. With a combat log in place, we could at least be able to point BW in the right direction on them. They have surely proven by now that they can't make the encounters bug-free without help.

That has nothing to do with a combat log. Some jerk /inspected you, or more likely he was using that old "gearscore" addon (which I think was broken purposefully by Blizzard because of this exact kind of bullying). He can already do exactly the same thing in swtor. I'm not really sure how you expect a lack of combat log to protect you from that? Also, your other example of flashing a dps chart is equally irrelevant. BioWare has already stated they intend to include an in-game dps meter for one thing. And a combat log is external to the game for another. (not to mention, it's pretty difficult to interpret a raw combat log in real-time to the degree you would need for something like that dps chart so so dearly hate - combat log files are usually heavily buffered and only get flushed to disk every minute or two)

If your alt is in a run that someone uses /combatlog to record and then they upload to WoL, then it will show up there. Otherwise, it won't. It's not any smarter than that. Certainly doesn't know that Character X is an alt of Character Y. I really don't understand the combative stance of "don't force combatlogs on us". It's an optional feature that would be there if and when you need it. I certainly wouldn't want to leave it running around the clock (these files can get very large). In fact, in my numbers above it should be obvious that nearly 90% of players either didn't raid, or didn't log their raids last week. I am pretty sure they didn't feel violated in any way because a million other players had their raids logged and uploaded. The only thing being "forced" is that by not having that feature, there is a non-trivial number of players who's enjoyment of the game would otherwise be enhanced, or whose "quality of life" would be improved (make no mistake, this is a huge QoL issue for guilds that want to raid hard/nightmare mode content).

Well, for some real numbers that relate to *combat logs* and not *recount usage*, how about this... raidbots.com gets a daily extract from WoL of all raids that have been logged and uploaded to their service in the past 14 days. This would correspond with a combat log feature in swtor that captured all events from all members of an operation into a single file (which is precisely what this thread is asking for). It does not include "LFR" difficulty ("Story Mode" in ToR). It also doesn't include raids where nobody records the logs and uploads them. It's fair to say that a LOT of raid groups don't upload their logs because there are other parsing services and many "casual" groups simply don't care about it. Duplicate raiders are filtered out by raidbots as far as I know (so if your raid is logged by two people who both upload it to WoL you only show up once in the totals). It also does not include "private" logs, although to be honest at this stage in tier progression there are very few guilds who are keeping their logs private. There aren't a whole lot of secrets to be held. Anyways, total raid members for the past 14 days, or two raid lockouts: 25 Heroic: 333,384 25 Normal: 330,139 10 Heroic: 579,128 10 Normal: 1,069,216 Total: 2,311,867 These are all on the shared lockout system. This means there is very little overlap between those groups. Divide that in half, since I will assume that roughly the same number of people raided both weeks, and we get about 1.15 million players. That's roughly 10 percent of the active subscriber base of WoW who not only participate in raid content, but participate and whose performance is being tracked and shared publicly for comparison with others, on a weekly basis. Refusing to provide useful combat logs is in essence alienating 10% of the players who enjoy that very content regularly. Also, for those who are so fervently against combat logs, I would encourage you to poke around the raidbots tools. You can see where the game imbalances are. You can see whether one spec is doing better than another on a certain fight (to see if maybe you want to change something up). You can see how long encounters usually take. You can even compare your own personal performance with any other player on a specific fight to find ways to do better (maybe use a cooldown more, use different attacks, etc). Guess what? None of that is even possible without group-wide combat logs.

Actually, you all have a really good point. Thanks for helping me make my decision. I went ahead and canceled right now since I only have 2 days left before it renews. I will check back in a month or two (if I am still interested in the game) to see if there has been any progress. If things are looking up then I might re-sub. If not, then everyone enjoy yourselves. You will have one less person remaining here to argue with. It's a great leveling game with amazing potential for longevity. I really think the fanboyism (not sure that's really a word) is out of hand here; it's a shame that such fervor is allowed to influence the direction of such a great game so strongly, and in such a negative way. For those who are riding the "80% of people posting here don't want this" bandwagon - perhaps you should consider that before long you will be 100% of the traffic once you finish chasing the rest of us away. Lower subscriber numbers is really healthy for a new MMO, right? Right?

I haven't been following this topic as closely as I should have since the guild summit. I had no idea it was even up for debate at this point. I am giving BioWare one more billing cycle to take the right course. And for the record, the "right course" means full group-inclusive combat logs AT LEAST for hard/nightmare mode content and test dummy combat and also PVP combat. Go ahead and disable it for Story Mode and 4-man normal groups if you want to protect anonymity of those players so they can continue griefing others who are depending on them to at least have some minimal concept of how to play their class. I consider this a baseline feature for a modern combat-based MMO. If you want my subscription money for the long-term, then this is not a negotiable feature. I have read all of the arguments against it, I am not ignorant of them. The counter-arguments are just simple ignorance and complacency mixed with a perverse sense of elitism. Go right ahead and insult me for drawing my line in the sand. It's my money and I will decide where to spend it. I won't spend it on a game that isn't fun to play. And at max level when there is nothing but hard/heroic operations left to do, the absence of a real combat log is nothing but a major nuisance. And don't bring that ridiculous argument that we can all just upload our personal logs to some fictional tool that combines them. That is not a viable solution for many reasons that have been covered many times over.

"Discovered" Missions have an abnormally high failure rate for the level 340 discoveries. Out of a few dozen I have done in the past couple of weeks, at least one in three (possibly as many as half) have failed. These tend to be quite profitable, even when purchased from GTN, but the high failure rate is a major RNG impediment to them. Is this a known issue, and if so, is there any comment that can be made on the situation? Known problem / working as intended / etc. edit: just adding to the above that all my crew skills are 400/400 and the crew members I send on these discovered missions are 10000/10000, if that matters at all.

Trying this again, as I didn't notice the request in the OP to keep it to a single question per thread per week... Is there anything that the dev team can share with us regarding any plans to support Mouseover casting for unit/party/companion frames? This is a major quality-of-life issue for healers. I am not asking about full macro functionality (which I am not convinced is even needed) - just the ability to cast a spell on someone in my party without targeting them first.

Help/Harm flags and stopcasting aren't as important to me personally, but mouseover and the others are huge, especially for healers. Even just doing normal flashpoints while leveling up is proving to be tremendously stressful since we can't even rely on the Focus casting to work (focus frame resets every time you have a mission conversation, and modifier keys alt/shift/control don't seem to work for focus casting either).

Marietta here, far on the east side though, maybe half a mile from Fulton/Roswell.