Great. And where's Khem? Hmm? Discount Khem doens't work, and they gave me back the whiny *censored* Jedi *censored*, who I never wanted in the first place. The romance argument is weak, at best. The LIs in this game are one of its biggest weaknesses. Click this button to "romance" cookie cutter stereotype 17 in a badly written way. That's pretty much it and it's bloody atrocious. I've done all romances in vanilla. I will never do any of them again. They are terrible. Frankly, I'd kill off most companions. From a gameplay and mechanics perspective it makes zero sense to have as many as we have now. You can only use a handful at any given time anyway, while the rest idles and does nothing. Most companions are flat out useless. Let us pick our A Team and move on. Anyone not making the cut dies. Imp vs Rep, well, given we only have 2 factions, what else can they do? Add a third faction? Yeah, I'd love that, but it took them almost 2 years to build a single, full raid. Third faction? 5-10 years. At least. It's going to be another single player expansion with tons of "writing" on the level of New Jedi Order or The Last Jedi. Just like the whole KOTFE/KOTET waste of time, full of fake sci-fi and nothing truly Star Wars-y.

The sub only model didn't work. SWTOR's heyday was around 2 million subs. Those dropped quickly after launch and soon led to the first round of server merges and the game going F2P, because the loss of subs was that massive. Pay to play, like Guild Wars does it? Works perfectly for Arenanet, but they've made a product that works for that model. SWTOR is not that product. Arenanet made a good coin shop. SWTOR in comparison is overly clunky. That really only leaves the current model, for better or worse.

WoW was launched in 2004. In November it will be 14 years old. In those 14 years WoW has not gone through a single server merge. It's still sub only. SWTOR went live in 2011. It has gone through 2 server merges, which indicates significant player reduction. It has gone F2P with a ludicrously limited model. SWTOR's heydays were around 2 million subs. WoW's heydays were around 13 million subs. Even now WoW still has significantly more players than SWTOR and they all pay money. WoW will live to 20 years (and probably still have more active players than SWTOR has now.) SWTOR will be lucky if it hits 10, no thanks to Disney and EA murdering the franchise for fast profits. One thing is certain: the MMO glory days are over. A lot of MMOs came and went without any significant impact. WoW remains the juggernaut even now and not a single MMO ever has managed to usurp the title, despite massive hype (remember how SWTOR was the WoW killer?) As for the Kotaku article? Come on people, really? It's Kotaku. It's "gaming journalism" yellow press.

What PvE experience? PvE in SWTOR has been this for quite some time: Step 1: start fight Step 2: rest your head on the keyboard Step 3: win There is no Step 4 because there is no profit. And no, I don't PvP in this game. Sticky-targeting action button PvP is dull.

An entire year for a single raid is just abysmal performance. Wait, aren't we already past one year and it's still not done? There's probably going to be more single player content with more single player expansions (for which, apparently, you have to pay subscription now, another hallmark of EA basically scamming people), which will, of course, be plagued again by the abysmal writing that was dominant in KOTFE and KOTET. Other than that... More reskins on the CM. More ugly, bulky mounts. More sad attempts to cash in on the new canon (which is now officially fake sci-fi and complete rubbish.) And probably more new companions that will serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. But I'm not expecting anything glorious. Remember, we went from 8 stories of varying quality to one snore fest of tumblr level "writing". I mean, okay, that perfectly fits in with the new canon (where 100% perfect Mary Sues with zero weaknesses and flaws reign supreme and "strong women" are now characterized by incompetence and uselessness, aka Phasma and the vice admiral.)

Agreed. Why do we even get so many companions now? We can only use one at any given time, and then a handful for crafting. The rest just lingers and does nothing.

Well, it takes them over a year to build a single raid. Remember how this game was supposed to be the WoW killer? But the only thing that is getting killed, slowly, is SWTOR. I mean, we just had the second server purge. Yes, yes, call it a server merge if you want, but it's really a purge, because there's not enough cash influx to run so many. And despite being effectively twice as old as SWTOR WoW is still vastly outperforming it in every area.

They'd have to rename the game to something else then, and completely rework everything to remove everything Star Wars from it. EA owns the Star Wars game license. Even if BW Austin could buy itself free, they wouldn't get that license. Plus, EA would likely not give them the game, so they'd have to build one from scratch. Also, keep in mind that this isn't Bioware anymore. Bad comparison. Despite of what professional protestors and useful idiots scream Monsanto isn't even half as bad as they all claim in their whine of hyperbole and hysteria.

Never cared much about her, but I rather have her in my team than Kaliyo (or whatever she's spelled.)

I wish, when doing the expansion stories, it wouldn't constantly tell me "due to story restrictions" blablabla. I got my Talos back and my sorc, who's a scholar, can't take him on adventure in story.

Vanilla was hard? When?

I had about 100 million. Then I went to the AH. Now I only have 34. Well, 37, I made about 3 in the past 3 days just by playing a single character.

You were inactive. Some other person with the same names was active. This is solely on you.

The Expanded Universe no longer exists as canon. That is all called Legends. There are no more publications following these story lines. The only canon is the movies and all new novelizations and similar writings after Disney took over. Example: The Thrawn trilogy is no longer canon in any way, but the new Thrawn book is. Movie critic is a meaningless title. Anyone can be one, you just need to find someone dumb enough to pay for what you write. Also, you're stating that a movie that celebrates a 100% Mary Sue (Rey) who is 100% perfect and has zero weaknesses and flaws (never flown a freighter, yet flies the Falcon like an ace; knows how to repair anything; zero trianing in the Force, yet does a full blown mind trick), a vice-admiral who is 100% incompetent and doesn't know what "commanding" means (good thing she's dead), a princess-general who had no training in the Force doing Old Republic Jedi Knight level force maneuvers (seen in Red Harvest), and a constantly whining man-child who is a **** lord rather than a Sith lord, is the best ever. Oh yeah, and Phasma, hyped up to Himalayan levels, who has not delivered anything except a handful of badly written lines, which largely made no sense (if she always knew that Finn was scum, why did she pass him out of training? Final phase of trooper training was her resort) and fly in the face of how she's portrayed in her book (ruthless opportunist and merciless fighter in the book vs absolutely useless walking chrome toaster in the movies.)

Consular's first chapter is good. But then it drops into really boring sludge. Oh look, diplomacy, negotiations. Meanwhile the imperial mirror hunts ghosts and faces Thanaton. As for the trooper? Half of his dialogue is screaming "For the republic!" That gets old really fast.

All we know is... He's called the Stig

Server merges happen for a reason. That reason is that maintaining more serves is not financially feasible because you are lacking paying players. Simple as that. It's the only reason there is. SWOTR itself has no future. Disney owns the Star Wars franchise and the money is in the new part of the franchise. It's the Kylo Rens and Reys that make money, not the Revans from ages ago, which have no connection to the new franchise. Disney is likely going to let SWTOR run until it's dead (which won't take that long, given how messed up development is), because you can't simply switch SWTOR into SWTFA. If there's gong to be a new Star Wars MMORPG, it's going to be in the new movies. That's where the money is. It's a pity. SWTOR started great. Lots of story. And all that was thrown into single player expansions for an MMORPG, which is just utterly ludicrous. The answers to the problems were making old content relevant again (which means laziness or incompetence or both) and badly written rubbish called single player expansions. Development sank this game.

A new engine? They need an entire year for a single raid with multiple bosses. There is barely any new content. They went to great lengths to "make old content relevant again", a clear sign that development is shot to bits. And you want them to make a new engine. That's hilarious. That the SW movies made some money is cute (and given Disney's business practice with them it's a miracle they still show in theaters.) Blizzard made 3.6 billion solely with loot boxes. Screw the movies, forget MMORPGs. Loot boxes is the new money maker. A new SW mmo will most likely not be SWTOR 2.0, and it will certainly not BW who will make it. BW has no resources to make SWTOR 2.0, they don't even have resources to create substantial amount of content. If anything, a potential new SW mmo will be set in the new movies. Why would you keep riding a now non-canon era that has absolutely no connection to the new part of the franchise? Disney will want to milk this new part ad nauseam. You don't do that with Revan. You do that with Rey, one of the worst characters ever created.

1 OPs per year. A few crappy FPs full of reused assets. Nothing new. Nothing original. No, instead they're worried that a server name might hurt someone's feelings. What a bunch of sissies. This game is no longer Star Wars. This is on the level of the 3rd book in the Aftermath trilogy, where Chuck Wendig showed that he's really a totally **** writer and can't finish a story without turning it into a moronic soap opera. The entire pack of single player "expansions" was one gigantic soap opera written by complete hacks. One would think Wendig or Scalzi direct the writing into the abyss of fake scifi. Come on Disney, pull the plug. Give this pile of rubbish a good mercy killing.

Well, to be fair, the sky IS falling. There is only one reason to merge servers. Moving to bigger, better servers? Uh, no. Having less players and less income, which would make maintenance for more servers an issue? Yep. So it's finally happening. Surprise? Nope. Given how they willingly drive this game into the ground with utter rubbish pseudo-content it's only a matter of time until they do the final server merge. Aka shut them down. And this game was sold as the WoW killer. Ha! Hilarious! The only thing it has been killing is Old Republic lore due to sheer incompetence in regards to the writing. What hacks do you employ EA-Ware?

Oh my, someone's feelings might get hurt. Usually people who don't even play the game. That alone makes a pure and utter joke. But wait, wasn't it too hard to change the names? That was said in the stream (which, by itself, made me wonder how utterly incompetent you guys are when you can't even to something as simple as that.) But suddenly it's possible? MAGIC! What does this remind me of. Oh yeah, when EA Maxis said that making animal animations is too hard for Sims 4. But then, when they decided to fleece players with less content for more money, suddenly, animated animals aren't too hard! You fit into EA. Birds of a feather...

If you want engaging stories, this game is no longer it. 1-50 brilliant. 50-55 so-so. 55-60 oyvey. But then... come the single player "expansions"... And BW's writing goes the path of Mass Effect Andromeda, of the New Jedi Order, of the 3rd book in the Aftermath trilogy, of Rogue One, of Catalyst (the book that leads into Rogue One.) Calling it "rubbish" is an insult to actual rubbish.

From the Star Wars crowd? Zahn, Chuck Wendig (Aftermath 1 and 2 were good, he dropped the ball a wee bit in the third part, but overall good), Claudia Gray (Lost Stars was rubbish, but Bloodline was really good.) Luceno, no, he wrote the pile of rubbish that was Catalyst, an appendix to a garbage movie. Outside of the Star Wars crowd? Whedon is a ****, he's hardly a good writer. The stuff he wrote so far is largely cliche laden dribble that sells well to teenage girls, but is hardly brilliant. JKR is a horrible writer. You can actually watch how her skills diminish from book to book in Harry Potter. The first book? Good. Deathly Hallows? Utter rubbish. The script for Fantastic Beasts was largely her doing and it stank. GRRM? One trick pony. And the last thing the world needs is more female characters with personalities like a cardboard box (I'm looking at you Sansa and Dany.) Dan Abnett. Gotta bring an actual word smith for something like this. Of course, he will mercilessly kill characters you love. He's known for it. Alex Stewart (aka Sandy Mitchell), excellent 40k writer.

Those rewards were pretty rubbish anyway. Total focus on one HK combined with hilarious weapon design that often bordered the ludicrous waves of "Are you kidding me?" And that HK helmet? Oyvey. Who had that idea.

Blizzard has a very good fist level support in WoW. Report something and a while later (depending on their ticket queue) a GM pounces you and works with you. Some of these guys are hilarious. I've found that in WoW the ingame GMs are often more competent at resolving issues than the folks dealing with problems posted on their board. I don't have a lot of experience with SWTOR in this regard. My bug report is bugged.