They aren't hard to find. Google is your friend. Numerous companies have done the same study over and over, and it's always the same result. Very often the same kind of attempts to skew the results the way the company wants, too. Like when Square Enix printed off twice as many Chrono Trigger games than there were 3ds' sold, then reported that there was not enough interest in the series to justify any more games.

That's the beauty of what I'm suggesting. You would still be in business, they would still be selling cartel packs. The GTN market would still be viable because paying credits for items is just more practical than not (other wise the gold farmers would be doing all the business), but there's a lot of stuff in old packs that simply isn't available anymore. In addition, people like you would be able to analyze the market, and make smart choices about what to buy and resell, rather than relying ONLY on luck.

I've been here since beta. It's not about me. It's about all the people who quit or refuse to play because of the negative policies. I don't claim to be able to quote numbers, but personally I lost two guilds of 100+ players when nearly everyone quit over the FtP policies. And if that's not good enough, the fact that they had to merge servers, and the populations are still this low should be. I spent the money I did on the features I did for a specific purpose, and part of that was so that when I made this suggestion, it would be from a position of having put my money where my mouth is, NOT from a position of trying to argue to get free stuff.

Well, partially. The studies done were skewed, one sided and done without a real control group. They advertised the cartel packs with all the flash and 'wow' factor, and placed highly desirable items in them, then offered a very small amount of rather dull and plain items individually, then concluded the cartel boxes were better. That's a really skewed conclusion, and that's why the company that owns STO changed their shopping policies so drastically. That's why I wasn't suggesting removing the random boxes, but rather also offering the same items individually at an increased price. You'll notice EA is already going that way, offering narrower random boxes alongside their cartel packs, and you can tell they're seeing success because they're offering more and more. It's true that psychologically speaking, most people will choose the unknown box over the sure item, that's why it's good business to offer the cartel packs, I'm saying it's better business to cater to both sensibilities, rather than relying on only the gambling factor. All I'm saying is if they take that next step and open a full-service shop, I, for one, will be spending a lot more money here.

I'm saying this as a player who already unlocked all the options to make FtP as much like the subscriber experience as possible. The game is fun, the story is awesome, it's a VERY solid Star Wars experience, but EA is SERIOUSLY mishandling several key aspects, which is driving away customers. The main thing is that unlike more successful free-to-play games, which reward you for spending money, SWTOR punishes you for NOT spending money. They do this by holding back basic game features, unless you pay to unlock them. These are game features like having enough action bars to hold all your character's abilities, and trading with other players, things that are vital to the game experience. Then, the fun things that you would pay for in a normal Free To play game, are randomized in SWTOR, so you can't just pick out what you want, you have to purchase random packs that may or may not contain the item you want. I'll be honest, EA would have received a great deal more money from me if I could just buy the cosmetic outfits/mounts/color/weapons that I want. I gave up buying their random item packs very early on. If you can tolerate those issues, SWTOR is very worth it. But the fact that the word 'tolerate' even applies in this context is a bad sign. The thing is, EA wouldn't even have to remove the random cartel packs to fix this. Just offer the individual items at a reasonable price, like $10 for outfits, $20 for mounts, and offer them alongside the random cartel packs at their existing price. I know I would spend more money on SWTOR every month, rather than what I do now, which is maybe $20 a year (not counting expansions).

I hate to say it, but I agree with the OP... Come on Bioware, even WoW is trying to add more spice and variety to the missions... I realize you only had so much time and development resources for launch, that's cool, I'm with you there, but now that the game is out and you guys are working on expansions, MIX IT UP!!!

I would say go to the server you're going to be transferred to and make a name holder character, then delete it when you get prompted to namechange the transferred character.

I'm with the OP %100. the main reason I don't play on the republic side as much as I want to is the clothes. I'm sorry Bioware, your art team is THE BOMB, but there's only 1 or 2 outfits republic side that I'm interested in wearing and those are Smuggler/knight specific.

Yah, he became a knight in that scene with yoda, and wad given the rank of Master by the time that party at the end happens (I don't remember if that was in the Ep1 novelization or what), in fact he wonders at some points if that led to him being an inadequate teacher for Anakin.

Why not? Obiwan became a Master at the end of Episode 1.

This. All of it.

Concidering Diablo 3 is slightly less complex than Super Mario Bros 64 and it's STILL full of bugs, I'm gonna have to go with Bioware.

Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt that he's not trolling, let me explain. When they code features of the game (any feature, from basic ground physics to the helmet fix), they are coding in a hermetic environment. In other words, they are coding in ideal, predictable circumstances. once players get involved, more variables are introduced that may or may not have been taken into account by the programmers. That being said, in an MMO, with millions of players, every single command received by the system has the potential to introduce a new variable that the programmers did not account for. To figure out the number of potential variables you have to calculate the following formula: Number of possible player commands (this includes things camera angles, degrees of facing) = N Number of intractable coded objects in the game environment (This NPCs, Time of day) = E Number of Player using the code (All the players) = P (N x E) x P = the number of possible unforeseen code interactions. (hint: it's in the trillions) So there are literally trillions of possibilities for programming code to act unexpectedly. This is not incompetence, this is the simple reality of multi user software. It's not like a mario game, where there are only 8 player input options, 132 (or so) intractable functions and 1 player.

>.< d'oh... Thank you for that mate!

Then quote yourself. You can even write your own wikipage telling the whole world how right you are, then other wikitrolls can quote your wikipage as 'evidence' of how right you are. It won't matter because you'd still be flat out wrong. As anyone who was there on launch day (or a few days after as most folks couldn't log in on launch day) can tell you. I clicked on those links and noticed that they got A LOT of launch information wrong, editing it to make it look like WoW launched pretty much as the end of vanilla WoW looked; little things like "Glimpse of Instincts: Removed". Oh? If it was the actual launch state, why did it say 'removed', why would it be there at all (Incidentally we had that at launsh)? Under Tauren's special abilities, where is Plains Running? We had that at launch as well. That's called revisionist history, like how American History textbooks used to say Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbour was completely unprovoked, or the American Indians were mindless savages, or that Christopher Colombus set sail in 1492 to prove that the world was round. As for your MMO champion arrticle, notice one of the factors they point out as part of their factoids is the Diablo 3 open beta and info released from Blizzard as of Q4 2011. That's well after the period I'm talking about, which was shortly after Cata launched in December 2010, which was in Q1 2011. That's like me saying the population of the world was 6 billion in 1989, and you linking to an article that tells the world population is 7 billion in 2012. Seriously dude, get a grip. Also it says the population has 'STABILIZED'. Do you know what that means? All common sense aside, do you remember the pre Cataclysm commercials that advertized 12 million players? You should be able to figure it out from there.

Can't tell if trolling or not... #1 I was there. I remember when the cap was raised to 60, I remember the anger over it in the forums when they announced it. I remember the wild claims that they'd raise the level cap ever few months and it would kill WoW. I remember when they announced the opening of Molted Core, Onexia's attack, the discovery of Silithus, all of that. I don't need to read about it off of wowwikki, because I was actually playing it at the time. Don't know if you noticed, but that's WoW's pattern. Release main product, 6 months later release a few dungeons/raids, 6 months later release a few raids (usually with the chapter boss), 6 months later release a new zone/raid to prepare for the next expansion. It's kinda like clockwork, dude. #2 You're seriously quoting a wiki site? You know that for a while on the japanese tsunami wiki it seriously stated that it was caused by godzilla. Dude, seriously. #3 Yah, 4 million subscribers. For a good chunk of Cata WoW was down to 9 mil from 12mil (and roughly %15 of those were suspected to be gold farmer accounts) So 12mil minus 9mil = 4mil.

Well it's nice to know we can agree on something! That is a very important thing on forums! It proves things aren't all flaming and trolling! Incidentally I didn't say the cross server LFG was all peaches, I know it had problems. But all opinions are irrelevant next to the actual numbers. Facts: Pre LFG tool, WoW was hemorrhaging subscribers, post LFG tool, subscriptions shot up to 12 mil. Whether or not the LFG tool had anything to do with that, I don't pretend to know. Incidentally, I also agree with you about Ghostcrawler. I quit WoW the day he posted that condescending 'you aren't having fun because you don't know how to play' post he made right after WoW lost 4 million subscriptions almost overnight when they did that mid cataclysm revamp. Of course I came back for Panda, but they lost months of subscription time from me! *shakes a semi defiant fist*

Now that I can agree with %100 During beta we could see this coming. The 'Calm down, we know what we're doing, we're BIOWARE *angels sing* and you're just players' attitude was really disturbing... On the upshot, they seem to have dropped that 'tude like it was hot.

See here's where we're not seeing eye to eye. Yes you're right about everything you said about vanilla WoW, by the END of vanila WoW, which was 2 years after launch. You're literally comparing a game with 5 months of post launch content to a game with (at the time) 2 years of post launch content. 5 months into WoW (SWTOR was released on Dec 20th 2011, actually a little less than 5 months ago) the level cap was still 50, there were no raids yet, MC hadn't been released, Naxx hadn't been released, Silithus hadn't been released, Battlegrounds still weren't ready, crafting was virtually useless, and PvP rankings were still in concept phase, not even on the PTR. Hell, not even all the map was finished. All I'm saying is that when comparing SWTOR to WoW (or any other long running MMO), it's brutally unfair and dishonest to compare them at different stages. You can't hold up a 4 month old MMO to a 2 year old MMO and expect the 4 month old to be as complete as the 2 year old, that's like putting your 6 year old nephew in the ring with Mike Tyson.

Sorry, wrong. Cross server LFG literally saved WoW. I'm not talking preference or anecdotal evidence or what I like or don't like, Ghostcrawler came out and stated plainly that they were losing an unacceptable number of people because there simply wasn't enough people reliably online at any given time on the majority of servers for people to find eachother and do dungeons reliably. Yes, it created problems, but it solved MANY more problems than it created. For every person that got an item ninja'd, or met some people on a different server they wish they could have kept track of, 30 more had no problems, and none of them would have even gotten into a dungeon without that tool.

Agreed. I updated my post with a little more info and clarity, if you'd like to re read it.

Fair enough, but that importance is on a small scale. You're important to little Tammy Redpath, you find her doll for her, but when it comes time to fight Arthas, you need to get rescued by a pet NPC.

Basically yes, but a little more complicated. The complete idea will be in one of my infamous (back in the SWG days) game concept posts, complete with links to simple graphics to illustrate concepts and whatnot. The basic run down of the idea is this: The three planets would be frontier, or colonial planets, faction loyal, but not aligned. The first two planets are faction aligned, in that only Imperials can go to one, only Republics can get to the other, so no one has to participate in the fighting if they don't want to. The third planet will be divided north/south east/west between 4 different 'factions' (Republic, Empire, Hutt and Fringer) and the closer your lad is to the middle of the map, the less likely your it will have NPC military to help protect it (your land could be invaded by other players, as well as having the town be able to enter 'siege mode' where your it is being invaded by NPCs, kind of like a Flash Point where you're defending your land with your guild/pug). It's important to note that in Hutt and Fringer space it doesn't matter if you're Imp or Pub, so an Imp player could settle in the Imp, Hutt or Fringer zones. In the very center would be a dynamic contested faction zone where players could build defensive structures like turrets, bunkers etc, but those structures would be able to be destroyed as well (I have a number of ways in mind players would purchase these without getting to overblown and automatically being decided by whoever has the most credits) This would also allow for some decent semi-open world PvP in the central/contested zones where players could attack eachother's structures as well. There could also be a system in which specific sections could be conquered by the opposing faction, but that has some kinks to work out yet in my mind. As for the planets themselves, they would be as big as Hoth, or Voss, but more open and available to be traveled. The planet would be divided into sectors with a signpost or other terrain feature in the center of each sector that a player could click on to enter (and claim a phase of such to settle in) an enclosed, phased section that had that identical section's terrain features in which to build their own little section of space. They could then put up pre fabricated buildings and terrain features (like trees, skeletons, NPS animals) and whatnot by buying them from a popup menu, then placing them around. And of course you could decorate the insides of buildings with more artifacts from another pop up menu. That way each section of land isn't first come first serve. The owner (or guild leader) would set up permissions on the gateway to their land to make it public, private, open to people on their friend list, whatever. They would also set the encounter level of their land that way it could spawn enemies to fight, like the old mission terminals in SWG, providing an alternate to leveling that doesn't require additional voices (Hey, grinding isn't my thing, but some people like it)

Now there's an informed opinion. And how would that fix anything? That would just cram smaller numbers of bored players into one space so as to create a concentrated number of bored players. The same problems that caused people to leave would still be there. You're calling for a quick fix solution to the symptom, not the problem. That's like going to the doctor with the flu and instead of giving you medicine, he just washes your face and sends you home. You're no longer a snot nosed kid, but you're still sick.

This guy makes my point for me with regards to people conveniently forgetting that (insert your favorite long running game here) wasn't as complete as they are now this soon into the game's life. Everything he said, with the exception of the part about voice acting being an unmitigated disaster and the singular path to leveling, is a direct result of being unaware/forgetful of the life cycle of an MMO. He mentions PvP, praising WoW for it's huge battlegrounds and world PvP, forgetting that none of that existing till about 8 months in with the release of the battgrounds (That's right folks, there didn't even have battlegrounds at launch, because they weren't ready yet) and that World PvP ONLY existed before Burning Crusade because everyone unofficially agreed to make Tarren Mill the meeting spot for everyone who wanted to fight en masse, and doing so FREQUENTLY resulted in the entire server crashing till they upgraded them to handle that many players in one location. Point of fact, one of the most common gripes on the WoW forums when they finally DID make official world PvP, is that Blizzard ruined it, and R.I.P WoW, and how it was SO much better in SWG and EQ, sound familiar?) and even MORE point of fact, Blizz said on several occassions that there was to be NO MASS WORLD PVP and if you wanted to do that kind of thing go to a battleground. They even had mass bans over it. They did everything they could to keep opposite faction players away from each other at first, they even went on record in interviews before it launched, boasting that no player would ever have to worry about being mass ganked by opposing faction players in open world PvP. And that's just one point I'm calling shenanigans on out of his post. In WoW, crafting was only useful the first 15 levels during the first year (with the exeption of Alchemy). In WoW the stunware problem was JUST as big as it is now, launch time Rogues will remember the big nerf. He mentions the grind for end game PvP gear, completely forgetting that WoW didn't even have end game PvP at this stage, let alone gear for it. My conclusion is this: SWTOR will be fine, as long as Bioware gets over the shock of finding out that they are in fact NOT all knowing and DO have some learning to do (A fact which they were not shy about throwing in our faces during Beta 'I think we know what we're doing' was disturbingly common thing for the DEVs to say during the beta). I have every faith that they will do exactly that.