The actual provenance of that quote remains debated to this day --no-one seem to know who actually said that, or even if it was an actual BW employee (I think it was. It sounds like them, all too much)-- but it doesn't surprise me that someone did. Again, institutional incompetence exacerbated by arrogance. I was never in the early Betas --just the last couple Beta Weekends-- but apparently, per those who were (once NDAs expired, anyway) TOR was a much richer, more multi-layered animal once, where things you did actually had meaning, and meaningful consequences...But then, the ultra-casuals whinged, and we all know where that leads. But come launch, and I seem to recall someone saying that the thing they were most proud of was....the voice-acting. Nothing else. Because there'd never been voiced games before, or even any voicing in MMORPGS before, in Bio-Bizarro-World-- they were THE VERY FIRST!!!!! However much money it actually was, it compels the question: Where in the tenth Hell did it all go? Again, to this day, no-one really seems to know, and a few hundred millions USD doesn't just disappear.

They're either hilariously transparent liars, or they really do think we're that stupid. I'm not sure which is worse E: Same gong-show it's always been: We are BioWare, and BioWare can never do any wrong in any way ever no matter what, because it's BioWare. Remember this from back like 2012? (Link I found was dead, this is quoted from a forum-post.) The last pathetic refuge of the truly incompetent: Blame those whom your failings and poor design-choices have screwed over, for the demonstrable direct ramifications of your failings and poor design-choices. (Because it was the fans who chose the Alpha-build Hero engine, it was the fans who chose to launch this game at least six months too early, it was the fans who swore up and down that stunlock/CC-spam makes for awesomely good PvP, it was the fans who...Want me to go on? Because I certainly could, you know.) Not the last time they'd do it, either. I recall sometime back in 3.xx, there was a livestream addressing various concerns about raiding, and the impending content-drought, which they'd just lied about, and they blamed the community for that, along with their inexcusable sloth in fixing the exploits that were going around at the time. I'll say it again: Blaming others for the ramifications of your own failings is the last refuge of the truly incompetent.

You might still get an infraction for "dodging the profanity filter" even if the word in question is masked. Unless your post is not critical of Durr-Durr-Ware in general or this travesty of a system in particular. We've been there before, too. And no F2P to fall back on this time. [Citation]: Recent experience (it's what finally pushed me to unsub, which I only reversed for this event...And now I know it was a mistake to do so...)

So, Benny...I can call you Benny, can't I? Sure I can, you're a fellow gamer just like us (you even said so, somewhere or other), after all.... Updated the CV yet? Crafted your letter of resignation to be suitably professional/neutral so you can at least leave voluntarily and get a reference when this all comes crashing down around your head? Instead of sticking it out long enough for them to fire you and all... No, seriously: Stop posting. Just. Stop. Posting.

No, they can't get rid of it because someone's job depends on it succeeding, and "that someone" is almost certainly trying to carry off a lie between two sides --us, and "corporate"-- with themselves in the middle. "That someone" doesn't strike me as anywhere near smart or aware enough to pull this sort of thing off convincingly. I'm sure he's given himself more than enough rope that the hanging is, in due course, inevitable: But whether the game will survive "that someone's" second-rate attempt at social engineering over the long-term is increasingly debatable.

Because BUMP, dammit!

When it comes right down to it: BioWare needs to be completely removed from the development of this game, or anything even remotely "MMO"-like. Since day-1, they have forced their narrow vision --mechanically, an on-rails corridor-adventure RPG and no more-- on everything, whilst refusing to learn anything. They lie, they manipulate, they string along, they use incompetents with no vision or artistic integrity to force everything/everyone into the same, narrow, fundamentally incompatible with MMOs vision, and oh mustn't forget: Cash shop, cash shop, cash shop, more cash shop! The panacea for all their 100% self-inflicted ills! Do your part and BUY MOAR NAO to SAVE TEH GAEM!!!111oneoneeleven! They got it wrong from the very start, and more to the point, refused to learn from this, so it's time to replace them with someone who can at least try to do it right. (At the very minimum: If they're going to blindly copy WoW, then at least get people who understand what the Hell it is they're blindly copying, and why it works, without going through all the same mistakes that the originators actually learnt from! Gods, the Dunning-Kruger Effect, it's over 9000... ) Fullstop/end-of, BW does not deserve another chance to make an MMO, having conclusively proven that they can't.

She's a defender and has always been, don't even bother. (I fail to see how this thread's premise is either coercive, or fallacious?) By the same token, though, I do have both very high hopes, and very grave misgivings about Star Citizen. The No Man's Sky débacle is still all too fresh in my mind, and no doubt in the minds of many. For damned sure, Chris Roberts ain't getting a penny from me until first full public Beta at the absolute earliest. I was playing the living Hell out of the first Wing Commander game when it was current, and ll its sequels/derivatives (Privateer, FTW!) but my melancholic (lol, if not outright mawkish) nostalgia isn't going to make a game in development Hell get out of it any faster.

This entire iteration is a through-and-through débacle, the only solution is reversion to pre 4.0 comms/tokens/PvP comms gearing. Keep this RNG garbage for fluff/vanity if you absolutely must, it should never have had any higher purpose than that.

Here's one I've very high hopes on. No cash-shop, no insta-gratifiction kiddies allowed. https://pantheonmmo.com/

CCP Games did in 2011 during the Incarna débacle. Not without heavy cost --as in, 1 : 5 staff had to be axed eventually-- but the cost would have been far higher if they hadn't, and everyone bloody well knew it. (There's a EuroGamer interview with CCP head H. Veigurr Péterrsen (Sp? I probably butchered that ) where he flat out admits that they bit off way more than they could chew, and fell in love with "Awesome" at the cost of EVE-Online's development-cadence, and their fan-base's goodwill...I haven't a link off-hand, but I'm sure Google will be your friend if you care to look.) Real MMOs are not even remotely a dying breed, they've just stagnated because all the intellectually-imprisoned craven little money grubbers who own the big ones are still convinced they can un-seat WoW...by blindly copying WoW. And then they wonder why after less then six months, everybody's gone --back to WoW, or EVE, or FF XIV, typically-- and they have to go F2P. Then they go F2P which prolongs the agony for a bit, until all the pitiful little wallet-warriors realise that they really ain't getting a Hell of a lot for all their money, and they're no longer feeling so instantly gratified... Everything that all these contemptibly shallow, un-creative, smugly mediocre ultra-casual-pandering, legalised RMT-grubbing games have done in the last 8-odd years is absolute anathaema to a real MMORPG. I got news for you: The last real MMORPGs were either EVE Online, early WoW, or maybe Final Fantasy XI. Maybe the SW: Gemu project if you count that as a real MMORPG (hey, it's functional!). What we've had since are not real MMORPGs, but they keep re-visiting the same, tired old tropes without any of the immersive depth and community-fostering through interdependence that the old-school games still have. The themepark/on-rails all-solo kiddie-mode MMO has had its time --and good flippin' riddance, say I-- but proper, deep virtual universes that require interdependence, perseverance, and commitment? Those are poised to come back, massively (<--- Oh, look: Pun!) I think, and soon.

It'll never happen even if technically possible and/or financially feasible. Because to do so would first require that they admit they got it quite badly wrong...And BioWare can never, ever do wrong, because they're BioWare. ^That's^ what doomed this game from the start.

I want my Mako back, dammit And my Akaavi, too. (Whatever Risha, if her letter to you is any indication, then she can have a nice life...somewhere else.)

Mate, of course no-one is giving the low-lives a pass (at least, I hope they aren't.)... But one thing that is 100% Durr-durr-Ware's fault is that they have given us zero agency to in-game police ourselves and enforce our own standards. Imagine if we could do similar to what in EVE-Online is known as "suicide-ganking"? IE, you attempt to PK someone in "patrolled" space, but the penalty is that the all-powerful "space police" will kill you, regardless of whether or not you succeed. Example: Did that self-important little piss-ant of a tank in GF just drop without a word in the middle of boss-fight because he thinks it's funny? And when called on it says "lol have fun waiting for a new tank!!"? Or maybe one of his many, many (apparent) siblings/clones ninja'ed a drop you actually needed, this after you've been healing him through the entire instance's worth of his chain-pulling, "all HP/no mitigation" idiocy and then said "I'm the tank, I can do what I want lolol!" when called on that? (Of course, the fact that your friendly neighbourhood Merc-healer might have already let him die after asking him --politely-- to shape up and fly right (with no response whatsoever) was probably his justification for acting like an even bigger ****, because after all, it's always the healer's fault regardless.) That's just one or two small examples, believe me, I could go on --hoooooo, buddy: I could go ON!-- about people being ***** because they know there's no consequences for it. But if "own-goal" was allowed in this game, then I can tell you, I would have gone after those two (met quite a few like them, and many more, and worse, in my time), and done my utmost to grief them out of the game, permanently. Herd: Culled. Community standards-bar: Raised. Best of all: BioWare wouldn't have to spend a dime or person-second to make it happen, because it's within the agency of players. Gold-sell /yell-spam? Same deal, just get people to come gank them over and over and over ("It's like a training dummy, only it actually goes "SPLAT!!" Come get yours today!"), they might stay on Fleet, but they'd never actually get anything done that they want, and would eventually bugger off elsewhere. So, yeah: All the more reason BioWare is to be blamed here, because they consciously chose not to give players any agency in this game beyond running through endless corridors killing endless brain-dead trash mobs, and the illusion/sideshow of "PvP" that is so utterly meaningless that it's almost insulting. I submit, that if a game has harsh in-game risks/consequences, that this can generate better long-term real-world consequences, because people generally stay better behaved. Despite appearances, and what some crying little butthurt carebears may have told you, this is a thing in EVE-O because of real risks <---> real rewards, and rel choice <---> real consequences, mostly in the hands of players, and because the rules are strictly enforced by CCP. (Try doing actual griefing in EVE, and see how long you last before perm-ban.) So yeah: If you insist on having ll the control --as BW does with this game, and how little agency players have comparing-- then so comes all the responsibility. Choosing not to honour that responsibility is definitely their fault. I'll say it again: The buck stops with them.

Where in this thread is it written, or even implied that anyone is using it as an excuse? Aside from no-where that is. No-one is making excuses, but they/we are stating a demonstrable reason for it. Because this is how humans work, like it or not, especially when one applies the G.I.F.T. principle. Continuing to enable toxicity despite people clearly saying they don't want it, and want to do something about it, is just as bad as causing it directly. There comes a time when responsibility must be taken, and the buck stops with them. Why, for the love of Dog, do you people keep making excuses for these incompetents? Why? Have you seen some of the utter vileness in Harbinger gen-chat in the last 3-4 weeks? Some of the character names? It's never been this bad before IMO, and something clearly caused all these...people...to feel dis-inhibited in a way they plainly hadn't felt before. [cynicism] What the Hell, I guess even scumbags deserve their "Safe-Spaces" too, eh? All the more so when they may or may not buy lots of CARTEL PACKS from the SACRED AND HOLY CARTEL MARKET [/cynicism] This may not be BioWare's fault, but dealing with it is their responsibility. Said it before, I'll say it again: F2P games have no integrity. Pay-only games, IME, have a certain --granted often not huge, but it is there-- standard that skinned real-money gambling app's --which is all SW: tOR is anymore-- don't even try to approach in the hopes of casting a wider net for more suckers. They brought this on themselves, it's for them to deal with it, if they choose. 'Course we all know which choice they'll make, and why that Choice Matters, don't we.

SW: tOR has no depth beyond the stories. It may be miles wide, but it's all an inch deep, and all the travesty that is 5.xx really does is expose that in a way that can no longer be hidden/disguised. (If KotFE hadn't been so piss-poorly written, then maybe things might be less fraught at present, but I'm digressing.) Sure, when the writers are/were "on," they are/were really "on," but when you get right down to it, you're still running along the same linear corridors (just wider, with a matte-painted-on sky instead of interior walls) between essentially the same set-piece battles again, and again, and again. (KotFE made this particularly egregious, but is it actually different? No, not really.) There will be no emulation of TOR because there is nothing to emulate that will actually last beyond the stories, and even the best of those get stale eventually. SW: G continues because there is a huge, deep foundation to build and maintain a community. Communities are dynamic and spontaneous, and that's part of why we stay with them. There is no community, nor incentive to form/keep one here, and that incompetent in Austin is doing everything in his power to drive those who want one, away. When was the last time you played KotOR or DA: O? Yeah, thought so. They're not bad games, but they very explicitly end. SW: tOR does, too. Ideally, a community-driven sandbox has no end beyond what players choose, and they can change this anytime. Again, ideally, the game gives players enough tools/agency to find, and keep finding their own community, depth, and fun. There is none of this here, and never was amongst all these copy-pasted, instanced-seven-ways-from-Sunday corridors and copy-pasted setpiece battles, most of which are now insultingly trivial, others of which are now insultingly tedious, many of which are both. (Oh boy, more scripted stuns from trash-mobs that your CC-break doesn't effect! More of those spawning a half-kilometre behind you, from whom you can never leash-off! Jesus Christ the combat --never BWs strongest suit to begin with-- post 4.xx is just awful!) Unlike a true SPRPG, you won't even be able to boot it up years from now when you're feeling nostalgic, because it's a distributed on-line service. Which is why it will be forgotten, with time. After 4.xx and 5xx, deservedly so.

<----Into tier II now, about the 55th level of almost complete garbage (I vendor blue or purple rep-tokens that I've max'ed, so I can't say it's completely useless, but even these are rare). Pathetic, laughable, contemptible...And in this day and age, in this genre, with this IP, utterly inexcusable. I'm done, man. 40-odd days time left, then /un-install. Aside from my every-few-months playthrough of the Mass Effect trilogy, I will never even look at anything with the BioWare name on it again. That's it. Even during the EVE-Online "Summer of Rage" (July 2011 --yes, I Was There) I never went from being genuine fan of a dev-studio to this level of total and absolute contempt. Seriously, how the Hell can one possibly even imagine, let alone actually manage to screw up this IP, this badly, this consistently? You can put the StarWars logo on a nice, big, bag of fresh, warm, maggot-ridden dog-crap, and it would still sell like there's no tomorrow...But then happy-happy Durr-durr-Ware comes along and shows to anyone with eyes that they can't even get that right. Seriously, I can't even... How?

Same thing appears to have happened to Harbinger too. Mind you, there's a reason we always called it "The Troll-binger," but ever since 4.0, and especially 5.0, it's gone quite beyond the pale. Some of it is downright disgusting, and I'm willing to forgive a lot more than most (given that I might or might not troll the self-important and/or incompetent on occasion myself, as well as scream random obscenities in gen-chat, just...well, 'cuz.). Said it before, I'll say it again: Modern MMOs have zero integrity, and it shows.

No risk, no consequence to anything in game, combined with laughably trivial content means no-one needs anyone else. That means no-one suffers any actual effects for pissing off anyone/everyone on the server. (Try that in say, EverQuest or Final Fantasy XI, and see how far you get.) Free to play is what really started this --we were better, once-- combined with no moderation or GM in game. And I mean, literally, none. This is all too typical of mainstream, casual-kiddie-pandering F2P trash, there is just no integrity at any level --because actually enforcing some may drive the wallet-warriors away, and that simply won't do. They'll never get punished, and they know it. Combine this with no player agency to "correct" people who need it --IE, you can't just go "own-goal" that ******* tank in the GroupFinder queue who thinks he's being cool by hitting "Decline" every single time the queue pops like 20 times in a row and screwing people who've been waiting for n hour already. That ******* knows there's nothing anyone can do about it, and that these second-rate devs couldn't care less. That, and yeah: People are sick of BioWare's incompetence, arrogance, and general cluelessness, and are acting it out. That's no excuse, but that is how humans work. TL/DR: Lack of basic game- or community-integrity, no means for players to enforce same, incompetent devs too greedy for cash-shop dollars to care, all too typical of F2P/casual-pandering MMOs in 2017.

Full reversion to the comms/raid-tokens/PvP-comms system, or nothing. There is no compromise to be made or brooked here, this system is absolute, un-mitigated garbage, it cannot be "fixed." That's the only way to fix this travesty. Because at the rate they're going, there might not be a 6.0 to gear up for.

They should never have removed Expertise. I'm not a fan of it in principle, but separate PvP stats exist for a reason. "Raid or Die," is yet another old, old, MMO-mistake that others learned from years ago, yet these self-deluding incompetents are incapable of even conceiving that they can make. (If open-world ganking was really a problem, then you could solve it by rallying everyone's Expertise up to the maximum on a world.)

Not even a little fluff-achievement? This just beggars words

How can anyone in "corporate" not see that that guy --and, I haven't any doubt, his group of coat-tail riding hangers-on-- needs to go? Seriously, how? Is it truly the blind leading the incompetent, or do they really just not care? I mean, it is EA after all, but this must surely be affecting their bottom line by now? E: In any case, I really am done...I re-subbed for the event, I hoped because it's StarWars (even though the adult in me knows better), but that's not a mistake I'll repeat --BioWare really is dead to me, now. Might not even look t Mass Effect: Andromeda now either, there's better places to spend my money.

Since when do people who clearly choose not to even try to adapt deserve to be catered to? Correct answer: They don't. They've gotten all my other ranged classes castrated with nerf-nerf-nerf-nerf-nerf-nerf-nerf, and if my 10+ years of MMOing are anything to go by (nowhere near as long as probably some in this very thread), then they show me that it's never enough for these people. (Oh, sorta/semi-ranged, too --My PTechs literally aren't even fun to play anymore, partly because of this BS...) Always "just one more nerf! Just one more nerf!," always, and I am so sick to death of people making excuses for their incompetence, embracing same, then forcing me --BTW, I'm no-one's definition of an "élite" PvPer by a long shot, just so we're clear (Now, if me and my reflexes were 25 years younger...)-- down into the muck of generic, one-dimensional mediocrity along with them. Screw every one of these bleating whingers, they deserve to get farmed all day, every day. By Mercs.

What might have been...If only we'd had a dev-studio that hadn't crawled up its own behind, and wasn't too intellectually-imprisoned to do anything more than blindly ape WoW without even understanding what the Hell it was they were blindly ape'ing. I haz a sad nao