Let me ask you did you actually read it or did you just cherry pick my response? I said very clearly when mentioning skills I meant skills, powers and or abilities. Now you mentioned COH and that was my first as well and I remember it fondly. Since you mentioned that then I'm sure you can agree that you had primary and secondary abilities or SKILLS if you prefer that you could pick from and customize the character you make as your own. The hand wringing you mentioned I believe had a lot to do with the infamous ED nerf ( enhancement Diversification) which did create a major backlash and led to the rise of a build. You also mentioned SWG as you put it changed from a skill based system. Now talk to a SWG player and they will tell you how much they loathed Sony for changing the system which as many described it as a giant sand box. It offered quite a bit in terms of depth of crafting and classes such as beast tamer and Terass Kasaii. I don't feel as if it is wishful thinking to suggest with an expansion, which was the main thrust of my post allowing a player to pick and choose Skills or powers and abilities if you prefer so that they feel as if not only is the character they make unique to them but the game experience is a well. A major upswing to this idea is if you pick powers in a rotation you hate, you have no one to blame but yourself. Now if what you are saying is that you're fine with playing the premade character that a dev made for you then that is fine, simply say that you prefer that rather than zero in on one thing I mention and not even the entirety of what I said at that as the focal point of your argument.

When I say skills I mean powers and or abilities as a whole. I believe wow lets you pick and choose skills but since I don't play that, EVER I'll stick to what I do know. COH (City Of Heroes(let you pick skills or powers as they were called, you had primary and secondary abilities. Your primary were you attack based abilities and your secondary functioned more as support but it depended on the class. If your were a blaster (WOW analogue archer) your primary was your ranged damage while your secondary were more melee based. If you were a tank your primary was attack while secondary was the defense and damage mitigation. I can go on but I think you get my point. Then there is DCUO (DC Universe Online) Depending on what the player picks it fucntions more or less the same, you have two power trees to pick and choose from as well as an optional third called iconic abilities that a player can pick as well. Then there is Champions Online, Star Trek Online that gives these same options. In a recent post someone mentioned Rifts and the various skill trees players can pick and choose from. A tank for example can pick some healing abilities or DPS. I believe Lord of the Rings offers something of the same as well but since I have not played that I'm not 100 percent sure. So considering it has been done, several times I fail to see how my thought is wish filled and since I mentioned several examples, Including WOW I think this thread/ conversation can continue on:D

Can you pick and choose abilities in this game or is it preset to open based on level? How many choices do you have in skill selection? Granted you have skill trees, 3 of which you can choose from but the developers of Bioware themselves said they didn't want players attempting to choose from multiple trees as to create a jack of all trades or a hybrid so you are relegated to one tree and a one size fits all template. That is not character customization or the illusion of uniqueness when you can encounter a dozen or so players with the same thing. Now that is not to say that wouldn't happen if there were power pools to choose from. On COH it led to the rise of builds, which also is the standard of many MMO's but as a player you can choose to follow it or choose to go your own way which is a thing you cannot do in this. I fail to see how you would call giving players the ability to pick and choose skills and abilities according to their preference and play style that creates a unique experience to them a neurosis, especially when it is something (until this game) I would have thought standard in MMO'S. I like having a selection of abilities to choose from and picking rather or not I'll take it when it opens and with that selection playing how I choose to play rather than how a dev thinks I should based on their own play style.

I don't disagree with your 2 cents. I'll clarify to include digital expansion as well as box. It was pretty much what I meant although I would prefer to have an actual hard copy rather than a digital download. It's just my thing

How about an actual discussion rather than a smart assed reply lacking in any intelligent, constructive feedback ? It's obvious you can type but can you put together something that resembles intelligent discourse rather than a 1 liner ?

For starters I meant unique to you the player and MMO'S (At least the one's I play, other than this) Allow players to pick and choose skills and abilities. I think that is fairly standard in an MMO.

The game mechanics aren't fine, there are some real flaws with it and other points where it is generic at best. Exactly how are my points out in left field exactly? What have I said that deviates from the idea of an expansion that addresses some of the mechanics and elevates the game ? I've also talked to a number of players that would love more classes and during beta the topic of more classes was discussed several times. I also mentioned in responses the idea of new classes and planets, like new classes starting on new and different planets. I don't disagree with you that players want devs that fix things or new planets but new classes or better spaceship battles and engine I don't think would be objected to either

You are absolutely right, they do offer race, hair color, eye color, etc, but they do not offer the most basic customization that most MMO'S do which is the ability to make a character with skills and abilities you pick. They do not offer the player the ability to play in a style that is unique to the player. Right now all players play in a manner that is comfortable for the devs, we are playing the way they would play but not how we would. Having the most basic customization, the ability to pick and choose skills and powers from pools or trees would allow us to customize game play to our individual style and pick powers we think best synergize with both play style and other skills and abilities. Right now all we have are 3 different skill trees which Bioware has stated repeatedly they don't want players picking from other trees to make hybrids, so even in that we are limited to 1 skill tree because if we choose from the others we run the risk of gimping our characters. And for the record I wasn't expecting SWG when I bough this, I was expecting KOTOR where you could pick and choose abilities and make your jedi unique.

A little combative and extreme in some assessments but you do make some valid point. I think the F2P system needs to be changed, its more of a middle finger to players rather than an enticement to make people sub. I also think they charge too much like 6000 cartel points for buying a cluster of packs which comes to around $40 in real money. The barbershop is a big annoyance to me. I feel players should be able to spend in game credits as opposed to real life money to re customize their character and as a subscriber we shouldn't have been charged for what most MMo's provide as a standard in the game. I will say this with regards to sub drops, it is normal when a game releases to have a huge sub boom and a corresponding drop. There are people buying the game and trying it out and then after the newness wears off they either move on (which makes for sub drops) or they stick around, or become on and off again subbers. I'm Not saying this is the sole reason for subs dropping but it is a contributing factor. Also the game didn't fail, it made EA its money back in roughly 2-3 months of release so what followed after is pure profit and it has made a nice profit. The reason why in some ways it was considered a failure is because they rather wrongfully set it up to be a WOW killer and they fail to realize that wow is an outlier, not the standard

I say there aren't enough people like me voting in America. If there were then more people would be willing to admit their error rather than just doggedly sticking to it and pretending they are right when they are not and voting for people like Mit Romney. So I'll concede GW2 to you. I should have said City of heroes and the big commercial template that every MMO copies, WOW. WOW has had multiple expansions like the Lich King and most recently WOW Kung Fu Panda. City of heroes had the City of Villains expansion and multiple out of the box expansions that players had to buy. Now if you have a difference of opinion that is fine, attack the merits of the point's I make , if there are flaws in my logic then by all means point them out but don't impugn my intelligence with personal attacks.

I suppose it could be considered an expansion just chopped up as you say but I remember Dragon Age by Bioware. When they dropped Lilia's (forgive my spelling) song or the other packs they called it DLC. They dropped at least 3 of these and each was DLC that you could buy or not but if you did they added a new aspect, a depth to the bigger story as a whole. So using Bioware's own standard what we are getting is DLC

I have to agree with annabethchase. I don't think Gamers are crazy. I do think this game offers great story telling in a way that has not been done in an mmo before and is indicative of Bioware's story telling prowess however the game play and customization is generic at best. I don't think it is nuts to want them to raise the game play to the level of story telling or add new classes and start off planets for those classes. The idea with an mmo is that it is supposed to get better with time, in this case since this was BioWare's first this should have been a learning experience that they now have a grasp on . I will comment on the server thing though, the complaint with server merges was chiefly that this game runs on an engine that has problems with high volume which leads to lagg and other issues. I can't speak for everyone but I don't mind a high populated server so long as I'm not disconnecting at very inopportune moments or experiencing annoying lag spikes. Now I can't agree or disagree with you on the game play aspect because Bioware hasn't done much to improve it, so I would also ask that you reserve opinion on that until or if they do.

As the original poster would say you should read the entire post. They are not extolling the virtues of Rift or trying to convert SWTOR players to rift. It is simple a post chronicling where they feel this game went wrong and some of the things rift did right in hopes that the devs get it through their skulls what they can do to improve the game experience. I think one of the things Bioware really did right was the story. It's the main thing the has kept me but now its time to create game play that matches the story telling and add things like more immersive crafting, more classes or even classes with alternate story point beginnings but the idea is now is the time to really start developing stuff that is more than just , pew pew or kaboom.

I hope you're wrong but if that is the case that could spell a death knell for this game.

I stand corrected. That was what I meant but I did not state it that way. You are right though it was their expansion.