This gets my support as well I feel like one of the reasons ToR has lost population is because it is missing some of the core features of an MMO. This would definitely make it feel like I was actually talking to someone in game and not missing some of the things they say in the chat box. Why/how something this simple hasn't been achieved since the beta is a bit upsetting/worrying. This is just one of the reasons this game keeps me yearning with that slight emptiness inside each log in

Interested? He'll yes Returned after two years absence to a dead server. I don't want to feel like I'm playing an MMO by myself and I have many toons to xfer. I really don't wanna spend big on an almost mandatory xfer. I would say this is pretty much a necessary time for this.

Hi guys I'm concerned with what might become of the items such as the dyeable Revan's Mask available from the Cartel Market Vendor once the packs containing the required reputation stop becoming available. Will we have another way of obtaining the rep? Will there be new Contraband packs released? Or will the required rep change to Bounty Brokers rep? I'm hoping the items are not removed completely as I've been slowly chipping away at Legend with Contraband Resale with my monthly Cartel coins. I don't particularly feel like spending huge amounts of money to get the rep before the year is up. Thanks

>Log on to The Bastion >See this http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb176/i_wish_i_had_a_username/Screenshot_2013-05-23_13_46_10_224418.jpg You're letting your NA players know about the change but I'm still explaining to people I meet EVERY DAY about the server transfer who had absolutely no idea about it. Also you still do not get it. This will NOT be the best user experience, you know as well as I do that this is about saving a penny and will not provide us with a user experience as optimal as an APAC super server This is completely untrue, if they merged the servers and gave an optional free transfer, do you truly believe you would have heard a single word not including the positive ones?

We both know that everything you mentioned is just too different to compare. This game is just too many years of straight revamping, optimising and recoding (ignoring content and comodity updates which would just add more time) away from being bug free enough to even consider going for them again. I've never been stuck so many times in any game in my life if we're talking relative play time. Some of the datacrons were more of a chore due to the constant reattempts i had to make from failed ones that were out of my control. If they fix all the bugs then i'd be a little more inclined and would most probably not even mind at all.

I check this thread every day wandering if today's the day we'll see a gold post. In additional to wandering I also HOPE that you've considered merging us instead and offering optional xfers. Lo an behold, it is not. If I showed this thread to any other developer, they'd tear up in a fit of uncontrollable laughter and feel so much better about themselves. I'd sure it would make that team's day. I don't like being rude but I feel that this is a realistic claim. Anyways, in response the other other players, I think it'd be safe to assume that they'll provide us with the means of our free xfer once patch 2.2 is released (11th of June). This is when the paid transfer option will be available to us for those who haven't read a few pages back.

Okay BioWare, here is a very realistic and sensible method for implementing this feature Let me begin by saying that it should be obvious to all that rolling a level 1 toon with all datacrons unlocked would just make it ridiculously OP. I understand this. So, and it's up to you how you go about letting us obtain the unlock, but at some point, we should unlock the datacrons for a specific planet for the toon as it reaches somewhere within the level range for those planets. What I mean by this is, at level 10, a Republic character should somehow obtain the unlock for all found datacrons on Tython and Ord Mantell. Similarly, an Imperial character would, at level 10, unlock all found datacrons in your legacy for Korriban and Hutta At level 16, a Pub toon should receive stats for datacrons already found on Coruscant just as an Imp toon would unlock those already obtained on Dromund Kaas Level 20, Republics unlock Taris datacrons and Imps obtain Balmorra datacrons Etc. etc. What I am NOT asking you to do is allow unlocks for those datacrons that can ONLY be obtained by the opposite faction. This is obvious but I'm putting it out there anyway. I'm confident to all extremes that I'll never see a gold post on this, however I'd love to know what you think. Dred

Okay BioWare, here is a very realistic and sensible method for implementing this feature Let me begin by saying that it should be obvious to all that rolling a level 1 toon with all datacrons unlocked would just make it ridiculously OP. I understand this. So, and it's up to you how you go about letting us obtain the unlock, but at some point, we should unlock the datacrons for a specific planet for the toon as it reaches somewhere within the level range for those planets. What I mean by this is, at level 10, a Republic character should somehow obtain the unlock for all found datacrons on Tython and Ord Mantell. Similarly, an Imperial character would, at level 10, unlock all found datacrons in your legacy for Korriban and Hutta At level 16, a Pub toon should receive stats for datacrons already found on Coruscant just as an Imp toon would unlock those already obtained on Dromund Kaas Level 20, Republics unlock Taris datacrons and Imps obtain Balmorra datacrons Etc. etc. What I am NOT asking you to do is allow unlocks for those datacrons that can ONLY be obtained by the opposite faction. This is obvious but I'm putting it out there anyway. I'm confident to all extremes that I'll never see a gold post on this, however I'd love to know what you think. Dred

Okay BioWare, here is a very realistic and sensible method for implementing this feature Let me begin by saying that it should be obvious to all that rolling a level 1 toon with all datacrons unlocked would just make it ridiculously OP. I understand this. So, and it's up to you how you go about letting us obtain the unlock, but at some point, we should unlock the datacrons for a specific planet for the toon as it reaches somewhere within the level range for those planets. What I mean by this is, at level 10, a Republic character should somehow obtain the unlock for all found datacrons on Tython and Ord Mantell. Similarly, an Imperial character would, at level 10, unlock all found datacrons in your legacy for Korriban and Hutta At level 16, a Pub toon should receive stats for datacrons already found on Coruscant just as an Imp toon would unlock those already obtained on Dromund Kaas Level 20, Republics unlock Taris datacrons and Imps obtain Balmorra datacrons Etc. etc. What I am NOT asking you to do is allow unlocks for those datacrons that can ONLY be obtained by the opposite faction. This is obvious but I'm putting it out there anyway. I'm confident to all extremes that I'll never see a gold post on this, however I'd love to know what you think. Dred

Bump for OPTIONAL Xfers and merging us all with MDN Right decisions, kgo

Just keep bumping and pray to whatever gaming god you believe in

Please please please please pleeeaaase listen to us BioWare and EA. You can so effectively do both. You can merge the servers AND offer free transfers to the selected NA servers for those who desire it (though I can almost guarantee the tiny amount of players transferring off will be a surprise to you along with how the population issue will diminish, which is a total surprise to us considering how intuitive this suggestion is). I'm not gonna throw my hands up in the air, swear and be rude like many others have done. I'm just filled with frustration knowing that there is absolutely nothing I can do to get you to go with this suggestion and the fact that this post may fall on deaf ears, blind eyes, or worse, not even be read by any one of you all (I can hope). This is my heart felt plea for you guys to make the right decision by both parties. As a game designer myself, I fully understand that you have a vision of what you want your baby to be and how you want it to be experienced by the players, and so I reserve my utmost respect for you and the basis for your decision (not the decision itself). The reason for this is because I also fully understand that the concept of success of an MMO is vastly different to any other game, single and multiplayer alike. As unfortunate as it is for the designer, creating an MMO automatically means that you MUST be willing to make compromises and changes that the PLAYERS want to keep the players happy. Ultimately, a huge chunk of the experience is up to them and not us. I know this is trivial and goes without saying but I feel it should be stated anyway. Now to the relevant point. You believe that the ideal and optimal experience for the player involves a good population for them to have people to play with to clear content in an immersive team environment, with fast que times, GTN sales etc etc. Let me say that I FULLY understand this and am in no way missing the point of your decision, this is what the game was initially designed around after all. It's an MMO ffs. However, this is one of those said compromises that you MUST BE WILLING TO MAKE AS AN MMO DESIGNER. There are thousands upon thousands of posts in this exact thread, written by your valued players that are promising to unsubscribe due to this decision. This is a horrifying thought from developer point of view and would be just that for me. It is and should be a given that this would never have happened if you made the decision to solely merge the servers, a neutral effect. Furthermore, if you'd chosen to offer both from the beginning it would have had a positive effect! The players would be cheering because it's about what they want, as unfortunate as it is. In contrast, I do believe that this suggestion wouldn't have a positive effect on every player of ToR, but only on those it would affect. What I mean by this is that an American player would have a completely different reaction to something like this. The reason for this is that not one of them has ever had to develop our idea of an optimal experience through the enduring of unreasonable ping. I may be way off the mark in saying this, but I also believe that only a minimal amount of the devs have experienced this either. It wouldn't be so bad if every player in the world constantly experienced 200ms (170 with TCPAckFrequency tweaking) as we would all be on an even playing field, but this isn't the case. Oceanic players experience that kind of ping while attempting to play with and compete against players experiencing downwards of 15ms (I'm sure it's less but we get around 14ms constant here on MDN, I've heard players from the US scream like children when they "lag" at 10ms) just isn't happening. It's just that we've always put up with it due to lack of choice. Could you imagine if everyone in the US was forced to play at 200ms from here on? You know as well as we do that you would go broke overnight. GG ToR, simple as that. Like I said, I've seen NA players rage quit for the night due to less. This also ties in with the change of community we will be experiencing (again). I will elaborate more on this soon. I'll now go in to my own experience. Having made the move from WoW to ToR at launch, as many others had done, I rolled on an NA server and was still very much used to the general 200 odd ms ping, and so my perspective on response time and its effect on gameplay remained unchanged. When the oceanic servers were announced, I was quite anxious to finally experience MMO gaming (namely pvp, which latency obviously effects the most), especially with the extensive experience I've had with competitive arena pvp at high ping. I played a rogue and you really get a good idea of how incorrect the enemy's position is displayed to you when you get a sap off and they port 5m in a different direction, all due to ping. Half your time is spent extremely confused as to why you are unable to get an ability off when, from your perspective, you are running RIGHT behind the enemy. Now, when I first had the absolute pleasure of logging in to MDN for the first time after my guild's transfer, the first thing I did was mount up... in all honesty I don't even have the words to describe the extent to which I was absolutely amazed by the fact that I had mounted INSTANTLY! I had never experienced anything like it in the MMO world, I haden't even checked my ping yet but when I did and saw a 2 digit number, I thought this was the greatest thing in the world. I qued for a warzone and had the best multiplayer pvp experience I had ever had in my life. Absolutely no BS and perfect response. I know I sound like a child in a candy store right now but this is the basis on which every player that unsubbed due to your decision did so. It trully brought us to the point where none of us even cared about the low pop. If we had, we would have unsubbed a long time ago. It trully isn't about that to us. Slow que times, long pug attempts, minimal money making on the GTN, PVE, PVP, RP, I would take it and it endure it all FOREVER!!! Just give me my optimal experience! THIS is what it is about to us, being able to play and hold our own with NO disadvantage, nor the feeling that we as oceanic players are always forgotten about and constantly swept under the rug. Not to mention that we are currently in a more local community. I appreciate the fact that you did think of us, but in the wrong way Believe it or not, we can still run the content. That is all I want from this game, the population and que times are secondary and will mostly be solved when the servers are merged. It doesn't matter how long it takes, it still gets done. Correct me if I'm wrong but playability is the intention of you and this game (The Game). We are willing to compromise and lose a small portion of our community to transfers by your will. That's fine, as long as you are willing to compromise and do what it takes to keep our business. There is a point where that is what MMOs, or any game types are about! Business! You NEED the players, the players only WANT you. Make them keep wanting! On a final note which I believe to be the most vastly overlooked one yet, and in absolutely no way do I mean any disrespect by this. However, my experience with the oceanic community has been so much better than that amongst the players on any NA server, and I'm not just referring to any single MMO. There is a much higher level of respect and not much ever elevates past a light hearted joke. There are less elitists and I find the general level of etiquette to be much, much higher. This aspect has a huge impact on the player experience and in my opinion is one of the most important. I could go on but do not wish to offend. Again, this is just my experience as a player. In a nutshell, there's no way I am going back to all the things an NA server has to offer again. It just wouldn't be the same, not when I have finally been given the opportunity to experience this game the way you, the developers, intended it. No other MMO i've played has offered me that, as trivial as that is. I allude back to my child in a candy store statement and say that this would be like reaping the most amazing candy from a baby after it was finally given the same said candy as all the other children. You may think the lack of population makes it a different candy, but the beholder says the opposite. Allowing transfers alongside the merging of the servers is the sole solution, there are no other options in the eyes of the good of the company. I preemptively give my vote for our new merged server to be a PVP one, but that is just my preference, I honestly do not mind unless you are planning on improvements to world PVP. In which case, a PVP server would also be in your best interest for the majority. But I'm open to whatever, even if I have to talk and act like a sith, I'm easy and could dig that too. I've chosen to overlook the fact that you didn't comment on the fact that we have suggested this solution of doing both many times in this thread, mainly due to the fact that I'm completely unsure as to why, and also that I may have completely missed the post, in which case, I apologise. I withhold my judgment and hope that you will make the correct decision (I'm thinking about all of us). So many times have I seen devs ruin amazing games because they refuse to go back on their initial idea just so they don't have to admit they were wrong (not that this is by any means a case of wrong or right, but I know how many developers can be/feel when it comes to this, you are after all, human. I feel it should be reassured) /essay Dred