I don't see much excuse for SWTOR to cling to a tech limitation of first gen MMOs. The tech is there and the wrinkles are what designers and developers get paid to smooth out. If there is a huge incoming of players, first name conflicts are going to be huge, and it would be good to get this change done near enough to the beginning of the game (or at least it's F2P rebirth).

I mentioned before a problem I had with EQ2. Now I recall that I had just bought a new video card and had to worry about the power usage as I had a 250 or 300W and everything better than I had needed much more power. I found a decent card that claimed to work with my power supply but now that I think about it that may have still been an issue. I also had problems with SWTOR a couple months ago where I was getting really bad frame rates all of a sudden an even crashes. I started to notice my fan was much more active than normal. So I bought some canned air and popped the side and cleaned everything out and it has been a lot better since. (Note: I'm not saying this is the problem for everyone or that this game can handle heavy populations in one area, but there are often times causes not quite apparent and I know the game runs well on lower end machines so it is not as simple as saying you need a $5000 PC)

You will soon if BWs answer to everything is to add new abilities or make abilities that are less used become more crucial.

The current system might 'work' if the whole purpose of the credit sink for swapping mods is to a) put a price on optimization, b) make old/lesser mods disposable and c) restrict ability to change appearance. A and B I get, but is trying to limit people to not changing their appearance (even though leveling is nothing but random looks for most of the levels) part of the design process? Even if they get the mod system to fully support set bonuses, you still have the problem that it becomes a huge credit sink to be able to switch outfits (would be nice to switch looks depending on which planet you were on without paying high fees) which seems like something that would improve the enjoyment of the game and make chasing 'costume gear' more desirable. Maybe there should be a system that allows you to do a 1:1 mod swap between two pieces of gear for no fee? Still, the biggest selling feature of an appearance tab would be that any gear item can become appearance gear, the downside is that it makes the existance of 'orange gear' partially redundant, but not really because they still act as shells for the mods and still have appearances you can leave as the displayed one or use in appearance slots. Okay, it still ends up being a little messy but I think the end result is preferable to most everyone.

There was an interview with some BW devs and the reason is that it lets you pick and choose what you want for smaller amounts of credits. If the perk was legacy wide it would be much more expensive than it is as a character specific purchase. This is somewhat more beneficial to people who lower on cash and possibly have only one character so far so that they can afford more perks on their second character, and then between playing those two characters more credits can trickle down to a third, and in each case you change where you want the focus to be for each next character (e.g. PvP xp bonus vs Space xp bonus). tl;dr - the perks would cost a lot more if they were legacy wide and you would be complaining you couldn't afford them.

My computer cost about $500-700 over a year ago, so it wasn't even top of the line then, and it plays SWTOR just fine. No, I don't have every option set to MAX/ULTRA, but I don't need to. Just because they include those settings doesn't mean they have to be selected, and certainly not if you spend most of your play time in 'laggy' areas like Fleet, PvP or Ops.

It seems like the quote that is most offensive is not saying that the only problems are low end machines, but most or a significant chunk of that 5% are low end machines, which leaves whatever remains as other like higher end machines. Just because he didn't explicitly mention you machine doesn't mean they are blaming you. Of course no engine is truly optimized for PC gaming since it is a moving target. They are 'optimizing down' because they feel they are missing out on a large number of people with old games who do know they can't play the game so don't (I don't get where you paint this as people complaining they bought a game they can't play, but even for those who did that, EA/BW feels there is enough of a customer potential there to lower the specs). Don't get me wrong, I've been through the same thing with various games. I had to stop playing Asheron's Call because it wasn't compatible with my internet connection, I stopped playing City of Heroes because I started getting this weird flickering I later found out was caused by a wireless remote I had plugged in for my ATI card, and Dawn of War 2 was unplayable with more than 10 units on the screen because of my sound card. However, I was most frustrated when I had just bought a new video card to play EQ2 Extended and everything looked amazing for such an old game, except for all the missing graphics. I never figured out what caused that, although I am sure I could blame the unoptimized engine, but the reality is that sometimes some hardware configurations just don't play nice with some software. (On a related note, I recently had an issue with a Blu-Ray disc not working anymore in the same player that I watched in on before and found that there plenty of cases where Sony Blu-Ray players are not able to read particular title discs. If something as straightforward as that can't hit 100% compatibility, you have to realize that for stuff like PC games it is much more likely to have issues)

Nah, that would be saying 'most of that should have been included at launch but they released it early so we could pay to beta test' as is done after every MMO launches.

It is not fair to compare the amount of end game content in the the first 8 months of WoW to that of the first 8 months of SWTOR because people took a lot longer to hit level 60 in WoW than people took to hit level 50 in SWTOR so there has been an earlier demand in SWTOR for it. There are probably many more differences between the two games that what would be really important would be to try to get a sense of how people felt at the time of WoW's first 8 months. Honestly, I got bored of WoW long before that, probably got to level 20-something. What SWTOR has going for it is better (IMO) replay which is where I think EA/BW put their bet. A lot of people are still one character types though, so all that investment in 8 storylines doesn't mean much for them which is where EA/BW has hit a problem. Well, that and the focus on most of their resources on F2P.

Before I get jumped on again (not by you) as if I'm claiming EA/BW is in the wrong, I have no interest in arguing that or pursuing an legal action. However, there are laws about truthful advertising that mean an agreement extends beyond the EULA. Fact. I don't know if you just want to argue semantics as well, but let's say we take my use of the word hype in the most literal sense as you describe it, so just because I know it is hyperbole and you know it is hyperbole, it doesn't mean everyone knows it is hyperbole. Just because some of us come to expect companies to hype their games it doesn't mean everyone should just shrug their shoulders and accept it. It is okay for people to express when a product is not meeting their expectations. Now, I would suggest that anyone who has done so and not seen any resolution to their complaints should probably move on in some reasonable time, but it is a valuable resource for developers to know what is not living up to their customers expectations. F2P was actually a response to that kind of feedback. Of course those were people who had already quit the game. Might be nice to maybe address some of these other concerns people have who have been willing to keep paying before they hit their breaking point.

There is more to the product than an EULA. Even though no one here is demanding their money back, people are entitled to more than what is in the TOS when you install. If the box for this game, or the website, promised monthly content but failed to deliver, there could be grounds for legal action (e.g., refunds). What you are missing is that this game has been promoted as an MMO and a monthly subscription managed to survive as the standard payment model for MMOs because of the expectations of new content. SWTOR is not failing, yet, but is pretty close. For others it certainly has not lived up to hype. So please drop the semantics argument, it is tiring to see it come up everytime someone uses a tone of voice you feel shows a sense of entitlement and act like no one knows the difference between the legal mumbo jumbo of an EULA and the real expectations as dictated by the developer/publisher and the customer through actual communication via all the various media.

Then they didn't like the community I guess. If people want to move servers (paid or otherwise) then they want to move servers. If not for transfers they will eventually reroll or quit. MMOs are too big for the old concepts that created community, there are many more ways that happens. Community shouldn't be forced by restricting people from doing what is really an essential part of modern MMOs. To pitch in the original discussion, I am sure everything is being done to coincide with the F2P launch.

I think they don't care as long as they think whatever it is they are selling is going to be epic. So tell everyone it is just some moderate amount on content, but let's not call it an expansion, so they can keep subs. Then announce F2P and let the belief that Makeb is free at least for subscribers continue on. Then throw something out there to soften the blow that Makeb might require an additional fee. Then announce it with the next F2P marketing push as this major expansion. Charge everyone. Reminds me of so many games that had cool features that didn't make it in the game in time for launch, but would be available as paid DLC in a month. Again, if the end product ends up being quality, people won't care, so they keep doing it.

Only if you think the purpose of F2P is to lure people into subs. Which I don't think that is the case. Of course they want more subs, but as someone who has spent more money on some F2P games than I ever would have had they remained sub only, there is a con to using stuff as a carrot for subbing: what happens when I unsub? If I am paying $15 a month just to access Makeb and whatever comes with it, if after 3 months I don't want to sub anymore, I lose Makeb and whatever comes with it. I'm pretty sure that, even if Makeb was $45 (and please let that be an overestimate) I'd be further ahead sticking F2P and paying for it outright. Now, I think access to content is a good perk, but I think it fails if you try to make it the focus. I think it is more useful for retaining subs.

Plenty of people would. About a month or so ago when the topic of 'devs please talk to us please!!!!' was at a peak all these scenarios were thrown out there. Some people said that if the devs can't give us real answers people would flip, and 'those people' said 'no, we just want to know they are listening and hear something from time to time'. So, whether you personally would flip or not does not matter, plenty of people would, just look at how many people still won't let ranked warzones go (or whatever it was that slipped from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3 )

If you dropped from VIP to Premium, you lost access to Quest Packs, even if you were a subscriber before the switch to F2P. You did keep any expansion you bought, which SWTOR has none to make an issue of yet.

If you drop your sub now, you lose access to everything. I don't know how you still don't get that. F2P is a new option, and it is free. Right now, free gets you nothing. After F2P, free gets you a lot more. You really think it makes sense to add F2P and let every subscriber switch to free and keep everything? Who would keep a sub?

I addressed that. Gear progression. Raiding is gear progression. If you just buy the gear... well you beat the game, right? Still, raiding is where the real competitiveness starts, not leveling through the class stories.

I have no problem with selling of stat gear in the game for players below level 50. If someone wants to pay $2 for a set of level 30 class gear that will last them a few levels, let them. I know I've hit periods in the leveling where I suspect my gear has fallen behind and there is no gear progression system while leveling like there is after level 50. It is not like anyone needs to buy the stat gear, for the most part you can get what you need if you stick to all of the planet quests, but there are other play styles out there, especially F2P ones, that will find the ability to buy some gear while leveling a big plus, and no one is going to win the game because they bought some gear (which is probably on par with whatever is dropped/rewarded) at level 30.

On one hand I am ready to be done with BW. I don't know where they are headed with this, but if they can't even stick by their previous statements of free (which it was supposed to be before F2P) and free (all new content was still supposed to be free for subscribers, pretty much the big reason to keep paying) then what can I take them at their word for? I mean is everything BW says just smoke until the EA money guys get wind of it and figure out how to make more money on it? On the other hand maybe they have made this a bigger project worthy of an expansion. Housing, guild ships, level cap, etc. Something worth it that when subscribers drop to F2P after some point for however long, they still have access to those system because they had to have already bought them. So the real issue is BW/EA are just horrible at this PR stuff it seems. They announce stuff like it is set in stone and avoid other stuff because it is unknown, but then let slip some stuff that contradicts something else, and then ignore what they said or spin it again.

Switching focus to the 'use' option, even Free Realms has this, which is great because kids love to pile on the same NPCs and chests. You get a window/balloon at the bottom telling you what you are 'using'. Very handy.

Sometimes I get the feeling that PvPers and PvEers wish they had seperate games, blame each other group for everything wrong with their part of the game. If you could get the same gear either PvP or PvE then it would have to take the exact same effort either way, but even if it did, each group would complain the other group was getting it too easy. Also, they don't think someone who has PvPed to top gear should get to skip PvE grind and the other way around. I don't know how true that is, but the impression of it is more important to the devs. Expertise is probably fine as a mechanic that distinguishes PvP gear from PvE gear, but it shouldn't distinguish PvP gear from PvP gear. That is, as long as you are wearing full PvP gear, you get the full expertise bonus and the experise bonus from a tier 1 PvP piece is the same as the expertise bonus from a tier 3 PvP piece..

No, but you don't need things to be needlessly complicated. When you have abilities that do the same thing but only differ in damage per energy per cooldown then you aren't adding anything to the combat, just giving spreadsheet junkies something to do for 5 minutes. In my example, you have one skill that would behave smarter and cut down on having two extra hotkeys that are rarely used and would in fact let people focus on other skills in their place (not everyone remaps every hotkey to every keybinding, a lot of us are clickers beyond 1-4).

The one thing I would get rid of is the needless complexity of the skills/abilities. E.g., as a conceal agent, if why do I need hidden strike, backstab and shiv? Just give me a shiv that gets a bonus if attacking from stealth or from behind. I want to enjoy my character fighting the enemies in the game world, not focusing on watching all my hotkeys and timers.

1) Combat/skills/talents - Too much is just the standard EQ2/WoW stuff. I hated WoWs talent trees and EQ2s need of having 3 rows of hotkeys. 2) I was hoping this game would be more like DDO or even GW with instancing all stories and missions. The mix of 'open world' and class instances leaves both lacking. I guess I think the game should have focused more on Flashpoints for both the solo and group game.