I want some gear that makes my three Jedi; Gaurdian, Sage and Shadow actually look like jedi. Robes please, not mighty morphin power ranger, or ninja-looking gear. Sorry but the new cartel jedi gear is just plain ugly, all of it. I am tired of jedi gear that doesnt make my toons look anything like Jedi. There are a few low level pieces that actually look like jedi gear but almost all of the end game gear, except the legacy gear looks nothing like jedi gear. For example, the Black Hole gear makes my female sage look like an ancient egyptian temple prostitute. The War Hero gear makes her look like an Acheronian slave girl from Age of Conan. If you want us to pay for this stuff EA, give us something worth paying for.

The game is not dying, the starting zones are packed on every server.

SWTOR is a great game. It IS Star Wars. We love playing the game together, its that simple.

I just read this and I am not getting a warm fuzzy from it: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/20/gamescom-2012-swtor-will-sell-statted-gear-debating-new-planet/ I love SWTOR (except for the persistent bugs like the companion bugs) so I just signed up for 6 more months. If you want me to sign up for another 6 months EA/BioWare, you had better not charge me for access to any new content your new store except for a full blown expansion. We expect to be rewarded for being good, paying customers of EA/BioWare and for supporting SWTOR through some tough times. If you are looking for ways to increase your profit, please dont try to do it at the expense of good, loyal, paying customers like me and the members of my gulid. I mean it EA and I am talking to you Jeff Hickman. Dont charge me or any of my many guild members who are subscribers for access to new content (except a full-blown expansion with level cap increase) if we continue to subscribe after F2P goes live. To be honest Jeff, anyone who signs up for 6 months, should get the expansion if any for free. If you want to charge us for vanity items such as mounts, custom gear with no mods in it etc thats fine but do not charge us for access to new content or the items to be won there. There are other games we can play together as a guild including Guild Wars 2, Mists of Pandaria and RIFT.

The rules are not posted publicly.

We had a whiner recently who demanded that I increase his rank in the guild. I told him that he was at the appropriate rank for his level. He kept whining and demanding that I promote him. Fortunately for him, he did so privately and later apologized when he saw that his behavior would not have the desired result. I dont know how old he was. Age is not a gaurantee of maturity. I have seen 12 year olds make better gulid officers than 32 year olds. To put it another way, the carrot means nothing without the stick and vice versa.

I think we agree on most things. Good post. Thanks.

I have been very careful with my posts to stay within the forum rules. I am certain that this thread is being watched by the moderator of this forum. The first rule of posting is to let the moderator decide who is trolling and who is not. If you think someone is trolling, report them and let the moderator decide.

I am not new to this. I believe that my cynicism about a vocal minority of mmo gamers is well founded. Unfortunately, as in this thread they often live down to my low expectations of them. In fact, I will go further and say that all other things being equal, the problem with most mmo games is not the games themselves but a vocal, negative minority of mmo gamers. Like many other mmo players, I have grown tired of the excessive, negative influence on the games myself and my gulid members love to play. It is time that some MMO game company said enough and started listening to those of us who follow the rules and try to be positive members of the community.

I will not report you because you make my case for me. I will not respond in kind due to the forum rules. I do think that the MMO company that sees the wisdom of what I am saying will do very well in the MMO market.

Another ad-hominem post. Attacking the poster instead of responding to the post. Making wild, completely inaccurate assumptions about how I run my guild and treat my guild members. This post is designed not to encourage discussion but to elicit a negative emoitional response. I believe that defines a troll post. So many assumptions about "power-mad", "ego" etc. So much name-calling. So much of it completely wrong. The fact is, I cannot read your mind nor can you read mine. You cannot watch me in game nor listen in to our voice chat nor I you. And yet it is you who calls me "power mad"? Unfortunately the forum rules put me at a disadvantage in dealing with posters like you. We are playing by two different sets of rules. I am trying to stick to the topic of the post and not personally attack the posters. BioWare, that is the essence of the problem in these forums and in game. Those who follow the rules should not be second-class citizens who are subjected to an endless stream of gratuitous abuse like the post I quoted above. Those of us who follow the rules should not be forced to endure and absorb the hateful venom spewed by those who do not. This is why a zero-tolerance policy is needed in game and in the forums. Until their are real, immediate consequences for their actions, those who skirt or break the rules will continue doing so. Many who do follow the rules in game and in the forums become weary of the endless stream of gratuitious abuse they are subjected, give up in frustration and quit the game. I have met and chatted with thousands of MMO gamers as a guild leader. All other things being equal (bugs, gameplay, compatible hardware etc.), the most common reason given by most who quit the game is that they have grown tired of the negative, abusive communities in many mmo games. Many of my guld members tell me that the onlly reason they have stayed in the game is because we do not tolerate the trolling, negativism and abuse in our guild. I do think that BioWare has done a better job of policing their game than most but I think they can do better. Doing so requires courage and commitment. As I always tell my gulid members, "we must always consider those who follow the rules to be more important than those who do not".

It has been said that the road to hades is paved with good intentions. The key to the zero tolerance policy is that people are judged on their actions, not their opinions or intentions. They are judged on what they do, paticularly what they say, in text in game and in the forums. The zero-tolerance policy is the essence of fairness. Posters and players agree to a set of rules when they log into the game, onto the forums or join our gulid. They are informed when they violate those rules that they need to stop doing so. I judge the posters in this forum based on what they say. When they make vicious, nasty, hateful posts filled with accusations and name-calling, I judge them based on what they say. I cannot read their minds so their intentions are irrelevant.

Please read before you post. I specifically said that I was the manager of the business, not the owner. Fascist? Do you even know what that word means? Your post is examplary of why a zero-tolerance policy is needed.

SWTOR is not a policitcal or religious discussion forum. I seriously doubt that BioWare is run as a direct democracy where employees vote on every decision. If "free speech" were implemented in SWTOR, there would be no ToS, no Forum Rules and no need for GMs or moderators. I dont know where you can find your fantasyland of free, unlimited speech where you can say and do anything you want in any MMORPG that I know of. I that it is you who is out of touch with reality. SWTOR is an MMORPG based on the Star Wars universe. BioWare seeks to provide a fun, friendly environment where players can enjoy playing SWTOR with their family and friends.

In fact, I have applied these same principles to running a business and it was wildly successful. Paying customers who refer their paying friends dont want to patronize a business that is overrun by riff-raff, especially not a retail business. The first thing I did on taking over management of the business was to run off the riff raff who were scaring away good customers. Eventually, customers like families who wanted a clean, family friendly environment came back and then they brought their friends with them. Over 3 years, the revenue of the business went up 400% and profits went up 20%. The business was so successful that the owner was able to franchise the business and open more locations. Focusing on what I call the "silent majority" works. The customers that want a good product and good service for a fair price. They dont want to be subjected to profanity and negativism from other customers. They dont want their families subjected to an endless stream of profanity and abuse. Running off maybe 50 or 100 bad customers drew in thousands of good ones. Dont tell me zero-tolerance doesnt work in business because I know that it does.

Anyone who becomes a guild leader to boost their ego or go on a "power trip" is a fool. I take far more crap as a guild leader than I ever did as a member.

No, not really. I have even kicked officers who gave me no other choice.

Everything we say in chat in game is logged and most things we do. There is no escape from the GMs.

Feel free to join my guild and test me in this. Expect to get your warning and if you dont comply, I wont even let you finish a sentence before I kick you. If you are a valued, loyal member and officer like Rek'kal, I will allow you to have a bad day. Anyone can have a bad day. I will encourage you to log off and come back when you feel better.

Rek is good people. Thanks for the vote of confidence Rek

If content and quality of play determined success then swtor should have at least 2 million subs.

There are some who deliberately go out of their way to ruin the gaming experience of others. I do not believe those individuals should have any place in our community.

1. I also covered trolling open chat channels and harassing individual players in game. 2. Everyone who steps out of line gets a warning before being removed. Our warnings are polite and direct. They are told what rule they are violating and that they must stop or they will be removed. Dissent often becomes disrespect. We do not conduct guild business off the cuff in guild chat. That is what meetings and forums are for. Our priority is always on protecting our good members who do not cause trouble. Not coddling troublemakers.

I do believe that BioWare sincerely tries to enforce their forum rules in these forums. I think that the bad posts go up so fast sometimes that it can be hard to keep up. I do not think they have a policy against doom and gloom posts as they might be considered opinion. As a guild leader, I can attest to the fact that no one wants to log into a game or go to a forum and read an endless stream of doom and gloom and trolling.

There are big changes coming to SWTOR including Free to Play in November. The key issue in all of these changes is community When all of the new players come or previous players return, what kind of community will they find in game and in these forums? What kind of reception are new players getting now and what kind of reception will they get with F2P? The answers to these two questions will determine the success or failure of SWTOR as a game. I lead a large guild that is recruiting a lot of new players. Their primary concern, other than gameplay is community. They are all looking for a friendly, helpful, troll and harassment free community to become a part of. Our gulid has a zero-tolerance policy that is designed to protect the our good members while removing the bad ones. Our zero-tolerance policy includes trolling and harassment of players and guilds outside of our own and open chat channels. Any member who trolls open chat channels or harasses players outside our guild will be warned and if they do not stop, removed from the guild. I have applied this policy at least once over the past week as guild leader. Someone was mouthing off and trolling in our guild chat. I gave him a stern warning to stop. Then he started pontificating about free speech. Finally, one of our good members quit rather than put up with his continued trolling. My response We had another troll who had also been mouthing off in guild chat and after the first was kicked, he stopped trolling. How did our members react? Well we had lost a good guild member but he came back. The rest of the members loved it because removing the troublemaker demonstrated to them what kind of community we were going to have. A positive, fun-oriented community where we could enjoy playing our favorite game together. Not only did they calm down, they began referring their friends to the guild and bringing in their alts. We lost one troublemaker and gained about 5-10 good, new guild members. FYI: our guild is not a guild leader dictatorship. Trusted, loyal senior members become officers and have a direct say in running the guild including voting on matters of importance. BioWare, I strongly recommend that you implement a zero-tolerance policy on trolls, harassers, doom and gloom drama queens and troublemakers both in the forums and in game. While you may lose a few bad apples, you will gain many more good ones. Trust me, the zero-tolerance policy works for us as a guild and will work for SWTOR as a game. You have a choice to make BioWare. What kind of community do you want SWTOR to be? Do you want people to love the SWTOR community so much that they refer their friends and family or do you want a never-ending downward spiral of trolling, doom and gloom, harassment, dissatisfaction, declining player base and ulimately further cutbacks and layoffs.