I'm not going to claim I'm some MMO expert, but I have been playing them for a long time. I beta tested Ultima Online and just about every MMO that followed. I've seen dev teams try lots of things to improve subs, most notably the last Star Wars game..........and we all pretty much know how that turned out. Don't get me wrong, I really do want this game to do well.........however I often ask myself what it would take to turn it around, and I think the answer is......more than they are willing to invest at this point. There is one thing I've NEVER seen though, and I would love for someone to prove me wrong here...... I have never seen an MMO lose 25% of it's population and then regain it again at ANY point, no matter how many updates or expansions are made. I HAVE seen many examples of games hemorrhaging subs and decide to "reinvent" the game, destroying it in the process. I've seen WOW wax and wane through patches and expansions, but they had the advantage of a 7-10 million subscription base to pull them through, it is a very unique example. Anyone else? Can anyone think of an example of an MMO that updated or expanded itself into success?

I've been a DF spec smuggler since I rolled the toon, and I absolutely love the spec. However, once you hit the 50 bracket, the limitations of this spec start to really pop up. UHs are hard to come by, seriously limiting your ability to use your big damage attacks. Yes, you can do some serious damage if you happen to get all your bleeds and a double UH, but this happens so rarely it is definitely the exception, not the rule. I pretty much agree with everyone, this spec would be awesome with one simple fix. Just make one of our 10m attacks proc UH as well. Other than that DF is pretty decently balanced. We are squishy, but we have a few methods of escape. We just need a way to burst before our limited defenses get completely blown away, which is kinda rare at the moment. We can manage incredible damage over time on the charts, but for the most part it is so "un-bursty" that you are simply feeding the healers. For example, say a DF and a Scrapper go after an enemy with 1/2 health. The Scrapper has a really good chance to finish that player off before the healers step in, where as the DF is fighting an uphill battle. As soon as the heals start, your attack is basically over with.......you might as well switch targets and attack that healer and hope someone else takes out your original target while you are keeping the healer busy. While this strategy is a good one, it would be even better if we could burst the original target down, and THEN go after the healer, like a scapper can. I don't think we need major buffing, just a tiny tweak to how to generate UHs. Scrappers have huge melee burst potential, DF is ranged, so the burst shouldn't be as high, but higher than it is now.

The problem with PvP gear progression right now is mostly due to the fact that they left out Ranked WZs. The new PvP gear was balanced around the idea that most War Hero geared players would be playing ranked and most recruit geared players would not. By cutting this out at the last minute, yet not changing the gear stats, you basically dump all players into the same pool, something that I don't think was intended (at least, not en mass like it is now). Sure, you'd have your occasional WH geared guy in a non-ranked, but I don't think this would be the norm. The simple fact is, the system in place right now is NOT working as intended, as the INTENT was to have a different rank of WZs for most higher geared players. So yes, the gear balance is out of whack, but that doesn't mean the system is broken.......its just not complete yet (which is a whole different QQ thread). I'm in full recruit gear and getting obliterated in WZs........but I do not expect BioWare to change the gear grind to cater to me...........I EXPECT them to get Ranked WZs perfected and launched ASAP so the system they designed can work correctly.

In space? No, why would you need them? No need to fight gravity in space. In the absence of gravity all breasts are naturally perky

I think some people forget that when SWG launched, it lacked many of the features most SWGers came to love: At launch, SWG had NO: Player Housing Player Cities Space Flight Vehicles Mounts Jedi Quest Planets Storyline ALL of these elements came post launch. You could argue that the crafting system was fully complete at launch (and one of the best crafting systems ever made), however, a great crafting system does not equal a very successful MMO (as proven by SWG). We all bought what was in the SWTOR box when the game shipped, and absolutely NOTHING more. We are not entitled to anything beyond that. We all pay $15 bucks a month for the things they are adding after that, if we are not happy with them, we are more than welcome to hit the cancel button.

While I was a SWG die hard throughout its entire existence, I never wanted SWTOR to fill its shoes. Anyone who followed SWTORs development pretty much knew that it wasn't going to be SWG2, and I was totally fine with that. The OP is right, the games were designed with two entirely different roadmaps. SWG was designed with absolutely NO storyline. On day 1 of SWG, there were basically no long term story arcs. There were mission terminals, with random go fetch/kill missions, but no major story elements whatsoever. But I think the thing Bioware missed out on was the fact that content based games are designed to be consumed, and once they are consumed, they are boring. I don't think they expected people to consume quite as fast as they have (which is a major mistake on their part). Sandbox elements (I'm not talking a full blown sandbox game, just little bits and pieces) provide almost unlimited extended gameplay, with almost no upkeep from the development standpoint, as most "content" after the element is introduced is provided by the players. Personally, I think BioWare nailed the story based MMO. I'm not sure anyone would argue with the fact that this game has some of the best story elements in an MMO to date. Combat is more fun than SWG ever was (Pre or Post CU/NGE). Now they have to decide if they are going to continue providing the exact same gameplay with new story (short shelf life, expensive to create), or add more ways to play the game through more mini-games/sandbox games (longer shelf live, less expensive to produce). I know this is a lame answer, but I'm hoping they pursue both.

I'm a Dirty Fighter, and I love throwing AOE DOTS and making their healers have to choose between healing and cleansing. While they are busy doing this, I target the healer, pop stealth, and destroy them while they worry about my DOT on other players. The best part....... if I die, I usually get a kill or two from my DOTs even after I respawn.

In my experience, PVPing against people you know/guildies is one of the best ways to get better at PVPing. A random opponent isn't going to tell you what you did wrong, they are just going to exploit your weaknesses. A guildie (or, at least a good one) who hands you your *** in PVP is teaching you something. Instead of getting all upset about losing, people should be taking these opportunities to improve their game. Yeah, it sucks to get steamrolled, but if your opponent is a guildie, when the match is over, you can find out how to make sure it doesn't happen again (as long as you act like a grown up and don't throw a temper tantrum). I really like that there is same faction PVP, and in the case of Huttball, it even makes sense to have it. If your guild is PVPing, they should be PVPing against each other all the time. Those premades that devastate a warzone? Guess what.......they play against each other, probably more than they play against you.

Denver Here - started on Elysium where I have a 50, but recently re-rolled on Canderous Ordo because of population. Sounds like we have enough Denver peeps for a bar night..........we should all hit 1UP sometime

Double Post, sorry

Wow, didn't even realize this post existed! Good to see a bunch of familiar faces! I played Kette since launch as a smuggler named Osyrus Torgan who became one of the first Kette jedi. I was in SYM till it disbanded and then GSA for a while (see some old names from there in here . Also had a crafting empire called Kadavra out by Wayfar (God I miss player housing). I'm currently playing on Elysium as Osyrus Starsplitter, but the population is pretty bad, so I've been testing out new servers. I'll hopefully see some of you around!

I've been having similar PVP FPS issues. I've been trying to track down my bottleneck to figure out what to improve w/out wasting money on new stuff that won't make a difference. What I found is kinda surprising. Tracking my CPU/GPU/RAM usage, I found that when my FPS is the lowest, my machine is being taxed the least. My specs are far from optimal, but I'm running an i5 w/ 4G RAM and a 1G AMD 5650 card on W7-64. Being that these are middle of the road specs I would easily assume it's my rig's problem if it weren't for the fact that the game is barely making use of any of it when my FPS is bad. Hell, it's not even filling up my VRAM, usually only using between 300-400 of my 1G available. (And this is with Windows 7 graphics options turned off). I've tried 4 different versions of my GPU drivers ranging from 3 years old all the way up to experimental and noticed absolutely no difference. I also noticed that I get no change in framerate while playing SWTOR on one screen and having multiple Chrome tabs open on another. This one is kinda fishy because in EVERY other game I own, this causes a noticeable dip in FPS. On the bright side, I've had a chance to PVP on the PTS and with the right settings I can now pull a steady 30-35 FPS. While this is far from perfect, at least its completely playable. Although running all of the same monitoring programs, the stats are the same as pre-1.2. Still not using GPU most of the time, CPU sits at around 30-40% use, and RAM usage (VRAM included) is around 50%. In the end, I still have no idea what is bottlenecking my system. I know a new CPU and a better video card would improve my performance, but I'm a bit hesitant considering the game barely uses what I already have. Hopefully this data, and others like it, will help them nail down exactly where the problem is, as it appears they are at least closing in on it with 1.2.

Don't really see how my post was insulting, but so be it. If someone tells me they are building a race car, then brings me a bicycle, I'm going to say "Nice bike, but you COMPLETELY FAILED to build a race car."

First off, here's a blog from one of the crafting systems designers: http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20101203 If this was the plan for the crafting systems.........what the heck happened? The description of armstech in this blog has absolutely no resemblance to the system that is currently in the game...... "Premium quality blasters are relatively easy for an Armstech to make. They generally require only scavenged materials and vendor-purchased fluxes. At lower levels, Premium quality blasters require relatively inexpensive materials and take only minutes to construct. They’re on par with (and sometimes slightly better than) items commonly acquired from completing quests and defeating enemies. We expect that casual crafters will pursue crafting blasters of this quality, and that they’ll get excellent use out of them." FAIL (Mostly, I'll admit they came closest to this one, although "excellent use" is a real stretch) "Discovering and mastering Prototype and Artifact quality blasters takes considerably longer and requires much more player dedication. In The Old Republic, we want the crafting of such items – especially at the end game levels – to be a significant accomplishment. Our goal is for players to want to seek out renowned crafters who have learned the rarest schematics. Prototype and Artifact quality blasters will be exceptional, and their appearance and effectiveness will speak to their rarity and power." EPIC FAIL - this is laughably NOT our current crafting system "Players progressing through The Old Republic will always desire better quality items, and crafters certainly want to provide those items to make a profit. We’ve worked hard to ensure that crafted items have an important place in The Old Republic’s economy, and that crafters will be well-rewarded for the effort they put into the Crew Skills system. In future updates, we’ll go further into detail about how we plan to address crafted items in the economy!" COMPLETE AND TOTAL EPIC FAIL - "crafters will be well-rewarded for the effort" EXCEPT - armstech, artifice, armormech, and synthweaving. Could you guys PLEASE just give us SOME kind of response? Anything? Bioware?

I went with Starsplitter. Seemed "star warsy" Now there is: Osyrus Starsplitter Nebulous Starsplitter and Rho Starsplitter

I've been stalking this forum for a while now hoping someone had figured out how to make Armstech useful post-50. So far, nada. So here's an idea that wouldn't be too difficult to implement: Give Armstech the ability to make consumable gun power-ups. These would be just like Bio consumables except they would effect the weapon currently equipped. You could make them give different stats or even a damage bonus. Give Artifice the ability to make consumable saber power-ups. They would work identically to the gun power-ups. Give ALL crafting professions the ability to craft an item repair kit. Whatever profession makes that item can also make a repair kit for it. These could be used anywhere, allowing players to fix their broken equipment w/out having to find a vendor. I realize this would cut into the credit sink systems that are already in place, to counter act that I wouldn't be opposed to adding a cost to being revived at your location (NOT for being revived at the nearest med center). I know that will annoy some people, but if the credit sink is necessary, it seemed like a logical choice. It costs more to send an ambulance to you than it does to drive to the hospital........... Sorry if this has already been suggested, but I think its a good idea, so I'm gonna suggest it again.