So, I finally downloaded and played a little Savage (thanks again for the suggestion on that, Lecto), and I can certainly see how the FPS/RTS mash-up concept could be fun for something like this, but I think I still prefer the idea of making this game mode more of a "pure" RTS. Especially because I believe it would be much easier to implement this way. Perhaps another new game mode that provides a "Savage-style" game play (let's call it "Boots On The Ground", or something) could be suggested in addition to this. Again, the more variety in play styles to which BW/EA can cater, the wider the potential player-base becomes.

I believe that making a guild tax optional would provide a good balance of not "ramming it down your throat", but also giving the players an easy way to make their contribution to the guild funds. By having a system (again, optional) in place that automatically deducts the credits from the individual player's rewards, they can be continually making contributions to the guild bank fund. Players don't have to make individual deposits themselves, but can instead simply check the little box that says "Contribute X% of my earnings to my Guild Bank". As I stated in my previous post, make the Guild Tax optional at both the guild level (GM's can leave the option disabled and allow the guild to subsist solely on "manual" donations made by its members), and at the player level (if the GM has enabled the option, players still have the ability to choose whether or not to participate). Perhaps the name of the idea could even be changed to something with a less negative connotation - "Automated Guild Donation System", or some such. If you're the GM and none of your members are participating, perhaps you need to have a guild meeting to discuss this. Maybe you need to set some guild rules, such as "At least one character in your Legacy must participate...", and those who don't abide by this are subject to a good, old-fashioned /gkick. I know that, as a player, I would love to have this method of automatically contributing to the financial health and well-being of my guild. I would much prefer this option to having to go drop credits in the Guild Bank.

As I've posted on a couple of other similar threads, I think a workable solution for crafting material storage is best implemented with a completely different design than the current cargo bays. Something more along the lines of what you see in the currency tab of your inventory. My mock-up for a proposed new crafting materials interface could be implemented in a number of ways that would still allow BW to charge credits (or even CC) to unlock. Unlock the Crafting Materials bay for Legacy Storage and Cargo Bay separately (although, if you've got it in Legacy Storage, it may not be as important to have it for each character's Cargo Bay). Unlock each material section (Archaeology, Underworld Trading, Bioanalysis, etc.) individually. Unlock individual cap increases for each material section or unlock a global cap increase for all materials at once (1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 100,000, etc.). Of course, I would prefer they simply make it an included element with the Legacy Storage (and even better, make Crew Skill Missions able to automatically drop their rewards directly into this new storage "bay"), but I try not to be too greedy. I'd be willing to pay for this kind of storage, as well as some "expansion" to not have to worry about how much of any material I might accumulate on my travels.

Agreed. If implemented, it would just be a "bonus" wave that the player/team got to play. Regardless of if they were successful or failed, they'd still get to move on to the next wave (or finish the wave they were in when the event was triggered).

Funny, I took SladeRenegade's suggestion to be more of a "special" boss that could pop in at any time. I think something like that could work as well, in addition to the normal progression through the individual waves. As I mentioned, it might be something that a player/team could do during a wave that triggers one of these "special" bosses to spawn right in the middle of a wave. Maybe that's a little too complex for the game mechanics outlined so far, but especially if it's a "secret" something that the players have to do (UP-UP-DOWN-DOWN-LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT-B-A-B-A-START), it might make for some interesting game play. Make these "special" bosses drop some uber-phat-lewtz, and it could potentially change the dynamic of how a wave/round is going. I dunno... Just thinking out loud here.

Thanks for your support, SladeRenegade! I'd certainly be okay with the occasional random "boss" thrown in the mix. It would have to be something that didn't interfere with the normal flow of progression, though. We wouldn't want boss encounters to be so frequent that the players didn't have time to recover (until in the much later stages, perhaps). Maybe certain player actions would make it possible to trigger a boss spawn which, when beaten, would provide a special bonus, or something. Great suggestion! Thanks for your vote as well, thatPERSON! One thing, though... The way that I have it proposed, it could be a solo encounter. The game mechanics could certainly be tuned to allow for any size "team", but I would definitely say that a solo player should not be able to progress as far as a team would.

Thanks, Canmore! Wookiee Squads could definitely be a "special unit" type of thing for Republic side (the Imperials tend to be a bit xenophobic), so perhaps we could come up with a similar special unit for the Imperial side. Have to give that some thought...

Thanks so much, KnightTyler! I personally think that this would be an amazing addition to SWTOR, even if the community response hasn't been quite as enthusiastic as I thought it might be. I had hoped that the inclusion of the "outline" would generate more interest in the concept in addition to providing some basic ideas for implementation. Like I said before, I really wish I understood why this one doesn't resonate as much with players as some of the other game mode suggestion threads in which I've been active, but I'm still excited by it. I just keep imagining all of the fun it would be (for me, at least) to play this kind of game mode within SWTOR, and I can hardly contain myself.

Thank you, KnightTyler, for signing on with us on this suggestion. I know it hasn't received a lot of attention lately, but I'm constantly trying to think of ways to update/improve the idea. I really hope the whole "outline" provided will catch someone's eye, since I did my best to make it as detailed as possible. There are still some areas that need some work (most notably the "Onslaught Abilities" section), but I think it provides plenty of information to at least get a start on it. Here's hoping, anyway... <fingers crossed>

I am all for these types of mini-game additions to SWTOR - Pazaak, Sabacc and Dejarik would all make tremendous ways to pass the time while in-game. I saw someone else make a specific comment about the possibility of making a mobile app that somehow ties back to the player's character(s) in SWTOR. I like that idea from the standpoint of being able to do something during those times when I can't get in-game for whatever reason. There are a few potential drawbacks to the idea, but I think it has merit. EDIT: I found the comment about the mobile app I was thinking of. It's in the "Miscellaneous" section of KnightTyler's Tank Suggestions Thread (and Miscellaneous) There are other, similar threads, but this is the one that spawned my comment above.

I absolutely DO NOT want this. I'm an extremely casual player - I haven't even logged in in quite a while due to RL stuff, and I only have one toon that's actually at 60, one each 50-ish, 40-ish and 30-ish toon, and a handful of toons level 10 and below. Would I like them all to be 60? Sure, but I need to "earn" it. I generally play healers (I've never gotten any good at being a tank or DPS), so most of the other toons I have tend to languish unplayed. I'd be up for the 12x STORY XP as a Legacy Perk so I could experience the stories on all those unplayed characters and get them up to 60. There are so many threads on that suggestion, I won't go into all of the details of how it should be implemented, but suffice to say that it would require some extensive regulations and such. Even so, once I got them to 60, they'd probably sit unplayed yet again. I'd like to do end-game content, but only that content for which I'm "prepared" to play. I know my own limitations... I know I'm not a tank, and I know that I can't DPS worth a crap, so I play a healer. I may not even be that great as a healer, but that's the role I know, and that's the role I will play in end-game content.

Yeah, the design mock-up I put together was based on the current system of credit balances being specifically tied to the individual characters. If all characters were to share from a centralized pool of funds, the pretty green numbers for the credit balance could easily be moved to the bottom of the login frame and perhaps made a bit larger. Honestly, although it sounds nice, I'm not sure I'm totally on-board with that idea, though. Story-wise, just because my Sith Sorcerer amassed a pile of wealth doesn't mean she is going to share it with her sister, the Jedi Sage. In fact, it seems to me that it makes more sense that the individual characters have their own balances. However, I might be more open to the idea if BW opened up the Legacy Storage feature to include a "Legacy Bank" similar to the Guild Bank (as has been suggested several times in a number of different topics) where each character could choose to contribute or not.

How, exactly, is the thread being hijacked? Many of the posts are directly responding to what Mr. Musco has requested: The "feedback" that we are providing (which is "welcome") is that there is little interest at this time in the streams, and we would prefer that the Community Team devote more time to posting on the forums, directly addressing the issues and concerns that the players are discussing.

I would disagree with your assertion that the streams have more impact. I spend a great deal more time browsing the forums than I do watching the streams, and much of what is said and discussed during any given stream could easily be posted to the forums at any point - even if it's a direct transcription of what was said (although, preferably in the form of something more like "minutes" from the stream posted by a member of the Community Team). Yes, the streams provide a visual element that the forums cannot, but I don't believe that makes them more impactful. It's just a different communication medium. If you prefer watching the streams to reviewing information on the forums, great. Then, perhaps you are exactly the type of person to whom Mr. Musco is directing this thread. However, there are a number of us who would prefer that the primary method the Community Team uses to communicate with us to be these forums, as they provide a more "real-time" element to the interaction.

We have named something that he can improve on - communication on these forums.

This thread is a prime example. How much better would we feel about it overall if Mr. Musco (or even another member of his team) would simply throw a post in here to address all of the concerns that have been raised about the timing and reasoning behind starting this thread in the first place? As it is, it's been almost three full days since starting this topic, and it appears (even though it may not be and probably isn't actually the case) that nobody over there has anything to say in response. Even a little post that says something like: "Wow, you guys sure have a lot to say..." would at least give us the impression that they are keeping tabs on the status of the thread. I realize that Mr. Musco and his team likely have a number of duties which may limit the amount of time they can devote to being on the forums, but perhaps that's a flaw in the system. Perhaps (and I realize this may be a controversial and outlandish proposal) they need one or more employees that are solely dedicated to making gold posts. Anything that improves our (again) perception that we are indeed being heard.

I certainly see your point. No, his posting will obviously not have any effect on the actual resolution of any of the issues about which the community is concerned. However, his communication of the current status of any work regarding the resolutions to those issues would do a world of good from a PR standpoint. Weekly or more frequent updates (depending on information availability) would help to alleviate the perception of the player-base that nobody is doing anything about the issues that affect their enjoyment of the game. Yes, it's a perception thing. It's all about the "warm-fuzzies" that we as players would receive if we saw more gold posts, and has very little to do with the actual resolution time for problems. However, always remember the axiom that "perception is reality". If we perceive that we are getting information in a timely manner, then we will also perceive (at least to some extent) that EA/BW is doing its best to provide us with the best game possible. As it stands, the perception is that a lot of the suggestions, thoughts and concerns that the players are posting in these forums are largely being ignored due to a lack of communication and/or timely responsiveness. If we were to see more posts from the Community Team (and possibly the Development Team), the amount of time that it takes to resolve some of these issues would be more forgivable, not to mention the perception would shift from "nothing's being done" to "they're actually working on the issue". People are not "jumping down his throat" because they don't want to hear from him, they are voicing their concerns here that we don't hear from him and his team enough.

While I understand your point, the issue that LordArtemis and many others have with this particular thread has nothing to do with whether or not Mr. Musco is a developer, and neither is it whether or not he's "doing his job". IMO, it appears that he is trying to do his job to the best of his ability, while there very well be extenuating circumstances of which we are not aware that affect this. As posited by the previous poster, perhaps he and the Community Team are not receiving enough feedback from the Development Team. Perhaps they are being stifled or censored by the Executive/Management Teams. Unfortunately, we simply don't know enough about the goings-on behind the scenes over there to make that type of informed assumption. Regardless, I seriously doubt that Mr. Musco and his team are sitting back at HQ, twirling their mustaches with an evil grin and saying things like, "You know, I bet the players would like to hear something about the slot machines... Should we tell them?" <maniacal laughter> "Let's wait until it all blows up on the forums and see what kind of venom we can extract." The issue that I believe is most upsetting to many players is simply the timing of a post that feels like a waste of time due to the more glaring, game-affecting issues that are present and have (had) not seen any sort of response. Thankfully (regardless of how one may personally feel about the actual response given), they've finally come back and addressed the issue with the Ravagers exploit, but there are other issues about which the community has been trying to get some sort of "official" communication and have seen little more than a "we're looking into it" weeks ago (or more) with little to no follow up. This specific thread feels like a waste of time because it could have been handled differently. As I stated previously, if they had simply had their regularly scheduled stream this week, during which, instead of spending any time with gameplay, they discussed and addressed some of the current big issues, but also explained that the format of the streams was changing and the reasoning for why the stream is changing, let the viewers know that there is a move to try to provide more and better communication, and then posted this thread for feedback, I believe there would have been much less of a backlash from a community that is currently feeling unheard and unappreciated in many ways. I certainly don't fault Mr. Musco for wanting to try to make the streams better. That is definitely a part of his job, and I would hope that he would want to make the streams as good as possible from every standpoint. But, his job is primarily about communication - communicating the players' needs and desires to the Development Team, and communicating the changes and fixes from the Devs back to the players. As I said above, perhaps he has some obstacles in his way to accomplishing that type of communication, but that doesn't preclude his responsibilities for the position in which he has been placed. We, as players, generally want to hear more about what is being done to our game, and we want to know about plans, thoughts and ideas that may affect it (within reason, of course). These forums provide such a communication tool, and they are probably the best way to distribute information to the player base as they can reach the most players with the least amount of effort. I don't watch every stream because I'm usually at work when they're on, so I look at the forums to see if there is anything of import that has come out of them. This is a big reason why I am so adamant that there needs to be a great deal more communication happening here. Even the occasional "silly" post or reply to let us know that our posts aren't just going into the void. I'm not saying that they need to reply to every single thread that some idiot posts about wanting to unlock everything on their F2P characters, but simply increasing the interaction rate by a fraction would go a long way to improving the image that we unfortunately have at this point - that nobody's really listening or cares all that much what we have to say (okay, perhaps that's a bit extreme, but a little hyperbole goes a long way).

I've been lurking in this thread for a little while now, and, while I understand that the specific topic that Mr. Musco raised in his request for feedback (the streams) is certainly not what we players would consider a top- (or even high- or medium-) priority item, I would like to say that it appears that the Community Team is trying to do something to provide us with greater communication. This was probably not the most appropriate time to try to address this specific topic, as they could have probably just started making the proposed changes "mid-stream" (pun intended), asked for our feedback and ideas right there, and then posted this thread. Of course, this would be after they had addressed some of the most pressing concerns of the community and explained the course of action they are planning for those concerns as well as for the streams. As it stands, the choice to ask us about what we want to see in a stream and how to make them better just leaves a kind of bitter taste in the mouth of the player-base. I am a very casual player, and, honestly, haven't even logged on in a while due to a number of RL things going on, but I've been keeping an eye on the forums so that I can stay abreast of the state of the game. There are some real concerns that have received little to no response from anyone on the Community Team, and that is greatly disheartening. What I think is most necessary at this point is for BW and EA is to reestablish the lines of communication with the SWTOR community. I think the "quickest" way to jump-start this would be to find some way to be much more active (and transparent) on these forums. I realize that everyone over there has day-to-day responsibilities that have to be fulfilled, and perhaps that includes reviewing forum threads and posts, but when we don't see more than a handful of "gold" posts a week, we begin to feel like nothing we say, discuss, suggest or complain about is going to actually make any real difference. If that's the case, what's the point of wasting time on the forums? We could just as easily wait for the patch notes to see what things have been changed and hope for the best. I believe what Mr. Musco is trying to do by starting this thread is a step in that direction, but, as they say, "the proof is in the pudding" (I always thought that was a weird saying, but it fits...). If the SWTOR team is truly interested in and dedicated to getting feedback from the community and striving to improve this game that so many of us enjoy, we really need to see that in the form of more interaction. The streams are "nice", but they should definitely not replace active and frequent participation in these forums to let us know that our voices are being heard... </rant>

Yeah, I don't see any reason to set a limit on the number of different types of materials, considering any given player may want to use/collect/sell pretty much any material in the game. The limit numbers I put on for each individual material was arbitrarily selected, and there may not even really be a need to have a limit there either. That's one of those decisions on which I'll defer to EA/BW on. I'm all for a Legacy Bank for credits. Put these ideas together, and maybe give us some kind of auto-sort option for Legacy Storage, and I'm all set (at least with regards to this element)! :w_grin:

Can we get t-shirts? "Starbreeze Family Reunion 2015"

While this thread seems to have gone largely unnoticed, I still think that introducing an RTS-style mini-game similar to what I've described in this thread would be a tremendously fun and interesting way to add some new variety to the ways that players can interact with SWTOR. I believe that appealing to players with all sorts of different play-style preferences could dramatically increase the potential for new/returning subscribers, as well as F2P or preferred accounts spending more CC. While I don't really expect to get direct feedback from EA/BW in this thread, and I completely understand the "Pandora's Box" they would be opening by setting such a precedent, I truly wish there were a way for them to acknowledge that they've at least seen these suggestions. Even if it were something like one of those "UserVoice" type feedback sites where people could vote for ideas and the Devs could flag those ideas with such tags as "Under Review", "Planned", "In Progress", or even "Not Interested"... It would go a long way to making the SWTOR community feel like they're actually contributing to sustaining the viability and survivability of the game we so enjoy.

I'm not generally one to simply bump a thread, but I am truly excited by the ideas presented here. Introducing PvE arenas as described by the participants in this topic could really elevate SWTOR to something greater than the traditional MMO. Appealing to players with different play-style preferences by increasing the variety of ways they can interact with SWTOR would open up the door to so many potential subscribers (and even F2P players spending CC). While we may never get direct feedback from EA/BW in this thread, I would hate for this topic to find itself languishing in the trash heap of archived suggestions. Even though I understand the "can of worms" it could potentially unleash, I would love it if we could get a Dev response, either through a direct post in the thread, or through a forum PM or direct e-mail to the OP and any supporters (with some sort of appropriate "NDA-style" disclaimer that the contents of the message cannot be discussed, etc.). I realize that the latter option would require a lot more effort - even if it were just a "canned" form letter - and is extremely unlikely to happen, but something like that would be an amazing way to show the SWTOR community that the Dev team actually sees these topics and wants to participate in an active dialog regarding player suggestions. Heck, even if the message is a "negative" response (i.e., "Your suggestion is not something that we are interested in spending development resources to implement..."), at least knowing that this forum and the threads it contains are more than a "community blog" and that the suggestions are actually being acknowledged would go a long way in growing and fostering the player base. </rant>

I've posted a couple of times on this topic, and I believe that, for crafting, there should be a modified interface that is a sort of combination of Guild Bank tabs and Commendation counts. I created a mock-up of what it might look like, although I've rethought it a little since then. I'd remove the "WITHDRAW" button and use the [sHIFT]+Click method we currently have for splitting stacks. This change alone would drastically reduce the need for more Legacy Storage tabs, since most players seem to want more tabs primarily for crafting material storage.

I really like the PvP+E mash up of this idea. I've been trying to think of ways to incorporate different play style elements from other games into SWTOR. I've linked what I think are a couple of fun suggestions along this vein in my signature. I may have to add this one to that list (great, now I'll have to reorganize everything again). Thanks for the great new idea! P.S. If you haven't already, you might want to post this idea in the "main" WZ thread: "Have an idea for a Warzone? Share it with a Dev!"