I'm asking because I want to KNOW. What other reason do I need?

Not necessarily. I just got through dealing with someone who thought solo ops would be a good idea. Bottom line, why play an MMO if you never so much as want to SPEAK to another human being in game, ever?

Read the OP more thoroughly.

But...why? Why even play an MMO (and pay $15 a month for it) if you have zero intention of making use of its greatest feature: multiplayer? There are AMAZING single player games out there (such as Skyrim) that will probably offer you a much better solo experience. So why go with an MMO?

None of you are the type of soloer I'm talking about. I'm speaking specifically to people who believe that EVERYTHING in this game should be soloable, even if that means taking 6 companions into an operation instead of finding a guild. At a certain point, I can only conclude that these people must be doing this to flaunt their "phat lewts", since they avoid human interaction like the plague. The same way they do in WoW: stand around in a capital city all day wearing your gear or on a rare mount.

It could be neat for ONE specific flashpoint that was designed with all companions in mind, but in no way would allowing this in EVERY flashpoint work.

This. AoE taunt idiot-proofs the game. Needs a shorter cooldown.

And this is why BW will never do this: no matter how much warning the game gives them, people are going to whine endlessly about how hard the content is and how it needs to be easier so they can continue playing alone in a multiplayer game.

I'm not talking about people who like to solo ON OCCASION, or people who would rather play with people they know or a reliable guild. I mean people who want to play THE ENTIRE GAME without ever grouping with another person, the people who want SOLO OPS in which they use their companions as a raiding team. I mean, isn't laughing with guildies fun? Isn't screwing around in general chat fun? If not, WHY play an MMO, then? What do these people get out of this game that a superior single player game (like Skyrim, for example) wouldn't offer them and even MORE? Is it because, as PA once said, "You can ride that **** through Ironforge!"?

Let me put this delicately... If the lead designer walked into a meeting with the programming team and told them, "Hey, everyone. We're going to give the player the ability to control three companions at once!" the very next thing they would do is crucify him to the meeting table, then hang the table off the side of the BW office building as a warning to other lead designers. This game has been built from the GROUND UP so that one player has one companion. EVERY PvE encounter (short of hardmodes and Ops) has been designed with that dynamic in mind. It would take months and months to rebalance FPs around the "companion party" idea, and even then, players with poorly geared companions or who can't micro manage 3 NPCs at once would STILL flood the forums complaining about how it's too hard. People ALREADY complain on the forums about having lousy people to party with for FPs, and that's not even BW's fault!!! Making FPs soloable with companions would be BW taking steps to MAKE it their fault. For that and a number of other reasons I've already mentioned, they would never do this. This is a "massively MULTIPLAYER online RPG". If people would prefer to do nothing but solo the entire game, WHY are they playing THIS instead of any of the number of single player games out there that would be better suited to what they're looking for? The people who play an MMO for the solo experience are the minority. It's like trying to play an online FPS for a solo experience. The game is a MULTIPLAYER game by design and by nature, and again, BW isn't going to change that.

Like it is in WoW...?

A political system of player control is MISSING from this game, as far as I'm concerned. It'd be the one thing to keep endgame players occupied for years to come.

Companions are great, except that they're basically crutches for solo players and their interactivity with the rest of the game world stops at healing other players in your party. Here are my suggestions for breathing some life into the system and making it more relevant at the endgame: 1. Companions "get to know" your friends Nothing would make companions "come to life" in such a manner if they took note of which players you regularly played with and asked about them. How awesome would it be to have a conversation in a cantina with your companion in which they said: Female companion: "So, I see you go on a lot of missions with that Jedi sage. She seems nice. Are you and she...? Well...friends?" Your responses would look like: "Who, Elana? We're more than friends." (note the use of the name of the player here to establish just who this is, although your character wouldn't actually SPEAK the player's name) "Why do you ask? Jealous?" "We just work together." Alternately, you can have conversations like this: Male companion: (I can so see Corso saying this) "I see you hanging around with that Jedi sage a lot. She's pretty cute. Any idea if she's spoken for?" "Yes, Elana is spoken for...by me." "I doubt she's your type." "Want me to put in a good word for you?" Maybe players could have conversations with each others companions, maybe even on their ships, conversations that would vary depending upon how the player treats their companions. Maybe a companion would even recount a story of an unpopular decision their master made that they disagreed with. 2. Endgame chatting with companions Upon exhausting your conversations with a companion, that's it. You never speak to them again. I found this especially odd when you often are able to marry a companion, yet you then never speak to them again (which some might say perfectly mirrors married life, haw haw). Why not give us some random chat we can at least have with companions, like a conversation tree several layers deep in which we can discuss SOMETHING with the companion. Otherwise, it's like they simply stopped talking to you. 3. Using your alts as companions I'm not the first person to have this idea (can anyone find the original thread with this?), but I still think this would be a fantastic addition to the game. Instead of companions, let us use our alts as partners at some point in the game. I'll add more if I think of any, but I think this would be a nice way of making the companions feel more a part of the multiplayer aspect and offer the player something more at endgame.

No, they wouldn't. The companion AI would need to be completely redone and people would still complain that it doesn't work. Companions are not smart enough to know when to CC, avoid AoE, etc. Ergo, people would be on the forums demanding BW make FPs easier. Developing new content is FAR less difficult than changing existing systems, and that includes ripping out the current companion interface and revamping it to fit 3 companions. I don't think you have any comprehension about how difficult of a task this would be. This is how MMOs are: you either PvP or raid at endgame. WoW's endgame is no different and it's easily the most polished endgame of any MMO. Hyperbole and conjecture. I can just as easily counter by saying that gearing one character+companions solo will be so boring that most people would quit after that. If you would derive "years of fun and pleasure" from putting clothing on NPCs to the point that you'd forsake playing with actual humans to do it, maybe you're looking for a fashion design game instead of an MMO. It is solo and casual friendly. You can get from 1-50 without ever having to talk to another human being and you can do it all on your own time. And you can go from 50 to BM gear by doing random WZs. If you don't like raiding OR PvPing, there's not much to say but "why are you here?" You should take my answer because you're not going to get one from them. It's ironic you call ME arrogant when you can't even realize that BW is busy trying to fix all of the broken parts of the game and the notion of addressing the lack of solo content won't be dealt with until much, MUCH later, and yet you still demand they answer YOUR question. Delusions of grandeur much? The remedy for all of the issues you claim here is one simple thing: a good guild. BW has already given you all of the tools needed to find one. I suggest you do so. Like it or not, this is a multiplayer game and that's not going to change anytime soon. You should be looking less at how to replace the multiplayer aspect with companions and more about how to better integrate companions into the existing multiplayer aspect.

1. The amount of headache BW would receive from people complaining about FPs being undoable with companions alone would be a huge PITA. 2. The amount of programming it would take to do this, considering that the game currently only allows you to control ONE companion at a time, would make this a monumental task. 3. The entire point of raiding is that it adds play time to an endgame that would otherwise be "over" in a matter of hours. Seriously, as soon as players get their full "set" through raiding, they no longer have a reason to play the game. If you were able to take your companions raiding, you'd have them geared within 2 weeks and would then join the chorus of players complaining of nothing to do. Let me get this straight... You come here, ask Bioware to REMAKE THE ENTIRE MMO into a single player game (which they WOULD have to do, what with programming the game to support multiple companions and adjusting the difficulty of EVERY SINGLE FP/OPS for companion play), then you whine that they haven't immediately acknowledged your opinions on the dev tracker by giving you a yes or no answer? I'll answer it right now: no, they are NOT going to redo the game so it's KOTOR 3. Go play elsewhere. Try WoW and it's raid finder, where you CAN basically raid solo, thus completely removing the point of raids to start with and watering down the experience into just another crappy dungeon. The answer to the lack of people to group with is a server-specific dungeon finder so you can click a button and find instant groupmates, not to remake the entire game into a solo experience and thus completely defeat the purpose of it being an MMO.

You and the 12,000 other people looking for their "winning suggestions" to pop up for consideration. Don't be "that guy"...

If BW implemented this, you'd see tons of people flooding the forums complaining that FPs are too hard to solo with 3 companions and that BW has to make them easier. What's next? Solo raids? Solo PvP?

You're assuming that the fight lasts to the VERY end of your force/energy. If this is a PvP fight, that won't be the case. Any class that relies on casting times or channeling would do well to have some alacrity, especially for PvP situations where you getting your DPS out there first wins the fight.

I disagree and I give credit where it's due. This game made a number of VERY smart design decisions. -Crafting is done entirely by companions, ergo you can craft while still questing. -Resources are pulled right from your cargo hold when crafting so you have no need to carry around every single crafting item. -Holocalls allow groups of players to participate in convos without being there. -CC-prevention measures in PvP ensure no one can be perma-stunned and murdered like in other MMOs. -Bolstering stats in WZs means groups of friends at different levels can still play together. There were more but I can't think of them now. Point is, all of the above are a step forward for MMOs on the whole and, with the exception of holocalls, will likely be used in future MMOs. There are other issues the game has, yes, but they HAVE made some very smart decisions when it comes to game design.

This game needs Pazaak. That way, until you've become the greatest Pazaak player on your server, you haven't finished the endgame yet.

Me too. The harder stuff is being worked on. This doesn't happen overnight.

So because of a few lazy people, BW must add a system to appeal to them exclusively? Sounds like you ran into someone who was socially defunct. Hardly a good reason to add a LFG option...

Yeah, I'm not sure what he meant. Wishing for sprint persisting through death isn't too much to ask, but it at least proves BW listens.

I'll be honest: not sure what he means. Is BW god?

I mean it's an issue in the sense that people very often make angry topics about various things that A) aren't good suggestions and B) only serve to act as more fodder devs have to sort through to FIND good suggestions.