Me, too. MMOs are at their core about grouping with others and doing stuff. They finished the worlds and quests and VO. Slapped together a UI with a rediculously minimalistic LFG 'system', and booted it out the door hoping to finish it all up later. In actual fact.. DID they finish the worlds? If you take SWTOR purely on it's auditory experience, I would suggest not. I've experienced more sound-dead zones in this game than ought to be reasonable - it's a prime reason the worlds feel so dead, just on a visceral level.

It's true, MMOs released in the last .. lord, 8 years? Have been lacking on some pretty basic user-friendly features. Even WoW had a basic LFG channel to start. However, TOR is .. shall we say, an order of magnitude more visible. If it fails to be profitable on a huge scale, we won't see another based on the same idea.

No, but the failure of every MMO launched since WoW to hold users..

Well, this is the thing. I've got no compunction admitting the gear-grind model has been valid for a very long time - but it is showing signs of weakness, first in WoW's own lessening user base, and in the failure of MMOs that have tried to ape the model. But seriously, let's face it. Even WoW - with the introduction of LFR in particular, is taking a huge step away from the 'grind' model. It'll survive by transforming .. starting, dare I say it, with.. the addition of pokemon? I mean, non-grindy things to do.

I'm just thinking, here. I seriously don't think any game based on the same model - subscription fees, with gameplay padded out by the hunt for low-drop rate character power that is continually devalued even as you receive it .. can compete with WoW. WoW's got that market cornered, and let's face it, I think any new MMO that is going to come out has to consider how to woo the people who are disaffected with that model, instead of trying to reach the loyal WoWers.

ooo, burn. Let's put every single player game online as a form of DRM, and call it quality control, while taxing real-money transactions our users are making over flashy pixels.

The problem I think many people have is that these are features which significantly impact the quality of the user experience - and time and time again, we've seen games launch without features that should have been core considerations for MMO gameplay in place. We're not all mental, here. Nobody buys an MMO not wanting to spend years with it. But when a game releases in a state that any reasonable survey of the genre's history would suggest is inadequate to user needs .. not expectations, needs .. and that every game that has done so in past has flopped badly, well. Suddenly, we're all on a sinking ship, and the prospect of pouring years into the game that you'd hoped would survive and prosper becomes less attractive. The people who wanted core grouping functionality in at launch aren't unreasonable, nor are the people who wanted features to allow them to play with their friends (server switches). As I said, any reasonable survey of the genre's history would reveal that there are certain core features that users need. Content, being able to group, a lively exploreable world.. I'm not even going to touch on other things. At their core, MMOs are about grouping and doing stuff. Don't give your users the tools to group or the stuff to do.. well. Suddenly this thing we'd hoped to spend years with feels like a failed marriage.

This thread is a little crazy. Let's boil it down: we've paid for the box, and we're all paying a subscription fee at this point. We all have the right to decide for ourselves if we've gotten value for money. We have the right to provide feedback, and this is the place to do it. That all said, I feel like the kind of loyalty being shown by the OP is out of place. From my perspective, the calculation is a purely pragmatic one - have I gotten what I was sold on, have I gotten what I expected, have I gotten what I feel is value for money. Development time is indeed a consideration, but one does not 'owe' Bioware anything when we're the ones paying for a service THEY are providing - not even heartfelt consideration when they fail to live up to some user's expectations. Regardless of how you feel on the issue, respect other people's judgement calls on the matter as it is entirely a personal matter. If you must criticize your fellow posters, criticize tone instead of content. And always, recognize that both perspectives - those who have been dissatisfied, and those who are happy, are valid.

What bugs me is that WOW.. WOW! is more sandbox than TOR. I never liked the concept of SWG .. but hey, guys? Minipets? Reputations? Achievements? NPCs wandering around doing things? There's no ambient sound, let alone more than 9 minipets five of which are alignment-locked.

I came into SWTOR expecting a few things, from the dev talk. .. that PvP would have this bolster mechanic, minimizing the effect of gear to a bonus. That was gone out with the sink with the introduction of the level 50 bracket and pvp-specific stats. .. that world pve would be a little more 'seat of your pants' than wow's current state of tissue-paper mobs in a harmless world. Expectation met. That VO would be awesome. Expectation met. However, I also expected basic things like a functional grouping-facilitator .. I'm strictly avoiding the idea of cross-server LFG here .. but some sort of group-finder that wouldn't deliberately limit you to seeing people on the same planet as you, in a game with 17 planets - would exist. I also expected a game where the music and ambient sound would immerse me in a world, and instead I'm in a world where for long stretches I listen to the sound of my footsteps or the hum of my speeder. I hoped, against hope, that it would be a game that would break the gear treadmill - and instead, I see it taking shape before my eyes, the very thing that finally frustrated me to the point of quitting WoW. I play games to play games. If I feel forced to play a game - if I feel like I can't take a break, I get demotivated very quickly. I dislike feeling like I'm being fooled by a cheap trick that any student could find outlined on page 101 of the first year psychology text book. Where are the non-gear grind optional things to do? Sure, there's datacron collection - but the benefits are so minor. Where're the minipets to work towards, the little minigames? The scripted npcs, the sound of wind on Tattooiine??

Unfortunately, expertise gear - just like the pvp gear in WoW, has such a vast effect on success or failure in PvP that a person with significantly less of it stands a microscopic chance of winning any encounter against an expertise-geared pvp vet - regardless of skill or caution. The effect of it is too large. It's not a bonus, it's a necessity in the level 50 bracket - and you can't get that gear by 'dabbling'. The dogma says that you simply have to put in your time - suck donkey for two weeks or whatever, after which you will begin to fight on even terms. I'd rather just stick to PvE than deliberately subject myself to torture for a couple weeks. I'd like to point out that this gear dependance directly contradicts what the SWTOR devs stated in their pre-release hype - that boosting would even folks out to about 10/20% of each other, gear having the rest of that effect - so that skill would determine success, with gear as a fairly nice bonus.

That's a tired old dogma. Seperating out PvP gear and PvE gear, for instance.. what does it do, except punish the fair lot of players who prefer one style over the other, yet like to dabble occasionally on the other side of the fence? No, you can't do that. Unless you dedicate 100% of your time to gearing your character for your specific side of the game, you're going to be laughably ineffective at both. And failing because gear holds you back - not skill, GEAR - is disheartening and awful. So the devs build in this social engineering that forces you to PICK - and then they look at their demographics, see most people sticking fairly exclusively to one side or the other, and believe in the truth of that divide. SWTOR actually has a rather awesome system - weak/standard/strong mobs, and spells that affect each differently, with players counting as 'strong'. That says to me, mechanics-wise, there's nothing wrong with the theory of jamming them together.

A brief history of most MMOs since wow: Game gets designed copying most of the features that drive people away from WoW verbatim (to wit, gear grind, dailies, repetitive content), while failing to do the little things that WoW gets right (interface, accessibility, bite-sized content, world design/ambiance). Game goes through hype train. Enthusiastic disaffected WoW players enter the world at release, expecting the 'different' that they've been told to. For the first twenty levels, everything seems new and fresh. People hit max level. They perceive the gear grind. The lack of usability features begins to become important. .. and that's about it.

I disagree. Voiced quests are really worth it. The things that people complain about aren't related to that, at all. We could've had VO and a group-facilitating interface in at launch too, but the lack of a group finder is a seperate issue from the VO. Same with other features and omissions.

Yes, obviously it's too late. And for the record, the 'engine' - the definition of which I'm sure you and I don't understand, has fewer problems than you 'think'. I'd take a serious truckload of salt before you believe what the current forum bandwagoneers are saying.

If you do edible chunks of gameplay - 20 minutes a day, set some crafting going and list that, do 3/4 dailies, you will make money. You can even do different dailies each day, or a warzone or two, or a space mission, or a flash point, or etc etc etc. If you can't motivate yourself to play for 20 minutes in a day without purchasing yet another shipboard mailbox type perk.. Don't talk to me like you have to do it all, every day.

We have a different perspective, here. See, I count playing the game as playing the game. If ever I feel like logging in to do some dailies is work.. y'know what? I don't do it. I do it when I feel like it, or when I feel itchingly close to a certain goal, or in spare time. Or I run a space mission or two. Whatever. That's the thing. If you do this as a job, because for some sick reason you HAVE TO HAVE EVERYTHING IN A GAME RIGHT NOW WHEN THE DEVS ARE AIMING FOR YOU NOT TO DEVOUR ALL THE CONTENT INSIDE OF TWO WEEKS.. then you have no patience, and no perspective, and no willpower to pull yourself back from your obsession. Do things as you dang well feel like it. Spend cash judiciously. WAIT until you can afford it to craft that awesome all-augment critterd orange gear outfit. Spread your purchases out, spread your dang gameplay out, until you're sane again. I mean, what is WITH this credit card, no-money-down variable rate 30 year mortgage generation?

Perhaps it's because it matters absolutely nothing whatsoever to a level 50 character, yet provides a sense for a lowbie that there are things to aim for.

It's a little bit weird, yes. I'm not sure why not - perhaps the devs thought quesh was just such a cute, small little planet .. well, we'll see if it's fixed sometime. It's generally a good idea to submit a ticket if you think there's an in-game bug or issue with an npc .. but in this case, I believe they know it well already.

Ding ding ding. Also, yea.. really, uhm. If your repair costs are that out of control, you really have to look into your tactics. Use your abilities that control enemies - disable and interrupt and stun them, more frequently, at the very least. Use a healing companion if you've got one. Check your class forums. Buying stuff, for a newbie leveling character, is a luxury. There's other ways to get gear - quests and commendations. Believe me, be frugal on a first character. Once you get up to a certain level, you'll be rolling in cash just from doing quests and dailies, and be able to fund stuff like spending sprees on the GTN for your low-level alts - but not now . Instead of buying stuff right now, you ought to be trying to sell it. Also, I know it can be tempting to buy every single schematic from your profession trainer - don't! Buy the stuff you'd use if you made it. Mitigate the costs of raising treasure hunting or whatever mission skill you've got by going, primarily, for lock boxes when you can. Be frugal.

Double-check to see if you've purchased rank 3 speeder piloting.. I mean, I'm assuming you do since you're saying that you can use the speeder through a work-around, but let's be sure. Also try a different quick-slot, or changing your keybinds. If that checks out... this sounds like a case for an in-game ticket; they would need to look at your character.

Tech Power and Tech Crit are exactly the same, for a smuggler's purpose, as just plain power and crit - your attacks/heals do 'tech' damage. And you like both of those stats for your healing. They'd be rather useless to a sage, that's all. But then again, 'force power' and 'force crit' would be useless to you.

Well, loot drops in a party, in ops at least, are tailored to the classes present - no consulars, for instance, you shouldn't see any light armor drops at all. Other than in operations, I think the probable assumption from the devs is that jedis are going to be the most popular of the classes - and that's born out by survey data, as well, so there might well be some bias in the percentages towards jedi-centric rare drops. Other than that, I (respectfully) suggest you might be suffering a case of perception bias. That's extremely easy for anybody to fall into - if you're particularly peeved about not having an upgrade for your light-armor sage, you're going to remember the strength drops in particular as aggravating, and they'll stand out more. There's also the fact that 'random' does not preclude streaks by any stretch of the definition of the word.

It's possible, in late game, to rip mods out of epic gear and place them into the dinky level 10 orange modifiable jedi robe you picked up on Coruscant. They still haven't worked out the kinks entirely, though. Right now, there are disadvantages - some set bonuses simply don't transfer with the armoring like the latest pieces do. It's not possible to get every gear appearance as an orange piece, so appearance customization is still limited. Though, within those parameters - crit-crafted orange gear, with the latest purple mods ripped out of epic gear and popped into it, with the augment slot also filled, is top of the line, best you can get. Also, it's prohibitively expensive! I'm firmly confident they'll make more gear appearances acquireable as orange, and keep with the set bonuses being attached to the armor, and probably make it possible to add your own augment slots to whatever gear you like. Work in progress, though!

Hiya. Let's see.. Legacy is a bit difficult to explain all at once. First off, yes, the name you choose will be the last name for all your characters on that server - so choose something you like, something awesome if possible. Once you have your legacy set up, you can pull all your characters onto the main legacy screen, set up relationships between them. There's a lot of different benefits to legacy, too many to describe. Like, for instance, if you get to Act 2 in the story with any class, any time you cast a class buff on any of your other characters you'll get that other class buff as well - you could end up being able to solo-cast all four class buffs at once. You can freely mail items and cash between characters on the same legacy. You can unlock special emotes, new abilities, enable the option to create any class of any race you'd like, get special high-stat gear to make leveling your alts faster, etc. Once you choose your legacy name, the menus and things will be open, and I suggest you take some time to just browse through them all to get an idea. There's also http://www.swtor.com/info/legacy and http://dulfy.net/2012/03/27/legacy-system-in-1-2/