Glad you enjoy it. Beware the natural enemy of group finders though. Over reliance on tank/healer. Those who get it, know.

The space combat entry in the holonet still fails to mention tiny details such as single-player-only, rail shooter or mini game. It's the details BiowEAr fails to talk about that are most important. BiowEAr isn't talking about any of the details of this "new" space. Not a good sign.

No one can fully know the future but we can all see the past. BiowEAr's given little to no consideration towards space combat. Pre-launch no dev would touch the subject except through obscure, 3rd party websites and interviews. Same as post launch. At launch, they provided the fail rails. now, 7 or so months into it, they double down with another fail rail and the same old, vague hints of "secret space" mentioned only in obscure interviews accessible through the same, friendly 3rd party fansites that agreed not to trash the rails the 1st go-round. If they were going to expand space combat to become a meaningful game aspect, they would've assigned a community rep to it whewn they were assigning reps to other game features.

I'd very much like to see a fun form of space combat coexist alongside the existing rails along with some transparent metrics as to which ones get played how often so we can finally have some numerically measureable data to analyze this concept.

Daniel Erickson refertenced new pixels (in some obscure interview as there is still a gag order preventing devs from discussing space combat on these forums) so the "secret" must be paint jobs slapped onto the existing fail rails.

If it is "a lot of fun" as stated in your 2nd paragragh, then why are additional incentives needed to do it as stated in your 1st paragragh?

When will we see multiplayer space combat in this massively multiplayer Star Wars game?

Well they should have all the manpower they need now, after the mass lay-offs

At least when they were assigning various game aspects to various community managers, space combat got its own rep. oh wait... http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-team-general-update-may-31st-2012 ...nvm

You'd think after 6 months of supposed developement they'd have something worth talking about, but no.

yeah but they also used "epic" to describe the current, single player only, rail shooter... "blast enemy fighters, and engage in epic, large-scale fleet battles reminiscent of those from the classic Star Wars™ films."

Just to douse a little history on soaring expectations. Pre launch, not once on this official website did Bioware mention that the current space was on rails nor even single player only (their official description still ommits such details). This "secret space" has all details ommitted. Based on their own past, that's not a good sign.

I want them to keep the current rails alongside anything new too. I also want them to release in-game metrics data as to which one gets played more

Now comes the qustion of when to they transition from talking about it to doing it. And just how dfferent is "it". New pixels could literally mean custom paint jobs.

The way their PR department loves to hype upcoming content, silence can only mean a lack of anything worth talking about.

So this "new" railed space mission is the "big plans" you mentioned 6 months ago? Way to change things in a "significant" way...

The devs have never commented in a space combat thread pre or post launch. 6 months ago there was an obscure comment in a blog about "big plans" but to be honest, Single Gender Romance Arcs have gotten more oficial lip service from Bioware than has space combat.

sounds like many people are following your advice, way to contribute to the health of the game

Not going to fully agree nor disagree but I will point out that if a company only ever listens to customers who're already satisfied enough to be paying customers, then their number of paying customers will not grow.

The spin is pretty transparent and useless. EA's stock is down ~ 30% since tor launched.

I nominate this thread http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=145844&highlight=space+combat for discussion. Even if it does violate the devs' rule against talking about space combat on the forums.

which means it will take much much longer to be of any benefit to subscriber retention.

1. December - game launches 2. January 3. February 4. March 5. April 6. May - current month with still no LFG on live servers. You're correct it hasn't taken 6 months, it will take longer.

and those "new" missions will be existing missions where the enemies have over shields in addition to regular shields.

It's been 6 months with no new news of the "secret space project" I don't see these lay offs changing such non-delivery.