If you knew some of the history concerning Sam Walton's building of Walmart, before all the outsourcing to China non-sense, you'd see that your statement really isn't that far off.

I am really sorry that this is happening to you. The only thing that I would suggest you do, if you have not already done so, is post on the customer service forums and make a call into their call center. The call center has a long hold time, but have always been able to sort out issues for me like this. I had one recently where I made a substantial Cartel Market purchase. My coins were subtracted from my account but I never received the item. My in-game ticket response simply told me to submit a bug report (no response to my request for refund, no initiative taken or suggestions made to fix the issue). I gave up after 1 attempt there, immediately went to customer service via phone. Three calls later it was resolved, and that took 3 calls only because I called during the holidays and my issue needed to be forwarded to a specialist because it is their policy to never allow CM refunds, but this was a bug so they'd investigate it further via telephone. In total, I think I spent an hour and a half to two hours on the phone, max. I do not use the in-game ticket system, anymore. It is almost entirely unreliable. Sad that we really enjoy this game but it probably has the worst live services department of any major title MMO, ever. In the mean time, I would resort to avoiding features in the game that are not a need. I tend to just avoid new features that I do not trust in this game until I hear enough people using them with success.

My wife and I like to play Coop, xcore. Not sure if that's your draw. If you're not planning on staying long, I would recommend checking out one of the true F2P games out there right now. We're going to head over to LOTRO and give that a shot since we both love story and she's a major English nerd so the Tolkien stuff is appealing. My wife got to see most of the stories she wanted to and I'm just tired of all the problems. At the conclusion of my experience in TOR, it really felt more like I was paying 2 subscriptions for my wife and I to play a below average beta test. Enjoy your time back.

1. Still here, though maybe not as common as it was last spring. I play tanks and healers, mainly, and definitely get annoyed by it frequently. 2. Stopped doing it a long time ago so it would be unfair to comment. 3. Much more, compared to Feb. 2012 standards. You'll really enjoy this improvement. I know I did when I came back. 4. This seems a bit unchanged on the load times part. Optimizations, as far as fps/video quality aspects, they seem to be better...to an extent. 5. This is still a pretty horrid portion of the game, along with everything else in live services, compared to other MMO's (and no, I am not comparing to only WoW). Hope you enjoy your time back. The wife and I got to the point where we are ready to go ahead and leave it for a time. Time will tell if that ends up being permanent. Quoted the last part of your post to reply with this: With the direction of the game since F2P launch, this would seem like a completely logical concern and the most likely outcome for the next few months. Sad to say, but yeah, they look like they're going with the subscription MMO + DLC route. Hope I'm wrong, doubt I am. But welcome back and, again, hope you enjoy it.

You see this in almost every F2P transition, or anytime there's a massive influx of players. Its really hard to track, this is one of those things where a lot of flexibility should be granted by the player base. There are many more pressing matters that they're working on and negative press they've been eating. I would let this one go for awhile.

Did you ever play any of the old turn based strategy games, Master of Orion/MOO2, warlords, etc.? Didnt get into heroes of might and magic much or the old warcrafts when they came along. I did play a lot of starcraft and did a bunch of map making then, but the tools were limited to what's been available the last 5 or so years. Modded MOO2 to death, too.

You do not need a large modding community to have a healthy one. But you do not have one at all if you do not open up the API for it, which just nothing but limit players. There's little to no benefit with no modding. Modders do what they do because they enjoy the game their modding and they enjoy modding. If you think there's a need for compensation beyond that, you'll probably never understand it like some of us who have been PC gamers for 15-20 years or more. So, there's probably no point trying to explain it any further. Present day gaming companies have turned to not allowing modding so that they can charge players for DLC packs with little to no content and some cosmetic stuff. It's not a necessity in terms of functionality, but they have a lot of gamers fooled into thinking that its cheaper for them. No, they can just charge you more for giving you less. When I have been used to PC game developers giving gamers the options to customize and design content in games themselves. It's just an experience gap, the previous age versus the current age in PC gaming. There's not really any point in taking it beyond I am used to an older and more liberating gaming experience that has been systematically abolished in favor of charging customers more for less. Good talking with you, hope you continue to enjoy TOR and get what you want from the devs.

@ Jeweledleah Blizzard also has how many subscribers for WoW? Versus how many for TOR? Its embarrassing enough to EA that they're still not publishing those numbers. Not a very good comparison. We're comparing a pecan plantation to pieces of pecan pie that just passed through someone's digestive tract. And BW listens, sure. I'm not saying they do not listen at all, I am saying they listen to very very few of the important suggestions made concerning the game. They're infamous in TOR for turning their backs on the majority of the community (this is probably the main reason why they lost so many players). Their customer service is absolutely atrocious because of the guy they hired to run live services and he's the executive producer now. This is the same guy that is responsible for bug fixing, patching, and overseeing the avenues by which players can present criticism and feedback to the devs so that improvements can be made and his history in this role, in this industry, is horrid. He is known for blatantly ignoring gaming communities and ramming his initiatives down player's throats until the game is shut down. If this has somehow changed overnight and he did some press apologizing for his past and trying to move forward thinking about the players, please share with me...that would be welcomed news and would mean that TOR could be saved without his departure. You have some OK points that could have the potential to be amazing points, but if they rest on the shoulders of some of the higher ups at BW, they're not going to happen, not by a long shot. I know this by history, I played DAoC when it was awesome and saw how far it fell when he took over. I stayed away from WAR because of him and so many of my friends went to it anyhow, and that thing was a Greek tragedy. As for TOR, I like the story and I like SW, so I put up with it...and its something the wife will play with me cause she likes it, so how can I argue with that.

Post an example of one guy using mods wrong and so we need to ban them. Well, I suppose its time for us to ban cars, doctors, fast food, and alcohol.

You're assuming that because the same guy did it, that it would universally apply. Anyone with half a brain and decent vision can tell you there's a night and day difference with the special effects in SW contrasted to the original Battlestar. If you're actually old enough to remember the original Battlestar vs. SW, you'd understand there's massive differences. Me and my old man were big fans of both and he even got a chance to work on the original SW movies. To him, like so many others, looking back at Battlestar it was far more about the story, the visuals were pretty pathetic. SW was the first sci-fi IP that really, truly, redefined special effects in film. Just because the same guy did it, doesn't mean that he would have hit the same home run with Battlestar that he did with SW, because he didn't. Oh, and I never said Lucas redefined special effects in film. So, please, keep it accurate and keep it mature.

Extravagant is fine as a standard for end-game armor sets, but that's not the word that describes most of the gear in TOR. More like flamboyant, gaudy, tasteless, nonsensical, or...as you put it...ridiculous.

I was going to reply to him, but this pretty much covers it. Thanks.

There is no real cost to enabling them, minus developing mod tools for modders to use. There is quite a bit to be gained. You end up creating a very robust community of people that enjoy the game that want to improve it with quality of life type things, which makes many happy and for those that do not like, they do not have to partake. No one is forced to have it one way. In your suggestion, you're forcing a majority of the player base (its a PC game standard to be able to mod, btw) to follow a preset list of conditions in their interfacing developed by one team of people. The game's staff does have to spend more time/man hours developing their out of the box UI to meet demands which by the way can change, thereby, perpetuating a workload that needn't exist. BW can simply open up the game to modding, embrace the free labor, and for the most part neglect the interface from here, on. Many of the things you listed that SWTOR has in their default interface which WoW lacks in its default interface is because Blizzard embraced the free labor (free labor that is passionate about what they do). That's more time on development and since its the systems design guys that work on much of the interfacing, this could equate to better balance in this game, had they gone with mods. Why? More time and availability to do so. Notice the balance issues in this game? How about the laggy interface? Ability delay? All these things, and probably many more, could have had more manpower invested in them during 1.2's development had modding been allowed. The problem is, this is not a more productive course of action, in the long run. You end up with too many people that end up unhappy with the ship they're forced to sail on, rather than giving people the vast customization options that allow them to sail how they wish. Compiling a nice doable wish list would work great, if we were all robots with the same functions, built by the same manufacturer, and programed to like said wish list. Problem is, we're humans. Granted your suggestion would be more believable if BW showed that they respond to feedback well and actually provide what their customer base wants (they're notorious for doing the opposite). So, how would that change in the UI design for the "wish list"? It would not, so the idea is a failed one, it already has failed, twice. And, again, I was a hardcore raider and did loads of end game content in prior MMO's. I have no desire to do them in this game because the interface is the hardest boss in the game. I know many who quit with the major exodus last spring that would have stayed had modding and macros been added, its just too important to PC gamers to not allow it and the benefits (which are potentially limitless) by far outweigh any possible cost.

Empire Strikes Back would have never been made, Uwe Boll would have been considered a step up from the guys here, and Battlestar Galactica (The original) would have defined special effects for the rest of the film industry's development.

We're talking about TOR's interface, here. The same guys that gave us the UI travesty that people had to run end game with prior to the interface editor. If you were here for that no one should need to answer this. I can change the font of the hp on my unit frames without enlarging the frames themselves? I can alter what displays in my tooltip for ease of reading in combat? I can set profiles for hotkey mapping so I do not have to remap all my keys for every new character I create? I can change the appearance of my mini map and unit frames to stream-line my screen real-estate? I can track gathering locations exclusively via my game client? I can use mouse over macros to help mitigate the interfacing lag like targeting and ability delay? I can actually perform ready checks in flashpoints? I have the ability to make party companion frames appear as ops frames for the sake of cleaning up my UI? I will not get into mission log display, inventory sorting (current inventory sorting is terrible), enemy/friendly nameplate customization, tab targeting, buff tiles, debuff indicators, tools for ops leaders, and a streamlined guild management system. I think you get the idea, so I'll stop there with absolutely no mention whatsoever of the GTN, which would double the length of this response. 42 mods is not really conservative. I was a top tier raider with many server first kills in Classic and TBC (killing almost every boss from Lucifron to Illidan, except we did not get four horsemen before BC release in classic naxx so no saph or KT kill, either. I never ran over 20, and usually I did not run close to that, and I was a healer, dpser, raid leader, and GM much of BC when the interface was nowhere near as refined as it is now. And 40 of the 42 mods that you're running are baseline in SWTOR, with the amount of options you had with the out of the box UI in MoP, and I just went back to it for a time, I really do not see how this is an accurate representation. Could use clarifications here. Keep in mind, this is just WoW. This is not even getting into other games. Which if I had to say, City of Heroes, probably had, by far, the best out of the box UI customization I have ever seen. Now that thing was impressive and what amazed me was you really did not need mods for any of the interfacing functions in the game. I am still surprised that I have not seen anyone emulate that level of customization. DAoC had a pretty amazing out of the box UI as well, not as good as CoH, but still pretty good. How many subs do you think would have been retained in the first two months if mods/macros were implemented? That would have mitigated so much frustration on the part of most that the lack of end game would not have mattered, cause this game had more end game content in its first 2 months than WoW did prior to ZG/BWL.

There was a time I would have celebrated this outcome, but since the mass departures, I doubt there is anyone left amongst the leads that equal his talents. He made a ton of mistakes concerning the UI, ops designing, class balancing, and multi player functionality. This game just plays like an old single player RPG way too often for an MMO which can be a real pain, if you think about playing a multi player game with a single player interface. But, that was the bulk of his experience, this was his first MMO at the helm, so he wasn't going to pull off something perfect. By the way, he's a phenomenal single player RPG designer and it shows in this game. I think his department has learned a lot over the last year of the game's life when it came to improvements, but I'm wondering if he's getting thrown under the bus now to protect people higher up than him. I am pretty impressed with the stability of the LFG tool, which I have no doubt was his work. That thing took Blizzard about a year or so to get working in WoW, after they spent about 4 years finally figuring out how they wanted it to work. These guys had it running near flawlessly the first time it went live. Still the most impressive thing I think they have added to the game post-release, and that cannot in any way be considered a small feat. If he does go, I will not have any hope left for this game getting better. This game has been good up to this point, despite all its flaws and it was his baby. I appreciate that a lot more, now. IMO, he's the only one keeping it from being run totally into the ground. And all the stuff surrounding Makeb, which appears to be a PR nightmare for them at present, makes me feel sorry for him, cause I am sure he had little to do with the decision to convert it from a content patch to DLC. Say, what you want about it being only $10, but I am positive he really really wanted it to be free. Whatever the man does, I sure hope he prospers. TL;DR - I had problems with him, as many did, in the early months of this game. But as I kept playing, I stayed away from the parts of the game that were a painful issue and appreciated a lot of the RPG elements of the game and I am sure that's because of him more than anyone else.

I could get behind this, if they were not to make it BoL for everyone. They do not use it with the Cartel Market stuff because they want more money out of people. Not saying that it is working that way for them, but its a cash grab, and the legacy-wide stuff means less opportunity to milk the current player base. It's not about earning money anymore, its about squeezing as much as you can out of your customer. If people continue to pay it, they'll continue to do it. As far as them receiving more feedback, they could care less. The guy at BW that's behind all this did stuff like this in previous games before destroying them, then moving on to another game to destroy and now he's on TOR. But do not worry, EA/BW will see it at some point, probably when it is too late, and he'll be fired. Then, probably no more than a couple months later he'll be hired as a live services director (where there will be more terrible bug fixing, patching, and customer service). Then when that game is failing, the powers that be will fail to recognize him as part of the problem, they'll fire their executive producer and make him the new executive producer. How do I know all this? DAoC, WAR, and TOR did it.

Why is the Sith Warrior wearing Mega Man boots? I dont know why, but this made me laugh so hard. Almost woke up the baby. I'm still trying to figure out why the BH has potato masher grenades sticking out of the back of the chest armor. And if any of those designers are still there, why? Seems like all the good artwork guys worked on the concept stuff and then quit at some point in development. What happened? All the gear looked amazing in the trailers, artwork and the site (Queen of Naboo head gear...sorry, I mean consular head gear excluded).

I think we may have had a slight miscommunication on one thing, dailies, and I will admit, I did not make my point as clear as I should have. Sorry for that. I am not saying that dailies are a good way to sustain income. First of all, burn out factor. Dailies take a ridiculous amount of time to complete for the amount of credits awarded. That time tends to go by slower and slower the more you do dailies because it gets mundane. Second, for someone that likes the RP element of the MMORPG myself, I find that making money off the goods that I find while leveling alts (amongst other things) is far more fun and more efficient. If you need to use dailies to get started, OK, but I was saying that if you're someone having to do dailies in the long term for money, you're really missing out on much greater earning potential. Third, doing dailies really does break the immersion for me, which I would imagine you could relate to based on your response. I have a hard time describing it, but there's something about it that really does suck you right out of the RP elements in this game so my wife and I generally stay away from them. We do them on occasion, if we're bored or just want to arbitrarily go blow something up. And I admit, she has more fun with them than I do. I just wanted to clarify those points. Also, concerning your suspicions concerning conning F2Pers out of credits, that's certainly not my objective. I price according to what I am seeing move on the market. Honestly, F2Pers being a target market does not really make sense considering their credit ceilings are incredibly low (low six firgures, as I recall). So they're really not in a position to make massive purchases on a regular basis which, for me if I were actually wanting to target a particular consumer group, means not a reliable source for sustained revenue. But, again, I do not do this, so whether or not that's the case, I really do not know. These are just my thoughts in response to yours.

This has been happening in WoW and the difference in that game is that trade skills make very little money or operate at very high losses, where there's actually a lot of potential to make money off of crew skills in this game. WoW's economy is even worse, for various reasons that I am not going to take the time to point out, so why complain about an in game economy that's actually doing rather well. There are loads of niche markets in this game, and tons of opportunity for making money on crew skills. So go out there, do your research, find some of this stuff and start making a killing, just be sure to diversify enough.

Well, you're more than welcome to go design an MMO with a welfare system in place to help out the community. There are also games out there you can play single player where you can use console commands and make yourself rich with their in-game currency with just a few keystrokes. The options are certainly out there for you and there are probably many more than the couple I listed, but perhaps its less likely a greed issue and more likely you may not understand how economics in MMO's work? I do not know, but I do know that when I charge for my goods, the prices may seem high to a few that do not understand the economic system, but the time and effort I put in for them matches the market value I sell them at and my listings almost always move. If you want to play MMO's, there's generally no sort of welfare or bailout. The design philosophy for MMO economies is almost always very hands off, once the game goes live. So, you either make it or do without.

I have seen that at times. The worst one for me in this game is the killing slaves one on Dromund Kaas. Dark side to poison them so they die slowly, light side to overdose the poison and kill them quickly. The actually dialogue from your character when you select the LS option is something like "A quick death is better". How about no death? Idiotic.

For the record, completely agree. Actually, I think in one of Gordon's Q&A's when the hero engine was purchased he stated that this was their reason for doing so (or insinuated that being the reason, it was a long time ago). But I do remember very clearly him going on and on about the successes of WoW and wanting to emulate those successes in BW's MMO (SW was not established as the IP when he first started talking about it). His major comparison to WoW was modding and UI development. So someone in systems design more than likely just harpooned that objective and took an opposite direction which ended up really hurting them in the end. I suspect they started developing modding tools, then abandoned it somewhere in development. It seemed like something Gordon was unhappy with, he stopped doing press and ended up leaving a year or so before launch. Look up his history if you get a chance, that guy had a lot of awesome vision for this game and so much of it did not make it in. For those that followed the development news of the game all way back to 05 or 06 when they first announced it, his departure was sad news.

Numbers 2 and 3 were pretty much why I decided to start a LS SW. It was incredibly fun and the story really fight well with my alignment choice all the way through. Although, have to disagree with you concerning Kaliyo, not sure if that was a mistake you did not notice or something, but she's one of the most insanely homicidal/violent DS companions in the game (The only one that's worse is DS Jaessa)...she's not LS, at all, which is part of the reason the agent story was such a let down for me.

^ Pretty much this. My wife and I are playing very casual right now, just leveling alts and some leveling pvp sprinkled in for flavor (no operations), and we're pulling in between 1-4 million credits a week (Btw, very little time spent doing so). I am sure there are those that are making way more than that, as we're just very casual selling what we get from leveling, and we have no issues with GTN prices. The people that are doing well with the game/GTN economically should not be blamed for doing well. No it is not greed, its adapting to basic economic principles like supply and demand. There are times I may spend a quarter million credits on mats to make items for a leveling alt, sometimes much more than that, but its a small percentage of what we make weekly so it doesn't pinch. Dailies are a good way to get you started with credits and they're a good way to supplement your income if you want to bring a little extra in on the side, but if you're using them as your primary money maker, you're probably going to be broke all the time and you're definitely going to have issues with the GTN. And this is something that does not really fall on the devs, either. Sure, there are problems with the game and there are a few that could be worked on with the economy (not pressing) but they have been really consistent in fighting inflation in this game, better than any other MMO I have played, which is impressive.