Yes, I will continue to subscribe and play. I will do so for several obvious reasons; I'm having fun, I enjoy the game, and my friends enjoy the game and are still playing. I'm also continuing to subscribe and play because I'm not a lemming that gives into the hysteria and group think that dominates, not just these boards, but the internet as a whole. Another reason is because I've been playing MMOs since 1999 and have a deep understanding of the genre's history and a tremendous sense of proportion as it relates to SWTOR's current stage of continual development relative to other MMO's at this stage of their continual development. Finally, I'm continuing to play because I'm not of the current teen and twenties generation who seem to have the most outrageous sense of me, me, me, now, now, now syndrome. I guess I was like that when I was of similar age but now it drives me nuts. Finish your education, get a job, gain some experience, develop a sense of responsibility, and then go make your own gaming company and show us how's it done.

I don't think PvP is bad. In fact, this is the first game where being a tank in PvP is somewhat viable. I still have a fair amount of success, even if according to everyone in this thread I should ditch the PvP tank set. I'm not advocating a nerf either. My primary goal is as stated, understanding the tradeoffs. My expectations are: I tank and survive, I don't do much dmg, I do butt loads of dmg, I can't heal myself and my survivability is less; I heal like a pro, but I don't do much dmg and my survivability is somewhere in the middle. I'm not sure that's what I'm seeing. And if I'm advocating for anything, it would be to improve tanking in PvP, not nerf someone else. I know I didn't say nerf, but I guess some have interpretted my post as such. So let me be clear, BUFF tanking in PvP.

I understand that much about expertise, but I'm questioning enemy players with less expertise yet high survivability. Like I said in my first post. I've inspected many of my opponents. They have 100 to 150 less expertise and are using a couple rataka items. With less expertise and using PvE items in PvP,shouldn't ther performance be lacking?

Did I typo? I agree. I don't have insane dps, nor should I. I use all my CC and interrupts available. My opponent healers complement me on my tenaciousness and play.

I'm using my taunts, guard, and guardian leap. I'm pulling down 150K or more in defense in any given WZ. As for purchasing DPS gear, why is there a PvP tank set then? If all of these stats don't matter, why is the gear in the game?

I pretty much ignored most of what you said because you'd rather attack and berate (typical elitest PvP attitude), but I'm curious about your shield comment. I have the BM shield generator. As it's not a weapon and has tanks stats on it, what more is there to understand? I await your furture attack.

OK, but what's the function of expertise? If I have 100 to 150 more expertise than my opponent, how should that manifest itself in PvP? I'm not sure I'm seeing the benefit.

This is precisely what I do. Moreover, I pretty much know all the healer's names on the enemy side. Most of them have talked to me giving me props for being so annoying. Obviously I can only control what I do, so I guess I'm screwed if there isn't enough dps being generated.

I am a pure tank in PvP and I love playing that role. As a pure tank I do not expect to be a leader in dps as my role is to mitigate damage for my team and harass healers. Conversely, I do expect to have the highest survivability, but I’m not sure I do. It’s my perception, BH/Trooper healers have the highest survivability in PvP followed by Inq/Sorc healers. This seems a little askew IMO. I have no metrics to support what I’m about to describe, just the many hundreds of games it takes to get to 62 Valor level. My question is about tradeoffs in PvP . The classic example is me and three dps trying to take down a node guarded by two healers. We can focus on one healer with me interrupting most of his heals and he can just stand there while the other healer easily heals through the damage. We can split up with me on one healer interrupting most his heals and the three dps focus the other healer. The focused healer just stands there healing through the damage and the healer I’m on doesn’t have to worry about me killing him and just needs to get a heal off from time to time to help keep his healing buddy up. Another example is me, one on one, with any healer. Even with all my interrupts and dmg mitigation, I’ll never be able to kill the healer but they will be able to kill me, especially if it’s an Inq/Sorc. So where are the tradeoffs? The most obscene example I’ve seen is a BH/Trooper healer, solo, with five players wailing on him and he just stands there healing himself for a good 15 to 20 seconds until his buddies arrive and bail him out. Really?! Let’s take my second example. I accept that I’m not a killing machine and will never generate enough dps to overcome the healer’s heals, but conversely the healer should not be able to generate enough dps to overcome my “tankiness”. So let’s talk about “tankiness” in PvP. I have 660 expertise, 20K hp buffed, a shield, high AC, etc., but if I fight a heal spec’d Inq/Sorc, I swear none of that seems to matter. In fact, the Inq/Sorc seems far more “tankiness” than I. I even logged to the other side to see what stats these folks have and they had 100 to 150 less expertise and were using high end PvE gear in several slots. ***?! Again, where are the tradeoffs? Please educate me on what’s going on in PvP. What’s the design philosophy that I don’t seem to understand? Thanks ahead of time.

I've defend some of the really great things about SWTOR PvP, like the fact that a Tank can play a legitimate defensive role in PvP by mitigating the damage taken by team members or given by enemies. I love the MVP vote, although I wish everyone would use it. I like the medal system that makes even a losing cause worth the effort. I even like the fact that Huttball allows for same faction battles. I stand up for these things and endure being called a fanboi. I try to look past the short comings because I see so much potential. Well, after tonight all I can say is F*** PVP!!!! I'm done with that S*** until bugs, glitches, exploits, and anythings else ruining this aspect of the game!!!! The exploit of /stuck is still in the game!!! STILL! As if it wasn't already hard enough to down IMPs who have me well out geared; thanks to the honor farming where they always have a x5 bonus running! (WORKING AS INTENDED?!?!?! Aren't I sap, a moron, a baffoon for not joining in?! The man who said, "If you can't beat'em join'em" was a f***ing genius!!!), I finally get a kill only to be rewarded with a /stuck and POOF, the same IMP I just killed, reappears at full health and SKULL F***s ME!!! In Huttball there's some kind of glitch or exploit taking place. Tonight two of my buddies and I got Huttball three times in a row. In all three games we would knock the enemy ball carrier off the catwalk, into our Pit, and commence to beating the p*$$ out of him. The next thing we know the guy starts "studdering" in one spot for a few seconds as we continue to wail on him. Suddenly, POOF, the guy is back up on the catwalk running for the line and the the four or five of us are left standing there playing with ourselves. This happened repeatedly. Once again our reward for working together is a big old F*** YOU, better luck next time!!! You take these game ruining bugs and exploits and couple them with some of the more frustrating class balance issues, like a F***ing stream of lightening that doesn't just do an *** ton of damage, but it slows you too, AND has the range to reach from the top of the pit wall past the midway point of the pit?!?!?! It's no wonder that EVERY game there's no less than 4 or 5 SI's in the match. Hell, the last game I played before getting p*$$ed and coming here there were 6 SIs and 2 BHs. It was a GD joke! I guess you can't blame the IMPs though. In fact, the real question is why isn't every IMP playing a SI?!?! Then I see people whinning, pissing, and moaning about people leaving WZs? Seriously?! It's no F***ing wonder! It's pure frustation with the BS going on in WZs right now. Don't get me wrong, giving a **** style schlong slapping to someone's face can be fun, but not for the b**** getting slapped in the face over, AND over, AND OVER!!!! FIX THE GD BUGS AND EXPLOITS!!!! You claim to have all these metrics that tells exactly what's going on; Well USE THEM!!! FIX THIS S***!!! /RANT OFF MFers!!!!!

I noticed you put PVP in quotes. I'm hoping this is your attempt to be honest about how you reached valor rank 67; that is to say, you and all the other valor rank 60+ folks engaged in extensive valor farming via mutally agreed upon Rep/Imp kill exchanges. I'm sad to say, but knowing this kind of activity is pervasive across all servers, I am completed jaded towards anyone with valor rank 60+ and believe each and every one of them achieved that rank through extensive kill exchanging. If there's an honest player out there who achieved valor rank 60+, I'm sorry, but I can't believe you. I'm hoping their cryptic messages means that anyone who extensively engaged in the type of valor farming described above will be rolled back to valor rank 20 or 30. This will require zero change to any of the existing PvP gear; no gear will be taken away from players, but obviously you will no longer be able to wear the gear until you regain the valor ranked required; and the result will be a "leveling" of the playing field by narrowing the extreme gear gap.

Then perhaps these boards will become useful again. Until then, nothing to see here. Move along.

Who care!? The story aspect was what BW advertised. If it's not your cup of tea then you owe it to yourself to keep looking for the MMO that's for you. Why all the dramatics on the boards? There are lots of MMOs that weren't for me, but I never felt compelled to post about it. I just simply moved on.

I can't seem to find any Guardian gear with +Def on it. I have Cybertech as my crafting skill and have unlocked all blue patterns for Mod 9 and Armor 9, but nothing seems to have +Def on it. I've look at every Mod vendor (credit and commendation) and haven't seen any Guardian gear with +Def on it. I've seen +Def gear with Aim, Cunning, and Willpower drop, but I've only had one piece of Str gear with +Def on it but it wasn't worth losing all the other stats to use. So tell me. Have I done something wrong with my Cybertech skill? Are there other vendors I should be looking for? Am I the unluckiest Guardian in SWTOR to not get a decent +Def piece of gear? Or maybe there's something more fundamental I'm missing, such as, Guardians don't need +Def gear. Any insight, suggestions, /slaps to the face will be greatly appreciated.

Adapt and overcome or cry.

Crutches. That''s what I see people asking for. It seems like players need big text popping up in the middle of the screen, or an out of place voice yelling "RUN AWAY" in order to understand a fight and react accordingly. I haven''t seen a fight yet that doesn''t have some kind of visual queue that a special attack is about to happen, be it a cast bar on the enemy, a big arse circle or icon on the ground, or some glowing/electrical/explosive emission from the enemy itself. The reliance on third party, Curse downloads to provide dummied down text, parsed directly from the combat log, and plastered on the screen in order to coax a player to do the right thing is ignorant. I used to think healing in WoW was challenging and only the best players could pull it off, then I messed around with Healbot and realized any scrub can heal. All of those "great" healers suddenly had the curtain pulled back and it became clear they weren''t anything special, just users of a crutch. Now I see folks wanting their mouse over healing crutch in this game. Is healing a four person party really that hard? I don''t even like playing healer classes, but during my months full beta testing I had zero difficulty healing with a smuggler and a mage in any and all situations, Flashpoints, Heroics, 16 players World Boss kills. It''s just not that hard. I''m all for BW allowing resizing of the UI and more freedom to move bars and boxes around, but third party addons and macros need not ever be entertained.

Is no facet of our society immune from performacing enhancing drugs? I think we need a Congressional hearing to get to the bottom of this online epidemic. We may need to implement a random screening process to deter the usage of such performance enhancing drugs that seek to create an unbalanced playing field.

I would say I'm strongly against third party add-ons and very leary of macros. I had two macros in WoW. One was for clucking to chickens to get the vanity pet and the other was a monster face I used when the team I was on won a battleground. I had five 85's, played WoW from day one, Nov. 2004, and had defeated everything through Lich King and was just starting hard modes in Cata when I left. Through all that time, I never needed to use a single macro for any of my characters. My question would be, what would you want to macro in SWTOR?

Crutches. That's what I see people asking for. It seems like players need big text popping up in the middle of the screen, or an out of place voice yelling "RUN AWAY" in order to understand a fight and react accordingly. I haven't seen a fight yet that doesn't have some kind of visual queue that a special attack is about to happen, be it a cast bar on the enemy, a big arse circle or icon on the ground, or some glowing/electrical/explosive emission from the enemy itself. The reliance on third party, Curse downloads to provide dummied down text, parsed directly from the combat log, and plastered on the screen in order to coax a player to do the right thing is ignorant. I used to think healing in WoW was challenging and only the best players could pull it off, then I messed around with Healbot and realized any scrub can heal. All of those "great" healers suddenly had the curtain pulled back and it became clear they weren't anything special, just users of a crutch. Now I see folks wanting their mouse over healing crutch in this game. Is healing a four person party really that hard? I don't even like playing healer classes, but during my months full beta testing I had zero difficulty healing with a smuggler and a mage in any and all situations, Flashpoints, Heroics, 16 players World Boss kills. It's just not that hard. I'm all for BW allowing resizing of the UI and more freedom to move bars and boxes around, but third party addons and macros need not ever be entertained.

Wow! Jeff Hickman?! I guess the game developer community is much like other industries; they just keep recycling the same old people from company to company. I guess technically EA Mythic and EA BioWare is all EA, but it still seems like a lot of retreading. Now that I know Jeff Hickman is involved with Live Services, along with his official statement that says absolutely nothing (very much like his Warhammer days), I'll maintain a healthy dose of skepticism regarding all official statements hence forth.

Lots of text, zero substance. Everyone knew and understood this already. We can also deal with queues, but hour plus queues are unacceptable. What we want to know is what you are going to do about it. All this says is you will continue to look and maybe bring up another server. What about other options? Raise the server limit; add a grace period that will allow those who waited go to the front of the line when bumped off; server transfers for guilds that were assigned to over populated servers, etc. How about some real answers and not some wall of placating drivel?

Hence luck of the draw. Those guild deployed to a server with a good name got hosed, while those guilds deployed to a server with a bad name got lucky.

Actually I just changed that to what it now reads. Once you hit apply it retroactively applies the change to all posts. And is it really self-righteousness if it's right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I see open mic comedy hour is on going.

Please explain what you would do with guilds that participated in the guild program, established a guild name, ensure enough people preordered the game ahead of time so their guild would be placed, and were ultimately assigned the server they are on? How do you move them? How do you ensure they get to keep their guild name? How do you ensure players of those guilds get to keep their names? Were you even aware there was a guild program and how it worked?