FYI, my previous comment was made, because I sincerely understand the benefit the CM has made to the overall health of the game and the game's viability for EA/BioWare. It's been shown that a healthy CM helps make the overall game better, so I want the CM to be the most successful it can be.

Your comment makes me wonder if any player that is similar to yourself has ever been contacted directly by BioWare to get their feedback on what they like. I mean, in my own business, if I had a single customer that was literally worth 100x the typical customer, I would probably make it a point to reach out to them now and again and see what makes them happy, how can I make their experience better, and what would disappoint them. I would imagine, SWTOR has approximately 1000 such customers that are really heavy CM spenders. If every month, they sampled just 10% of those 1000 "best" customers, something tells me a response like yours above wouldn't be found on the forums...

For the record, Eric does know how the lockouts are "managed" in EV/KP. I clued him in to how its done back in December, as I felt it was an exploit. Eric agreed with me that it is an exploit. I had hoped it would be fixed by now, but alas...my hopes are rarely fulfilled.

I only have 8 days left on my sub, and haven't logged in in almost a month, but I do find the reaction by players regarding this feature amusing to watch "from a distance". I think BioWare seems to forget that it didn't release every chapter in KotFE on the same day. At launch this was most apparent to me when they kept harping on how our "choices matter". And yet, in nearly every case we have seen thus far, our choices don't matter. Presumably, past choices will matter in future chapters, but to date, nothing has mattered. This feature, likewise, seems the same. Here we have a feature that will allow the solo player almost an "instruction manual" to the types of mechanics they are likely to experience as they transition into group content. From the outside, what is not to like? The trouble is that this content is being released far, far too late in the game. Nearly every new KotFE subscriber that is interested in group content has played through the story, and is now experiencing whatever group content they are interested in playing. This feature isn't just a little late...it's really, really late. Timing is also why the rewards also feel underwhelming. Who still has a toon that can possibly benefit from the gear coming out of this feature? Even the most casual players have finished the story numerous times by now. If they need gear for an alt, they are undoubtedly using the legacy system to gear their alt(s). There just isn't any need for the type of gear this feature rewards, primarily because it's coming too late in the calendar timeline for the expansion. tl;dr. If this feature were part of the initial release of KotFE, I imagine players would have regarded it better. But given the timing...it's availability is months too late.

The last time a BioWare employee posted something that wasn't about a server restart or bug/exploit was 12/11/15. So almost a month since the community heard anything "new". And today we get a classic soon response. The perfect track record continues.

The fail is strong with this one.

Thanks for repeating my question. Indeed, "Does it matter?"

There is a way to get your original companions back, before playing out the entire story, once you get to Odessen. But as far as I know, there is no way to get Marr back. This type of loss is the type I'm more concerned about.

I don't doubt most suspicions are correct, and that the strength of our alliance probably doesn't matter, because it would gate the story, which would be annoying to players, particularly those that may be starting the story in the future. But equally annoying will be the permanent loss of a companion. I'm looking at what I can do with Darth Marr and HK-55 right now: NOTHING. Is that potentially going to happen to Koth? Or Senya? Honestly, it seems pretty likely if any of our choices are ever going to matter that at least one of those 2 isn't going to like a choice we make down the line (if they aren't already displeased enough) Or maybe even Scorpio or ???

My question for BioWare, is will the player's Alliance be something they will need to have worked on, been nice to have worked on, or have no relevance whatsoever to the remaining story for KotFE? At the conclusion of Chapter 9, including the Alliance grind through Lokin, I have 6 main characters, 15 Followers, and 4 or 5 lost companions, along with the 4 Alliance specialists that I could be working toward improving my reputation with, unlocking, etc. Should players be doing that? Will building our alliance impact the story in any way? Is the story gated by needing to have recruited any or all of these alliance characters? Almost as important, let's say I chose to got to rank 50 influence with one of these 20 companion characters I have, but in an upcoming chapter, that character is killed, and thus is no longer available to me. Honestly, I'm going to be a little annoyed. Getting to rank 50 isn't free. Should I be concerned that I may be wasting this effort in the future? Thus far, the companions that died so far were somewhat "good" choices, because I wasn't "invested" in them yet. But starting with chapter 10, that may not be the case any longer. If one of the remaining mains, or one of the newly recruited followers is going to die or disappear or become unavailable (like my original comps), I'd like to know now, before I invest in them.

No Eric, this doesn't address any of my concerns. Except perhaps that it does confirm what I personally believe: you aren't currently working on anything new, regarding end game group content, outside a potential new war zone, that is still months away from delivery. Good luck to you and BioWare with your new model for an MMO. I really don't know if it can be financially successful or not, only that I do not like this model. A story driven, single player online RPG is essentially what Guild Wars has always delivered. They have a box price, with no subscription. Which makes sense. You should look into it...

To answer the OP, I think the Gree event is the largest thing atm. However, the NiM announcement is probably a close second. The exploit situation, I don't believe, affected too much of the attitudes of the raiding community. In my guild, most of the members weren't even aware.

I've given this a little time to settle in. Some thoughts: 1) BioWare taking 6 weeks to respond to what the very, very best players in the game deem as a serious bug demonstrates the respect BioWare has for those players (almost none). 2) Not even noticing that the blog entry was incorrect is an even bigger slap-in-the-face. 3) Taking 2 more months to fix a percentage for dropping loot bug for 20 bosses in the game? Seriously BioWare. Seriously? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it will take 10 minutes, per boss, of dev time to make this change. You can't do that a little sooner than 2 months from now? 4) I agree with a basic philosophy that we cannot have 4 raids that all drop the best gear in the game. If a guild puts those 4 raids on farm, the "grind" to full best-in-slot for the raid group is simply too quick, so the percentage thing does make some sense. 5) Proposed alternative solution: Have a highlighted NiM of the week that offers 100% drops. The other 3 raids would have the percentage solution (it would also be nice if players knew the intended percentage).

I think my question is, when will we see a roadmap for the Group MMO Content of the game? I agree that this story was nice. I've played through it 8 times, in part out of necessity, and in part because I enjoyed it the first few times. Doing it another 14 times...not at all looking forward to it any time soon. Raid nights are getting brutal. Nearly every week someone leaves the group, and we are looking for a sub. Ops groups are folding and merging at an alarming rate. The attrition rate is noticeable and heavier/faster than any time I have ever recalled. Even with as frustrating as 3.0 was for Ops groups (with bugs, exploits, and difficulty), this is different. It's depressing, which is a far stronger emotion to deal with and overcome.

I've given the livestream some time to settle in personally. My very, very first thought was: "BioWare seems very happy to be announcing what amounts to a delay in the delivery of the next chapter." Personally, nothing else in the stream seemed as important as the date for 4.1. A recent thread on reddit demonstrated strong player expectation for 4.1 in January, with many expecting it as early as January 19. (My guess was January 25th) I then considered the broader message BioWare was attempting to deliver: BioWare wants to encourage people to continue their subscription throughout the entirety of the KotFE story. Despite being a continuous subscriber since the beginning, I personally cancelled my recurring sub 2 weeks ago. Unless I change my mind, my sub will actually end in February. Nothing I heard in the Live Stream is affecting that decision. For the most part, I play SWTOR to run Operations. Although I never killed Revan Hardmode, I've cleared nearly every other boss, in every other difficulty in the game. This is the type of content that I find fun. The latest message we heard about the timing of a new operation was that they would start working on it after the holidays. The live stream did not directly alter that message, except for my perceived "delayed" message. To me, that means that a new operation is also probably delayed. This was not what I wanted to hear. Rewards are fine. Unfortunately, I cannot actually think of a reward that I really care about. I have zillions of mounts, crystals, armors, weapons, titles, decorations, pets, etc. The only reward I would find rewarding is complimentary game time (for example, for every year of subscription, get a free week/month...that's a reward). Or, perhaps, being invited to be a "beta" tester. Gawd knows they need more/better testers. Finally, BioWare would do well to publish a roadmap for the MMO parts of the game. Even if they are unable to hold to the dates (this is almost assured), because the single player stuff they want me to like, is not enough, and certainly not worth the price they want me to pay. I absolutely do not want to be rewarded with a "free chapter", which we all know isn't free. It's the expenditure of resources on a feature I do not value as highly as things I consider to be MMO features. Agreeing to be party to that reward is to encourage BioWare to make the wrong decision (in my book, which may be different from yours).