OP, I can relate - I really can. As my sig says, I was an alpha/early beta tester. Been around off and on since then - with large breaks due to work and other responsibilities. I came back a couple of months ago to such incessant bile on the forums that I was pretty surprised. People calling for folks to be fired and so forth. I posted things in opposition to such things and generally rolled my eyes at folks who got so worked up. And then I experienced the last 60 days or so. I will be brief and say there have been so many missteps that it crosses a line into needing a stronger word. In fact several of the posts I made were specifically about this issue, about that there were bound to be returning players coming in from the movie and that they would read the forum and be turned off - that they had to tighten the ship. And instead it got worse and not better. The simple truth is this - the game has hired some great voice and writing talent. But there are serious problems with management going on. It is real, not imagined, and not over played. To the point it is shocking and sad - especially to those of us that have given a fair bit of themselves at some point to make the game solid. The best advice I can give you is to stay off the forums and enjoy content you haven't yet experienced. There is a fair bit of that. But the community is very likely to get angrier, not happier over the next couple of weeks. There is truly, in every sense of the phrase, just cause. You've just got to avoid General if you wish to not see it and that is the facts.

A manager with enough snap to not leave the office on such a skeleton crew that large things can't be addressed within a week of a movie release using the IP of the game they are managing. And to insist on and retain a real testing team so that massive, glaring bugs get caught and so that raging fires aren't created by untried balance swings. And really just a whole list of things that seem obvious to most folks here. In a nutshell, new management.

Epic soup sandwich. The most popular IP in the modern era, and they leave a skeleton crew in the release week of Episode VII. I mean, I worked today. I bet a whole bunch of other people here did too. Christmas Eve? Sure. Christmas Day? Of course. But the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd? When the most successful movie of all time releases the week before using the IP of the game you are developing? Just absurd.

A real life lesson in how you take the best, most popular IP in the modern era - and in the very same month as the most popular movie of all time using said IP....and do every single thing possible to ensure you benefit as little as possible. Really pretty unbelievable. When I think back to how much effort was put into the alpha/early closed beta, how much energy and excitement there was....it just makes me sad to see it come to this. Where one event gets broke, and you know its broke - and watch the next one not fire off, and then anemically say, oh well? Can't manage to rouse the team even to that level, during the release week of the most anticipated movie of the decade....using the IP of the game? Honestly, it is truly pitiful in every sense of the word.

I think pretty well everyone has to have taken note that they are serving soup sandwiches in that office at this point. Pretty sad really. At least there are alternatives out there.

EA. It's in the game.

I think there is a lot to enjoy. But try not to consume much of this forum. It, like Fox News, will rot your brain. Truly.

Yeah, agree with the OP. I've not griped much because considering all the strange things going on lately I get the sense they just don't have either the snap or the manpower to make anything better. Of course, its a bunk mechanic. Flat, uninspiring, and I think anyone who has given it any thought is left with - really?

Resigned, not happy. After the number of things the last few weeks I'm sure I'm not alone in having decided that it just isn't worth arguing about until there is a personnel change somewhere at the decision making level. Your bread and circuses comment in another thread was spot on. It is anemic fare for carnivores, but it may do until they serve some meat. If not, no big drama - lots of other games.

There was about a week a bit ago where it was on Easy rather than Very Easy. The entire forum erupted in such wretched wailing they had to backtrack. I think the short answer is that their economic model is based around the cartel market as much as subscriptions, and milking the poor whales that spend hundreds gambling on crates. That is their first and foremost focus. Second are the ultra casuals who spend a more modest amount on the CM and netflix as they mash through combat. Who will poke their head in for a couple of months. A distant third are the folks who used to make up the user base of these kinds of games. A very distant third. It just is what it is.

It is most certainly worth the subscription price if you've missed the last number of years worth of content. Everything you do in any of these games is "throwaway work", don't be under any illusions. What one week may seem like a stepping stone along an epic path may be the last time you ever touch said game for years. Is it fun? Yes, it is, and there is a lot to do. Will Bioware make you /facepalm? Yes, I'm afraid so based on what I've seen in the last couple of months. Will the General Discussion community wish there was a Force Choke button? Yes, yes it will. But there are really well done elements of the game. Enjoy it and don't set unrealistic expectations. When you are tired of it, move on. No drama.

I like the storytelling in KOTFE, but no doubt about it - it only has mild replay value. Which is why I find it so very puzzling to seeming discard endgame. No new pvp maps, no real progression raiding, none of that stuff - which is far, far cheaper to develop than the voice acting/writer heavy content which is so ephemeral. I hope there is a pivot. I think there will be. But it will be after a management change. I think that all the missteps that have been made recently are going to frame what they had hoped would be a massive influx of people from the movie, but in 90 days cold hard reality is going to settle in. And we'll see some personnel shifts. At least if I was a betting man thats the number I'd put some chips on

Nah, I really don't. But you know, people start saying they'd like to be in Austin so they could do physical harm to someone....and meh. All around meh. Everywhere. Meh. -edit - well on the other hand, I've not yet played either Witcher 3 or Fallout 4, so there is that

I'm not sure which is worse, the seeming ineptitude going on at BW or the way the nerd rage tends to go shrill enough that you sort of back away and marvel at the whole rancid enchilada.

I just don't understand it. Companion seesawing, the NiM loot situation with letting it sit for weeks then such an inexplicable response, letting an obvious, reproducible dupe bug persist for weeks.... You would think that someone would click to that they are in serious trouble with their userbase, a week before the movie releases. People will read these forums.