You have the ability to toggle off general chat all together. It's in the settings. Then you simply add your frinds only and poof you have scrubbed the issues away. OR... Just ignore anyone that is offensive. the deal is you are living on a HUGE server with thousands of players and it's SUMMER so these types of things are going to happen. Report everyone of them if you want. But my personal choice would be just play my game and close the chat box.

Just thought I'd point out that you can control your morale you choose to post into these forums. The forums are less than 20% of the total player population if that high. So a minority of players tend to represent the majority??? That's the take away you must allways keep in the back of your mind when you read the stuff on these boards.

I feel bad for RockJaw, He had a thankless position. As seen by all the negative commentary here. The man was flown for place to place and had to answer countless idiotic questions both in person and on his twitter account. All the while maintaining a level of decency even when people he was talking to refuse to offer the same. I wouldn't / couldn't do his job. I know I would have at some point had an "episode" in which the "jet-lag" would have gotten the better of me and I would have unloaded on some super nerd for asking the same question I just answered 10 minutes ago. I hope he got a good severence package, The economy in Texas is pretty good but nobody is really getting a new job in a week these days. Gonna miss RockJaw... Good Luck to you man!!

Personally I think this game is suffering from the theme park model. There is a problem with Theme Park games, you grind up to max level, you now have four options... Dungeon Raid for Loot, PvP for Rank and Loot, Re-Roll..... Or the the ultimate choice QUIT the game. This is the way WoW, GW and SWTOR are built and they all have the same point where a player just gets bored doing the same old same old. The better way to make a MMO is to include Sand Box elements into the game so max level players have more to do that provides immursion for them beyond the options stated above. They could become Master Artisians that can craft meaningful items, Home Decorators, Starship builders and Customizers, Farmers, Speederbike Builders, or Material gatherers. Simular to the way SWG and Everquest did things. There are numerous other games that offer the Sandbox concept as well. I'm not saying SWTOR should be 100% Sandbox but rather a morphed blend of the two formats Doing this would provide deversity in the game, it would offer many players the option to open a whole new aspect of the game to play. Why this was overlooked by BioWare in the game devolopement is beyond me.

Demarco, I generally disagree with your analysis. 1. I agree that server transfers were announced. It's been a month now since they were mentioned in the Q&A right? It was march when this thread started. What upsets me personally, and I think many other people, is that nothing has been done outside of talking about it. What we would like to see is some initiative on the part of EA/Bioware to actually fix the problem instead of talking about it. Well here's where I do a 180 on you, I might surprise you a bit. I personally don't like the way BioWare drags the issues along however, after 20+ years in corporate America I have become accustom to it. Writing script and testing takes time to complete. It's not like painting a wall. You have to make sure you get it right or you can make a huge error and everyone loses a datacron or something and the people revolt. 2. As I recall, this was discussed with ranked warzones. That fiasco was definitely a problem, but I think it's closely tied to the population problems not addressed above and we all got a free month. I personally am willing to look past this problem and just hope they address it as soon as they can. The Cross Server Ques are going to come eventually but I am of the beleif they will in "Legacy 1.4". The recent decline in population has caused the BioWare folk to set them aside for the moment.. The ranked Warzone system was something I too was looking forward to. But frankly I don't hold BioWare to any timetables as they are notorious for their inability to follow them. (See the SGRA promise to install "soon after release") 3. This is the part where I think you're exercising willful denial. Here is a good source on why people are quitting. This is largely from the people that wanted the game to work. I think that's why they took the time to post, rather than just quit. This is the message from the players that has not been addressed. Having a PR person come out and say "yes we're listening. That idea is on the list" is very different from logging in and seeing something in the game improved. The population problems have clearly been going on since march, as noted in the first thread I linked to. It's clear the population decline started long before the release of Diablo. You can say free trials contributed, and I'm sure they did, but for those who payed for the box and didn't subscribe, it's because they didn't like the game enough to pay the subscription. If the management were to focus on producing a game people liked better, it's likely more people would have subscribed. If they addressed the problems mentioned in this thread instead of saying "soon" for several months, it's likely a lot of people that unsubbed would have kept playing. I read that thread and I have to say there are many points in there I can agree with. My biggest issue with this game is two fold. It isn't Star Wars to me, I just feel like I'm playing a space adventure game. But nothing about this game makes me feel like I am in a Star Wars environment. Second, as I said in the earlier post, the elements in the game they call "End Game Content" are far too limited. I would prefer a Sand Box / Theme Park Morph Style to make this a complete MMO. To be completely honest I may not maintain my subscription for the amount of time I was involved in SWG. I don't see the hooks that I would need to justify that. But I also think this game is better than the doomsday trolls want us to believe.

Did you give any thought to the fce school is letting out across the nation so you are going to get a younger group for a while. Also, if you que as a group, you can overcome this issue easily.

1. Server Transfers- With populations in decline it is simply no fun being on an empty server. Will EA bring about the necessary changes? The general consensus seems to be "YES" but the more important question to ask is "WHEN?" With no feed back imaginations seem to run rampant, and arguments start to break out. This is not good for any one on both sides of the fence. Ok just STOP! Server Transfers have been announced and they are going to happen on the release of "Legancy 1.3" So this arguement is no only stale and over played but, it has been asked and answered. Go watch the video that is posted ALL OVER THE NET. 2. Cross server PvP Ques- Again a decline in community has caused longer than desired PvP Ques and I hear (Because I'm not lvl 50) that the Lvl 50 club may be even worse. In fact I would expect it to be. Cross Server Queing has been discussed several times, It seems the EA develpors don't want to go down that path if they are going to condense the servers first. In therory the server transfer should negate the need to have Cross Server Ques. If it doesn't then I am most certain that they will cross that bridge when needed. 3. Lack of content at 50- Some might say you have too much time on your hands if you have X number lvl 50 toons, others might call it dedication. I call it a challenge that EA needs to address, and very soon. I've seen some comments from a particular EA employee who will go unnamed that this community and its actions are the reason for a 25% decline in re-subscriptions. I'll refute that claim by saying a lack of vision, and a lack of action on EA's part with in a reasonable time frame have caused such a mess. Since when is it ever OK to blame paying customers for declining interest in your product? THIS is where you kill me... You admit you are a sub 50 player yet you want to hop on your soap box about end game content. You are not qualified to speak on that. The fall in subs was a combination of free trials and the release of Diablo III having an effect on the game. The end game content in the game does have a need to be better but people who say ALL the drop off of the 400,000 subs was due to the game itself are nuts. This game and ALL theme park games are victims of themselves. Once you hit max level you have a choice, you can PvP loot grind, Dungeon loot grind, Re-roll or, QUIT. Thats all there is to do. Wether it's WoW, GW, SWTOR, any themepark model works this way. The contrast would be to add a sandbox element to allow players to have things to do to keep them busy. REAL crafting that means something, Home Decorating, Farming, Customizing you ship or speeder. Kind of like what SWG did.or EverQuest. there are other game that did that correctly and held player subs for YEARS. Trouble is those skill require time and the game developers can't risk content in the beegining to be slow so that the intial big bucks don't come in. SWTOR is just another one just like the other one. And it will have the same fate as those others did. It's a sign of the times...MMO's are dieing out. /RANT

ha ha!!!

If the OP had taken 5 minutes to watch the "Legacy 1.3" video being promoted, he would have answered his own question and possibly digested his breakfast better.

This has no bearing on this topic but it is a true story... In 1982 I was in basic training at Lackland AFB. My Squadleader was trying to get us to a medical center get some kind of shots and we got lost. We ran into a female Captain who just started chewing my squadleader out for not being able to read a simple street map. He got scared and kept calling her "Sir". "Yes Sir!"... "No Sir!" ... We are lost Sir!" She went totally ballistic, "Do I look like a man to you airmen??" "Have you forgotten what a female looks like??" And he says..."NO SIR!" ... What a scene. So the military at thet time anyway was definately gender specific in the way you address superiors. I don't know if it has changed recently but back then you certainly didn't call a female "Sir" The funniest thing about this was when we finally got back to our barracks that day, there was a stack of pin-up posters on his bunk with a note saying this is a female.... HA HA HA!

THAT WON'T BE TOO HARSH OF A DETERANT REALLY. i WOULD HOPE THAT IF THEY HAD A WAY TO SEE A REPEAT OFFENDER THEY WOULD MAKE THAT PERSON UNABLE TO QUE FOR A DAY OR SOMETHING FOR CHERRY-PICKING.

The scoring system is going to change with the patch so you will be getting a bunch of different types of medals that you don't get now. That will offset the concern you have OP.

Well at least in the 1.2 patch you will have selectable games to que up. So people the OP and myself can avoid the Huttball Arena as much as possible. I also think post patch some of the wide variances between the factions will be changed and the game will become more balanced so it won't be sucha pain. Right now the Empirial side is so OPed when you have Sorcerers, Agents and, Bounty Hunters all able to to heal instantly and the Republic side not able to keep up by class. It's unfair. BioWare is gonna level that hybrid out of the classes so it is not so prevalent. A good move. After that I think the PvP world is gonna change for a lot of players and there will be some QQing heard in many camps.

Well from what I read, this Legacy Patch is going to make the crafters a viable part of the game. That's a positive... Each line has it's own niche and they are all required to make things work properly to maximize your gear's potential specs. Finally, there is a reason to grind out a crafting skill and to really work it out so you understand what you are doing. That is the one key element from the Legacy Patch I know will make some people very happy. This on going discussion about server populations is troubling, it seems a bit too soon for the game to be suffering from subscriber fatigue but I must admit I have thought about cancelling myself. For the simple reason that I have made 3 level 50 toons and PvP'ed to death. My attempts to group into 4 man or 8 man groups for ops are fruitless and my guild is as dead as Jimmy Hoffa. So the shine is off the apple just a bit, the upcoming patch has my attention for now so I hang in and hope that will change things a bit. But it won't change the inability to form groups for ops. That will take players that want to take time to run them. That is apparently missing from this equation here. I truly miss some of the old days on the other Star Wars game, that community never left me hanging.

This guy has a very valid point. You'll only be able to make money on Orange schematics for about a month or two. I honestly hadn't thought about the fact I could buy a Chest piece and RE it for sale. This is an issue that I bet they nerf. Most likely by making it impossible to RE any item with a "Made by ___" on it's label.

I would be happy with SOUND..... It's so hard to play PVP games with no AUDIO. Most of the cutscenes have limited audio - It's like watching a SILENT film without dialouge cards. The mouths don't move. BASIC audio files are missing or something. That's ridiculous.

My experience has been since the Early Access Period to this past weekend, having created three level 50 toons, has been that you get enough comms to drop or from running missions on every planet to make the purchases of gear on every planet if you play at your level. If you are playing well over level you may experience a lesser amount of random drops but the missions still pay the comms as they would normally, however sometimes you have to choose to get them over a gear item. It's a selectable item. You are off base OP, about your theory that they are suddenly less common. I have collected 24 already on Corellia and I'm level 50 on that planet just finishing the quests.

PvP and Space missions run along with story line only really streches your leveling times out. I'm doing it with my Commando. I'm doing this on purpose as I have 3 level 50 toons leveled the regular method so I'm in no hurry. It's a long slog to get the leveling done when you get about 7k a WZ and only really get good XP on space missions the first time you run them. So they are limited in benefit. You should be willing to just take your time and roll with it if your intentions are to go this method. And ALLWAYS do your daily PvP mission.

SWTOR is a good game. I have been in game since they opened the servers. I have aquired 3 level 50 toons at this point and that's the issue I have with SWTOR. Mini-games are stale. Space games are really bad. Space on rails is just a poor idea for a "Star Wars" title. I have allways thought this way and even after trying to "buy in" it just proved itself true. The issue I have is what to do now. Unlike SWG when I maxed out my leveling I became a master craftman. I built and sold droids and made a good amount of credits doing it. Allways having a backlog of orders to fill as people knew me and sought me out to build the best in class. SWTOR just doesn't offer a lot of options for level 50 players other than PvP. Frankly I cannot play endless nights of Huttball and Voidstar to hold my subscription. I truly wanted to see this game hold my attention like SWG did for 6 years. I am having trouble seeing it hold me for 6 months at this point. The community does not exist. I go to a planet that has 16 players on it. Carrick Station having 30 players on it... That needs to be addressed, There's no need to shard an instance with less than a hundred players in it. Hopefully the new patch will have things in it that will excite me... Legacy looks like it might hold somethings but it basically means I would need to roll out another toon to take advantage of it. So I get to waste another 3 weeks grinding up a legacy toon. THEN WHAT DO I DO? I know I'm not the only person struggling with this, am I?

My experience seems to be it takes exactly as many times to RE an item as I have total amount of materials for. I seem to flip a green to blue when I have just about depleted a resource, and then I have to gather an additional item to create a blue...again I need to deplete a resource and POOF it flips. Usually it takes about a run of 20-30 units to work. I wish there was a benefit to having attained the rank of 100-200-300-400 in a crafting role that would make RE tasks work faster. Otherwise the rank really serves no purpose at all. When you think about it, a skilled craftsman should be able to upgrade a green schem better than a novice...RIGHT? Why wouldn't that be in the game? It was in SWG. Just saying. Perhaps the patch 1.2 will consider this when it releases. It seems like a no brainer to me.

The SGRA Patch...

Just because you can organize a letter writing campaign to flood the Q&A with inquirys, doesn't mean SGRAs are the most game breaking issue on the plate with BioWare's majority subscribers. I think it's proper that BioWare leave that issue on the back burner until they deal with the more realavent issues effecting the game that need to be resolved. If the lack of the SGRA is leaving you feeling decieved in some way, by all means just deactivate your account until the developers have finally installed this ridiculous feature down the road late next year. Mass Effect 3 is in pre-order status right now, you can get your grove on in that game if you must.

I actually ran into this reading FORBES online.... I just thought it was interesting. I would never expect FORBES magazine to breakdown the Star Wars Universe! I hope you enjoy it.

Five leadership mistakes of the Galactic Empire The Galactic Empire devoted years and an enormous amount of money to building the Death Star.... but it only successfully completed one mission before it was destroyed.(Courtesy of Forbes Media) Five leadership mistakes of the Galactic Empire By Alex Knapp My colleague Dorothy Pomerantz noted that last weekend, the re-issued 3-D version of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, pulled down about $23 million in the Box Office over the weekend. This got my mind to pondering the mistakes that people make, ranging from making the Star Wars prequels to reissuing them in 3-D to actually going to relive the misery that was The Phantom Menace all over again. But mistakes are learning opportunities. And in thinking about Star Wars, let's leave the prequels behind and focus on the original trilogy. It occurs to me that the Star Wars films have a lot to teach us about leadership styles. In particular, the Galactic Empire strikes me as a quintessential example of how not to effectively run an organization. Let's take a look at five of the Empire's biggest mistakes and see how you can avoid them in your own organization. Mistake #1: Building an organization around particular people, rather than institutions. Perhaps the biggest mistake of the Galactic Empire made is its singular focus on the preservation of power for the Emperor and a few of his chosen lackeys. There is a constant through line we see starting with A New Hope and running through to the end of the Return of the Jedi of the Emperor consolidating more and more power into his own hands and that of his right-hand man, Darth Vader. In A New Hope, the Galactic Senate is disbanded in favor of regional governors hand-selected by the Emperor. By the time Return of the Jedi rolls around, the Emperor's only advisor is Darth Vader, and his distrust in his organization is so complete that his only plan for succession is a desperate attempt to poach Luke Skywalker from the Rebel Alliance and get him to join his organization. Anytime your future plans depend on getting a rising star from a rival organization to join your team, you know that you have some serious institutional issues. As the events of the movie make clear, the deaths of the Emperor and Darth Vader pretty much eliminated any opportunity for succession. A galaxy-wide organization was defeated simply by taking out two key individuals. Despite his decades of scheming, Palpatine's organization barely lasted a day after he was gone. Key Takeaway: Your organization needs to be structured so that talent is being developed on all levels of the organization, in order to ensure smooth functioning and ensure that it's easy for people to rise in the organization in the event that key individuals leave. Responsibility should be distributed on several fronts, so that chaos doesn't ensue if one person can't be reached. Realistic succession plans are vital to developing an enduring organization. Mistake #2: Depriving people of the chance to have a stake in the organization. By consolidating his power, the Emperor didn't just ensure that his organization wouldn't survive his death. He also deprived a key motivation for both his employees and the public-at-large: a feeling of having a stake in the success of the organization. The Emperor disbanded the Galactic Senate, removing the idea of any democratic stake in the government. He wiped out all references to the Force, so there was no longer any guiding ideology. His sole idea for maintaining control of the Empire was building the Death Star, on the theory that, in the words of Grand Moff Tarkin, "Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station." Similarly, while in the first Star Wars film, there was a scene showing officers in the Imperial Navy discussing strategy, by Return of the Jedi, it was clear that no feedback was being solicited anymore. The Emperor or Vader gave orders and that was it. No further discussion. But as was ably demonstrated in this exchange in the movie Office Space, this is the worst possible way to get the best work out of your employees. Fear, combined with a sense of powerless, only inspires the bare minimum amount of work: Peter Gibbons: You see, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care. Bob Porter: Don't- don't care? Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my [butt] off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's another thing, I have eight different bosses right now. Bob Porter: Eight? Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired. Key Takeaway: In order to get the best work out of people in your organization, you need to solicit their feedback, engage them in the decision-making process, and ensure that they have a stake in the success of the organization. Mistake #3: Having no tolerance for failure. In an early part of the Empire Strikes Back, the Empire attempted to wipe out the Rebel Alliance once and for all in the Battle of Hoth. However, because Admiral Ozzel took the Imperial Fleet out of lightspeed too close to the Hoth system, the Rebel Alliance was able to detect the Imperial approach and quickly begin its defense. Enraged by this error, Darth Vader used the Force to choke Admiral Ozzel to death. Captain Piett, Ozzel's second-in-command, was then promoted to Admiral and given command of the Imperial Fleet. This swift, decisive punishment of failure is a huge error of management. First of all, mistakes are inevitable -- especially in times where quick decisions are needed to be made on incomplete information. Rather than simply kill Admiral Ozzel, Vader should have attempted to direct him to a course of action that corrected his error. Instead, he threw the Imperial Fleet into organizational disarray as countless numbers of officers were suddenly thrust into new roles and responsibilities without the opportunity to learn them. This organizational chaos was undoubtedly key to the Rebels ability to escape in mass numbers, even as they flew perilously close to the Imperial Fleet. Even beyond this one mistake, by adopting a management style of "failure leads to Force choking," Vader developed an organizational culture that was destined to be weak. People would be afraid to offer feedback or suggestions, choosing instead to follow orders to the letter. This ensures that decisions are made at a very high level, and anyone under those levels will lack initiative or the ability to act on their local knowledge. What's more, by punishing failure so harshly, the Empire provides an incentive for people within the organization to actually lead their superiors to failure. After all, the quickest way to promotion in the Empire is for your boss to make a mistake, so it's in your own best interests to ensure that he does. Key Takeaway: It's essential to remember that failure is the engine of success. Mistakes are inevitable, but the key to making them is learning from them. It's also vital to ensure that organizations are flexible, capable of quickly adapting to changing conditions and allowing for initiative and quick action at all levels, even if that leads to some mistakes. Mistake #4: Focusing all of the organization's efforts into a single goal and failing to consider alternatives. When it came to the success of the Galactic Empire, the Emperor had one single idea that he was absolutely obsessed with: building the Death Star. The completion of the Death Star, with its ability to destroy entire planets, was the singleminded obsession of the Emperor. At no point do we ever see any alternatives broached. No scenes between Darth Vader and the Emperor debating the wisdom of building a second Death Star so soon after the first one was destroyed. Nobody suggests to the Emperor that it might be wiser to develop more flexible ways for the Empire to destroy planets, such as combining the firepower of several Star Destroyers at once. The only other goal we ever see the Emperor pursue, apart from the destruction of the Rebels, is to get Luke Skywalker to turn to the Dark Side and succeed Darth Vader and possibly the Emperor himself. As discussed above, having only one succession plan, based entirely around getting a key player from a rival organization to change his mind, showed remarkable lack of foresight. This singleminded obsession with one way to succeed is something that undermined not only the Galactic Empire, but also many other organizations throughout history. Kodak focused on film even after developing digital technology. Borders focused on brick and mortar years after it was clear that a strong Internet presence was key to the book business. Key Takeaway: It's vital to be flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances. You should always consider alternatives to your course of action and develop multiple plans for achieving particular goals in case one or more plans don't pan out. Mistake #5: Failing to learn from mistakes. The Galactic Empire devoted years, an enormous amount of money, and an enormous amount of manpower to building the Death Star. After it was built, the Death Star only successfully completed one mission before it was destroyed by the Rebels. And the Empire's response? Build a bigger, newer Death Star to serve as a target for the Rebel Alliance. In the second case, the Death Star wasn't even completed before the Rebels managed to destroy it again. Despite the failure of Force choking Admiral Ozzel to improve performance by the Imperial Fleet, Vader Force choked Captain Needa after his failure to capture the Millennium Falcon shortly thereafter. Both the Emperor and Vader were obsessed with turning Skywalker to the Dark Side of the Force, even after Skywalker made it clear that he'd rather die then abandon the Rebel Alliance or join the Dark Side. You may see a pattern emerging here. Perhaps the Emperor and Vader were blinded by their success taking control of a millennia-old Republic and turning it into an Empire, but it's clear that they became very overconfident in their own abilities. Despite making the same mistakes over, and over again, they still moved stubbornly, blindly forward without ever changing course. And then kept on moving forward without changing their paths until the Empire was destroyed. Key Takeaway: While it's admirable to not let setbacks hold you back from pursuing your goals, its vital to learn from every failure in order to correct your course of action. Failing to learn from your mistakes and repeating them will inevitably lead to the destruction of your organization. The Bottom Line: Ultimately, the Galactic Empire failed as an enduring organization because of incredibly flawed leadership at the very top. By building an organizational culture based on fear, lack of independence, and an unwillingness to adapt to changing circumstances, the Emperor set the stage for his own inevitable failure.

Have we ever heard that before?? lol