The website and launcher both say that anyone who logs in between April 27 - May 30 will get an M4-I6 Astromech Droid Mini-Pet. I actually logged in May 4 (because I thought that's when the promo ended) but I still didn't get one, and I've logged in several times since (the latest being today).

http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/dzw2u

Kinetic Bulwark, by itself, isn't supposed to be a substitute for the lost armor. The totality of the changes (including the shield changes, which benefit shadows more than the other tanks) are supposed to make up for it.

Every defensive stat is wasted when you get overhealed, including the passive defense from an alternate relic. I'm not sure why this is such a popular argument. It's not as though the healing relic causes healers to overheal more than the defense one. But how good did Kitru make it seem, really? As near as I can tell, the contention is that the various options are close, but the healing relic comes out slightly ahead in both in theory and practice. A lot of the debate seems to proceed as though Kitru and others said the healing relic isn't just "BiS", but "BiS by a country mile."

It's not speculation. People were making a lot of assumptions, and the clarification was just reminding them that some of those assumptions might not be based on what actually was said.

There's no reason to think that those groups will want anything different though. Obviously different players want different things (just like now), but there's no indication that F2P players will be skewed any more toward one thing over another. F2P players are just like subscribers, in that they want an enjoyable game. They just don't want to commit to a monthly fee. Plus, the whole point of this thread is about F2P players not getting forum access. To the extent there's a significant difference in what the groups want, which I doubt ("As an F2P player, I want dull, buggy content and PvP imbalance!") All the game feedback is going to be skewed toward subscribers, because they are going to be the only ones who can post it. I have no clue whether they will succeed, but I believe they are more likely to fail if they didn't try this. Subscribers were dwindling. This game is expensive. They need people playing it for its long-term health, and the F2P model isn't the "death knell" that it once was. Heck, certain high profile games are launching as F2P. I was only debunking the idea that the addition of a F2P option was some kind of disrespectful slap in the face to subscribers, or worse, some scam to defaud people out of $60 and 7 months of fees only to pull the rug out from under them later. They announced months ago that they were exploring F2P options, so none of this should be a surprise. BW/EA thought the subscriber-only model would work for this game, and it turns out it didn't. It's not a personal slight to anyone.

That's the rule NOW. You need an active account to post, and you have to have a subscription to have an active account. This isn't a new rule. They just don't have plans to change the old one, yet.

You speak as though you think they added F2P just as a means to stick it to subscribers, rather than as a way to ensure the long-term health of the game, which benefits subscribers. They didn't do it from the get go because they thought their subscription model would work, not because they were trying to defraud you. I'm not saying the game was going broke or anything, because I don't know, but clearly they crunched the numbers and determined that a pure subscription model wasn't going to be competitive in the long run. Does it help subscribers to keep the prices where they are, and let the subscriber base shrink to where you aren't enjoying the game? Or to put off developing new content because they can't afford to invest in it? Anyway, no one asked you to be respectful to the BW business folks. They asked you to be respectful of the players. The people playing have no part in anyone's beef with BW, so no one should take it out on them.

This is true, but people say this like there aren't a crapload of melees and gunslinger/snipers in PvP. I see a significant number of marauders/sentinels, guardians/juggernauts, and snipers/gunslingers in nearly every WZ. Even other specs not listed still do some melee damage (i.e., it's not like shadows don't use double strike/CV strike, etc.)

Nothing happened to balance spec shadows in the minor update, as far as I know.

I don't want to detract from the very legitimate gripes in this thread, but the OP probably read too much into what was said. For example, "not a great partner" and "bad team player" aren't the same thing. Saying infiltration shadows don't make great partners means that they aren't going to be as effective holding a node with a healer (i.e., "partner") as a tank spec with guard might be. Infiltration shadows can be great team players if they worked as designed -- being able to hide and pick off targets quickly is great for giving your side a numbers advantage when you need one. Of course, I'm not convinced that the "hit and run" design actually pans out in practice, and certainly not compared to the real hit and run specs like ops/scoundrels. It's not the design that hampers teamplay so much as the inadequate implementation of that design.

I think people are reading too much into what he meant by saying it's not a "teamplay" spec. It's clear from the context that he wasn't trying to say that infiltration doesn't belong in a team environment so much as he was trying to say that the spec doesn't rely on boosting/protecting teammates so much as it relies on picking off weak targets quickly to create a numbers advantage. That said, I'm not convinced that infiltration is that good at what it's supposed to be good at, either. I'm way more afraid of an operative/scoundrel's ability to pick off weak targets and escape than I am of an infiltration shadow's ability to do the same.

Spec: Balance 1. Other classes perceive Balance as the highest sustained dps for shadows if played properly, but significantly lagging behind some other dps specs (commandos, gunslingers, sentinels, especially). Some mechanics are seen as group-unfriendly (AoE attacks needed to maximize damage, damage over time takes a while to ramp up -- both have crowd-control breaking implications). Utility is about average (good out of combat crowd control, not much in-combat utility), and survivability is low. 2. I perceive balance as a great mix of force powers and melee, but possibly a bit over-complicated for the dps payoff. I feel like I make a significant tradeoff in toughness, but lack the tools to benefit from hit-and-run tactics that would seem to befit an inherently vulnerable character. I don't think my self healing is particularly valuable compared to other dps specs (even those without a healing tree).

Search these forums for words like "lies" or "liar" and read the threads that refer to BioWare in that context. Most will involve information that was finalized but didn't live up to people's expectations (even if it's not what BW said). Read enough of them and you might understand why people aren't confident that people would react positively to information that actually changed since its release.

Also, what this guy said.