I could see myself playing TOR for the next decade unless it becomes Pay to Win.

I wouldn't have a problem paying for what I see as out of game items such as characters slots, name changes, faction changes, character recustomizations, etc. I don't think these should be confused with in game Pay 2 Win or Vanity items which I will not pay for.

I have a 50 Knight and a 47 Bounty Hunter and have enjoyed questing on both sides with the companions and voice overs more than I did my 4x80s in WoW. I may be wrong, but I think quest repitition is standard in all MMOs. If you don't like quest repetition, you can level alts via flashpoints, warzones, space battles, and class quests, all with XP boosts. I'm happy with the state of TOR, but I'm not a big PVPer and hope they address issues that may draw or hold onto the PVP audience.

For better or worse, TOR is compared to Cataclysm every month by a customer deciding which product they want to put their $15 into. For me, the story, voice overs and companions make questing more enjoyable and TOR has everything I need in an MMO. I'm not a big PVPer, but I think the consensus is that PVP needs a lot of work. I hope BioWare addresses that issue so a PVPer may choose TOR over Cataclysm.

This makes sense, and now I'm hoping TOR doesn't go F2P.

I haven't had much experience with F2P, but from what I've read it's all in the implementation of it. If they can do it with a subscription option and without it becoming P2W it will be fine.

Superman can definitely beat up Batman

Server load is not an accurate measurement to predict subscription numbers.

What evidence do you have for this? I believe the Server Transfers and Group Finder were huge improvements that should increase subscription retention in a big way.

I believe everything before 1.3 was essentially beta testing and EA pushed the game out 6 months too early. All the subscription losses and bad press can be attributed to this and I'm guessing the post 1.3 numbers (subscription retention) will be better and show a more accurate picture of what we can expect for SWTOR long term.

I do agree with a good portion of this. In WOW there was something magical for me about finally achieving the right to enter the BC raids. I also enjoyed the fact that I could go back to old raids when I was level 80 and see the content, much like a Story Mode. Maybe the current hierarchy is the best of both worlds and this is merely a problem with the game being 6 months old?

Did anyone notice that the IGN video is slightly different than the SWTOR video? The SWTOR video shows that low level Flashpoints are not selectable if you are too high level and some of the Planetary Destinations have a gray font instead of green. I would speculate that the items with gray font are gated due to quest progression and that some other form of gating would apply to HM and Ops?

Did anyone notice that the IGN video is slightly different than the SWTOR video? The SWTOR video shows that low level Flashpoints are unselectable if you are too high level and some of the Planetary Destinations have a gray font instead of green. I would speculate that the items with gray font are gated due to quest progression and that some other form of gating would apply to HM and Ops?

We don't know if there is a gear check or not yet, so let's not jump to conclusions. What we do know, is that BW wants the game to be fun to retain subs. Therefore, we can assume they don't want... 1) undergeared folks getting discouraged by failing to complete content 2) undergeared folks causing properly geared folks from failing to complete content 3) undergeared folks clashing with geared folks socially due to #2 So, I would speculate there is some form of gating in LFG, either gear based or progression based (completing all Normals FPs to get into HMs and completing all HMs before being allowed into OPS) If not, that's what the PTS is for. I like this game and I have faith in BW. Am I the only one on these forums?

Heroics are optional, and althought I originally attempted to do them all, without and LFG tool, they were just slowing me down. So, I bypass them now.

MMOs have come into popular culture. That's all. 15 years ago it was a select group of individuals who could navigate the technology and come away with an enjoyable experience. Now you have subs that are in the millions because the technology has changed and more people can enjoy MMOs. Perhaps there could be "hard core" servers that have no quest indicators or LFG tools or solo content, but somehow I doubt that any reasonable number of people would go back to the old technology.

I believe they are trying to address the largest concerns for the majority of the player base first. 1. Transfers 2. LFG 3. Ranked/World PVP 4. ? I don't know what else is on the list, but dual-spec is lower than those, I'm betting.

There's no way it will be transfer per legacy. That may work for this server pop issue, but it would have very limited use going forward. If BW has any clue, and I'm confident they do, it will be transfer per character which will be usable for transfers for any and all reasons going forward.

You do not speak for me either. I'm happy with what they've accomplished in 6 months and I'm sure they are learning everyday. They realize they made a mistake by opening new servers at launch due to player demand, and they are adjusting. They realize that 1.2 was way to ambitious and are adjusting. They know finding a group is difficult and they are adjusting. I will be happy once LFG is released, and it sounds like you will be happy once they fix Ranked/World PVP.

I think that's a bit over the top. The monthly sub is their incentive for Free Transfers. Let's look at the facts. 1) We know BW wants to keep collecting the monthly sub. 2) We know BW has stated there will be Free Transfers. 3) We know BW has stated there will be Paid Transfers. Now, given these facts, we can make some assumptions. 1) Low pop to low pop Free Transfers has the potential to not fix anything if 100 players move from A to B and 100 players move from B to A. Therefore BW would lose the monthly subs for unhappy players. 2) Low pop to high pop Free Transfers has the potential to cause players to have to wait in queue to play and BW could lose monthly subs for unhappy players. 3) Low pop to med pop Free Transfers has the potential to cause players to play when they want and have others to play with. Yay! BW keeps the montly subs for happy players. My money is on #3. Paid transfers will be for the limited number of players that are willing to pay to be on the highest population server and therefore will prevent those high pop servers from being overloaded.

Well, the "100% BioWare's fault' is subject to debate. They opened new servers in reaction to player demand at launch. Now the players complain about dead servers and want MERGERS NOW!!! The best thing BW can do is to stop letting the player base DEMAND things. I believe they are taking their time with Transfers to make sure they get it right. I'm confident they will have solid logic behind Free transfers to encourage strong, but not overpopulated servers. Paid transfers will be left up to the player to decide. If they absolutely must be on The Fatman, then they will pay for it.

As a software developer, I would go with the assumption that it will be a single character transfer that you perform once for each. That way you can resolve any naming conflicts or other character transfer conflicts one at a time. Besides the current server population problems, I would have a hard time imagining the need for a multicharacter transfer solution going forward.

How can free transfers to a higher pop server NOT fix a problem a player has stuck on a low pop server??? I'm guessing you were one of the folks screaming for more servers to be opened when there were queues at launch. Free transfers will be geared towards unifying the population on fewer servers (probably standard pop servers), but avoiding flooding the highest population ones. If you want to transfer to The Fatman, you'll have to pay for it. (this would be to avoid upsetting those currently on The Fatman with queues)

I agree the character name is still important to me personally. But, I got to know quite a few folks in warzones on my main, and I'm guessing they wouldn't have a clue who I am if I was on an alt.

Well, my server is doing ok, so all I'm waiting for is the LFG tool and I'll be pretty happy. This popped into my head as a cool possibility. Hopefully transfers will address the issues on other servers.