I quit Rift for many of the reasons I'm waning on TOR. But to say don't compare it to WoW is silly. If anything the developers should have been comparing their own game to WoW. Then they'd have known that all the features that WoW has now need to be the entry level standard. Not what you eventually build up to. I'm tired of the apologists. WoW set the benchmark to a certain level. Any developer entering the game and not even trying to get to that benchmark deserves all the scorn they get. If the world high jump record is 2.45m set by someone with years of experience you can't come in all proud of your 1m jump and complain that you'll hit 2.45m when you get more experience. You knew when you entered the competition what the record was. If you weren't able to compete at that level then don't compete.

I've got a crazy idea. If BW does add more dynamic space-combat that you don't like....don't use that content. As long as they leave the current 'on rails' system in place that you like why do you care if they also add differing content that other people like?

Haven't played on the Empire side so I can't say if my server is balanced or not. My biggest issue is with the population in general. The world use to be full of people but after the 30 days the population dropped off a cliff. Look at your average population count. Then divide by the number of planets/places they can all be spread out on and you're lucky to have 30 people per planet. Then there are several regions on each planet. Everyone on their own stages of quest lines...good luck getting a 4 man.

Only 25% of WoW players raid. 70% of all guilds consist of 1 person. I can't speak to the motivations of WHY these things are but the base data speaks for itself. I'm in a guild because my wife's in the guild and it's hard as hell to find a pug. I WISH that more of the content was easily solo-able. I want to do the flash-points, I just don't want to need a group to do them at level. If the game allowed me to make a 4-man group for flash-points that were all my companions, GREAT. Maybe it's that MMO's by their nature are expansive and constantly updated with content. Single player RPGs, even big *** ones like Fallout and Skyrim aren't as big as MMO's...economies of scale being what they are. I know the content is what I'm most interested in. The social aspects are a bonus but not necessary to me, and clearly to some not wanted at all.

I specifically said that raid rewards could be schematics as well as all the other raid rewards people have being talking about in other threads, titles. ranks etc. So yeah, there are other carrots that raiders can chase that aren't simply the next piece of gear for their set.

Boggles my mind how badly most MMO's still make player crafted items. The first graphic MMO out of the gate, Ultima Online, had it right from the start. The best gear in the game, or at least comparable to any drop, was player crafted. THEN all gear had durability which couldn't be fully restored; eventually your weapons/armor would break and force players to get new gear. This meant player crafted gear was ALWAYS in demand. How is this recipe for success so hard to follow? The notion that no one will raid unless they can get gear rewards is a lie. The proof? One, players in other MMO's that have complete sets and still raid. Two,you can make some valuable schematics the rewards.people will raid to see the content, earn credits, and all the kudos that come with being able to say they did it. Three, you can make some valuable schematics the rewards. Ultimately, if the reward for raiding is gear then once that gear is obtained your argument is that raiding is worthless which creates a cycle of constantly needing new gear to fill the void...that's the same recipe for crap most MMO's already have.

How about instead of killing the messenger you all get back to the actual issue at hand. Are there population issues on a lot of servers? YES. Is BW doing something to address this? They haven't said. Has BW stated that they recognize there's a problem? No. Now how about a discussion about that? Which is what I think the original post was about.