Exactly, and that can come from either someone trying to get around an existing censor if the game didn't allow the name and you bypassed it (I likely could have on the previously mentioned rng name but didn't) or the PEBKAC could be as they mentioned, someone reporting it and being sensitive to a non-SW looking name. If you keep it within the naming conventions that look like actual names and not random item names those fly under the radar even if playing off items/other names that exist. Ie: I also have a Twi'lek that's named ' Iz'nawta Mirage - Mirage being the legacy name so I can turn the silliness off when I want to. It's silly and pretty facepalm worthy as far as the name, but it hasn't gotten messed with because it looks like a name when I don't have my own brand of silly turned on with the legacy name.

While I would love to see them re-release some of the sub reward items, even if they're high-cost CC items. I get leaving them exclusive too. There are some things I wish I hadn't missed out on, but I'm not upset that I missed them and while I'd like the items, I'm not screeching that they must be added. Any story unlocks such as HK-55 should not be kept exclusive since it is story content and adds onto what we had for the shroud storyline. This said as a subscriber that has this 'bonus'. Our bonus was that we were able to play this long before other new players coming in will get to and we have two companions out of the story, not just one. Here's what they could do to make both crowds happy. Grant those of us that have items with multiple versions (the black/yellow crystals which have a vendor upgrade that costs credits) the ability to reclaim any 'upgrades' at no cost, just like any new CM versions and let us unlock the CM versions for free, and grant an extra achievement for the pre-order. If there are no upgraded versions of an item (the hutt statue), give an achievement that's a feat of strength for having them prior to the CM release. Let everyone else purchase these items from the CM. Yea, it removes some of having those items 'exclusive' to a subscriber/preorder, but it also makes it so that as we hit attrition with older players moving on and newer players coming in, it spreads the excitement of being able to see these older designed items actually used in game. As for things like the collector's edition. Let people purchase a digital collector's edition (yes, I mean letting you unlock the shiny vendor too, not just having you unlock the speeder and ring to go up top). I own the collector's edition, it's pixels, I love that I have access to the vendor and I don't want anything removed, but I would love for more people that would use the items from that vendor to have access to it as well. Sure, put a high cost on the digital upgrade to true collector's edition $50 or $100 (there's no statue in a digital upgrade you know) whatever you'd like. Make it a digital upgrade that has to be purchased through cash and not cc on site since it was an extra cash 'add on' to the game. I'd happy with that. You designed the content, the players should be able to enjoy it and have access to be able to enjoy the content. Looks or story doesn't matter too much to me. Edit: So far it is ONE sub reward that has been re-added, and that one is connected to a chapter of story, when it was released many of us expected a re-release and that our access was more of a 'early access' thing.

Unsure about scaling, however, I've seen reports on gear. Ilvl for drops even pre-75 are based on current ilvl (and some have been moddable, will see about higher drops) currently if you're 252s, you'll see 258 gear drops, and it's scaling. Highly interested to see the verdict on actual difficulty as well since they bounced between having the FPS at their original intended levels on PTS (which was too easy) and 70 capped with some mobs over that difficulty which was much harder than live servers prior to 6.0.

They full out block some character names. IE: Suck; it's a name that will show in the character name generator, but, it will not let you actually take the name in-game. This was a name that showed up through RNG for a female character I was trying to make. For obvious reasons it did not allow the character name to go in-game. If it's a plagiarized name, something that's say... a food, random item laying around the room etc and not something that'd be an 'actual name' within the star wars universe, expect there to be complaints about your name. It is still classified as an RPg, not just an MMO and while we don't have RP servers anymore, names supporting the environment are generally something that won't get noticed and commented on or banned. Most of the time, the names that don't fit 'lore' won't get noticed or forcibly renamed on bioware's end while it may be flagged by players. So while your character's name isn't the greatest, they generally would not force a rename over something like that. Usually, they won't make you delete a character for having an inappropriate name and will force you to rename the character by giving it random gen characters and telling you it must be renamed before you can log in again, so it is not something that needs 'fixed' on their end. This is a PEBKAC issue and not their issue.

I'd be happy if they even just made it work till 70 and then it quit or something. I know there's new xp armor too, but making ours just not stack with it and having the new stuff be 50% would be excellent (the new stuff applies buff on entering combat and drops it's buff on exiting, so unsure what the actual bonus for it is as of yet)

I know I'm not seeing the stuff around as much, but the event armor from dark VS light, 'Victorious Pioneer' set that has the 50% exp bonus (if you have the full set) for leveling. The set bonus is from the orange mods ( ilvl 160 armoring) and not from the armor shell. The entire armor shell currently has an orange/yellow border and has the yellow CM marker on it like you all were planning on selling through CM. With the current changes on the PTS the armor no longer works. Is the Victorious Pioneer armor set going to be patched when 6.0 rolls around so that those of us that worked for it and have the armor set will be able to continue using what we worked for during the DvL event when it was first released?

It's been there, right below the surface and it's been coming to a boil for years. I do a lot of people watching because of my job with the military, even when I'm not on duty I watch people and how they act. We as a society walk around more and more buried in our phones and instagram and facebook and everything else - but the issues are around us outside our tech, and inside our tech to a degree we're jaded and distanced from it - and that is causing things to progress a bit slower than they probably should. Yet there's a reason if you search some of the issues on youtube or anywhere else you will find it. People are recording it and watching it and just a bit more disconnected with their tech so it's taking more time for the issues to really explode. However, it's starting to happen even if slowly. What I meant was that it was one generation that went for it. Gaming has become something that crosses the generational gap now. It use to be that female gamers were 'rare' but the companies are starting to sit up and take notice that we're not anymore - we're on the net and buying games right along with the guys and we are becoming a target audience for them now. I still do D&D tabletop off and on - as well as Warhammer 40k and a few others. I've slipped farther away from D&D and more toward the newer warhammer tabletop gaming because even at 'max' level working and crafting a story not only takes time - it entails risk to the player's character - something that with a lot of the older systems faded as you leveled and progressed through the game. I remember playing through MUDs and the like as well - I miss them to a degree but I'm happy I've found things like Warhammer and the various D&D or pathfinder societies that save a character for you to go out and play anywhere by the core rules in an official campaign - though I suspect a lot of the gaming groups I've been a part of are more disjointed as I've moved around more and lost contact with a lot of those I use to play with. It does feel like gamers and the gaming industry are in a sense hunting getting back to some of those roots with sandbox style MMOs rather than the theme park style we're use to with ones like WoW and Everquest and even SWTOR. Now, here's a snapshot into something for everyone on the industry, who the execs are for some companies beyond EA, beyond the US and perhaps what EA and other companies may be watching (perhaps more than we realized). I know Perfect World has been around since about 2004, it's style of gaming is meant to emulate that of the style of the east/asia and the games actually have a lot of the loot boxes. Something that becomes more and more apparent both in STO and NWO (which it bought out from Cryptic Studios) and other games it has. I suspect if I played or dug into some of their other games I'd find the same gambling boxes - some of which have the 'best' mounts you can get in the game, or the high end pets (much like our companions) which can only be gotten through their loot crates. Gambling crates which are 'limited edition' with the need to use a key which comes from their cash shop to open each one. The sad thing is - you can't even avoid looting the gambling crates in NWO and STO - it's the keys in STO and NWO that you need to purchase. The other games they have are a little less in your face about them that I remember. here's some information on the actual company and it's execs; Chinese game developer Perfect World Co. Ltd. Michael Yufeng Chi, the company’s founder and chairman of the board of directors took the company private in 2015, their current CEO: Robert Hong Xiao (Aug 2012–).. lets look at Robert Hong Xiao's education since I can't find his actual date of birth on the sites easily and I wasn't finding anything readily available on Yufeng Chi (though I might be able to with a little more digging beyond an at a glance google search). CEO: Robert Hong Xiao Education; University of Southern California PhD, Engineering, 1995 University of Southern California Master's Degree, Engineering, 1991 Tsinghua UniversityBachelor's Degree, Physics, 1989 If he graduated with a degree in physics in 1989, lets say he earned that first degree at the age of 20. That would set him as born around say..... roughly 1969? Most likely my guess at his age is off and setting him as younger than he actually is. I probably didnt dig enough to find his date of birth but there's some dates for you with one of the leaders to a company that's again, heavy with the cash shop and RNG loot crates. Yes, he's from china - but his company spans both countries. So it is a small snapshot of information for you with a company leader that's heavy in the micro-transactions, random loot crates, and targeting the 'whales'. It's my understanding a large number of 'eastern' games tend to have heavy cash shops - though when they come to us in the 'west' they actually remove some of the heavier cash shop items and make it more open for us using the same F2P models. They generally grant more to us without 'making' us spend quite as much as is built into the 'eastern' version - though the cash shops and grinds remain. I distinctly remember one of those 'free to play' games I tried (and fled quickly) where all the cosmetics were temporary and cash shop - as were the mounts which you almost had to have to go anywhere. However, for all that they tone it down - don't forget that our own corporations in the US are watching and paying attention to how much those companies are making; Such as perfect world (keep in mind, if you go to their site - it's all 'free to play'; Revenue: 3.05 billion CNY (2013) 3,000,000,000 In (current) US dollars; 454,421,521 Million USD. Now, these are mostly F2P games - perfect world and eventually NWO, STO and others You can login and get access to pretty much everything for free. But the nice things with the best stats? Those will cost you - and you'll need to get some of it from rng crates which cost money - or from other players who paid out for them. The links below are older and the explosion with BF2 really drowned out a lot of these on microtransactions. They flashed into the news - but I don't think they stuck in the consumer's mind as firmly as BF2 seems to be. There's a graph with a sort of overview (though I dont know if they're focusing on one particular game with it) which addresses Japanese gacha - though I believe it applies for other regions and countries as well; http://thebridge.jp/en/2016/04/gotcha-time-for-gacha According to that first article, 48% of revenues come from about 0.19% of all players for the mobile games with cash shops and chance loot crates. Some types of japanese 'gacha' monitization; https://www.serkantoto.com/2016/03/14/gacha-monetization-japan/ The last one is one that I've actually seen people do similar to on these forums. Saying they went through seven or eight hundred dollars and multiple crates going after the newer platinum level loot items out of the CM for cosmetics; https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/14/business/smartphone-gamers-blow-small-fortune-on-their-obsession/#.Whu1IEqnFEY These are all problems. It's been a creep more and more toward 'pay to win' and loot boxes for cosmetics and other things over time. Keep in mind, BF2 was not the worst offender - looking into the grand scheme of things and how bad other games have been with the crates and pay to win and everything else. It's the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak. The real bottom line here is this; EA finally hit a community that looked at the grind, looked at the game, knew their other options and how far the other cash shops have gone - and the community hit the breaks. The community across age ranges asked for refunds of over 650k~ copies of the game because they refused to deal with the loot crates, and refused to deal with the grind for them with the cash shop included. Had this been battlefield or anything else, the community may have taken it, rolled over and asked for more. However; I don't think that's the type of community that really follows Star Wars. That, or it's a lot of the same community - it's just finally had enough and made the decision not to take anymore. Whatever it was, the community decided to stick with what it already invested in and spoke with it's wallet regarding the newer game and it's cash shop and RNG gambling boxes. For the cartel packs and the boxes in BF2 - I do think the idea that they do prey on gambling addictions - and the 'thrill of the hunt' for those buying them. While it may not be gambling direct - it certainly has elements for it that should be looked at and regulated - with chances for each piece of loot on the loot table posted publicly. I do strongly suspect that direct buy (as we are most likely going to keep the pay to pretty option in games) will eventually end up being the best practice way to go with cash shops in the future. There are a lot of good points people have come up with here - both that it is the individual's responsibility to decide if they want to purchase the boxes to begin with ('but it's the only way to get xyz cosmetic!) and that the gaming industry as a whole needs to see that the more predatory practices that're becoming more common place are not acceptable, and that they are being watched both by the governments and the consumers. Legislation can be changed based on consumer opinion. Also, as EA is finding with pressure from Disney, even without legislation, consumer opinion can change how a company that holds rights to a franchise distributes the marketing and production for their franchise. It'll be interesting to watch how all of this changes, and if it changes any of the current practices with loot crates and cash shops before any form of legislation can be enacted regarding the crates and games. It's going to end up taking gamers across all generations putting their foot down and saying 'No' by speaking with their wallets to really curb the practices that are becoming more prevalent.

I was picky, I have (and I can't get in game right now to look for it) the athiss agent's set, one of the sets for the BH from BT and a few others. There were probably far more armor sets that were Fugly that I've blocked from my memory. As well as some I haven't. I'm not going to say there weren't bad looking ones, but some of the orange dropped gear sets looked good. Some of those orange sets I had collected are also now Bind to Legacy sets on fleet. I hated a lot of the sorc gear which looked like belly shirts with a cape rolled up to look like a V with high shoulders from the rolled up cape or whatever it was (sometimes with a hood, because hiding your face and exposing your belly and back made so much sense >_<!!) The CM is not the only way to get good looking gear - there's some ugly sets on the CM too to be honest, but there are a lot of good sets as well. I'd much prefer it if they made a much wider variety of armors available through the game. They did take a step in the right direction with making a lot of the very old sets available through BTL armor from (again with the STUPID rng) the boxes you turn in on Odessan. Plus more other armors available through command crates I noticed some modified old ones and some newer sets that're relatively good looking. They need more available to earn through actual game play - not CM rng loot boxes - and not through 'only' raiding or PvP. I agree with you on that 100%.

This post kinda bugged me so I finally decided to respond a bit to it It's not a generational code - I've known plenty of people across the spectrum of ages that will or will not use the boosts. To include the younger generation. Some because it's something they didn't work for, some because they want to get use to the class etc etc. Personally I use them because if it's free and it's a boost like that I'm happy to test something at max level (or would be if I didnt have one of each class maxed anyway). For the rest of your comments - This generation has dealt with 9/11, is still working to right racial equality (which in some areas the hatred was hidden, not addressed and eradicated - it's not a battle that is over). This generation is marching for the rights people have for LGBT etc. We're still fighting for human rights. We're revealing and addressing the rape culture which has been around for longer than we have. We're combating the attitude which the previous generation did not address - that it is a victim's fault, not the predator's fault when it comes to things such as rape. That has nothing to do with the gaming industry. Do not try acting like any generation is better for what it did in regards to rights and things. Most of that work that was started - is not finished. We picked up where you left off. The Gaming industry has always been evolving - and I hate to tell you this, but the people in charge of what that gaming industry has become - are also often those baby boomers. Statistic proof please? I've seen a wide variety of ages in game - most leaning toward the younger ages more than what would have been 'baby boomers'. It's actually rarer I've seen anyone that'd be of the age to be 'baby boomers'. That's people averaging ages 67+, that's my dad's generation. Most of the people I've met while gaming online have not been that old. I'm not saying they don't exist, I had a member in one of my guilds that was in a nursing home that was over 70 - this was back when I played WoW when karazhan was first released (Burning crusade, 2007... so he'd be 80+ now). My generation grew up watching Star Wars with it constantly being remastered and re-released into theaters or onto VHS or DVDs. Truthfully, Star Wars as a movie wasn't expected to do as well as it did. The timing for it releasing onto the big screen just happened to be at the right moment for it to take off well. I'd disagree with this. Current generation have been screaming about the micro trans for a while. We've complained about micro trans and pay to win and all of it and it's been shrugged off with 'but support the game' by a lot of the older gamers I've known. Growing up and much of my young adult life the 'DLCs' and the micro trans weren't a thing. Much of the time I've been gaming It's been I purchase a game, I purchase the expansion - they possibly release extra free DLCs along the way to enhance the content they already released. I am not a baby boomer. I remember playing my dad's games - Doom, D&D darksun games like Shattered Lands and Wake of the Ravager etc. I remember as a kid a lot of the games on the computer were very very low graphic intensity and were generally very pixelated and flat vs now. I also currently play many of the indie games that're from smaller studios that aren't even a blip on the map because they're single player and developed by a room full of people. Some of those games also have those older style graphics. I play those for the content - not the graphics (though I love the high end graphics when I find a small studio that pulled off both - most do not). They're actually starting to recognize that facebook games are often casual games as well - did you realize that there is a large number of those which have similar themes and graphics to those from the 90s etc? Or that match up to strategy games like age of empires etc? As a gamer, I have been able to pickup characters from other players in other games and set to playing them effectively within a relatively short span of time. Prior to one of my friends quitting WoW they did Mythic raiding (I did not do Mythic raiding on my account) - when he was not able to make a raid he'd occasionally remove his security key and ask me to log in to run his tank (warrior). I had tanked on my druid main before, but not a warrior until I picked up running his. I never had an issue or a complaint when picking up on his character/class - Oh, I made mistakes, but I corrected them with ease. A gamer can adapt and pickup a lot of different classes quickly as needed for the game they're playing - even if they're thrown into high end content. A player will struggle to grasp that new class more if they're just thrown into it. It does not make the gamer better than the player - it just means they adapt differently within a game because playing games is something they focus on slightly more. That distinction - much like yours - is an opinion - really, there isn't a difference between the two and they can be used interchangeably. If you really must have a distinction I'd say that one is likely to be less 'casual' than the other when it comes to games if you're trying to come up with a distinction between the two. Economic mindset does not define if someone is a 'gamer' or a 'player' or a damn skunk. Economic mind set can be defined by anything up to and including your country of origin or cultural background. Liking or disliking micro transactions is an economic mind set. It does not define if someone is a gamer. Blizzard - Overwatch etc. There is a growing list of games they're looking at for the loot boxes - not for the micro transactions. This isn't a revolution - but it is the consumers finally being heard. We're not being heard just because we spoke with our wallets (650k+ games getting refunded is certainly speaking with our wallets) but we're being heard because the company who owns the rights to the games is worried about their bottom line. When the mouse speaks, even if it's lip service, it carries weight because of what it could do. This wasn't even the worst money grab with crates that's been done - it is however the straw that broke the camel's back and drew attention to what's being done across the board with loot crates with RNG chances.

I really think the second part of that paragraph is what hits on it all; There are many, many F2P games out there with microtrans that are just as good as if not better than SWTOR in some aspects. Many of them you have 'migrant' gamers who go as far as they can without paying, then go to a new game - be it a leveling grind issue or a daily limit that will see them logging in the next day or something else. More new P2P games will be pushed out by that trend. WoW has enough of a dedicated fan base that it's not at risk - Free to Play / Micro trans games have been around and popular for a long time, more so in eastern/asian games than with the US - but it is becoming much more common now. Snipped this a bit - there's a lot of really good looking outfits in the game now, and there were a lot of nice looking sets back when the game first launched. I was there too. I still have some of the armor and I still get surprised compliments on some of the outfits I set up back then on those older characters. I've had people ask me where some armors came from and I've had to tell them the armor no longer drops from any of the FPS, but there are similar sets they can get elsewhere. Some of them are dyed now where they were not at launch, some are not. RNG boxes are not the only way to get nice looking armor. They're one of many. I'm mildly curious how him being a psych professor is related to him being a WoW GM and raid leader for 5 years and using that to further his studies. I will say I agree that the RNG boxes do act much like gambling as far as the mental effect - that is exactly what they need to look at and curb. I would guess it is somewhat like an old boss I had who stopped drinking cold turkey, but suddenly went into drinking energy drinks full bore. It was like drinking tons of different types of energy drinks was a placebo for his alcoholic habits. He gave up something that was a depressant but worked as his sort of mental high/addiction for something else.

Eehhhhh I don't think it's level 3 in my case. Both computers connected through the same network going through the same pings. My primary new laptop keeps dropping/won't connect to SWTOR - it connects to everything else without issues. My piece of **** laptop that can't run umbra is currently chugging along just fine as far as connecting to the servers. Edit: Oh wait, now it's not anymore.

DC at the end of a FP. Cant get back on after multiple attempts.

They're also usually different sections. Someone that is doing re-skinning etc could take as little as 5-10 minutes (depending on the item and if they're able to pull from an existing skin in the game) and meshing may take only an hour or so. Most meshing doesnt take that long for someone that's practiced with it - and a lot of the armor in this game when they do a CM look for it won't require THAT much remeshing to make it look different when working with a base product. Your engineers who actually fix bugs and do the programming are generally different from the artistic design group. For the OP; A year or two ago - I think closer to two years, they promised to rotate items into the CM for direct sale. At least one new item from the packs a week, nothing from the current pack and the CM pack needed to be out of store for about a month or so for it to go direct. This is something they previously promised us, and rotating the sales have been around on the holidays before with them being quicker around the holidays. This is something that was standard as far as the direct buys before. Sales change weekly - usually every Tuesday, with some of the steeper discounts going away on Friday night/Saturday morning. Prior to the DS they were doing this with the full packs. Nothing really alarming here - especially since the RNG boxes are starting to get looked at much closer due to the gambling aspect.

She had been allowed to at one time, but as chat has gotten significantly more toxic, even the little bit she was allowed pre-merges is gone. While she can't use chat in game we do have TS and Discord that are moderated enough that she can ask her questions. Failing getting an answer there her parents or myself ask for her. It sucks, but she can still function enough to play - though I fully expect her to end up going to another game at some point just because of the direction things are going. It's actually pretty telling that we've got more threads showing up about player actions - bans in harbinger (sorry, Satele Shan) server and other actions the player base wants. I firmly believe that for every thread getting started over it, there are more people that are quietly turning off general chat, or leaving the game because of the toxicity in chat and game right now. I do believe some of those getting turned off by the lack of enforcement aren't the kids - it's the adults that're paying into the game,. I'd love for them to apply this fix. It'd make it pretty clear to anyone that's doing it that they are on their way out the door for their behavior without fully removing them for those initial infractions. Explanation for why it was offensive shouldn't be needed, but it would likely be included in the warning screen.

Moderation even in DDO was actually very proactive once the game went F2P - it failed horribly as a P2P game and actually went offline for several months before it's F2P launch. When it came back online they were much more aggressive about taking on spammers and ToS violations in chat. The game community there is one of the better ones I've run across as far as tolerance and knowing when it is/isn't appropriate to do/say something. Some of the players they keep they have not because of content or it being a pretty game etc, but because of the community which is as good as it is because it is closely monitored and violations of ToS are taken care of quickly which makes it an overall 'calm' community that's easy to get along with. Even with the 'toxicity' from the zergers that want xp per hour instead of taking their time in dungeons. This exactly. General chat is not 4chan.

Here is what I will say to this; Time and Place. It's simple really. General chat is not the time and place to make a racial, sexual, or sexist joke. Make those jokes in the confines of your circle of friends in a guild that is 'ok' with it or in party chat/TS with those that you know can take the joke(s) you want to tell. Keep it down to a limited crowd of those individuals that you know well enough that you are aware that they will not take offense. Keep your commentary down to what would be acceptable to the rating applied to the game, and the conduct they have in the TOS. No one is asking you not to make jokes - they're saying the ambient chat in general should not be inappropriate to the TOS and shouldn't be degrading to any other player in game. My unit has a sort of 'chicken' game some people play during chow. They tell the grossest nastiest tales from working the road as cops or as military that they can (limited to true stories) to see if they can make each other lose their appetites. While I know they find it amusing - I know none of them would play that 'game' online (we've discussed this before when talking about online games together), they recognize that an online game is not the 'time or place' and they avoid doing it in front of anyone within the unit that they think can't handle it. As well the guys limit their speech more and shy away from sexual jokes when there are females present even if they feel they have something they could say to 'win' if they think the female would take offense. That all said, I have a niece who is very young who plays. She's pretty good at the game and will on rare occasions be allowed to open up party chat to talk to a group. Her ability to speak in the game is strongly curtailed as is her interaction with general chat etc. Her gameplay is closely monitored by her parents at all times because they want to ensure that when she plays, she has the best experience possible and is not exposed to the more toxic actions from other players. As you can imagine, floating names and guild names for her in game are also now turned off as there are more inappropriate named characters we've started to see in game since the merge. Ebon Hawk really wasn't that bad for having the worse character names. They're not failing her by letting her play with supervision - I think any parent that is allowing their child to play (regardless of age) should be monitoring the internet and game usage closely. As of the merges, they've taken to sitting near her without taking as many breaks to go do work around the house etc as they did before, so she plays less because the merges have brought out a more toxic side of the community from other servers.

I'd agree with you to a point on the senator. If they're not clearly making it as a name for the senator, ignore it. I've heard names in the media, not picked up on the significance and later accidentally used them later for a character and had it be a political figure's name. Just is a thing. There are however some pretty horrible character and guild names now; 'Lick my Crit' (if you've seen their guild add, you'd get it if you don't already), there's also a lot of other just horrible names out there. Keep in mind - just because 'you' think it's funny and ok to name a character something sexual, doesnt mean anyone else does. Really I want to avoid a lot of the players with the horrible names simply because it disgusts me a bit as a female that plays the game. If the guy (and I'm sure most of them are guys) feels it's appropriate to name his character like that, it's unlikely he'll be respectful if on voice chat etc with me when he hears my voice as a female. Most of the people I've met that name their characters really inappropriately like what the OP and some others mentioned are referring to, also tend to be really creepy in game about dealing with anyone they think is an actual female. Especially if they get on voice chat with us. (Actually, let them keep the terribad names as a warning sign to the rest of us, just make it so when I ignore them their character and emotes don't even render on my screen.)

If you want a Dev answer, direct message Eric. You will need a moderator's attention to the thread which you will not get unless it is reported. You posted on the forums which asks other players - you did not title it asking for Devs nor did you make a direct post to them to make your plea to any of them that would get you answer from the individuals you want to answer them. As these are forums which primarily have players responding, and players are what drive the majority of the posts, there is a player's experience on the issue you are currently encountering. I earned what I purchased from the CM on each server. I purchased quite a bit before the transfers went on sale that were not counted in any transfer. The merge gave the game new life for a lot of people. None of us expected to gain anything from the merge - we expected to lose. Infact, we expected to lose a lot of the decorations we legitimately purchased per server. Yes I have some I copied, however, there are still a great many decorations I have singles of that were per-server that were not copied. I assumed as everyone else that my CM purchased decorations - even the ones I direct purchased from the CM would be 1 + 1 = 1 and not 1 + 1 = 2. I purchased duplicates on many of the servers before the transfers were on sale for 90cc each for a year I also legitimately purchased a lot across the different servers. That said - this is not a thread about the duplicated decorations this thread is about the fact that duplicated SHs are not giving the conquest bonus someone expected, and they're upset because there was no warning that it would be unique strongholds only that grant the bonus. Yet another fubar on SWTOR's part for this patch that they did not communicate this. The duplication is over, it's done with, most of how it was meant to transfer over worked as intended (duplicating the SHs so no one lost a pre-decorated one from another server). Stop fixating on it so much that you aren't giving the current discussion due consideration. Shoehorning in your own agenda does nothing. They gave the players a nice surprise and while not everyone benefited, it was correctly done for those who actually spent credits and CC on other servers as over time the databases regarding how many decorations were purchased each way the data on where they came from would be purged over time. Because there's just not enough space to save that I bought 999 of each deco from the vendor over time and in small batches on top of everything else. They did their best by us, even if you disagree with how it was done. As one of the 'real' decorators I often played on other servers and purchased other SHs just to be able to decorate more. I did the transfer to make sure a few others were opened up and expected to be purchasing a LOT more decos (which I still am doing from CM because I want different styles than my pre-existing decos). It's why I have multiple accounts and multiple guilds. Because I decorate a LOT I don't care about other people's Prestige because as a real decorator, the number means **** if the SH looks like ****. If you would like I would be happy to go to your SH to see if yours falls into the category that needs burned to the ground for being a prestige ranger rather than going for quality of decoration.

Sorry, duplicate message -> Full message below.

Most companies - even Blizzard/Activision with WoW won't maintain the record for more than around 6 months. This means any legitimately obtained decorations that should be duplicated that were CC purchases would not necessarily be recorded - I don't know how much of our CC log actually connects X item to X CC after a long enough period has passed or if the record eventually falls off as new entries are added over time. It would be a legal quagmire to take away legitimately purchased decorations for players who did legitimately spend the CC on each server. I benefited from the merge, however there were also some high cost decorations I either spent credits on or CC on each individual server that I would have been upset had I lost the investment by having them knocked back to one. We actually had a thread dedicated fully just to this topic here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=936710&page=2 I digress though, no need to carry on the discussion about the duplication here when it is conquest %, not decoration prestige that is discussed. I have 30 SHs, I transferred to other servers to get the actual SHs themselves unlocked as I paid CC on my main server for the initial unlock "just in case anything goes wrong and I have to deactivate an SH". I decided to make sure I got all of the SHs I wanted opened up as I had a few that were not open on other servers (Yavin in particular) so I could really experiment with new layouts because early on I unlocked the SHs when I thought they'd likely be unlocked by CC for all servers (which was not the case). I wanted some flexibility with paying CC for them however and I got it. I decorated one of my new Nar Shaddas to about 87% and then began stripping a lot of the really useless filler from my other SHs. I dropped in conquest bonus after stripping much of the filler out. I went on to decorate another SH to 20%, just throwing decorations I never actually used anyway around in hopes of bringing the conquest bonus back up - the 20% in the new SH outstripped how much I'd pulled up in 'useless filler'. My bonus did not go back up. It was at this point that I realized that they had to be talking about unique SHs granting the bonus, not the overall decorations. So it'll take the top decorated of a 'type' of SH and use the bonus from that over doing an overall for the Sh bonuses. I'd say that they should just look at decorations learned and SHs activated and have something back end that then calculates 'can this player have enough decorations down to give the full 150% bonus based upon decorations + unique SHs rather than relying on making us fully decorate any given SH. My %s are as follows; 96% Cor, 70% Train. 92% Tat, 82% Yavin, 2% Yavin, 78% Manaan, 95% DK, 98% NS, 22% NS, 75% NS So that would be total 600% needed for the bonus, if counting each individual SH I exceed that with ease. You needed I believe 6 fully decorated pre merge or 7 decorated with a few varying %s on completion if you wanted to short a few decorations somewhere, so 600% decorations completion. Counting only my highest % decorated for all unique SHs I would be at 610% decorated. I'm happy I was cautioned against deactivating anything until we worked out the kinks in the new system, but I think they really need to update notes and make sure people are aware you need to keep at least 6-7 SHs decorated enough to equal the total 600% decoration completion needed to be able to get the 150% SH bonus.

Actually, you do get the timer if you are kicked now. I've noticed this change and it's been an irritating one for a few months for me now. I've noticed it both with group finder for regular groups and for raids. I suspect this change was stealth done due to people asking to get kicked based on what FP popped, though I do not know if this timer goes down as you go through the dungeon.

I had four I needed to rename. The criteria was simple; Subscriber + Time Played + level > Subscriber + Level > Pref Time Played + Level > Time Played + Level > F2P. If you were level 14 and anyone above 14 had the name, you lost it. Even with higher time played as those are often seen as name place holders. Especially as a level 14. You can hit that in an hour or so if not quicker with the xp event. If you were F2P and the other was a subscriber, you lost it. The person who is paying to play the game takes priority. I lost names on level 70s and had no issues renaming the characters. It cost me nothing. The vast majority of my characters kept their names - out of 50 on my primary account I lost 4. From my second account out of 28 characters I lost 3 names. One of which was a level 1 which I expected to lose the name to even though I had rolled her up for RP purposes I just hadn't gotten around to leveling her, the other one was from another server and I lost the name to myself. When renaming your character remember you can use a name with a first and a last name. So while you may feel it's an inconvenience there are a lot of things you can do to 'recover' the name. I tend to avoid using any names that are specific to a particular book or series if I can and try for more unique names because it avoids the conflicts, and if at all possible I rather not end up as Drizzt5659 or XxLeiaxX.

100% agree. I actually brought this up as I made multiple purchases across all legacies and servers to get some of the decorations I really wanted when server transfers were above 90cc. I think they forget that server transfers were on sale for 90cc for about a year. This was not always the norm. If they 'took advantage' of it it was because they did transfers without knowing this was what would happen. What was announced and broadcast to the entire community was that it would be 1+1 = 1 which annoyed those of us that legitimately paid real money for decorations on other servers. This also legitimately irritated us pre-merge since when I purchased several multi-million credit decorations on both servers it did not register that the 1+1 should =2 in that case, not 1. What I think is really going on with those complaining; "I didnt get to take advantage of it, therefore, no one should have this on their account". I welcome the change and honestly it's given me something I love to do in game already new life. I can decorate to my heart's content with the new SHs and try new themes I didnt dare do when I was capped to 6 for fear of destroying a layout I loved in favor of one I hated just to try it. For the most part, I'm not even using the duplicated decorations - I'm using the duplicated SHs. There were some I didn't get around to doing the decorating on until now because I've just had so much to do before. I've had the decorations - but not the inclination to change anything because as an RPer, many of those SH were set up for a specific character and purpose. I've purchased more items from the CM to flesh out my SHs than I have in a long time rather than just relying on the vendor bought stuff because I've suddenly got more SHs and I don't want them all looking the same. So they're making more sales off of me than they were pre-merge. On their part from a business aspect, I don't think that was a mistake. Now, I do get why you're upset. The number you worked to get higher suddenly is dwarfed by those that invested in multiple servers. Be it because they chose to transfer and run around on a new server or because they played multiple server's GTNs or because they made the decision pre-merge that they wanted more SHs to play with on merge and set their decorations in play prior to the merge. Or, as in some cases because we invested in building our legacies on more than one server. As prestige really is not a good way to measure how good a SH looks - it never has been and the number has always been pretty silly - I think they may want to change the ratings so it's a vote up system so the best of the best will slowly rise to the top.

Most of the people that I know that get those 'certain achievements' (50 players in SH etc) host events. Otherwise the SHs tend to stay empty - even on the RP servers - other than maybe a scattering of a handful that might go into a SH, or people scouting for ideas which will not grant those achievements. I think they failed to telegraph it because their intent was to have it all 1 to 1, but with how they merged it, SHs are connected to the legacy and the decorations. Since they allowed the duplicate SHs, they also ended up duplicating the decorations. This was not as intended and had they telegraphed it I would have used all of the decos I had sitting in storage and done a last minute xfer around to take advantage of it. I think that is more than fair to say have it not include anything over decoration's max count for prestige. The idea of a direct sale of heavily discounted CM items (specific to decorations as DIRECT buy and not just a grab bag o'crap) is one I would love. That and the ability to 'purchase copy' to duplicate decorations we already have learned as more learned to our legacy. That as a permanent thing would be awesome even for those that are just not otherwise available outside of chance cubes because the packs are currently discontinued, though I know it being permanent isn't something they would want due to CM sales. This exactly. Pre is great.... until you realize a lot of those higher prestige SHs look like a three year old decorated it and then puked up the remainder of whatever decorations there were so they could make that number show through for the rankings. A vote up system would do wonders for it since it would let anyone that cares about the SHs and how they look - rather than caring about the number - decorate to make it look pretty and leave out stupid filler. Personally since they uncapped what we can have for SHs with the merge and gave us more SHs I've cut a lot of useless clutter from my SHs so my actual higher prestige does not show anymore, just what is there for that particular SH. Which is another change that I would suggest they do - make it so the prestige that shows is ONLY for that SH, not for every single decoration you have learned. A simple SH can be more impressive than a more expensive one if it is done well. I think this is not a 'the game is dying' issue nor is it an issue that 'omg they lied to us' I think the reason this happened it ****; 'The techs had to merge/duplicate in the SHs for the legacies. In this way it made it so the merge - which they promised we would keep old SHs in - would not work like a transfer which would have deactivated those SHs for those that had all of it unlocked and decorated already so we did not have to pick between which we kept or lost. Yes, sucks that some of us did not get to take advantage of this (I certainly would have loved to be able to and would have learned my stashed decos and done a round of server hops had they telegraphed it). I think they did right to avoid telegraphing it IF the reps that are the ones telling us how it will work even realized how the process would work at the time. Telegraphing it would have meant a lot of people would have gained a lot more for free off the the mergers by intentionally abusing the system, rather than it being a surprise with some of us suddenly having more than we expected.

Harbinger is a separate server after the merge from SL. SL merged with EH and not Harb. This is about where I sit. Most of the 'heavy' decorations I had were between EH and Harb, not EH and any of the servers it merged with. It'd be a mess if they tried to cut out all of the duplicate decorations that are not over the limits without taking away anything that was purchased with CC / Credits. I highly doubt their records for some of the purchased items via Credits from GTN or Vendor go back farther than 6 months (possibly a year). The aggregated data for each character - especially for those that do a lot of purchases would be massive. What they need to do is uncap the decorations limit if they intend on 'fixing' it. I decorate a lot, but I don't decorate to have higher 'prestige' I decorate to make the SH look the best I possibly can without clutter. I 'collected' decorations beyond those I actually use in my SH at the moment just to ensure I have them to donate to allied guilds/guilds that requested any of the ones I did have as well. The merge they did was a god send because the handful of servers I did have other SHs on that DID manage to merge with EH to form Star Forge boosted my number of actual SHs so I can spread out my decorations more, keep my 150% conquest with minimal decorations and still make them look GOOD. I don't care about the 'prestige' as a decorator it's because I'm less concerned about the numbers on the board and more concerned with functionality and making the SH look the best it possibly can. So again, my request is to uncap the decorations to 9999 or something higher, or to cut the decos which are over the current 999 cap without removing any actual decorations from someone's account. Removing the decos under the hard cap would potentially cut decos some of us legitimately bought from CM or GTN on different servers to be able to decorate what we had on each of those servers. Furthermore, uncap 'event' decorations such as the DvL decorations to a higher number -IE, the number of servers we merged with. The DvL decorations cost 1mil per and you could only learn one per legacy. Those who did DvL on multiple servers spent the credits, and therefore should keep the decoration(s) they purchased. Transfers were frequently well above the '90cc' they were before the merge. That was a year long sale that surprised the hell out of me that they kept it. Let me be clear to you on this - I have been around since the game launched and I have no faith they can remove the duplicates to go back to what were separately added to each person's stock without costing people credits and CCs. I have been collecting decorations since they gave us SHs. I highly doubt given how much data they would have to store that they would properly roll anything back to the "correct" number of decorations. It is far better to uncap. If you remember the "Datacron: Dark vs Light" from the event this last year, it was required to get the Legendary Victor title and rewards. I have a friend who has the achievement at 100% for the event. She learned the decoration, she had it placed down in her SH. After one of the updates which messed with the event achievement for DvL, her decoration vanished. She no longer has it learned and no longer has it placed down in her SH. She contacted CS, their response; 'You must have destroyed it'..... ..... .............. You learn decorations to put them down, which means you cannot 'destroy' them once they have been used to decorate in a SH such as she did. She was never correctly granted that decoration. They couldn't get rolling back/correcting that one decoration right, so I certainly have zero faith that they will get the roll backs for the number of decorations that some people had multiplied correctly without pissing some of us off who spent multiple thousands of CCs across multiple servers CM to get our decorations per server.