After Earth & Beyond I wouldn't have taken the bet they would pour out their purses on SWTOR but they did. It has fairly decent rep out on the net, better than LotRO's common rep anyway (though LotRO isn't doing that badly). It seems within the realm of possibility they would go for another effort I just don't buy they would throw away what they already put into this game. More likely what is called SWTOR 2 should extend the current game. I mean look what they did with Balmorra from the Emp side and from the Pub side. Largely the same environment but totally different story. That same design recycling could progress the story while minimizing new development. I don't think we know the backend quite well enough to speculate whether the current art assets could easily transition into a new engine, but it might also be that there is a new generation of Hero that looks like Cryengine that would make art portable.

I think you should go into signals intelligence because you notice cogent patterns that aren't obvious. Bioware/EA are invested in the philosophy that guilds are better for the game in terms of retention, so development choices are chosen to make it easier if you guild. I'd venture to infer that the preferences of those who don't guild, compared to those who do, are valued similarly as greed is to need. Where an issue is of no consequence to a design question the preferences of non-guilding subs are consulted over F2P players, but where guilders do have a preference their desires find domain.

Spend time in the wilds and you will gain two skills: navigation by direction and navigation by landmark. While gaining these if you use a decent map you may also gain a third: navigation by coordinate.

Well, that is encouraging news anyway. I hope it pans out like that when I'm ready to roll.

Well, I guess I'm nobody then. Thanks bunches I always imagined I was somebody. I do prefer to pay a sub when the consequence is a better game among better behaved players. I believe in supporting my developers if they are putting out good product I can enjoy. I do wish they would attend to the continuation of class stories, but I'm just big on interactive fiction and tales well told.

As long as he's subscribed? No problem. Unsubbed and unplayed for a year? Forfeit.

Of course not. Where did that come from? Your hypothetical situation described two posts above this was absurd. I'm talking about someone who stopped sub and hasn't played for half a year. If they drop sub and haven't played then their character names should go forfeit. Bioware could give extended leave of absence for corner cases if the player has the foresight to set it up. For the troops a .mil email address should qualify. Or are we somehow invested in discouraging new players thinking of subbing from making a character by giving them a naming nightmare because all the guys decided it would be clever to create all 350 characters across all servers just to lock up names?

I don't need help. I have all the characters I need ftm. It might help others, however, and there isn't a good reason to lock away names that aren't used.

Thread title was also about weapons. There was disappointment that the weapons weren't among the new items offered. I suggested maybe the weapons will be available later when they are ramping up hype for 3.0 is all.

A few weeks before 3.0 rolls out. Sorry, phone rang while trying to finish that post. I apologize for not being clear.

...btw I was a founder and left the game for several months and came back to find all but I think one of my characters on new servers requiring a renaming, and it wasn't a big deal for me. I haven't had much of a problem coming up with new names. But I had to try enough times on a few of my alts to think that a new player just starting out could become quite frustrated. The Terms of Service you agreed to in order to install the game stipulates that the names belong to the company anyway. They cannot be stolen.

Really pushing the corner cases for your mission, eh Bobby?

How do you imagine it is stealing a name if the player abandoned his account? The new player isn't 'stealing' a name, he's making a name up. He has no idea someone once had a character by that name. I don't know many soldiers who don't pull up their toons at the USO gaming hot spots when deployed, btw. I don't know why you are pushing your issues, but your argument so far is bogus.

There are a few weeks yet.

I don't believe it is the same, possibly self-centered selfish Robert, who would call himself 'bard'. Rather it may be someone simply attempting to find a reasonably pronounceable name that will not be terribly difficult to use and isn't surrounded by nonsense numerals. If everyone on opening created as many alts as they could in order to reserve character names, as is not uncommon, yet left the game without a backward glance, why should all those names be locked away forever?

And yet many of those dependent on groups worry about why some prefer soloing in an MMO, using derogatory words like 'fool' and 'whine'. The simplest and most elegant way to avoid mob castigation is by playing independent of them. Yes, we miss some content and our voices are excluded by the developer who caters to guilds. Such is the price we have to be willing to pay for preferring independence wherever possible.

I haven't seen that evidence. Do you have a cite handy for reference?

Fair play is now 'entitlement'? Hypocrisy is expressing dismay at the "sense of entitlement" in others while asserting that they're 'entitled' to need a blue for an alt that nobody can see... which item will, btw, soon appear at an inflated price on the GTN... but their entitlement is a natural right, and somehow not really 'entitlement'.

Apparently 'need' isn't need, but merely desire instead.

I suspect the OP isn't from the US, that his or her culture is rather different from ours, and have assumed the sentiment was sincere. Many cultures are exceedingly ethnocentric: Ours foremost among them.

It isn't a stereotype, but no: not every elitist gives bad advice. Some elitists give sound advice but ineptly package it. Basically if you are identified as an elitist then either they are mistaken or you are packaging your nature poorly. The elite are painstakingly polite: they are genteel, gentlemen and gentlewomen. Those who imagine they are elite who fail to address their appearances adequately are posers. You do realize, don't you, that anyone 'could be considered' elitist by someone, even if that purported elitist never said a word?

Yet racking the brain for one candidate name after another after another after another gets very old for the new player, yet there are seventy billion names taken that remain completely unused. What is the definition of self-centered selfishness again? Is that what really led to the collapse of cooperative civilization?

If it is for an alt, then it isn't need. You have your decked-out char already but the party may be in their undergeared best char and have real need.

Yours is a nice sentiment but you cannot control how others will take it. It is rather like theory-crafting and min-maxing: the best of intentions like the best laid plans are prone to grow askew. All it takes is a little dose of human unpredictability and intentions, like algorithms, are bolloxed beyond recognition.

Oh, they tend to give advice alright. The quality of that advice and the manner of its delivery is suboptimal.