This is by design, when the game first launched, you needed to do most, if not all the side quests, including every planet's 'bonus series', which can usually be picked up by the spaceport. It was changed to where a player only has to hit up the storyline quests. The side quests are only optional now and for those that enjoy the story or could be lacking in xp. Quite a few of those older side quests were removed from the game as well.

Good analogy. To the person that made this thread, go watch the movie Animal House when they're going through their fraternity initiations and one of the characters is asked to 'assume the position', then is promptly whacked with a wooden paddle, his response is, 'thank your sir, may I have another!'. You can pretty much draw your own conclusions as to what's going on, but it's very similar to here and what you're asking others to do, or not to do. People have the right to their opinions or disdain regarding this game with what has occurred over the years, no different than what you've done here, but we will continue to critique or criticize some of the questionable decisions that has led us to where we currently are. As mentioned above, it was your decision to target people that criticize this game, had you created a complimentary thread thanking the devs only, you still would have had some negative feedback, but not this much. You, like EAWare before Broadsword took over, made a questionable decision.

I'll have to give it a go again then. Last time I played, was just about a year ago and even in the starter zones the lag was bad, and it's nowhere near the population of the starter zones here. I don't recall what the second zone was, but that was worse, I didn't get anywhere near end game, but I read that wasn't great either. lol There wasn't ghosting or anything drastic, just the usual abilities not firing off in time, notably on the Warden class while using the Gambits. I read they somewhat revamped that class, so it'll be interesting to see what they've done to it.

I played Rift at launch, loved it, only reason I quit was because right around the summer of 2011, SOE announced they were shutting down SWG, so I un-subbed from Rift, and re-subbed back to SWG and went down with the ship. lol Tried Rift again a couple of years after launch, right around the time the skill trees got hit hard, then roughly two years ago, went back, and that game is dead, like really dead. lol How they haven't pulled the plug yet, I don't know. LOTRO, if they fix their lag, they'll get me back, enjoyed the story, all the classes, the combat is super dated, but it's easy to get used to. They just released another class and expansion. I hope SWTOR does persist, it's better having it around than not.

I can agree with that. lol In comparison to other games that have launched, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't terrible, so I suppose my pile of doo reference could be a bit of hyperbole. lol That storyline bug was the killer on the Trooper, it stalled everything and trying to find groups at the time, given that there wasn't a group finder, and people were more interested in the story, your character was pretty much stuck, so you roll another class hoping for it not to bug. For those new out there reading this, there wasn't a ton of xp options, so you started over. There was another one with the Sith Sorc before you left DK, if it bugged out, same thing, you couldn't progress your storyline, start another alt.

Perhaps you didn't encounter the numerous storyline bugs as I and many others did, which stalled your story progress, having to send tickets in, or trying to contact them via Twitter when we didn't get a response. Waiting sometimes up to a week to get the character's story correct before you could play again, this was notable on the Trooper storyline. What did we do, we created another alt and hoped for it not to bug out. Or trying to collect datacrons on body type four, and you would get stuck or couldn't reach certain ones. To call this game's launch smooth is the hyperbole, you're not remembering correctly or it didn't affect you. When a game's backbone is the storyline and the story's are bugging out, that's pretty significant.

The potential for this game is still there, the personnel no longer is. The main reason this game went F2P is simply due to there not being enough content at end game. Nobody would intentionally sabotage their careers, that's borderline asinine, hyperbole or not. There are many reasons this game is where it is to this day, and it's primarily due to a poor launch. * Level cap was 50, getting to end game didn't take long * Roughly a handful of flashpoints on both sides * One Operation, Eternity Vault * GSF didn't exist, as poorly done as that is, it's still yet another Star Wars MMO released without space, great idea * No group finder, people had to meet on the fleet. It was 2011, game should not have been released without a group finder. With how the transition from closing one SW MMO down to immediately make way for this beta MMO was a bad idea. They should have waited another year before releasing this game, I'm sure the investors were tired of waiting though. This was supposed to be, yet another WoW killer, never going to happen, WoW will have to kill themselves for that to happen. Point is, SWTOR was an unfinished, buggy pile of doo that had a very poor launch. This game does not have a good reputation among most gamers, it's very similar to SWG in that regard. You remove the Star Wars tag from this game and it would have been shut down quicker than Wildstar. On a positive note, this game is a far cry from what it was a decade ago. If a new player comes into this game now, there is a ton of content.

We need more companions like we need more character slots. lol I get it, but you have to look at things realistically given what's happened of late. If additional companions were to come our way, it would probably be from the CM, or something that has already been developed prior to the team being treated like a football and being lateraled.

Well aware of what it means, but using those little emoji's does help. As you can see, I'm not the only one that bit on it. lol

You're about my age, don't miss the 80's lingo at all... When I revisit that era online somewhere, between the big hair, terrible lingo, glam rock, but good movies, I'm glad the 90's finally came along. lol Try to contexualize things when reading, I think Nee-Elder pretty much summed it up though, it's about suppression and some trying to control other's thoughts, in addition to every new generation having their own vernacular. I've been playing MMO's for around fifteen years, I've seen a lot of different words during that time, including some prefacing what they're about to type by using 'I mean', which is redundant, 'lul', 'FFS', 'troll', another word for incite, the list goes on and on. If you put words into context, the overall message will usually come through, or peruse a site that's called Urban Dictionary, still functioning all these years later.

Very enlightening.

We will be moving the Darth Malgus and the Tulak Hord servers over on August 30th at 7am CT. That fits into a normal work day in America.

I've stated my opinion on this subject too many times already. If some want to view this transition as a positve, that's certainly their prerogative, I tend to view things more realistically though, not from the cup is half full or half empty viewpoint. Any news that comes from anyone on staff, including Keith, Eric, Jackie, you name it, should be taken it with a grain of salt, it's all PR. One thing I learned very early on growing up, actions speak, not words, release content. As it stand now, I'm subscribed and supporting this game, if it continues, great, if not, I move on. In the end, it's only entertainment.

Good point, I had completely forgotten about that, learning new abilities used to cost credits, now they're free, in addition to having to visit the trainer. Something they could re-introduce instead of forcing new players to eat the QT costs on starter planets. Keep abilities and QT cost to a minimum or free on start planets.

I can only hypothesize, but I'm sure their reasoning behind pruning the abilities and forcing certain tree choices was to make the game harder, whether that's for end game and/or leveling. When this game first launched, there was a bit of difficulty while leveling, especially when each companion only had the one option of healer, damage or tank, not where it currently sits, where you can choose a role, and you didn't have the option to buy an instant level 50 comp token. The ability bloat in this game only became worse over the years, so I can see things from that perspective, but the skill tree selections are not that great, notably for classes that lost their DCD's. Astute MMO companies will make things more of a grind to slow you down and try to get you to stay subbed up, this game did the opposite and made things easier and easier, which I'll list below in regards to QoL changes. There's an equilibrium a company must find for its customers, something EAWare could never do, and at this current stage, it would appear they're still trying to figure that out. Some of the changes that have been made since launch, there are more, I just don't remember them all: * Vehicles weren't an option until level 25, including subscribers * Sprint level 15, yes, you had to run sluggishly around until that level, even subscribers * Anytime you loaded into a planet, you were forced to run through the orbital station prior to landing on the planet, couldn't mount up, run only * No Strongholds and daily heroics menu to short cut quick travel and/or fix their bugs when you got stuck * Speeders on planets, (the mechanized travel spiel droid) had to be opened up by visiting each area, you couldn't click the speeder near the spaceport and travel anywhere. * QT terminals, you had to click on the ones you wanted to open, couldn't travel anywhere you wanted to, you either had to run there or use your own mount * The inner ring on the fleet where the ship phase doors are located, classes had to enter their specific doors, Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight etc. If you were a Trooper, you couldn't enter the Smuggler phase door for instance Those are good QoL features, but ultimately it expedited things and made it easier, now there's a tax for using QT, them wanting to slow you down, you either pay up, or you travel. There have been so many questionable decisions this company has made over the years, it's really uncanny, it's almost as if they're trying to sabotage their own game, but no one in their right mind would do that knowing the end result could be termination. What we're seeing is them slowly trying to undo their mistakes, but applying a band-aid to a wound that requires stitches will not fix the problem. Thus, here we are. Skill trees need to be looked at again, but if their goal was to make things more difficult, mission accomplished, and it's unlikely it's reverting.

^ That post pretty much sums it up. The people here defending the devs actions are nothing short of comical. Without the customers, these people wouldn't have jobs, unfortunately that's already occurred to some degree though, that's true in any industry around the world. That doesn't mean we should dictate everything that is released, that would be asinine, but you might want to listen to customer feedback, especially when you're asking for it. See A.B. and how that worked out for them, the billions that were lost in addition to the numerous jobs, all because they didn't understand their customer base. Instead of tweaking existing systems, do what other successful MMO's do, such as GW2, WoW, ESO, FF14, release quality content, those companies have all been around as long as this one, with the exception of WoW and will outlast this game by years, all because of the knuckleheaded decisions that continue to be spoon fed to the player base here. Stop making poor to questionable decisions and it's possible people might come back, although highly unlikely at this point. This game has a similar stigma attached to it that SWG still has, poor management.

Nailed it. lol

That ship sailed a long time ago. From the moment they allowed the player to toggle a companion's set role, for some of you out there, a companion only had one role, healer, tank or dps, you couldn't right click the portrait and change it. Then in their infinite wisdom thought it was a good idea put those companions on steroids, only having to nerf them into the ground, then buff them again. The comps were so hopped up, the player didn't have to do much, other than engage in combat. The role change was good, but juicing the comps up that much displays an overall lack of understanding on how things work in the MMO world and it hasn't changed since. Two steps forward, one step back is their slogan.

Escrow

Star Forge is the busiest American server. Keep in mind, when you posted this it was around 9am on the West Coast and 12pm on the East Coast, and it is a Monday, work or school day for a lot people.

I've mentioned this in the past, but I've seen it happen a few times, whether it was RIFT, which probably doesn't have more than two hundred players left, or what I watched happed to TERA, which is now officially closed. Often when a company gets passed off to another, it's usually not a good sign. A company doesn't cut half their staff, then try to spin it as if the former wasn't doing their job, of course that's what they're going to tell people, I would expect nothing less. The fact this transition was leaked elsewhere before it was announced here, is a huge red flag. I hope I'm wrong, I have a lot of years invested in this game, but similar to how SWG shutdown, I'll just move on. I still actively play GW2, WoW, ESO to name a few, but I'd rather not see this game get shutdown or linger in maintenance mode for years. RIFT.... the launch of that game was something else, we were there. The freedom of their 'soul' trees I think they were called, made for some of the more interesting builds on the market, notably their Chloromancer, which was extremely overpowered, eventually getting hit hard with the nerf bat. lol Even one of their healers, I think it was the Cleric, had a taunt, different concept. Their rifts were also a blast, something GW2 is 'borrowing' in their upcoming expansion. Ultimately what did RIFT in was yes, it was a WoW clone, but them completely revamping their skill trees did not sit well with the community. And until it happens, no one is taking WoW down, they're too good, cartoon avatars or not, their end game is where it's at. We'll see what happens here, but people need to have realistic expectations.

Get one of your companions to around level 25, and if that's not doable given that you're a new player, right click the companion's portrait and set it to healer if you're having a tough time. Know your interrupts, put the ability in a reachable area on your keyboard, and if possible, position your back to a wall when in combat, this game loves its knockbacks and interrupts. Putting the companion on heals can be very helpful, it'll slow things down v a dps comp, but you'll stay upright longer. Level sync was implemented a few years after launch and is unlikely to ever revert, some like it, some hate it, but at this juncture in the game's lifespan it won't be going back, you're going to have to figure out the basic mechanics of this game, once you do, you'll be fine. Use the following link to allocate skill points. https://vulkk.com/2022/02/23/swtor-7-0-class-guides-list/

Looks like you're new here, as mentioned above, Vulkk is the site you want to peruse. Last I checked there aren't healer builds, but healer in any MMO is fairly basic. Cunning was the old stat for Smuggler / Imperial Agent Aim - Trooper / Bounter Hunter Strength - Jedi Knight / Sith Warrior Willpower - Jedi Consular / Sith Inquisitor Those stats were changed to a universal stat now called Mastery a few years after launch, I can only assume to stop people from purchasing the wrong gear and staff having to fix their mistakes. lol Anyway, if you see anything, anywhere, here or on other sites using those old stats, pay no attention to it, use Vulkk. Dulfy is now outdated as well, and that was one of the main sites for years. Vulkk only.

After reading your follow-up where you elaborated on it a more, it's not a bad idea. I can only speak for myself, but I usually only read the header and the body of the first post, not the follow-up replies and undoubtedly, so will EASword, perhaps edit the first post to give the additional insight you provided later on. Given that we have a Legacy ignore function now, I can see how this idea can be misconstrued. Let's go with a hypothetical here, you create a new character, import your friends list on that new alt, I get a message from you, a name I've never hear of, and I'm to assume this is someone I know. Obviously you would have to introduce yourself as so and so for this to be acceptable and even then, I would be skeptical. I see where you're coming from on this, I just don't see it happening due to too many variables that could go wrong. Of course I could be wrong though, when you add a friend in WoW, you first have to get the permission from the recipient, once that occurs, that account is on your friends list, at least on that server from what I can remember, just seems a bit off.

This is similiar to how other MMO's work it as well, about the only way I'd be okay with it. Sometimes when I log in, I don't want to be bothered, I just was to unwind from a long day at work or whatever has gone on and just chill and run dailies, so having alts that I don't want known are mandatory on my end. There are days when I log in, I want to hit up PvP, run raids, you name it, but sometimes, just to chill out is perfectly okay too, but if I start getting messages on alts I'd rather not be bothered on, I will simply log off or use the block function. I understand the optional aspect, but the parameters Steve has outlined must be met and should be mandatory if this were to ever come to fruition.