I don't run a guild in SWTOR, staying away from the headaches this time around... but I have been a GuildMaster/CEO/Clan Leader/Officer/Director/whatever you want to call it in more guilds/clans/corporations/organizations/outfits than I care to think of over the past 20+ years I've been playing online games (yes, 20+). This is just my opinion but: 1) When looking at a potential member I honestly don't care about their age. I care about: - how they behave. - Whether they are drama queens or not (not tolerated) - If they behave in a mature manner - If they can hold a conversation without swearing like a drunken sailor - If they can hold a conversation on vent/ts/mumble without resorting to shouting matches - If they know how to play their character - If they can hold their own and not be a burden on the other members Basically anyone who can pass the above litmus test I will generally let into most organizations that I have ever run/officered for. And I think you'll find that's true in most guilds in any game. Anyone who dissalows members because, omg, they might have to go to bed during a super-long op.... well... no offense... you need to take the game a little less seriously... in all honesty if you're running into that mindset you're probably looking at the wrong guild/organization anyway because, at the end of the day, RL > Game To the OP: Keep looking, there are plenty of casual friendly guilds out there that will take you in and you'll get just as much, if not more, fun out of them than you would one of those 'power guilds'. In my experience most of the 'power guilds' in most MMO's are just flat out not worth being part of. The key is: Act mature and people will treat you with respect. Act like a whiney kid and you wont' last long. Period... regardless of your age. At the end of the day choosing a guild is an important process but you need to make sure you choose a guild that's the right fit for you (and they have to choose players that are the right fit for them). Some use age as a criteria....in my experience, however, the best guilds do not care about age. I've been knocking about the internet since the mid 1980's and I've never seen an 'elite' guild that was really all that better than a quality 'casual' guild.

I personally think that BioWare should look at implementing split patches... the 'offiicial' stance is that they want everyone to get the same patch at the same time. But in an online world that really isn't realistic unless you're in a single-shard environment (like EVE for example). Anytime you have geographically located server farms *scheduled* patches should probably occur in times conducive to those timezones rather than trying to patch every server at every farm at the same time. IE: Patch all servers at the same (local) time of day rather than patching them all at once. That said... emergency downtimes will happen and those really should get fixed at the same time on all servers because there are any number of reasons you don't want to wait to fix something. Just like there are plenty of valid reasons why you sometimes don't want to tell the players just why you had to do an emergency patch. No offense... yes you are a customer... no, you are not a board member.

Not enough people play on the test server for this to show up there probably as it's likely load related, thus it leaked into live. Get used to it, it happens.

All I can really say to this is: "Don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you" Seriously... there are plenty of things that are legitimate to complain about but complaining about them doing maintenance at a time when server loads are at their lowest is stupid. And, no, 6am is not primetime. Primetime is from about 6:00pm to about midnight in whatever timezone you are in. As to the quality of the game? In all honesty I've played every major MMO out there either during beta a free trial or actually paying for a subscription. None of them were/are as good as SWTOR is at their releases... not a single one, including WOW. The only one even remotely comparable was Dark Age of Camelot and that one was only better in the PVP department (to this day I still say the RVR system in DAOC is the best implementation of PVP I've had the pleasure of enjoying).

Personally I do bottom tier DPS first then bottom tier healing then 2nd & 3rd tier DPS then whatever 2nd tier healing I'm going to get (I only do 2 skills on 2nd tier healing personally on my hybrid build and then later (40's) re-talent and take some off of there to finish off my DPS tree. But I go: Gunnery bottom Healing Bottom Gunnery 2 Gunnery 3 Healing 2 Gunnery the rest of the way... The only real kicker is at Gunnery tier 3 get the barrier skill trained before bothering with anything else. I've found it's FAR more useful to have than anything else in that tier and you can make do fine with charged bolt until you finish training it and then train Grav Round next... then the rest of the tier. When choosing abilities try to pick them in the order that they'll help you most "now". Also keep in mind your playstyle when making choices... if you only ever group up and have a good tank with you you would probably choose grav round before barrier, as an example.

If you think there are too many maintenance windows you really need to re-think your game style. Honestly we've had amazingly few maintenances considering that: 1) The game launched only a month ago 2) The game has already had a major content update 3) The devs are fixing bugs in every single maintenance Honestly we've had remarkably few maintenance breaks. It's also kind of telling that most of them (90%) have finished far ahead of schedule. I think only 1 that I can recall so far has actually gone over it's time estimate... other than that every one I can think of finished early, some by hours.

I've never had a problem getting a group. That said it's funny how few people realize just how beneficial grouping in this game is: 1) Social points open up some pretty awesome store items at the social store but unless you group (alot) you won't get enough to get to the really cool stuff. (Agreed tho, BioWare needs to add medium and heavy armors to the social store, not just light) 2) Being in a group means you get better loot. Yes, that's right, you get better loot in a group . 3) You get more experience in a group. 4) You can do quests faster (and have a lot more fun) in a group. 5) When in a group everyone gets each other's 'buff' spell (get a group of 4 different base classes and all those 60 minute buffs combine for some pretty impressive bonuses). Honestly anyone who isn't grouping regularly needs to rethink how they're playing. I try to group wherever I go in game unless I know my playtime will be spotty and I'll drive a group nuts.

Honestly I'm not sure what the OP wants. Post is impossible to understand the way it's written. Something about another tier of advanced classes but it didn't make much sense beyond that.

It's called 'new game syndrome' It's not necessarily that less people are playing so much as it's "people are playing less'. When you get a new game, typically, you play the crap out of it... you play longer than you normally would etc. Well when everyone on a server is playing longer the server looks like it has more players than it really does.... then when the 'new' wears down and people start playing more 'normal' play hours the server's 'density' will drop because those people aren't on for 7-10 hours anymore they're only on for 1 or 2, maybe 3.... I wouldn't worry too much about it. Also remember that EA/BioWare have been tweaking the server code and increasing the number of players the servers can handle so that plays into it too. And, yes of course, there are some people that got the game tried it and moved on after trying.

I slummed in EVE since the NGE rolled live... but left EVE for this and haven't regretted it... Hope everyone from Lowca is doing good! Oh... in case you didn't already figure it out.... I was Taram on Lowca.

Guild wars and Guild Wars 2 are two VERY different animals. Or have we forgotten EQ1 and EQ2.... DAOC and Warhammer Online... Lineage -> lineage 2... AC1 -> AC2... the list goes on. No Sequel has EVER lived up to it's expectations. Just because Version 1 is flawless and polished (after years of updates btw) doesn't mean the new version will be right off the bat. No MMO has EVER had a flawless release... no MMO ever will. Too many moving parts.

There are only 2 or 3 true 'sandbox' games out there. None of them are 'mainstream'. the closest thing to a mainstream Sandbox MMO is EVE Online and anyone who's played it will tell you taht the only thing fun about EVE is the PVP. It's an absolutely true sandbox. The PVE is bleh, the crafting is well done and thought out but the bottom line si that PVP is the only real content the game has to offer and if you're not into hard-core PVP then the game gets dull FAST. And by hard-core I mean: Die and lose everything you had on that ship, hard core. I played eve for over 6 years. I enjoyed it while it lasted but eventually it was 'meh... been there, done that... have the t-shirt'. A sandbox isn't any better than a 'themed' MMO. In all honesty I think SW:TOR has far more potential than any other especially, as others ahve said, once you get toward the end-game the game starts becoming more and more of a sandbox. Heck even in your 20's you have options... you don't have to go do bonus content... you don't have to do all the side-missions... the only quests you ever 'have' to do are your class quests (and honestly you don't even HAVE to do those either). The storyline is there to offer you a story... nothing is *forcing* you to follow it (though it's fun to do so.) I know players in TOR (even in Beta) who never did a single story mission and hit 50 just fine. They PVP'd, did flashpoints, did space... etc... they chose not to do the story... their choice. nothing is forcing you to do it either. The story just helps you get to the end-game content in a fun way.... if you don't want to follow the story there are other routes to take if you wish.

Not quite 45 just yet but will be in a few months. Honestly anyone over 35 is probably experiencing this I first started feeling 'old' in online games when I was 35 or 36. I've been doing gaming since Pong Been online gaming since Tradewars originally hit and been writing and/or playing "MMO's" since I helped code some of the first DikuMUD's as well as several BattleTech MU*'s on the internet (one or two of those are still around too... scary). That said I've met 13 year olds in games who are more mature than many of the 25+ that I know. So it all balances out. When I play I seek out characters who are acting semi-mature and can hold a decent conversation (and know what the hell they're doing in a group) I could really care less how old they are in real life as long as they're not blithering idiots who act like raving lunatics or hormone-happy freaks. I'm also fairly used to working with younger folks since I've been working in the IT industry since the early 90's.

Honestly: If you're worrying about whether a character in a game is a girl behind it or not then you have much deeper issues and should seek therapy. Video games aren't pickup parlours and the last thing any girl is going to want is some immature freak hitting on her in a game. As to whether women play? Both my wife and my daughter do

IMO the legacy name idea is OK as long as you aren't forced to use the same legacy surname on all your characters on the server. Frankly that's just silly. I have some characters I'll want to share the name and some that I will want to have their own surname... I should have the option to choose. As it stands right now I can either have the same surname on all characters or just turn it off. This just isn't sufficient. That all said... legacy system patch is coming soon so I'll hold off on any anger until then. However: We told them this was a problem in Beta.

If you're gonna do that may as well take everything out of that tree and pick up psych aid as well. I totally agree on armor screen over concussive force... I'm not a fan of knock backs as it is.... especially against shooters because now you've blasted them all out of your AOE ranges.

Then play a shadow.... seriously.... if you didn't want to be a force wielding 'caster' then you should have either gone jedi knight or gone shadow as your advanced class.

Fun... thanks for the fast response!

Here's a silly question, I know you can get archaeology quests for yellow crystals but is anyone else having trouble getting them? I never seem to get offered the quests for them.

One of the things I grew up being told: If you don't have something constructive to say your mouth is best off closed. Same goes for fingers. For one most of the 'bugs' you list aren't bugs at all. A couple of them are 'glitches' that can be worked around just fine. I like how you edited out your comment about the memory leak on Taris (which has been fixed for nearly a week now). Anyone who doesn't think they're fixing bugs isn't reading the patch notes... you know... the ones they link to on the launcher. They are actually doing a great job of fixing bugs in a very timely manner. I will chime in one complaint: PLEASE, Bioware, work on the server disconnect issues. Having a high packet latency for a few microseconds should not be causing people to get dumped from servers. When I can be sitting on Teamspeak talking to people WHILE getting dumped from the game there's definitely an issue with the game servers ability to handle packet loss or latency. I've petitioned this a couple times and am more than happy to work with a dev on this. I'm a fully skilled network engineer myself and am happy to work with you to provide network captures to figure out what is causing the random 'lag out/disconnects' for folks. I know I'm not alone because there's a whole thread about it.

Speaking from my EQ1 days... the learning/teaching tool is simple: Let idiots die When they ***** about it, explain why they died and what they should be doing to prevent it. I never heal people who are playing stupid. I'd rather let them die, even let the party wipe, in order to have them learn how to play properly rather than stressing myself over trying to keep a pack of idiots alive when they're breaking CC, pulling extra aggro we don't need to, etc.