There was a time when I might have bought this line of reasoning. However, if Sith Pureblood Jedi are okay then why the hell can't I play a protocol droid imperial agent. Hell, I would rather they put Jawas, Wookiees and Droids in the game and restricted them to agents, bounty hunters, troopers, and smugglers than to see any of the races currently in the game being allowed to be Jedi Knights or Sith Sorcerers. Meh. The "it goes against canon" is a BS excuse now.

qft...

I ordered one CE pre -aunch from Amazon or somewhere, don't recall. I launch day, I went into my local Game Stop and bought 2 of the 3 collectors editions in there, thinking that this game would sellout of collector's editions and that there would be 3 million plus copies sold and the collector's editions would be worth $300 plus on eBay. Oops. I ended up returning both of them on the 30th day to Game Stop. They didn't seem to thrilled that they were getting them back. They are probably still sitting there.

WoW was at 2 million that quickly. Make love, not warcraft was almost 2 years after launch. WoW already had 7 million subs by then. The celebrity ads were 4 years after launch and WoW already had well over 10 million subs. In short, you're clueless. Southpark and the celebrity ads came after the game was already a huge success.

Didn't even read the OP, but the answer is "yes". If you are not a huge gaming conglomerate hoping against hope for the next WoW, expecting to make everyone filthy rich. It used to be that "success" was thought to be a few hundred thousand active subs. There is no reason why that couldn't still be true. I would call EvE online quite a success. Of course, if I were human excrement and I only cared about other people or things in the terms of how much money I could take them for, I guess I wouldn't call it success.

I am not sure why this is being argued about. This kind of thing will be purely a business decision. Just like the move to F2P to begin with. Bioware will calculate how long the average player takes to level an alt to level 50. How much money they would make in sub fees in that time (if the player has a sub) plus how much money the average player would spend in the cash shop on that alt (exp boost for example) and they will set the price to be near to that amount. My guess is that it would be around $30. Maybe $40. Maybe higher. There is no "Bioware would never do that" or "that would ruin their game" or "x number of people will quit". It's all about the money. If there is a demand for a cash shop item, perk, etc. They will put it in the cash shop and price at whatever price is close to the money they would have gotten from the player over time otherwise.

You don't understand what I mean. If someone is paying a sub while they are leveling another alt from level 1 or 10 or whatever, they are not only paying the monthly sub they may also buy fluff from the cash shop that they wouldn't have otherwise, exp boost is one example. Not to mention that each character you make a F2Per or subber level completely instead of paying to instantly make level 50 is that much longer on the longetivity of that player as a whole. In most cases. It's a balancing act. EA will set the price a whatever point the money made from the instant level 50 fee is greater than the potential revenue lost. I say that will be higher than $15, more like $30. We shall see, if it is ever even a cash shop option.

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Let me preface by saying that I was a beta tester, advance purchased the collector's and have been (so far) paying a sub straight through since Jan. 0) PvP! This game should have figured out a way to make ALL PvP world PvP and incorporate the class stories, questing, and heroics into the world PvP (save the pointless arena and battleground pvp for the PvE servers). 1) Was uber disappointed that this was going to be a WoW clone all along with KOTOR style voice overs (but that one goes back to long before release). Space PvP (instead of the absolutely ridiculous rails shooter we got). Find myself wishiing that SWTOR would have copied Warhammer instead of WoW if it had to copy a game (at least in terms of how classes/races, questing/leveling, and PvP were implemented). 2) Too themepark-y even for a themepark MMO. Was expecting player choices to be much more open ended. Dialogue options should change much more depending on player choices (in and out of dialogue). Was expecting planets to be completely open to exploration with hidden item/squests and many more lore objects, implemented much better than they were. Something more like the warhammer online tome of knowledge. 3) Pointless missions and crafting. Could have been so much better. Was also expecting crafted items to be > all else. 4) Leveling rate way too fast. I should just barely be able to maintain the proper level for the planet I am on IF I do every single quest and every flashpoint and heroic once. 5) Playable races. Huge disappointment. Should have left out Mirialan, Miraluka, Chiss, and Rattataki and included, for example, droid, rodhian, bothan, and trandoshan instead. 6) Just not enough fluff. Should be more body types, faces, hairstyles, armor/clothing dyes, much more variation in the armor , speeders, that is available as well. Many more companions to choose from. more variation in player ships, guild starships, player and guild housing/buildings. 7) Money sinks. Not enough of them. Bottom line. Bioware should have made KOTOR 3 with maybe some sort of innovative 2-16 person coop (or 4-32 person head to head competive mode) and not done an MMO (which they obviously had no clue about) OR they should have made an MMO without KOTOR style voice acting and used that extra $100 million and the corresponding extra development resources to implement every GOOD game feature from other MMORPGs and to release with loads more content.

I don't see where the OP asks about any of that. I was adding additional info to the OP list. I figured people might want to know when the F2P was going live.

Come again?

Recent EA Report says the F2P option will come in November: ELECTRONIC ARTS REPORTS Q1 FY13 FINANCIAL RESULTS

Meh. I feel bad for the woman and her family that put every penny into moving to Austin and have those health problems and now no income. However, Vogel and every other idiot that made design decisions about this polished turd of an MMO deserve to be fired. I hope every last one of one of them gets fired and never works in the industry again (as if). Anyone with half a brain cell could have told you that copying WoW, putting Star Wars skins over it, and adding 100 million dollars of voice acting to it, was going to eat #$@% and then die. But no, every MMO design team is 100% ego, thinks they are the messiah, THEY are different, better, THEY will be the WoW-killer. And the cycle of idiocy continues. Sad part is, all these tools will get work designing another multi-million dollar failgame in spite of this epic failure.

And also (most likely) full access to the GTN and access to fleet passes and quick travel to bind points, plus X dollars worth of cartel coins each month.

How about 2000 cartel coins AND many more exclusive items at the collector's edition vendor. Hell, they can even make these exclusive items a part of the cash shop model, I don't care. I just want a lot of cool stuff in there that nobody else can buy.

QFT. Sounds like that guy is doing a little nerd-rage induced projecting there.

Not exactly. I make no reference to whether the developer's should look at or change a mechanic that allows this type of friendly mob training. I merely make the statement that as long as that mechanic (or similar one's) are in game, then they are a valid tactic in one's PvP arsenal. If the Devs look at it and remove it, then it no longer is. It seems like a pretty obvious use of the mechanic that Bioware must have been made aware of long ago so I see no reason to believe that it is unintended for now. I love that the people who are sneaking around and doing this non-stop are getting repeatedly stomped for their trouble as well. That is EXACTLY how the issue SHOULD be resolved: by player action. It is incumbent upon the PvPer to use the game mechanics to engage in PvP to the best of his or her advantage. It is also incumbent upon the game devs to remove any mechanics that are not intended or that they feel don't belong. But, until they do... Likewise, on PvE servers there is a reasonable expectation that PvP will be consensual or instanced in some way and not open world PvP. In this case, it is not okay to use in game mechanics to train mobs, or AoE PvP flag someone, ever. This is what you call "griefing" (although I hate that word as it has been misused to the point of meaninglessness). I see you SAY that you understand what I mean, but you are still trying to characterize my position as "griefer" or "exploiter" though, which is over the top hyperbole which you scolded me for earlier. Look, when you have PvE ruleset servers that exist for the express purpose of avoiding non-consensual PvP and you willingly and knowingly make a choice to not use them, but instead to go PvP ruleset and then complain about non-consensual or world PvP (or more specifically about specific game mechanics which can be used to gain an advantage in PvE), then you are manufacturing these issues you decry, entirely on your own. Griefing, exploiting, risk, cowardice, fairness, etc. are all red herrings. P.S. - I especially got big laughs out of the idea that anyone on any kind of SWTOR server type incurs any kind of risk. That was a good one. Without player looting and/or death penalties there are no consequences or risks of any kind anywhere in this game.

I think Imperial Agent has by far the best story line. In terms of advanced class, I have played both sniper and operative. I like them both. I think sniper is more fun in PvP however.

You may be surprised to hear this, but it doesn't buttress your point AT ALL. I agree with you. This has no business happening on a PvE server. It shouldn't be done and Bioware should fix it (uless it's what they intend, which I doubt). And although I think you PvEers have so watered down the word griefing as to make it pointless, if anything qualifies, this would be it. However, on the PvP servers anything the players can do (including training 10 groups of elites mobs onto other players) to impact or impede the opposing players (short of meta-game tactics like account stealing or hacking) is PvP and "it happens" and if you don't want this kind of PvP or any other, get off the PvP ruleset servers. In fact, I have characters on both PvE and PvP servers in SWTOR. I would never pull the kind of BS you are talking about on the PvE servers, ever. With my PvP characters, anything goes (except hacking). Anything I can do (within the game's mechanics) to kill or impede opposing players is PvP and is fair game. It doesn't matter whether you label it as griefing, or exploiting, or unfair, or cowardly. Does this help you understand where we are coming from? It should be clear now that if there was only one kind of server I would be backing you up in your assertions. But since there are PvE and PvP servers, it sidesteps the entire issue of griefing and consensual PvP and it's why you are missing the point.

Double post.

No, I am not. Your wall of text completely misses the point. The mob training is just one of many ways in which a a player or players can "versus" another player. You know what PVP stands for right? I will give you a hint: It doesn't stand for "one group of equally matched players versus another group of equally matched players only at time and place that all of them agree upon". That's NOT even PvP it is a "arena/battleground/warzone" etc. It's completely contrived and pointless and PvP for PvEers who only pretend to PvP. Look, it's not even that I disagree with you that this sort of thing is annoying and on some level cowardly and may even be being done by those who can't or don't want an even or fair fight. That's all true. It's also real PvP, which is (with the exception of hacks) ANY way in which players can compete, fight, impact, etc. other player's characters in the game world. If that happens, it's PvP. Even if it wasn't intended by the game devs and they eventually fix it, it's still PvP. Coming up with contrivances and minutae in a misguided effort to try to restrict the definition of PvP to the point where it is just PvE with voluntary PvP off to one side is the clarion call of the PvEer. Regarding the grandoise statements about noble purposes, I was only speaking for myself and my guild in other games. That's why WE did it. I could give a s**t less whether you still think it's griefing or whether you believe me or not. I acknowledge that other people may have more base motives. The longer the redefinition of PvP gymnastics continue the more crystal clear it becomes that you are PvEers and guess what? THERE ARE ALREADY SERVERS for you. Start using them. But then you would have nothing to complain about, right? Excellent post. This guy totally gets it. Look, if there were only one kind of server and PvEers and pretend PvPers were subject to this mob training behavior whether they liked or not, then there would be a legitimate cause for discussion. But you types already have an entire ruleset of servers (PvE) to protect you from non-consensual player vs. player interactions (whether you want to split heirs and start parsing PvP into different types like griefing, real PvP, fair PvP etc. makes no difference). How about you start using those PvE servers, eh?

Suck up, much? This game's demise will have nothing to do with the complaints of the community (unless you count leaving). In fact, if more of the complaints (especially beta testers) were taken to heart this game would be much better. I find that the only thing worse than excessively negative or complaining posts is posts that are nothing more than complaints about the complainter in some sort of fruitless attempt to win favor by grovelling before almightly Bioware. Oh, wait...sorry OP.

It depends (like all things) on who takes your call/ticket. I have successfully done this. My brother tried several times and was given a canned we can't do that response each time.

That's exactly the crux of this entire issue, isn't it? I mean this guy wouldn't just not play EVE Online to begin with because it's not for him. He would play, think it makes him PVPzor!1! and then whine about specific instances of PvP impacting his game experience and call for it to be changed. How do I know this? Because he didn't just play on a SWTOR PvE server, did he? He willingly and knowingly chose PvP because he wants to believe he likes it and then he cried when the time and place and manner of the PvP wasn't under his control. Fail.

I won't respond to your rigid BS opinion (and that's all it is) about this sort of activity other than to say that forming a guild to combat this thing is a totally awesome player generated response to this problem and is exactly how it should be handled. Crying on the forums to have big mommy game developer take away (or instance) the big-bad PvPer's so that one can pick flowers and bake bantha pies in peace without having the PvP impact one's game experience is a very clear indication that one belongs nowhere near PvP games or servers. What the individuals or groups who are repeatedly camping areas or pulling mobs may actually be motivated by or thinking about is irrelevant. Now, the OP may be a bit more subtle than how I am characterizing it, but that's essentially what it is, a complaint about PvP impacting PvE. It starts with posts like the OPs and doesn't take long for the pretend PvPers to start clamoring for the PvP to be completely isolated from the PvE (even in game where this is pretty much already the case).