Some pretty interesting answers in there, and its great to have the new insight. I think its pretty reassuring to know there are guys that know there stuff in charge of this, whether you agree with everything that gets said / done or not.

Alex Tremblay, Manager of Analytics at BioWare Austin, was kind enough to answer about how player engagement stats are used to inform game design decisions. http://www.swtornetwork.com/news/interview-with-bioware-stats-and-game-design-decisions/

From time to time we’ve heard representatives from BioWare quote player engagement stats to support particular game design decisions but we've never had much insight into their usage. As players, it sometimes feels that factors weren't being considered, but then I figured that if we could think of it, BioWare should have already considered it too, and thus, rather than write a post speculating on the situation, I decided to ask. Alex Tremblay, Manager of Analytics at BioWare Austin, was kind enough to answer all my questions. The interview (or perhaps more accurately Q&A) is a little long to post here, but here's a snippet: If you're interested, you can see read the full thing here: http://www.swtornetwork.com/news/interview-with-bioware-stats-and-game-design-decisions/

I've posted a new guide on the site aimed at helping players decide whether to unlock with Cartel Coins or Credits. Unlocks covered include: Legacy Character Unlocks, Legacy Global Unlocks, Species Unlocks, Storage (Inventory, Cargo Hold and Legacy Storage) Unlocks and the new Outfit Designer unlocks. Hope you find it helpful! http://www.swtornetwork.com/articles/credits-will-do-fine/cartel-coins-vs-credits/

New Posts Sharing Unsolicited Advice with Random Players - Would you be welcome or be offended by another player messaging you with advice in PvP? Do you ever message players with advice that haven't asked for help? Competition: Healing in PvP - Share your tactics for healing in PvP in the post comments to enter a prize draw. Recent Site Improvements SWTOR Network recently received a little bit of a makeover to make the site cleaner to look at and easier to use. The site is now wider on desktops, so content feels less squashed The sidebar is now present on all pages for easy access and consistency Post "entries", seen on the homepage, are now much cleaner and clearly state which category each post belongs to. I've started a couple of blog columns which I'll be posting to as and when, including a PvP diary (Unlimited Power) and a recurring competition (You're My Only Hope) TORCommunity's disc calculator has been embedded into the site - See here Coming Soon I'll be starting another column this week, where I'll discuss trying to get rich and sharing some advice on how to make / save credits List pages, under Sites and Resources in the main navigation, are being overhauled so that they match the homepage layout. You can see what this will look like on the new Tools page. BioWare's analytics team are currently answering some questions for me on their use of player engagement stats, and how the stats inform game design decisions. Hopefully I'll have these back within a couple of weeks.

I've put a new post up on SWTOR Network asking for players to share advice on tanking in PvP. If you feel like you'd be able to add some advice of your own, or just contribute to the discussion, here's a link to the post: http://www.swtornetwork.com/articles/community-corner-tanking-in-pvp/ Players that comment on the post will be entered into a prize draw for the chance to win any currently available cartel pack, as well as an M8-3R pet code. See the post for more information. My hope is that we will get some decent tips and tactics on what to do in either ranked or unranked PvP, which will be especially useful for new players, but may also give more experienced players something to consider. If you know anyone that you think does a great job of tanking in PvP, it would be great if you could point them towards the site.

I recently held a competition on SWTOR Network, asking for suggestions for event ideas. We could really do with some more event variety, so as some of the ideas were pretty good, I thought I'd share them here. Beast Hunt The winner was Erruss of the Harbinger, who had a great idea for a Mandalorian Beast Hunt with themed rewards, in which we'd hunt rare beasts across the galaxy. Here are a few reasons why I thought this was a great idea: It doesn't require a new area to be built, like Rakghoul tunnels. Creatures could be roaming around existing planets or spawned by clicking an object, like some world bosses. If creatures are just roaming around, make it require an item to turn them hostile - protect those that are leveling. We'll visit planets that we don't currently need to Creature themed decorations (mounted heads and rugs), creature mounts, themed armors (furs / animal heads). Could include content for levelers, solo players, groups and full ops groups, with varying rewards. Other suggest events included: Fleet Invasions - NPCs spawn on the fleet every hour or two during the event. Players must defend an NPC / protect the fleet from progressively harder waves of NPCs, possibly finishing with an operation boss (that gives credit to all who tag it). If the size / difficulty of waves could scale to the population in the vicinity, that would be better. If performance is a concern, place it either on a ship in the fleet, or on a capital planet. Invaders could be opposite faction, pirates, mercenaries, it doesn't really matter. Pazaak Tournament - Unlikely, as it would require they implement Pazaak first, but a proper in-game gambling tournament would be amazing. Halloween Event - Based on SWG's Galactic Moon Event, which apparently involved wearing costumes and trick or treating NPCs Scavenger Hunting - Making use of the seeker droid / macrobinocular mechanics to find hidden artifacts and items across the galaxy Anyway, just a few ideas to be considered.

You don't sound positive that the tournament will be going ahead at a later date - is this because nothing is arranged yet and you don't want to get anyone's hopes up by saying it will be happening in the near future, or are there concerns that you may not be able to address the remaining Coratanni issues soon? Or something else entirely?

I try to give a good overview of what's going on in the community on SWTOR Network, so thatay be a good place for you to check. If you so see something you'd like to include, it may be an idea to get in touch either myself (if its one of my posts) or the authors (if its something I talk about / link to). All the best

SWTOR Network is a site dedicated to Star Wars: The Old Republic news, articles and community content. The site launched back in September / October 2014 and has grown to have a strong core of regular users, with around 3,000 people visiting the site per month. Overhaul I recently decided that it was time for an overhaul. In the original format, users could share their own content, creating a new post for each item - similar to the SWTOR subreddit. This created regular posts, but a lot of spam, and little time for me to make anything look pretty. In the new format, all posts are now submitted by me, therefore there is now more organisation, and a consistent level of posting and a standardised appearance (images / format) of each post. I've also swapped a few of the colours of the site and added a new logo / header image throughout. Content: Part of the reason I am now submitting all posts myself is so that I can replace many individual posts about new community blogs / podcasts etc, with round-up posts. On a weekly basis, I now plan to post: Podcast round-up Video round-up Blog round-up From the Forums News, as and when it happens. You can visit the site here: http://www.swtornetwork.com/ I hope you like what you see, and any feedback is welcome.

It's been a long time since I've updated this post, so the sites got a couple hundred more posts now! I've also added a poll - I'd love to hear what you're most excited about being added to the game in 2015 - you can vote here: http://www.swtornetwork.com/articles/swtor-feature-looking-forward/

Oh wow, do you think this is the "better than cross server" thing?

Lots of new posts on the site in the past week, including: Global Combat Changes live stream notes Updates from the Dev Tracker New Kranitoko videos All the latest podcasts episodes have been listed and too many more things to list. Link: http://www.swtornetwork.com/ You can also follow the site on twitter, @swtornetwork - I tweet about all the latest stuff that's going on in the game and on the site.

SWTOR Network features posts highlighting and linking to the latest community created content and game news, as well as lists to some of the most popular podcasts, streamers, fan sites and guides. The site aims to be a one stop shop where users can come to discover and experience community content and news. Due to SWTOR’s global fan base, content is produced on a daily basis at all times of the day, making it a bit too much for one person to manage. Users will therefore be able to submit posts themselves, featuring descriptions and links to content hosted on other sites. SWTOR Network also features live streams embedded in the site, pulled automatically from Twitch for those currently playing SWTOR, so you don't need to submit anything for your stream to appear. URL: http://www.swtornetwork.com/ If you have any thoguhts, feedback and comments are always welcome.

As there is a massive discrepancy between the cartel coin cost and the credit cost for legacy unlocks, I took some time to analyse which unlocks should be bought with coins and which should be bought with credits, so that you can select the most optimum currency to purchase each unlock. Obvious advantage here, you can save a lot of credits / coins in the long run. If you want to read the post, you can find it here: http://www.someonewhotried.com/game-guides/swtor-legacy-unlocks-coins-vs-credits/ My spreadsheet can be found on Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kohdKQRRen6qd17cIM3_PgpTzJgNIYGA0LIn6ldLLIo/edit?usp=sharing In order to come up with an easy comparison figure, I divided the credit cost by the cartel coin cost (Credits per Coin). Here are the top 10 unlocks to buy with Cartel Coins. For more info, take a look at the spreadsheet or blog post. Unlock Credits Cartel Coins Credits per Coin Improved Rocket Boost II, 12,500 Credits per Coin Improved Rocket Boost I, 8,333 Galactic Trade Network Terminal (Starship), 5,556 Credits per Coin Rocket Boost, 5,000 Credits per Coin Repair Droid (Starship), 4,000 Credits per Coin Legacy Travel III, 4,000 Credits per Coin HK-51 (Character Unlock), 2,857 Credits per Coin Operations Training Dummy (Starship), 2,857 Credits per Coin Warzone Training Dummy (Starship), 2,857 Credits per Coin Legacy Cargo Hold Bay 4 (3 Characters), 2,857 Credits per Coin Hope you find this helpful. If you have any feedback I'll do my best to incorporate it into the post and spreadsheet as soon as possible. I do plan to keep this updated as best I can, and I will be adding GSH unlocks on there, hopefully before it launches next week.

I want to play *cry*

Because we don't want to resolve cap someone by mistake. We already have choke / backhand as stuns so the extra one isn't really needed.