Id be perfectly fine with that too, as obviously i would compare with my guild mates etc. and the numbers would also obviously go up on websites so that you could get an idea of where you should be at DPS wise. Honestly if it was the choice of that over nothing then that would be fine. I still think its nice to see who isnt pulling their weight for pugs though, if its serious enough that its preventing you from progressing why should everyone be held back by one person that isnt pulling their weight?

The people that dont want damage meters think that people shouldnt be discriminated based on skill pretty much is my guess. I say that this is the only way people should be discriminated upon, its fine to have requirements gear wise for a raid your running, but if someone isnt pulling their weight in a very large way(after a gear check), i think it should be known(not so you can kick them but so that you can give them suggestions on ways to improve. If your running a Pick up group with limited time, and someone isnt pulling there weight in a way that is frusterating everyone else, and stopping you from progressing i think there should be a way to figure out who that is so that you can find a replacement and get on with the raid. For guilds its so that you can help players that are lagging behind a bit improve their rotations , or specs etc. Thats why i think damage meters and such are important. Im assuming that the people who dont want them , have been discriminated on in the past for not being skilled enough. Most people wont just base it solely off your dps, it will be based off your dps relative to your gear. Operations beyond normal mode have gear requirements plain and simple, hard mode FP's have gear requirements, so after you take that into account and you know that everyone in your group is at least at the acceptable level, you can make observations that reflect their skill through things such as damage meters. Especially if your running with your guild, its not so you can kick them out of your group, its so that you can give them ways to improve. Its a way to improve yourself nothing more, it also is a way for people to strive to do beter as they actually have numbers and personal bests to beat.

Yes this is one of my main complaints with the game. The fact that they combined (duplicated?) the gear from hard mode flashpoints and operations. Here is how it is at the moment , Hard mode flashpoints have the exact same gear as normal mode operations (8 and 16 man, there isnt a single unique drop in any of the HM FP's in terms of gear.) hard mode operations also share some of the same gear with HM FPS AND normal mode Ops (columi and the exotech stuff) its honestly kind of ridiculous. I loved doing hard mode flashpoints, the flashpoints are really well done in this game and they are a decent challenge. My problem was that i got my full set of columi in 2 days of running HM FP's. Suddenly not only do i not have an incentive to run them anymore, i barely have an incentive to run the normal mode ops either (aside from a few pieces, and mostly from karragas palace) HM Fp's should have had their own distinct loot table, they shouldnt have shared any drops with Normal or hard mode Ops at all. Its ridiculously lazy on their part. The gear system while leveling up was so robust , there was so much loot to acquire between crafting , drops, flashpoints, planet commendations. You would expect that to translate into the end game, but it doesnt. Now to cover up this, they are adding in crit craftable end game orange items. This still doesnt change the fact that the drops too few in the end game, and it wont lengthen progression in any way either. It wont lengthen progression because, once you get a purple item (say you get some epic leggings) all you have to do is extract the mods and put them in a new piece of gear. There still isnt going to be enough choice fromm the few crit craftable pieces they are adding to crafting to make people look unique. It will be better but it wont be acceptable IMO. They should have made getting the mods for crit craftable orange gear a seperate form of progression, so that it would actually be impressive to have a full set of crit crafted orange items, and the added reward would be that you looked unique (and you had to actually acheive something to look that way). It also wouldnt render the new epic drops useless, as of 1.2 epic drops will simply be containers for mods nothing more, its sad. I suggest they do this by keeping epic items the way they are (and possibly adding more of them) and instead make armorings WITH set bonus's available through drops, or slightly lesser ones being able to be purchased through commendations (or for pvp , being able to be purchased by each tier of tokens) this way it would add a seperate form of progression and you would have to build up a set of armoring mods , seperate from your epic set , that would allow you to have a unique look with the added bonus of an augment slot. It doesnt make much sense to basically give an augment slot to every item simply for free (by for free i mean all you have to do is spam the orange item on a few of your companions and log off, when you log back on you will most likely have a critted orange item with an augment slot) . It should be something that needs to be earned, while at the same time not making new epic items completely worthless (at least not right away you would wear them while yoou where building up your orange set + your armorings with set bonus's) This system seems so obvious. I dont know why BW didnt think of it ><

I think its fine, 200 hours (what it should be if your not skipping dialogue and you are questing etc) could be more like 175 but thats like 7-9 days played time for most people which is acceptable IMO. Especially because it will continue to get longer as more expansions come out etc. I mean personally id like it a bit longer as well, but as for making a game that appeals to a wide market i think they did a pretty good job.

Also if story isnt a good enough reason to do missions then i dont know what is. And if you dont like the side quests, you could easily do all the main planet storylines , class storylines, and then bonus series storylines (most of which are incredible, especially liked narshadaa) to get to level 50, especially if you do the bonus objectives for these missions. Although alot of the sidquests dont have deep storylines i still enjoy them, and there are still some good side quest chains with deep storylines scattered throughout the planets. Some of them are funny etc. like the one on balmorra where that species (same as the one in my forum avatar) asks you to go collect meat for him from spiders and is really creepy about it, and what he is using the meat for lol, he cant hide his excitement about eating it.

The thing is i dont think the 200 hours means you have to do every single planet and bonus series, Its just how long it will take someone to go through their storyline on the different planets and cap out at 50. The game is made so that when you level up a second character there is content that you didnt do. For instance i didnt do many space missions, i didnt do any fp more than once and i skipped a few as well, and i did 0 pvp while leveling. Some of the bonus series are ridiculously long and is like going back and doing a whole other planet (some of them span across 4-5 quest hubs with each one having 5+ quests and some heroics) . For me i didnt do any quests except class quests on alderaan or correllia or quesh, i didnt do the nar shadaa bonus series (on my first toon, did it on my second and it is really long and will easily take you from level 30-32) i only did half of tatooine, and i skipped the level 40 alderaan bonus series, the tatooine bonus series, i only did the first bonus series on Voss (their are three) and i only did the first bonus series on balmorra (there are 2) i didnt do the level 47 bonus series on hoth either (which i heard will take yoou 2 levels easy as well) So the second time through you will have tons of content that you havent done and beable to have a different experience the second time through. The amount of leveling content in this game is incredible, more than any mmo ive ever seen (especially since its all scripted) and each faction has completely different quests. Leveling wise i think this game is fine, some of my friends that played that where new too mmo's thought THIS game was too grindy (least grindy mmo ive ever played) but mmo's probably just werent for them they cant fathom spending 200 hours + to get to the end. So i think it has a perfect balance of grind vs time spent.

Those are 2 different sets of people complaining. I dont think there should be anything wrong with making a longer end game progression, and then having content for casuals as well. Its a way to appease everyone. Bioware seems to be heading in that direction more for PVE (with hard modes getting harder and nightmare modes getting significantly harder) but for PVP they seem to want to make it easier so people cant compete on an even level and then just compete for rankings (with no gear benefits exceptt for different looking gear). I dont think bioware realizes that whether you PVP or PVE end game is all about gear progression and if people feel like they are at the end of that, there is less incentive for them to log on and want to play simply for rankings. I know there are people out there that will argue until the end that im wrong. But character progression is what keeps mmo's going, not a rank in a ranked warzone. People always want to strive to make their characters better. Casuals will complain that they want things easier / more attainable, then a few months down the road they will be the same ones complaining they have nothing to do becaues bioware actually made it attainable for them. The best mmo's have soomething for everyone, but they make the very pinnacle of gear only attainable to a dedicated few, so everyone always has something to strive for. The sooner bioware gets that the sooner they will be succesful.

I beleive you and the OP are talking about two different things. The OP is talking about end game progression, and you are talking about leveling progression.

Star wars the crap public? wow that was such a good one:rolleyes: Seriously why are you still here posting on these forums if you dislike the game. You gotta be pretty sad to post regularily on a forum for a game you dont even like. Most of you are probably just insecure about your opinnion on the game and want to make sure that enough people agree with you to validate your opinnion.

You mean they used their past experience making a SiFi RPG. SWTOR is biowares first mmo

New players have this misconception that imperial is dark side and republic is light side in this game. Thats not how it works at all, Alignment and faction choice are completely seperate entities.

Its not bad at all. Just because your playing an imperial character doesnt mean you have to go dark. Both light and dark side points are viable for both republic and imperial characters. There is nothing wrong with making a light side imperial agent, it is just as viable and just as strong as a dark side imperial agent. It will just have a different story.

Why would you play the same class twice only to make the exact same decisions. Thats an unrealistic situation.

I must admit thats pretty impressive, i dont really remember it being that large (in terms of patch notes) when it came out. Patch notes wise its about the same as the swtor patch notes.

Also they didnt even say that definitively this is the largest free content update in an mmo. It was something along the lines of "this may very well be" they werent stating it as fact. Its a big update thats what they were getting at, and i think thats something we can all agree on.

I played Rift , none of the content updates where this huge, or had almost 2 whole thread pages worth of patch notes. Rift did do a very good job of releasing content on a regular basis and BW seems to be following in their footsteps, if all goes as planned 1.2 will come begining of april, meaning 2 and a half months after 1.1 , they said they plan to release a major update every 2-3 months. Thats a hell of alot better than wow, where you have to wait 5-6 months for each update.

Actually Daniel Erickson got promoted shortly after launch. He is now Lead Game Designer.

Zosha advance is where you have to take out those 4 targets on that big ship right? That mission works fine for me, and its fairly easy too.... Completed it multiple times. Ive never had my normal missiles bug after using proton torpedoes they work as intended. You just have to hold them still until it locks and then they fire.

No republic gets 4 proton torpedoes your just reading it wrong. The number says three but there is one already loaded. Its just like your normal missiles say you have 150 when yoou start it will say you have 146 because one of them is loaded.

Bonus series also have amazing story lines (not all but most of them) , and there are side quest chains that arent part of the main planet quest chain that are quite good too. At the same time there are just side quest that dont have any follow up, the dialogue is usually pretty short. Sometimes its really funny though, like the one on balmorra with the guy (same race as my avatar) that needs you to hunt spider meat for him to eat, that **** was hilarious. And some of the jawa ones are pretty funny etc. Alot of the side quests are just good for a laugh, and their is still a wide variety of responses for them, not to metnion they will say something different depending on your race, class, and gender so with those things in mind they never will say ALL of the same things if you switching up race/class/gender for your toons. Not to mention all the amazing stuff they did with choice in this game, i know that your class quests follow a general story line that it sticks too, but the people involved in that story line can change, and the details surrounding it can change vastly as well based on your decisions. A guildies main is a jedi shadow and he just finished leveling up a sage, he chose a different gender and race for his sage , and went light side he was surprised at how different it actually was. Also there are even different options to choose within light side or dark side on top of that. Ie. take someones money and let them live instead of killing them for 2 different dark side options. Alot of work was put into the dialogue more than people actually realize, if you didnt come to this game for the story , then why did you come (not specifically talking about the person i quoted, just in general) it was advertised as star wars mmo with Bioware story telling, I dont know what the OP expected.

Yea just like questing in every single mmo out there? You signed up to play an mmo what did you expect. Except for they actually added context through story and decision making that can effect your story (for any quest chain the decisions you make can effect the outcome weather that be a bonus series, a planet quest chain, or your class story) I hate it when people say "i mean honestly its alwways the same thing" about questing like its something unique to this mmo and not soomething done in almost every mmo in existance. Like I said at least there is an actual story in this one and there is context and reason behind why you are doing said objective. Makes a world of difference if you actually allow your self to be immersed in the story.

As long as you do it well, i heard the voiceovers in GW2 are total garbage and actually take away from the immersion.

There is still plenty of option if you look for them in the form of bonus series, some planets even have 3 different bonus series all with their own story lines( voss for instance) The bonus series gives you choice on weather you want to level up on a new planet or stick with the one your on or go back to a planet youve already been too. Sure you still have to do your class quests on every planet but thats a given. My first time through i did numerous bonus series, but also skipped quite a few. Because of that, i didnt do any quests except for class quests on Alderaan, Corellia or quesh. Then there where some planets i only did half of etc, and some planets i didnt do the bonus series on. There is still choice for leveling, its just not in the traditional sense your used to, or it may not be as obvious.

I like all the stories, sure there are side quests with fluff, but ill still listen and make decisions. Alot of the bonus series mission chains have really good stories (some of the best in the game) and ive really enjoyed them. Then there is the main planet storyline which is usually quite good and ties in with your class storyline sometimes, as well as with other planets (as the war rages on) It doesnt sound like you gave it much of a chance, or werent a fan of bioware storytelling to begin with. Sure their are meaningless quests that dont have a great story but the chat you have is usually quite short for those. And sometimes honestly the side quests and heroics are just downright funny. Like the guy that wants to eat the bug meat on balmorra with the snout (the race of my Avatar on the forums) that was freaking hilarious, it didnt tie into anything else or anything like that but it was great. Also the gree storyline on coruscant was awesome and it wasnt part of the main planet quest it was just a nice quest chain. I think one of my favourites was the nar shadaa bonus series (you have to go back there at level 31-33) there where so many differnent possible outcomes based on your decision. And you had the option to bang one of those freaky green chicks at the end lol.

Yea except as of right now open world (not even pvp) with less people that ilum was a total fail in the press release Beta. Go check on Kotaku and see what they said about it. "its only beta they will fix it" Hey didnt people say the same thing about ilum?