Yes that is actually a very easy explanation so dont act so smug. Here is a link to a transcript of the q3 fy12 ea conferance call. http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19915-electronic-arts-q3-fy12-earnings-call In that conferance call they go on to explain exactly what you are talking about. "I want to take a second to correct the reports which speculated that a lack of congestion was a sign of slow participation. Shortly after launch, we doubled the efficiency of each server, allowing us to handle twice as many players and remove the waiting lines. The lack of congestion is a function of great engineering." They did make a mistake IMO though, what they did is a day after launch when many of the servers where full they added many more servers (close to 100 i think) as a quick fix. Then a few weeks later they doubled the maximum server population. Suddenly any new subscribers wont go to fill up the new less populated servers they will go to the standard and heavy servers. Now because of this they will probably have to merge a few servers, i understand why they needed to go with the quick fix to prevent really long queue's its just unfortunate it played out that way. Basically though a full server with a long queue at launch would have turned into a standard server. So any servers that are standard now are servers that if they had kept the max populations the same would have been full with queue's.

They could have been foreign (like chinese or korean just as an example) The same thing happened to me before, we were wondering why these 2 guys were barely even responding to us, then we realized they didnt understand what we were saying so we tried to communicate through emotes, and although they didnt group up they ended up helping us with a heroic quest. So its probably that they didnt even speak english if they didnt respond. I dont think using 1 example is a reason to state that everyone is antisocial. There are tons of people that i have grouped with for heroics quests during my time questing, Heck usually level up late at night and i havent even had too many issues finding groups at 3 am for heroics. I think this game has alot more group (heroic) quests then other mmo's ive played and although they arent mandatory ive certainly done alot more grouping during the leveling process in the open world in this game then i ever did in say Wow. Group quests in wow where quite rare, and even then usually only required 2 people at the most.

They dont have to be related they can be Enemies as well. Or evil step brothers and sisters lol

I wouldnt buy it because i think white looks really boring for gun bullets in general. I can see how it would look cool as a lightsaber but its really just bland and nothing special for a gun imo. Thats why i went with the 250k preorder crystal, i think the Yellow black looks hideous for lightsabers but looks awesome for the guns bullets. Also not everyone preordered so its an item that not everyone can even get.

I checked out the oceanic servers , the PVE one is farily even on both sides population wise so its really up to you. At the moment though id say empire gear looks better so maybe take that into consideration. Story wise it could go either way, both have fantastic stories i really enjoyed my smuggler story and im also really enjoying my mercenary story. Also ive been leveling up with my friend who went sith warrior and ive been really enjoying his story as well. Its really just upt to what you prefer especially for the oceanic servers (especially the most populated PVE server i forgot the name) because the faction populations are very similair.

Im pretty sure they want it, i just think because they didnt implement addons into the game to begin with it will be a patch or 2 after 1.2 before we see them. In the Guild Summit they were talking about how much testing and coding needs to be done to make sure it wont mess up the current UI etc. They should have had it implemented at launch but they didnt, so now they have to start working on it and work out all the kinks (hopefully) a parsable combat log is a start, I guess we will just have to wait and see what the future brings. I think in 6 months time it is very realistic to expect either tools like DPS and threat meters developed by BW OR Community UI Addons. Honestly I dont know if i would consider myself a hardcore raider maybe somewhere in the middle of casual and Hardcore , I would be perfectly happy with DPS Meters and possibly threat meters developed by BW I never really used to many other tools for WOW and they already are releasing a very customizable UI. I think its just as likely that BW will develop these tools themselves rather than having a huge amount of community addons to monitor etc.

It is raised to second world and black talon, the 3 places you can go are starting worlds , capital worlds (dromund kaas, Coruscant) it also says you will beable to play the first flashpoint which is blacktalon or Esseles.

If you take out voice acting and the cinematics that go with it i bet their budgets were actually pretty similair.

The thing is they could have made progression alot better by making these armorings with set bonus's drops from raid bosses or commendations instead of just making it so that you can take them out of epic items and pretty much turning any new epics they add into just containers for mods since they wont even be as good as the orange items. The way they are currently planning on adding it doesnt really add any new form of progression beyond crafting which you dont even have to technically be there for , set a few of your companions to craft 1 item and come back a few hours later and youll most likely have the mastercraft version (augment slot). This doesnt extend progression in anyway it something to go alongside it. They should have just made these armorings drops or purchasable from commendation vendors as it wouldnt make the current epic drops completely useless as you would still use them while you were waiting for your armorings (with set bonus's) to drop to put into your orange gear. And you will pretty much be done once you have you gear, all thats left to do is drag drop into the crit crafted orange items. Even if you cant make them yourself they are BOE and you should beable to buy them fairly quickly. So you will be done, it doesnt add anything else unfortunately. They really thought this system through pretty poorly, it would be nice if having a full crit crafted orange set was something special to obtain,and it could be with the system i suggested and not at the expense of making epic items pretty much useless containers for mods.

As far as players looking exactly how they want, that really depends on how many orange items they add to the crafting proffesions. Because all the current orange gear in the game will be useless (pretty much) as it wont have augment slots. So really a character will only beable to customize as much as BW gives us for schematics for say armormech. I dont think they are going to give us like 20 full sets of orange gear or anything like that, but i guess well wait and see. Hue to chest will help as well i guess, as players will beable to make combinations of the different schematics and mix and match to their liking and still have them match color wise.

Agreed, had they implemented proper loot tables with unique items that arent part of sets. no duplicate drops (yes the same loot that drops from HM FP's also drops from normal mode 8 and 16 man ops, commendation vendors also offer you the same gear as the above) Had all those different modes had their own drops the end game PVE content wouldnt be done so fast. The reason people get bored is because they feel like their character progression is at an end or close to an end ( if you only need a piece of gear or 2 its demoralizing, or say you have full columi you suddenly realise there is only 1 more set to get in the game, that is it 1 set rakata and it will make yoou look the same as everyone else who is done with the content) Its a huge problem when their is a lack of end game loot and then on top of that bosses drop 4 pieces of this loot in an 8 man raid (2 pieces in a 10 man was fine in wow, i never felt like it was too little) that combined with the fact that their is so many places to get the exact same loot = a huge problem for the end game. IF i run operations for 2 weeks and get full columi suddenly i have 0 reason (progression wise) to run HM FP's that takes a whole aspect of the game completely away from me or vice versa with HM FP's and Normal mode Op's. Just as a comparison i was looking at Rifts loot tables at launch for end game drops, 1450 pieces of gear. Thats gotta be close to 20x what swtor has. Lack of diversity for end game loot is killing this game. Regardless of the content being too easy, its far worse for it to be too easy to get gear, as suddenly you only need to raid the content for 2 or maybe 3 weeks before you have pretty much everything. I got full columi on my character within 2 days of starting HM FP's and Operations, offhand mainhand and all. It was super disheartening to realise that there was only 1 set left for me to get in this game, not a variety of different loot with different stats and looks, just one cookie cutter set and i was done. They need to stray away from sets in this game currently the only end game drops are all part of sets , tionese columi rakata for tier and energized , exotech , xenotech for non tier. EVen the freaking schematics that drop are for these same sets, they couldnt even give the schematic drops their own loot, that is sad. I really hope that a guild at the summit tommorow brings this up, as its a huge problem. Alot of people dont realise the main problem in to why the content is too easy, its not even that its too easy, its that your done with it too fast because the gear progression is so small linear and quick.

Its total bs i already linked the financial report in the post above that he was supposedly quoting from and it clearly states that they had 1.7 million a little over a month after release which would put them right around feb 1st. Also i linked the transcript from the conference call that confirms the exact same thing that at that time (feb 1st) they had 1.7 million subs. He will probably be too emberassed to post here again, especially because of how sure he sounded in his post , he stated it like it was fact.

That is completely false, it amazing how sure you are of yourself when you are completely wrong. The document was seperated into 2 parts one was their financials up until december 31st . The other was them talking about what is currently going on. First piece of evidence because clearly you didnt actually read the financial earnings report. http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=644995 quote from it if your too lazy to check for yourself "Star Wars®: The Old Republic™ has generated 1.7 million active subscribers and sold through more than 2 million units in a little over one month." Notice the wording "in a little over a month" NOT in a little over 11 days, a little over a month would put them right around the time they released that report Feb 1st. Second piece of evidence http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19915-electronic-arts-q3-fy12-earnings-call This is transcripts from a conference call done around the same time feb 1st or 2nd. Quote from frank Gibeau "Let me offer some metrics on purchase and subscription that will help you understand this business. As John stated, we have sold through two million units of the game since December. We currently have a little over 1.7 million active subscribers. The rest have either not started playing yet or have opted out." So no you are completely wrong also the decrease in server status's is explained in this same article "I want to take a second to correct the reports which speculated that a lack of congestion was a sign of slow participation. Shortly after launch, we doubled the efficiency of each server, allowing us to handle twice as many players and remove the waiting lines. The lack of congestion is a function of great engineering." Im not even saying the populations havent gone down since this report, I am saying that you are completely wrong about everything you just said in your post though. You should actually try and read the material you are referencing next time. And that number 800,000 is a number you pulled out of your A SS completely fictional.

hmm i think this post is hard for people to understand but i will bump it once more.

The one on narshadda is cross faction ive used it to send money to my imperial character from my republic main.

Its the information that was datamined from Torhead. They have information for the next 5 or so patches datamined so you can see whats coming up, it gets a little more vague after patch 1.2 but there is still information. Also im not entirely sure there will be a completely new planet to explore i know that the new operation is ON denova, but im not sure it will be released as a planet. WE can always hope though right

That is the one from the VIP lounge or the one from valor 65. Arent they offering them on the cheap for 2 weeks until 1.2 comes out? or is that just for other speeders.

Its either there will be a whole new planet, or the new operation simply takes place on this planet. Its one of those 2 for sure. I know the new dailies are going to be on corellia so i thinking maybe its just the planet the operation is going to be on, who knows though.

Yea i just made the same post below you thats what i thought. Although arent the oranges that can be crit crafted only going to be from the new schematics they are introducing that will most likely be 50 schematics. We dont know what kind of mats those are going to need. Honestly i hope they do extend progression slightly because if they continue with the same low amount of drops that have been in previous raids they will just come and go too quickly again i fear. I really hope they start giving new HM FP's their own loot tables instead of loot tables that are shared with Operations, and i hope (maybe not 1.2) but down the line 16 man raids get their own loot as well ><

I dont think thats how they are doing it is it? For instance if im armormech i could possibly get a full set of orange schematics that i could crit craft , including boots , bracers, chest, wrists, waist etc. And they wont be BOP i will beable to sell the crit crafted ones, so its not like you will have to get 400 in the proffesions to get it. What your talking about is how the game currently works, right now i could go armormech to get my wrists and waists with augment then go biochem to do the same for implants then go synthweaving to do the same for relics etc etc.

Honestly though thats pretty much going to be the case with any mmo with graphics that arent 5+ years old in an open world environment with 100+ players and a huge draw distance in an open world environment. Sure it was their fault by designing it like that in the first place. STill i have alot of fun on ilum. Last night we had a group of 15 or so republic players randomly at 1 am, we Ops's up and there were a similair amount of imperials and it was the most fun ive had pvp'ing in an mmo in a long time. If there is too many people go to the second instance on ilum, thats what i do. At least BW made it so that you can still play through instances (which dont have limits) rather then putting a cap on how many people can play on ilum.

Game breaking eh? So you mean it stops you in your tracks and you can not continue to play? List them please. I have been playing this game since early access and have not once been stopped in my tracks unable to progress since beta. I have a level 50 smuggler that has experienced all the content including , All the HM FP's dozens of times, normal mode and hard mode 8 and 16 man raids KP and EV (with little to no problems i heard their were problems in the first month while i was still leveling but by the time i hit 50 we had no problem clearing normal the first few weeks and have had no problem clearing the hard mode Ops either) Ive experience all the warzones and Ilum with no issues except for some lag when there are 80+ people on the screen (thats gonna be the same with any mmo that doesnt have graphics that are 5+ years old) regardless though i never really drop below 40 fps except in the case of ilum on really busy days, even on republic fleet with 100+ people my FPS is fine. Ive pretty much expereinced all the end game content and have 3 alts one at 20 and 2 above level 30 2 of them on the imperial side. And like i said i havent experience 1 game breaking issue throughout my entire time playing, so please explain.

Its far better to compare it with rift. Just as an easy comparison look at the end game loot drops for rift. http://rift.xanadu-community.com/items.php?page=all The games been out for about a year and thats what it has, but you can click on original and see that end game it had 1444 unique item drops for end game at launch. Now look at swtor i can almost count the end game loot on my fingers. Tier gear (3 sets per class but they all pretty much look the same + extra for off specs i guess) energized , xenotech , exotech. That comprises all the end game loot for the game you multiply that by 8 classes + some offspecs and it certainly doesnt come out to anywhere near 1500 pieces of loot. I hope that swtor expands its end game gear progression in the right way, but it seems like they arent already it seems like they just want to keep the same amount of drops but just supplement it with orange gear. This would be fine i think if orange gear had its own path of progression. Like say armorings with set bonus's attached dropped off of bosses or could be acquired through commendations. Right now the way they are setting it up orange items and gear progression are one in the same, you get an epic item, you can put the mods in an orange item. Essentially making new epic items they release just a container for mods, this gives them an excuse to continue making very small amount of end game epics and they dont really have to care about how good they look because most people will just take the mods out of them and put them in orange items anyways.

For PVE its the gear progression that is the main problem IMO. Their is just so little end game loot that progression is kind of a joke. Its really disheartening after you get full columi and you realize that the only gear you need is from 1 other set in the game (rakata) there are no rare drops. No unique or rare pieces of armor , just a set of armor that is the same for everyone once they get full columi. It doesn help that the same loot drops from HM FP's normal mode ops and commendation vendors either. After you have full columi you really only have to raid 2 nights a week (or even 1) to do KP HM And EV HM. HM Fp's suddenly become useless to you progression wise which is a shame because they were one of my favourite parts of the gaame.

Thats no different from actually getting the gear though. I really wish they had made orange gear its own progression. They should have just made armorings with set bonus's drop fromm bosses /commendation vendors. That way having a full set of orange armor would actually be something alot harder than getting a set of epic gear.