Wow, that's a depressing prospect. But you may have a point. How fast is level progression these days?

I got an itch to play again after hearing about all the changes so I resubbed. When I logged in again, though, I was bombarded by tutorial screens about a zillion new things they've added since I last played. It's pretty overwhelming trying to make sense of it all and make it mesh with what I remember about the game. I have a lvl 50 consular with a clean slate, but I don't know where to start. Can anyone point me to a primer for returning players that sort of explains what's changed?

I think they made a mistake by farming out the artwork to studios in China and Eastern Europe. It should have been done in-house and directed by someone with some vision. It resulted in an overall artistic feel that's pretty utilitarian.

Or it might be that your are underpowered, undergeared or .... well, you get the idea. The bubble is not all that strong to a well-geared player. It goes down in seconds and then it's all over.

Of course, companies fudge their books all the time. But explain to me how a company would fudge a subscription count? People are either subscribers or they are not. We're not dealing with any gray areas here -- not even the people still in their first free month. If they went as far as buying the game and signing up for a subscription, they are subscribers.

What's your point? At any given point in time, there are always going to be subscribers working off of the first free month they get with their game purchase. And since we're pulling quotes from the story, how about this one: “This has been the most rapid scaling of an MMO ever, based on our research,” Brown commented. Or this one ... "Brown said EA was actually able to add a lot more users on a per-server basis, thanks to some technical improvements. He also noted that about 40% of the units of the game sold during the quarter went over the company’s Origin digital-distribution channel, which is not tracked by market researchers such as NPD."

WoW launched November 2004, and I doubt they got 5 million subscribers in one month's time.

So now the haters think EA is lying in their financial reports.

"Star Wars: The Old Republic is developing a committed community of players with more than 1.7 million active subscribers and growing,” said Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello. That's straight from the EA press release. He said it's "growing." If you think he's lying, you should call the Securities and Exchange Commission, because that would be a criminal offense and he would be put in jail for lying to investors. EDIT: The conference call is in a few minutes. It's public and you can listen in for yourself if you're in disbelief: Listeners may access the conference call live through the following dial-in number: 773-799-3213 (domestic) or 888-677-1083 (international), using the password “EA” or via webcast at http://ir.ea.com.

Which one?

I've played a lot of games and the most memorable PvP battles I had were in Planetside. Lots of players and gunfire, lots of tactics, lots of excitement. Nothing could beat jumping out of a dropship with seven squadmates for a quick commando strike on an enemy base control center. I've actually been involved in some epic battles in Ilum that make me believe SWTOR has the potential to be great PvP. Bioware has to figure out a way for those types of battles to happen regularly, rather than by accident.

Twenty-seven bags? Give me a break, I can get that many bags in a week without trying too hard. Congratulations, you just earned the title of Crybaby.

Was going to say the same thing. When was the Rift funeral announced, because I missed it. Does everyone think if you don't have 10 million subscribers like WoW, you're dead?

After reading a lot of threads about which class is better, which class is most feared, etc., and seeing how classes perform in the hundreds of warzone matches I've played, I'm now convinced that any of the SWTOR classes can shine in PvP if you play them right. I'd stick to the one that has the playstyle you like the most, i.e., range vs. melee, dps vs. tanking vs. healing, etc.

Wait, don't Battlemaster bags give Champion commendations, which you can use to get your Champion gear? Being only valor 50, I haven't opened them yet.

Are there actual GMs in this game that you can, ya know, actually talk to? Just curious. Has anyone ever chatted with one?

Yet here you still are, trolling away merrily all over the place. I guess saying good-bye is never easy.

You need to quit the game and then go see a psychotherapist since this seems to be such an emotionally traumatic event for you.

Yes, this is a big pain in the butt that has to be changed. When that huge mission completion window pops up while I'm in a warzone, it covers up the op unit windows right when I'm in the middle of healing.

I dislike WoW because they turned it into Pokemon. Also, SWTOR is as smooth as WoW, and I played WoW for five years. Get a better computer/ISP.

Apparently, there are some trolls in the ranks of investment analysts, too: http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/01/20/ea-bounces-back-as-analysts-defend-%E2%80%98star-wars%E2%80%99/ "Electronic Arts saw its shares rise more than 2% Friday, gaining back some of the ground lost in the previous session after an analyst questioned the health of its highest profile videogame launch of late – “Star Wars: The Old Republic.” The bounce-back came after three other brokers issued notes Friday morning disputing the concerns, saying in essence that the online multi-player game that hit the market on Dec. 20 is performing in line with expectations."

Seems the analyst was just pulling information out of his you-know-what. http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/20/star-wars-the-old-republic-performance-fears-are-overblown-say/

Did anyone consider that maybe the analyst wrote his analysis after getting spawn camped yesterday?

The key word in that item--which btw is real--is "expectations." We know they sold about 1.5 million copies the first week, which is great, but maybe EA told the analysts they were expecting 2 million. Before today, the stock was priced based on analyst projections. If those projections were wild-eyed, like they were expecting SWTOR to be the new WoW all of a sudden, then the price is naturally going to drop. In an absolute sense, the game seems to be doing OK. I haven't noticed any dropoff in player numbers on my server--despite the trollfest that we have here on the forums.

There was nobody at the Republican base--it was empty. And, as I said, the zerg WAS chasing us, but most of the time we gave them the slip and just found imps in other areas who were in smaller groups. And now that the patch has been released and the furor is over, how many people do you think they're going to kill by camping the Republican base? Probably no more than I did by roaming the zone. I finished my 30-kill quest in a half hour with my party of five, in a zone where we were outnumbered 5-1.