Well, to provide a little bit of a counterpoint to this, allow me to describe a social scenario that unfolded for me last night: I am a returning player and a subscriber. I always enjoyed the game, but real-life reared its ugly head last spring and I cancelled my account, so no hard feelings on my part and no desire to deride anyone who wants to play this game. I'm even trying to get all my friends to try the F2P and get those who used to play back. Anyway. I hadn't really ever tried Republic-side, and I was enticed by the irony of rolling a Sith Jedi, so I made my new Knight and plunged myself into Tython's missions. General chat was full of questions, which I was happy to answer when I could, along with a couple other veterans. A casual dueling match broke out in front of the Jedi Temple via a new F2P person's request to try PvP. Everything was very friendly, and the one troll who popped up was quickly dealt with. I think I even made a new friend named Pudding, as we discussed variations on the Slave Girl outfit and waved to each other every time we passed one another at the Jedi Temple. I had a great time, and I think those who participated in the conversation did, too. So even if there are bad experiences out there, there are also great ones. Or maybe The Bastion is just that super awesome at 5:00 a.m. Pacific

Hey all, new smuggler here, and I love Corso so far! There's just one little thing that bothers me about him.....*** is with his neck? o.O Did someone try to slit his throat once or something? Is he some sort of near-human alien dude with dreds and neck ridges? I can't stop looking at it, and it doesn't matter what skin he has on, the weirdo scar/ridges are there. Theories?

Actually, the RP set on Voss looks like that, and it's all orange, but the robes themselves are mostly white. You need a pretty high Social level to get it, too. http://www.torhead.com/item/9TTs1Cs/voss-mystic-robe

Naw, I think he's serious but deluded. He's watched (or made?) a video about how wonderful the subscription-less model is and how it's the new trend in MMOs because DDO and DCUO and other MMOs have gone FTP, without realizing that's the first sign of a game's death throes.

<3 Thank you, Mr. Lizard.

And this would just be to show that the MMO by itself is profitable. That wouldn't even be showing whether the successful MMO is propping up dud properties that the company never sees any profit on whatsoever. Going back to Activision's report in the video, If we assume the subscription income is all due to the MMOs listed in its MMO expenses, then the MMOs by themselves turn out a profit of $319 million every quarter. So....without WoW, Activision would make $16 million every quarter. $5.3 million every month. Yeah....I think WoW is propping up the rest of Activision. Now do you see where your $15/month is going, OP?

Only went to WoW because that was the example given in his much-touted video. If I'd had another company's quarterly report in front of me to compare to NCSoft, I'd have used that.

And you're ignoring the fact that Guild Wars is an instanced multiplayer game as opposed to a true MMO that by your own admission hasn't had any new content since Eye of the North, which was released several -years- ago. Meanwhile, TOR has already had a content patch, even before my $15/month subscription kicked in. In the end, the two months I played GW cost me about as much as I've currently paid for TOR. Difference being, BW will continue to make money off of me and my subscription, because they've made a more interesting game, and will overall be a cheaper game for the amount of entertainment I will receive from it.

Hokay, looked at your video again, and paused it on the quarterly reports this guy points to for the server maintenance costs, specifically Activision's report. He is ignoring -all the other costs- associated with the company. Costs of making the games, costs of IP rights, costs of development, costs of marketing, costs of royalties, development, and general administration. Yes, receptionists need to get paid, too. This is including games other than WoW, but you can bet that total MMO costs are spread out over the other categories as well. And if a company is going to make money, you had better believe that they're going to hedge bets and charge for a large profit on games that are regular cash cows like successful MMOs to cover for all their flops. Look at their subscription revenues, which are $378 million. It's about 1/3 of their total income, and also includes all licensing for toys and other associated royalty income. I'm willing to bet WoW licensing is just as if not more lucrative than the subscription fees, so let's say half of that third is pure subscription fee income. So, for $189 million in income over three months, they have an operating cost of about $75 million, bumped up a smidge for the receptionists and execs and marketing and such that isn't directly related to the cost of WoW but certainly goes into the support of the game, and I think I'm truly lowballing that one. After taxes, the total income for the company is $335 million for three months. Wait....the total income for the company is -less than- the revenues for subscriptions and licensing from one MMO?! Oh yeah, them video game companies have got us over a barrel and are stealing money from our pockets with their unreasonable profits. Sheesh.

Server maintenance isn't the only cost involved with maintaining a true MMO, which I really don't consider Guild Wars to be since all of the content is -instanced-, or at least it was when I played it. GW can afford to turn a profit without a subscription because 1) the initial cost of the game is significantly higher than other games 2) their server loads are much less complicated with people only running into each other in cities and no need to relay info on random spawns to every computer of every character in a given area 3) they have a significantly smaller player base and thus fewer people for their customer support 4) they lack regular content patches in favor of more frequent expansions. Yeah, you don't have to pay $15/month. Instead you pay $80 every six months for a new box for two years, and then patiently wait for the sequel while getting zilch to tide you over. Though if there have been content patches since Eye of the North, please feel free to correct me. I never bothered to get any of the expansions.

I played Rift, too. Did the trial, bought the game, was bored a month later. I -loved- the open grouping and the rift events, I thought the options for talent trees were compelling, but the quests felt grindy and the story was meh. I couldn't get into the lore, and it was hard to invest myself in my characters when I didn't give a flip about steampunk vs. holy crusaders. And that was my point. My definition of immersive -- a story I am driving that is affected at least cosmetically by the choices I make and well-founded in a canon with a long history -- is vastly different than yours, which seems to be based on environments one can wander in with random encounters and spontaneous grouping. Honestly, I'd love to see those elements incorporated into TOR at some point, because they were awesome. But the thing that matters most to me -- the story -- I thought was lacking in Rift, and thus I prefer the story-driven TOR. My friends and I are basically starring in our own Star Wars movie. And it can be made non-linear by doing what we always do, which is RPing our own plots with a strong lore to back us up. Love it! P.S. How can you go cruising around Alderaan and not find it 1) gorgeous and 2) huge as all get out?!

A proud Wrathbaby (I technically started playing some time around Sunwell but didn't get to end-game content until Wrath), I left my WoW addiction behind a few months before TOR came out. I am very happy where I am now, and have no intention of returning to WoW. I think a lot of the WoW vs. TOR issues boil down to a difference in style of game play. I am a die-hard RPer, and rolled exclusively on RP servers in WoW, and I feel like TOR was made for people like me. Even on a PvP server -- which I rolled on simply because I wanted to play with RL friends who prefer to PvP -- I feel like I'm RPing constantly due to the way quests are set up. I boggle at people who use the spacebar to skip all that juicy dialog, because for me, that -is- the game play, just as much as shooting lightning from my fingertips and sniping enemies from behind cover. It warmed my little RPing heart to see someone who complained about his need to use the spacebar on my new PvP server home get -torn apart- in general chat by fellow lore-lovers. A PvP server, generally the least lore-friendly place a person can find, at least in my experience. Can you believe it? The game also seems to be designed to be played with friends. A lot of my new guildies (my RL friend's WoW guild imported into TOR, lovely and friendly people who show no sign of returning to that Blizzard property either) are pairing up and using the buddy system while leveling to take advantage of the social point bonanza. Not to mention all the flashpoints and heroic missions along the way for which you need more than just you and your companion to complete. So this single-player, anti-social game talk also boggles my mind, since to get the most out of it, to see the story in full, you absolutely -need- to group and play with other people. If I didn't care about the story and what my various characters were thinking, if I was all about the pew-pew and dps and number crunching and gear grinding and optimal building, I would be rather disappointed in the game, too. Ability delay annoys me terribly, I feel handicapped without a LFFP tool, and many of the conveniences I enjoyed in WoW are missing. But TOR is a month old, and the story is so damn good and immersive that I can overlook the bugs for the time being, probably until they can be fixed, and especially if they keep putting new shinys in front of my face (read: monthly content patches) to distract me. And with the promises of the Legacy system, huge incentive for alting, replay value within each class (light/dark and sorcerer/assassin combinations yield four possible ways to do the inquisitor storyline from 1-50), I can very happily dedicate my gaming time to this game without getting bored and not even -need- to bother with the endgame content if I don't feel like it. I liked WoW, but the story died with the Lich King, and all the improvements in game play and polish from Cata meant nothing because I was no longer invested in the lives of the characters I was playing. I tried, I really did, I even dipped my toe into the Firelands raid, but I cannot see how the remnants of the Warcraft plot can be advanced by venturing to Pandaland, and I'd rather play the story than read about it in novels. So I'm a TOR girl now.

So.....if you can make faction-specific races for the opposite faction with legacy, you think they'll open up existing-but-limited races for all classes in a faction? Because lemme tell you, I was sad that my army of evil Twi's was impossible when they were only allowed for Inquisitors....and I will totally reroll my Agent if she could be Twi.