Which just comes to show how outdated Bioware vision of a MMO really is. Guild Wars 2 couldn't come any sooner to show this multi-billion dollar industry that you should embrace innovation, not be afraid of it. So let SWTOR remain with it's 10 year old class system carbon copied from World of Warcraft.

I'll go as far to say, if a person can't understand one spec, that person can't understand any of them. There is no such thing as "oh, I know how to DPS but I suck at healing". Positioning, environment awareness and movement is universal, regardless of your class. Everything else boils down to: resource management (energy/mana/focus/heat/whatever) and using the right abilities at the right time (be it on a threat generation rotation, damage rotation, or healing 'rotation', quoted for obvious reasons). Anyway, pointless argument. Dual-spec is coming.

And your lack of counter argument, inspiring.

I agree with most of what you said. I'm all for giving as many options to the community as possible and letting them use as they see fit. I just don't agree with the effort part. I raid 10-12h a week already. That's exactly when I socially interact (because I have an out of game communication tool that enables interaction in a meaningful level) with other people (people to whom I also interact on a regular basis) and put real effort into acquiring equipment for my character.

outdated

It's really sad Bioware added this stupid thing of AC. Really, it just proves how clueless they are in terms of MMO design. DPS classes only? Really? Rift with a much smaller budget could think of a better way, with flexible class design via multiple trees and multiple specs, not to mention, an extra Support role that at least tried to add something to the holy trinity of tank/heal/dps. AC should be scrapped altogether, all characters should go back to their original base classes, they should introduce a Healing tree for Warriors and a Tank tree for Agents. Combine all trees with a flexible multi-spec system and let people enjoy the wonders of "bringing the player, not the class".

Please, dual-spec ASAP. Few reasons: - Tired of doing my dailies in a Healing spec. I feel penalized as DPS and Tanks can zap thru their dailies killing things much faster than I do. - Bioware Operation design that requires 2 tanks in a fight and on the previous/next have a enrage timer that forbids having 2 tanks. - Flexibility: sometimes I dps in Medic spec for my guilds because they are missing a damage dealer and not a healer, and I refuse to go out of my way just to respec back and for my main role. While you are at it, get this game in the modern age. All classes should tank/heal/dps. DPS only classes in 2012? Seriously? That is so WoW circa 2004 (when they designed their class system which SWTOR carbon copied).

Ok, it doesn't penalize. It also doesn't address the issues of playing on a low pop server or off the peak time. I can get a group in 20m as a DPS 2am PST in WoW. I don't expect to be an insta-queue, I just want to do a dungeon while I'm questing. Not asking for much, am i? Slow is orders of magnitude better than not getting into a group because I dare play at the wrong time on the wrong server. By all means, let Bioware take a vote on what the player base wants. Edit: Because a MMO doesn't have to eat the most of my life for me to enjoy it. Because I'm already mostly in Rakata gear on my main. Currently leveling an alt and I would love to run as many flash points as I can while doing my quests. When I reach 50, I would also like to run as many Hard Modes as possible, without spending my time spamming general for a group that may never be formed.

Yes, non-cross-server don't address server population and time window constrains. You penalize people playing on low-pop servers and you penalize people playing off the peak server hours. Aside from these 2 points, (most) players don't want to engage in social interactions to run Black Talon hard mode for the 30th time. They just want to complete their daily mission with as little effort as possible. While others want to queue non-stop because they want as many Columi tokens as they can possibly get. For everyone else, you add the 'server only' option to the tool that will group you with people from your server only.

Your interpretation. You view massively multiplayer as genre of game that has a social aspect. You view it this way. You. You are not forced to use and everyone wants a LFG with an opt-out checkbox. Simple. Use it however you want. You advocate forcing most of the players (because you know most don't care about the community) to play the way you believe it's better. Give the option, let 'community' choose. Because I view MMO as fancy wording for co-op games and i fail to see the difference, having said several times that there is nothing which states that MMOs are primarily social games. Anyway, you are relying on semantics to justify forcing the majority of the player base to play according to your definition of what a MMO game is. You have no point in the first place, and whatever other points you made were addressed. In the end, you represent a vocal minority that parrot the non-sense about server communities if it actually meant anything to the majority of the player base. As if servers/realms/shards had any relation whatsoever with community building. Lastly, I'm not attacking your supposed past achievements for free. You brought it up on yourself.

I'm sure you know how much that screenshot proves of your past achievements.

No, they simply don't share your vision of what a MMO game is. Simple as that. For them, it's a co-op game. Again, there is nothing in the MMO acronym that implies a social aspect. That's you interpretation. As much as I don't understand yours. In this day and age you want to forbid people of the option to choose how they want to play and with whom. That's impossible for me to comprehend. I never played Kotor 1/2, so not sure what you are talking about. I enjoy the co-op game and I have no fantasies of making friends with people that I can only 'talk' to by stopping playing the game in the first place (which was the reason why I'm using my free time in front of a computer on a pay-to-play game). I want to go do my dailies while I'm queued to run my daily dungeon. When the queue pops, I play the co-op game with other like minded people, and go back to my dailies. You want to spend your in time in fleet forming a group and becoming famous. Well, good for you. I and so many others don't. Is that so hard to understand?

What attunement? Mag's one? Then you had the proper gear level. Kael and Vashj on Karazhan purples? Yes, sure. You have clearly never been there.

Yes, sure, you were the special famous super-star dude on your server that got invited into a high-end raiding guild in your quest greens. For the rest, you simply didn't understand my point. Guilds wouldn't want to spend their raiding nights going back to old content just to gear up the special snowflake dude they picked up last week. A Hyjal/BT raiding guild would not go back to Karazhan/Gruul because of new players (and if they did, that's because they didn't have the numbers anymore for the hardest content). Skipping the non-sense about US economy, you are clearly out of your mind. As for the rest, if people are taking the cross-server option, that means, the don't give a **** about the intra-server community. Which means, nobody but a few selected people like you, cares about it. Why are you forcing people to care about something that only you cares? Because you know better?

By your own words. Your need to be recognized as a 'good' player in a virtual community. No, it's not, it's hardly that. And if you really think that you can fulfill social needs in front of a computer with virtual friends instead of humans in flesh and blood, you should consider professional help. Once again you rely on believing that you know what is the true definition of a MMO, and your definition is the only right and correct one. You are wrong again. Any online game with hundreds of thousands of players IS a MMO. Just look at the meanings of the acronym, there is ZERO reference to social aspects. For me a MMO is just a fancy name for a co-op role play game (where the vast majority of the players don't role play at all, they just play "classes" of characters). Simple as that. You talk about interaction if the ONLY tool available wasn't a IRC interface straight out of the 80s. Give me a break, what meaningful conversation do you have during the course of a Flashpoint? Do you really stop playing to discuss (while typing) religion or politics before killing a boss?

As if a LFG won't force anyone to do anything. I'm as much as tool to the rest of the group as the group is for me. There is no imbalance. I'll play this game whatever way I want. You want to force people to play however you believe is best. I want the option, you want to deny me that option. They, can, but it becomes harder and harder. Back in BC, the time you so much cherish, the gear ladder was abysmal. Any guild past Gruul/Mag would hardly accept players not wearing their current gear level, be it from SSC/TK or Hyjal/BT. Not to mention, BC had Sunwell which is probably one of the most elitists expansion in the history of MMOs. Negatively impact what? I want a tool with a checkbox to allow people with your mind set to say "I want to group with people from my server only" while I can leave that box unchecked and just play a dungeon as soon as possible. Let the "tools", like me, use each other to play their co-op game. Let the people with social interest play their social game. Look at the bright side, this system will seed out both groups of players. It's a win-win scenario. If most people let that checkbox unchecked, I'm sorry, but that means you are part of a vocal minority that wants to force the majority to play however you see fit.

You are just looking to be the big fish in the small pond. Please, get thru your head that not everyone that plays a MMO is seeking social recognition in a virtual environment that has zero meaning in their lifes. A lot of people see MMOs as simply group/co-op games, that only has entertainment value. Nothing else. This is not real life. This is a game. Most people just want log on and play a game. Is that so hard to understand? Besides, servers aren't meant for breed communities. This is a fallacy. Servers are meant to enable hundreds of thousands of players to enjoy the game because current level of technology forbids more than X number of players in a single server.

Not only population, but also playing or not during prime time. The lack of XLFG penalizes people that can't play during a specific window of time. It creates huge gaps between geared and non-geared people, because one group won't mix with the other for way to many reasons. In a XLFG scenario, given "derserter" type of debuffs you get from bailing a group, people will often endure running along under geared players simply because they just want to get their daily/weekly done.

What's better about the lack of XLFG is that the first 'batch' of 50s are mostly past the need to run HM FPs for gear, meaning, the more time goes by, the smaller will be the pool of players that needs to run these smaller group HM, making it increasingly harder for players to catch up. Exactly what I saw in Rift. I started playing about 1 month after release, and when I got to level cap, majority of the players were only doing the tier 2 heroic instances, or simply raiding. Meaning, there was a unbridgeable gap between me and them. So much for community building.

Why is that every single thread pushing the game to have modern MMO features has the same group of people parroting the exact same argument? - cross-server LFG/Warzones: killed WoW - Dual spec: killed WoW - Mods: killed WoW - Damage Meters: killed WoW - Reduced travel time: killed WoW - Barber shop: killed WoW - Server transfer: killed WoW - AC respec: (would) kill WoW - Faction transfer: killed WoW Thanks in advance for your time.

You don't fix most of the problems if it's not cross-server. Eternal queues outside peak hours or in low pop servers will remain. Come on guys, get this concept of "Server equals Gated Community" out of your heads. Servers are meant to enable millions to play the game, not to simply divide and label them. Blizzards knows that and in the near future you will even be able to party and queue for BG/LFG/LFR with people across servers. The concept of "server" will vanish. As it should.

Welcome to 2012. People should play whatever game they feel like, however way they want. Who are you to tell otherwise? Go play Vanilla WoW on a "non-official" server if that's the experience you want to have.

Bioware should listen to the MMO Overlords (that's Blizzard) and learn from them: http://www.videogamer.com/pc/wowt_cataclysm/news/how_world_of_warcraft_will_take_on_2012.html Q: What do you think the most successful aspect is? (Patch 4.3) DK: Right now? So far for me it seems to be Raid Finder. I know there are a lot of players that really wanted to see that content, and they really wanted to ramp up their character and then have a real challenge of fighting a raid boss but the logistics of getting together with a guild where everyone was available at the same time to raid – not everybody can do that. So Raid Finder opens up a whole lot of content for a whole lot of people and we definitely want to do it with this patch because it's our most epic raid fight we've ever done. No wonder theses guys have 10m subscribers.

Everybody pro-LFG advocates this option. We don't want to force people to play cross-server as much as we don't want to be forced to play within our server only. I rather it comes sooner rather than later. It today's age of instant profits of huge companies, it's not like a 100+ million USD project has forever to return the investment. The IP is strong, all involved is "filthy rich", but still, 6 months from now if the number of subscribers is smaller than the "board" expectation, who knows where things will head.

The concept might appeal on paper, but in reality it's a pain (ACs). Rift spec system is almost the best on the market. Give as many roles to as much people as you can. Let they play together however way the situation requires. Then you get rid of the "mythic" skill tree (hello Pandaria), since inevitably they lead to cookie cutter specs, and you have an ideal class system.