I'd never have said this in Beta or in another other MMORPG, but in all honesty allowing you to summon 3 companions in SWTOR to allow you to "solo" 4 Heroics and FP would be a good thing I think. You'd likely have to overgear them a bit anyway so it wouldn't really affect much else other than opening up areas of the game to solo play.

If I were to contain SWTORs failings in a sentance it would probably be: "Over promise, under deliever, panic and then copy WoW." There is so much they could have done with SWTOR to build on the great stuff they had (story, voice acting, companions, reasonable PvP balance [ignoring Resolve]), but they really seem unwilling to innovate at all, they aren't even copying the good features from games like SWG or WAR (both of which SWTOR developers come form).

Yep, more advanced and more rewarding systems can certainly be done.

It should work ok as an RvR encouragement tool, however it really relies on the framework of the RvR more than the faction grind itself as to whether it works and is popular or not (and the engine being able to handle it, of course).

Indeed it was boring in WoW back in 2007 (with Burning Crusade) and it hasn't got any better since. I can't remember the last new and innovative idea an MMO Dev had, but it would have been in EQ1, SWG or DAoC and more than a decade ago now.

It's not exactly a "good thing", but yes it is basically an artifical block to stretch the grind out (for those that would burn through it). The idea is you're not supposed to notice that is is boring and pointless if it is cut up into weekly chunks. I don't think it actually fools anyone, but I suppose it does maybe keep a few subs for a bit longer (maybe). To me any grind that needs a weekly cap is probably a bad (& boring, uninspired and poor) grind, and I suspect the Devs know this themselves. To me the rule of thumb would be content that would engage players without needing artifical blocks, I mean there was no weekly cap on faction in EQ1 when you were killing 10,000's of Gnolls to get your toon into Qeynos (or wherever), but people did it because it was an achievement (genuinely).

No, you haven't misunderstood.

It's just another grind, it's basically the same thing WoW did with Burning Crusade (attach rep grinds to EVERYTHING) - which is basically why I quit WoW after BC and never went back. I'm all for lateral character development, but I'd much rather this be something character based, rather than just a grind for another title or bit of gear that is soon out of date. The only place where grinds like this really work IMO is in PvP, where it gives you a "rank".

Yeah it was certainly possible in quit a few ways, but it was much harder to stumble across them in the first place and the effort of doing it certainly seemed to put a lot of people off (compared to ground based ganking). Yeah, OPvP was largely dead long before flying mounts came to WoW. Really speaking without some form of structured RvR to maintain it, OPvP almost always just settles to the lowest common denominator (sporadic ganking).

WAR did it, but that's one of the few level based games I've seen do it, but then WARs endgame was RvR, not dragon raiding PvE, unlike SWTOR. I can't see how SWTOR can exist without a PvP stat anymore than WoW could.

They've proven then can do it twice, they've proven they cannot manage it 8 times so far. 12 weeks was, is and probably always will be just much more realistic.

Impossible? Then why are there 3D MMORPGs out there with most of them? SWG had a lot even. SWTOR is even simplified from Everquest 1 in many ways, and that was the first real 3D MMORPG.

6 weeks was a silly promise to make (nothing suggested they'd be able to keep it), 12 weeks is what they should have said.

Yes they were. Bioware EA won't say (literally not a squeek - except for the below). Pointless, they'll just tell you to make a new character and post that one to your old character.

It's supposedly the RvR relaunch which makes it PvP really. Having said that the other events (Rak and scavenger hunt) were PvP........... on a PvP server.

He quit SWTOR, I think he was just playing the forums for most of 2012 anyway. Yeah I'm not sure it really killed OPvP in WoW, it didn't really exist outside very specific areas anyway. It made it a lot harder for gankers to kill AFK people though.......... which is maybe what people mean.

The thing is MMORPGs didn't use to have mounts, then they did (well mostly). Some people expect flying mounts as part of that progression (especially if they just come from WoW). It may be unrealistic, but equally it is understandable. (and it probably doesn't help that SWG had it before it closed)

That was never. Even in MUDs people ganked. It's a bad part of the Human psyche. Having said that it's not that scary these days, if you're killed in outlaws den the worst that can happen is you may have to respawn at the nearest base. In the old day you would lose exp, maybe lose a level and could be full gear and coin looted.

No real depth at all is there (i.e Z axis)? Hence lack of swiming or more than ankle deep water.

There is certainly, but people are saying if it's time to pre-order it's time to have pretty much all the details, I largely agree (although I think they have). The most it could be away is 3.5 months if they stretched "Spring" to its very breaking point.

You simply cannot have optional flagging in a PvP zone with PvP events, the explotation factor would be monsterous. Even in LOTRO which is a totally PvE game, when you go to the monsterplay zone you are "flagged". Again there have been a few totally PvE servers in a few games and they weren't very popular.

Ilum is supposed to be part of the RvR relaunch, so it is likely be PvP (I'd say certain to be - but Bioware EA have a track record of not living up to promises, unfortunately ). If it's not then fair enough I don't see (then) why it would be a PvP zone, but more worrying is then they must have simply given up on RvR for SWTOR altogether. But really "Gree" has nothing to do with whether it's PvP or PvE or not really, but I wouldn't want to see PvP to PvE as it is a pointless mixing of ideas.

Doing a RvR relaunch event in the RvR bit of Ilum isn't really any different to doing one in a Warzone, you know what you're doing there, and if (somehow) you don't you can't really complain.

SWTOR isn't tiny, but it's not a massive game world either (total square footage - ignoring how it is broken into planets). I don't think they'll ever have Flying Mount not because of world size though, so much as the design, it you look at the current design there are LOADS of places they specifically and intentionally stop you from going, unlike other non-flying mount MMOs like Rift or WAR or LOTRO, never mind the rebuilt Flying Mount WoW world.

You'll see Orcs in SWTOR before you see Flying Mounts IMO.