Frankly, I enjoyed the family drama but I miss Empire vs Pub. And by that I mean I miss being an imperial.

I haven't bothered to keep up with the gearing system for quite awhile-- until I read a few of these posts. I'm glad they've kept patching it because holy jesus...if you think the current system is bad, you have no idea. It's only a shadow of the original; the original was the apex of garbage.

Didn't lose any and I have a lot of simple/one word names.

Damn son. I finally decided to log on and... I didn't lose any of my names! I suppose I'm a vet player, but I still expected to lose a few. I have a lot of basic names without fancy letters. And while I think this merge is years late, I'm still happy they did it.

It's funny because I've actually seen a decline in white knights. Either they've been banned or got bored? There use to be one-three of them per thread ripping the faces off of anyone who dared to criticise the game. Feedback threads are much calmer and nicer now.

They abandoned and thus destroyed most of their raiding community long ago. Plus many more communities when they (mostly) stopped producing MMO content and instead focused on solo content. Unless they start pumping out FFXIV/WoW sized expansions with MMO content being the bulk of it, they probably wont be winning much of their old playerbase back. Although I don't think any of my FFXIV guildies would trust SWTOR to keep it up... Most of them strongly dislike SWTOR and all of us are former hardcore SWTOR raiders.

It might not have been good enough to prevent server merges, considering all the focus the devs put on taking the MMO out of this MMO for the past few years. They obliterated most of their stable player base. But... I still think it could've helped the game remain a bit healthier. Extremely slow or dead pops make a game seem well... dead... and can drive away (even casual) players. tl;dr in the end, I still think they would've needed to merge because of dead servers, but cross server might've helped keep the game a bit healthier.

For real though. Did people expect the devs to balance something properly? After years of riding the extreme nerf and buff rollercoaster, it's strange to see feedback threads still.

As a west coaster, I don't care. I'm aware that people still play this game seriously though so that sucks for them.

SWTOR has to compete with MMOs that can pump out buttloads of content... Where expansions are actual expansions. You know, quadruple the content SWTOR has put out in years. I honestly don't think it'll ever be able to revive the community it once had.

I remember the game being a lot move lively when they regularly released MMO content. My old server was full of competition and life. Now years after they stopped producing it my old server is completely dead. My high end raiding guild and all of it's competitors moved to FFXIV, everyone else I assume moved to Harb. Maybe they made bank on the bursts of people from their story "expansions", but I personally don't think they were worth driving away a community.

Wait.. SWTOR is a MMO? I thought it was a single player console game.

Agreed. Please do not mess with the temporal time line Devs.

NOPE Because I don't care enough. I am going to attempt to get a certain name just to troll my SWTOR guild though. Legit gunna cry laughing if I get it.

Raids and multiplayer content in general certainly help with long term player retention. Especially when people know there's going to be consistent releases of that content. Carrot on the stick, etc. I don't agree with the MOBA comment. None of them are even remotely creeping up on MMO monsters of today when you look at numbers. But maybe they will start to. I also dislike them so I'm bias.

FFXIV does have story. Lots of it. There is a massive list of main story quests, which I can link if needed. All bosses, all raids, every part of the game has story/lore attached to it too. I wasn't saying FFXIV didn't have it, just that focusing mainly on it and abandoning raiding like SWTOR did would be catastrophic. Because, again, raiding is clearly still popular in the MMO community. People simply need to look at the most popular MMOs to know that. Denying that is like staring at a brick wall and saying it's not there. I personally dislike FFXIV's story, but I know people who love it. Most of my guildies get mad at me when I mention skipping the cutscenes.

Hasn't SWTOR been focusing on the "solo experience" for years now? From the looks of it, it hasn't done that well. I'd like to see the destruction it'd cause if FFXIV decided to go that route. There's no way, even if they made their story more interactive, that it wouldn't lose ***loads of subscribers and popularity. There are quite a few unofficial raider servers on FFXIV, and they're the largest (most populated) servers. They've crashed their datacenters when new raids/content come out because so many people are trying to log onto them. Which is an issue the devs continue to work on. I'm pretty sure just one unofficial raider server has more subscribers than SWTOR has. Not to say that SWTORs new approach to raids is going to bring back that many players. I think they'll need to put out more content, with more variety, than that. My point is that raiding is clearly still popular in the MMO community. If SWTOR didn't ditch it (and other parts of the game) for so long I think it'd be MUCH more healthy than it is now.

I doubt anyone but the devs know. But lets be generous and say 250k. I can vaguely remember a few people estimating that number quite a few years back. I think it's safe to assume (if we are pretending they were right) there's less now since so many servers are dead, but lets stick with it anyway. That number is still pretty sad when you compare it to FFXIV reporting 5million subscribers, which is also an old number. That was before most servers were locked from overpopulation(they've also recently added more servers). Then there's WoW, of course, but it's the vet game. FFXIV is the new sprout on the raise. SWTOR is... well..."refocusing on multiplayer content". Hmm...

To check up on things. I let my sub renew even when I'm not playing. Sometimes I wont play for months, which doesn't really matter since SWTOR doesn't roll out that much content. I can usually burn through months worth in a day. Anyway, If there's a thread I feel like replying to, I will. Sometimes I'll get in a mood and reply to a bunch of threads for a couple days. Usually I just skim and leave though.

If we are (sort of) ignoring the budget, then I think they should focus on all facets of a MMO in small bursts. Instead of ignoring one part for two-three years and driving people away as a result. Then every once in awhile release large, aka competitive, expansions. Instead of the VERY minor patches they're currently labelling as expansions.

FFXIV is certainly not for people who want to treat a MMO like a single player game. And they should never be catered to, in my opinion.

For anyone who doesn't play FFXIV, it regularly rolls out PvP content and tweaks(you can only use pvp skills in it now etc). Not just PvE. This wasn't the case earlier in the games life so I assume some people are working off old info. I'm almost 100% sure some are after reading this. FFXIV also rolls out regular raids, housing content, crafting content, mini games, brand new events(and old ones for people who missed them), glamour, single bosses(aka trials), dalies, main story, dungeons(also Deep Dungeons were introduced) and so much more. It covers all four pillars and its growing rapidly. I think completely ignoring any is a mistake, but again I realize SWTOR does not have the budget to focus on all of it.

They probably believed they could fix the problem with all their... "amazing" ideas and...content(?). Like gambling for gear, and etc. Clearly none of it attracted or retained enough to revive the servers. I never thought it would. But this is coming from someone who mainly plays FFXIV, so I'm spoiled by a constant flow of content for all facets of a MMO. And they clearly have a budget that SWTOR does not.

Nah. Buff the crap out of sorc DPS to make them FOTM in PvE. Give them a month or so then nerf the actual living **** out of them. Wait maybe like a year, rinse and repeat. Gotta keep the salt levels up, captain. And remember to Heal to Full.

In SWTOR's history "class balance" = "nerf one class into the ground and buff one into the new FOTM" I hope this pattern will change one day.