We will probably limit the 'need' button to only people who match the primary class the gear is meant for, and add a new button in between need and greed for players to choose if they intend the gear for these purposes - this will allow CC users to roll against each other without competing with the guy who wants to sell the gear for credits. Did you even read this part? It literally nullifies your rant about winning gear by pure luck. Have fun not getting away with what you want when this gets implemented.

I hope this settles things. Straight from a Dev's mouth: On Monday last week, Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert jumped in on a discussion about need vs. greed in SWTOR, revealing that there will be changes to the current system in the future: Need vs. greed isn't as simple in our game because of companions, as well as Orange Gear and mod extraction. We will probably limit the 'need' button to only people who match the primary class the gear is meant for, and add a new button in between need and greed for players to choose if they intend the gear for these purposes - this will allow CC users to roll against each other without competing with the guy who wants to sell the gear for credits. I don't have a timeline on this for you guys right now, though - certainly not in the next major patch. In the meantime, I strongly recommend that players who care clearly decide the expected need/greed role behaviors ('no companion need rolling or you're out!') when a group is initially formed. In the meantime, I'll work on getting this feature in the works.

Guild Wars did that already, it didn't go over very well. They're trying again with a new system, but honestly, it's not going to go over so well either. Once people start playing their PC game with XBoX Live console players, there goes any chance of even trying to get a trinity worked out anyways. Vindicuts doesn't have a trinity, Tera doesn't look to have one either, but both of those are action based MMOs, which doesn't really need a trinity. What I could see games evolving (at least a niche of them) to would be either your traditional style that uses a trinity, or an action based style that forgoes the trinity in favor of being responsible for your own mitigation and dodging of boss attacks. Put simply, one system would use a dice/roll system to depend on, the other would be more about learning patterns and finding/exploiting openings in a boss' attacks. Having a mix of the two, while it could be possible, probably wouldn't be favorable to a player's eyes and senses.

Unfortunately, people that purposefully spell another person's name incorrectly discredit themselves. Fortunately for you, you didn't have much to say. Oh and murder isn't illegal, getting caught is. In case you were wondering, communities make laws, but I suppose you didn't put much thought into that one. I'd also like to point out that, although I indeed participated in server firsts, I also got world firsts, which coincidentally would happen together on plenty of occasions.

Cross-server is not needed. Your reputation on a server should count for something. Those saying a douche is still a douche even with a cross-server LFG: Sure, they will still be douches, but why would we WANT them to queue with other people not on your server? This will only allow them to carry on, and never feel the repercussions of it. You'd rather have those people earn they way back into other people's favor than have them ply their nuisance on others with impunity. Those that say the community was dead long before LFG: You couldn't be more wrong. The only time this applies to you would be if you were the bad. If you weren't a bad person and you claim the community was as horrible as you describe, you are nothing more than a Wrath Baby. In BC, you had to join the LFG channel, if you weren't being ignored and you were able to show that you weren't a ninja or an idiot, you were granted a pretty quick invite. You say the community was dead, I say the community was policing itself and you were either one of the ignored or were plainly not worth your salt. Either way, your performance in a group would leave people wanting, and I'd rather you didn't get to spread your filth among people of other servers. Those that say Ninjas never got blacklisted are very wrong. I've waited for hours before a raid started, because of bad apples, and wouldn't want it any other way. Because we had to wait on quality performers, I was able to not only gain among the only world firsts on many a raid for an American guild, we didn't have to bring any of the people that you so boldly claim still have an endgame. Blacklisting indeed happened, indeed worked, and indeed kept people playing as they should, lest they have virtually no endgame to speak of. I've seen it happen first hand, purposefully not invited people based on it, and certainly have no qualms of it happening again. Cross-server did indeed destroy communities and allowed people to be ******es without repercussion. The community was greater not having it, and I've seen it happen exactly as people claim it hasn't. As you've no doubt noticed with the above paragraphs, I'm not sugar coating my dislike of a cross-server LFG. People are going to be even more of an ******e than they were if they had to watch their reputation on a server, because they know the anonymity will save them from any harm. If you think for once that people will still act the same without being acted upon, you have no first hand knowledge of it happening or it happened to you and you won't want it because you would rather continue with your wanton irrational behavior. As stated by other posters, if you're on a low population server and can't find groups, you have greater issues than a cross-server LFG system could provide. Although you might not see it this way, you'd be better off having your server grow than using a tool that enables your already small population to behave unjustly towards your cross-server peers. This also does not gain you any reputation with existing guilds on your server because you'll most likely never be grouped with them. Even on the off-chance you were, the chances a guild from your server would recruit you aren't as good. By then they'd have already moved on to other more reliable sources of recruitment than notice you in a random Flashpoint.

The opposite, they weren't going to do it, but re-evaluate it later. Cons to using cross-server LFG: (And I won't use the community scapegoat) Ninjas- People will roll on anything and everything, because they can get away with it. Anonymity- People can and will act like complete asses because they can get away with it. Dropping- People will drop group at the hint of the group having a problem, instead of trying to work through it, which is also why developers like Blizzard had to implement a deserter debuff. People will drop if another person wins the gear they queued for, or if it doesn't drop at all, forcing people to go back into the queue instead of finishing the run. Kicking- People will be scrutinized by others for not having an optimum spec, or at least what the group lead believes is the optimum spec. People will be kicked for not having what the group lead believes is having optimum gear. People will be kicked for being a certain class, melee or ranged. Pretty much, since there will be a system that automatically gives you a replacement, and that replacement as well as the person being kicked are most likely going to be from different servers, this person can kick with impunity and not fear repercussion of his same-server peers. People can and will be kicked for a large variety of reasons, instead of just trying to finish the run, because they can get away with it. People will even be kicked for not out-gearing the instance, or if they think 1 or more party members are going to compete with the group leader for a piece that drops inside the instance. Name- You cannot make a name for yourself if you're grouped with people of another server. Being decent at your role doesn't help you get positions in an Operation if your other group members are from other servers. Being grouped with the same people consistently with members of the same server develops your name and standing among other people on your server, which gives you opportunities to participate in Operations or join well established guilds. Bad Name- The opposite of the above topic. Having a bad name on your server should come with appropriate consequences. If you have a bad attitude, treat other people on your server unfairly, are generally not a good person to group with, or any type of behavior that make people not want to group with you, people will eventually start putting you on /ignore. These people shouldn't have an endgame, and they certainly shouldn't be free to do their dirty deeds on people from multiple servers. By doing this, it just opens up more people to mess with, with no repercussions and no way to be stopped. I can post more, but this is already a pretty sizable post.

I'm for dual spec, I agree it can help people fill roles, and perform tasks like questing easier. Saying that, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate a bit here. I just wanted to say that I'm NOT against this, so please bear with me. What I don't like about the system, it forces you to pick a spec you would normally not have or use. If you are in a progressive or competitive guild that likes to compete for server firsts, or at least stay competitive with other guilds that do, this is going to almost be a nightmare for you. What many people would occupy a PvP spec or a spec that helps you do things like finish daily quests quicker, will soon not exist. You will be required to have a viable PvE spec that fills another role, you must stay up to date on the latest developments on that second spec, you must completely gear out that spec and stay current on all the best gear possible. Your option to have fun with that spec isn't an option at all at that point. And, you'll be asked to fill that role at any time or be benched, even if you don't like doing it. This is especially going to be true for tanks, as many encounters will switch from a 2 tank to single tank fight, that OT will be going DPS whether he wants to or not, and if he doesn't comply, he gets benched. Players shouldn't be forced to switch roles they don't like playing just for the mere fact they can do it. If a person doesn't like to DPS, and would rather tank, you're forcing his hand and there's nothing he can do about it, because it's expected of him thanks to dual spec being enabled.

You'd like to compare Rift to SW:TOR, and I'm not trying to defend TOR, rather I'm giving a comparison. And yes, Rift has it's fair share of bugs, as a matter of fact, at release, half the playerbase couldn't play the game. Many people seem to forget this, but there was a major flaw with the game that prevented some people from playing. So major in fact, that Rift, as of a couple months or so ago, just now can claim they've made a profit. Again I go back to raid encounters, and since I've also played Rift competitively, I can already tell you, TOR is far and beyond what Rift did. You want to say how easily Rift released, although half the playerbase couldn't play, outside of the first month, then you add how long queues were, then you add where my expertise lies, with end game competition, and you cannot say Rift did any better, as a matter of fact, without trying to game TOR with an advantage, they have done it better, far better. Endgame on Rift saw 2 actual raids, with fewer bosses. Released after TOR did in timeframe. Even if we look at WoW today, they have 8 bosses at endgame currently, TOR has more than that. Apples to oranges. I'm not trying to promote TOR, but glaring opinions towards content are obviously different. People claim there's no endgame, although we've already had an Operation extension, another Flashpoint, which was only the first of 2 patches, the second of which is coming in March, we've almost had the entire content of both Rift at launch and WoW's current expansion at launch doubled in the same time frame. Nope, no end game. I'm no fanboy, I don't just jump a bandwagon and blindly promote a game, let alone a BioWare game, which I think frankly is a hit-and-miss genre of RPG to go with, but opinion and fact are almost the opposite when it comes to this game, and glaring "haters" aren't very factual.

Unfortunately for any of you posting, none of you (unless I know you) have a world first of vanilla raids. Fortunately for me, I do. You want to talk about balance? You want to talk about how people cheesed mechanics or encounters? Maybe even talk a little about how many guilds cheated their way to getting the AQ server-first mount? WoW was so bugged, cheated, malformed and so totally broken with their raids, that literally hundreds of people were banned without even knowing how they beat an encounter. My server, of course was the first to beat AQ40, NAX, and MC. However, those that came after us, although it wasn't even a week after we did it, Blizzard decided to ban them because they were awarded the mount. Who's fault was this? We come here, and see what BioWare is doing, almost the opposite. Despite a few bugs, which sure can be annoying, aren't game breaking, aren't affecting the entire world as a competitive raid encounter, and definitely isn't doing so much wrong with the mechanics or encounters that entire servers are being banned. People who claim this game is so buggy, and still claim to give the nod to other MMOs are immature in their assumptions. You have yet to experience content that the developers have even imagined could be beaten in such a time. Today, we consume content at such a fast rate that there is almost no possible way encounters could ever be bug free, no amount of testing could even touch the variety the general public does to them. You say they're buggy and un-playable, I tell you that you are trying to stretch the encounter beyond the means they were designed for, even if you were the one to see the bug. Do common bugs exist in our Operations? Sure, they exist in every raid, you see it often when a guild gets banned for exploiting it. Why then, are you so overjoyed to find a bug? You would have normally been banned by any other developer. A common bug is just that, common, don't complain about how it's not fixed if you have no idea of the timeframe it takes to fix it. Some of you I see complain about bugs that existed since beta, but do you have any idea of how long it could possibly take to fix? Of course not, you'd rather complain and say the game was un-playable instead of trying to adapt. I adapted, 39 of my fellow raiders adapted, and we adapted to a game you now claim is better than this one. You are wrong.

You do not do any relevant theorycrafting and it shows. Theorycrafters do not state balance, they do not state whether a certain class has more of another class, they exploit whether a class is going to be the benefit of the most of a certain criteria. Hunters being damage, it does not state, however, utility, which BM Hunters have in spades. Please do not bother us with your "napkin" math, as you only prove that you are among the incorrect masses that belittle Theorycrafting as a whole.

Opinion =/= fact, no matter how much you try.

You can already do this. I have a Mako with two pieces of Columi as we speak.

This is actually the opposite. Theorycrafters had Armor Pen so wrong that the devs had to actually post the real formula. Eventually leading people, once the actual formula was revealed, to stack nothing BUT that stat, and led to its downfall.

Some of you just aren't understanding what this "nerf" is actually doing. BioWare has numbers far greater than you could supply. Even if we were to have combat logs and could see every single bit of damage your Surge affected, you still wouldn't have all the numbers BioWare has. I see this same thing being argued over and over in other MMO forums; people doing totally wrong napkin math or not using complete formulas to compile info that they want changed their way. Not happening. Surge was doing more than they wanted it to do. It doesn't matter what YOU wanted it to do, it doesn't matter what YOU felt it was doing, it doesn't even matter how much you depended on it, what matters is the stat was too strong and it needed to be capped. You can complain and whine, provide all the wrong math you want, tell people you're going to quit just because you feel so totally slapped in the face. The truth of the matter is, a stat was too strong, it's getting capped, deal with it. Oh and ultimatums don't work, your Surge is going to stay capped whether you quit or not. TLDR: BioWare's math > your math. Surge needed capped, doesn't matter how you feel about it.

The answer is simple; by not having a dual spec system, you don't get shoehorned into having to play a role (or in plenty of cases multiple roles) because it's demanded of you and it's standard you have to live up to. If your guild recruits, you won't have a need for your healer to switch out to a DPS role. If you're not making enrage timers having a 2nd tank around, your DPS are the problem, not the 2nd tank.

Don't be foolish. How many raiding guilds require you to have not only a competent 2nd spec built for another role, but have gear and parses to show how good they are? Every competitive guild does this, your 2nd spec for a hybrid no longer becomes a "fun" thing just to have, it's a requirement. This is especially true for tanks.

Your opinion on how the story unfolds, is told, plotted and ends are purely your own opinion, and not fact. Stop stating opinion as fact and hyperbole. If you don't like how a story is told, or how a story driven MMORPG plays out, this isn't really the game for you. You knew well in advance this was going to be story driven, and now that you have it, you feel compelled to state how you don't like the story or you prefer skipping it and portray it and it's quality as a fact, which it is not. If somebody wrote a fictional story about you and your life, and somebody commented about how they thought the book sucked and was poorly written, how much of that would you believe is fact? None of it. This is also why you don't get your money back if you didn't like a movie.

But that's exactly what it's there for. You don't need to collect every datacron to be successful come endgame. While it may be nice, and add a little variety to what you can do to kill time or if you're bored, it's not supposed to be a walk in the park to get all of them. Some of them require some crafty thinking and strategies. Some of them require a bit of teamwork. How many times have you seen one in plain view but you just couldn't figure out how to get to it? That's the point, you have to use some thought and waste a little time.

As long as it's kept inside our AC, I wouldn't mind it. But I'd suggest it comes with the following penalties: -A very high up-front cost. Around 2 million credits sounds good to me. -Only inside your AC, no going from Marauder to Juggernaut, etc. -Only one other choice, nothing like quad spec or something silly. -Can't do it on the fly or in combat. -Long and interrupt-able cast time, say around 15 seconds. -Long cooldown, 45 minutes to an hour. -Complete dispel of all buffs and debuffs (including stims). -Changing one of your specs will still require a respec cost, the same costs still apply doing it this way.

It doesn't matter what you think is feasible to roll on, if your server doesn't like it. I've said this before, but obviously some people just don't understand the concept. What you think is fair and reasonable to roll on doesn't matter if your server doesn't allow it. You can harp all day long how you like your companion to be geared, how you like the look of a certain piece, if you want to strip the mods out, etc. Plain and simply, if your server frowns upon rolling on gear that can't be used by you, and an actual player could use it as an upgrade, and you keep doing it, eventually you will have almost no endgame. Your peers CAN and WILL force you how to play, they DO tell you how you can roll on gear, and there's nothing you can do about it, because eventually you'll end up being blacklisted if they don't like it. Your only option is to play by the rules they set, if you don't like it, roll another server or re-make your entire account. It's the same with almost all civilized society right now. Societies and communities create law, it doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, if you want to keep living there, you abide by them or go somewhere else, plain and simple.

"Epic" is merely an opinion, what you feel is "epic" or not "epic" is opinionated and isn't what other people feel. Some people are harder to please, others easier, stating what you don't think is "epic" is certainly not another's opinion. An actual Epic is a story or long poem, not a feeling of awesome or something grand.

You certainly don't NEED to, but from Tatooine on the planets start to scale up in size, by the time you get to a large planet like Hoth, it could take you quite a while without one to get around.

Achievements- Codex works fine as it is, IMO LFD- Getting changed LFR- Not needed Combat Logs- Already getting one Addon-support- Not needed, we're getting the ability to change our UI and combat logs Faction-changer- Worst idea for TOR, way too much would be changed to be feasible Advance Class respecs- Different classes are different classes, BioWare doesn't like it either Guild perks, levels, banks- Forces people to stay in guilds they didn't like, already getting banks sever transfer- More harm than good (see: ninjas) better questing structure- ? TOR does this pretty well actually, nothing needs changed phasing- Not needed, we already have sharding, which I'll admit has improved somewhat I believe somebody already posted this as well, but if we had the ability to link achievements, our already slow pace of grouping will be further hampered. People will want more of a guaranteed success rate and demand you link, which severely limits what a player trying to get his/her foot in the door will be able to run.

Playable or not (which is totally playable), 1.7 million people disagree with you.

What you might not be understanding, and I covered this in other parts of the post you quoted, is that your companion does not need this gear, even though you have the option to roll on it, your companion gets gear handed to them, the player has to earn it, by choosing this option while leveling, you're gimping the other players in your group to give your companion gear that you'll replace at no cost to you personally. The player, on the other hand, has to spend either money, badges, or have to re-run the instance to get this gear. Not as frequently, and not guaranteed like a companion has it. And again, your companion does not need that gear, they can do their tasks just as well without it. A player does not have that option as consistently as a companion does. You absolutely CAN improve your companion, which you're not trying to say I'm contesting, of course, but as I stated above, those quest rewards for a player are few and far between, a companion can and in many cases does acquire gear at a faster rate than a player, just using the specifically made gear alone. The last section of the paragraph, I addressed above, but I'll give a short explanation so readers don't have to skim parts of my post to get the point: Your companion does not need it, a player does, your companion gets gear at a quicker rate, it gets this gear guaranteed so long as you don't give another companion their gear, and it costs nothing for you to do it. A player would have to either spend badges, money, or re-run the content to do the same, all because you could have just considered a companion would surpass that gear long before the player could save the badges for the mods to replace the old, should the piece even be of orange quality. Because you're as dependent on your companion as you are, should you need it to function outside a group as badly as you need player gear, it's not maximizing you're doing, you're trying to ensure you stay dependent on your companion, whether this is done by choice or by not thinking about it, is moot. If you're so concerned with your companion's performance that you should roll on gear despite a player needing it, does not change the fact that you just chose to give an artificial entity an item that detracts the performance of an actual player, a real person. You gave a robot a shirt that doesn't even know if this shirt does anything at all, doesn't care if you did or didn't, has no idea if it's useful, isn't thankful for it, doesn't care if it's completely naked, has no love for you, cares if you're alive or dead, has any type of meaningful conversation with you outside of what it's told to say, etc. As I discussed earlier, your companion is not part of you, you do not need it to play any aspect of the game, despite what you may think, a companion is nothing more than a tool to be used, dismissed and thrown away after it's usefulness is complete. And it doesn't care if you do it. What you decide to min/max has no correlation to you personally if it goes to an artificial entity. You will not increase your DPS if you've given your companion a piece of gear because it's not going to be useful when you need your min/max to be useful, in group play.