Hello everyone. Since I am an avid fan of MMOs in general and SW:TOR specifically, I could not but notice that, while I understood last year's somewhat disappointing annual reward, this year as far as one can tell seems to go down the same vein. It is a very good idea to celebrate the anniversaries (and this could really increase a good bit even without breaking canon, by making it a rememberance day for the Fallen on both sides, for example). However all of this does not reward players who have been around ever-since and this is a somewhat missed opportunity to create customer relations and to bind them to the game even further. Ultima Online, as a prime example for this, has a very detailled reward system for account age. You are being given an increasingly vast pick of options with every additional year of age your account has reached (though I would count by active subscription months). For example an account 1 year old can pick from a variety of nice things - whereas an account of 2 years of age can pick from a variety of even nicer things. This system was invented far past release, so it really felt like a reward system for veterans. And that is something SW:TOR could benefit from big time. Because this would allow to show some gratitude towards those that have subbed for many months (or even years), while allowing them a bit of choice / control over what they'd actually prefer most and still not be that hard to code / implement. Examples? 1st year rewards could be a pick of a (elsewise non-obtainable) colour crystal, a pet of the same rarity, a speeder of the same rarity or an outfit of the same rarity or a special dye of the same rarity.. 2nd year rewards could be a pick of either any of the 1-year-rewards or one of the new, 2-year-only items in a similar vein (pet, colour crystal, speeder, set of clothes, special dye) This way you would be able to reward veterans for being "with you" all this time, while ensuring they have a feeling of gratitude and an encouragement to identify with the company and the game even further (there's no surprise that those who are around the longest usually are those which hold you and SW:TOR in highest esteem anyways). Just my two cents out of nowhere

Since some players have asked me to share my build from The Progenitor I'll throw mine in here as well, especially since it is an alternative including the "dreaded" Focused Insight. http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/Shadow#200322123212110123302-0-210230221 As to why I have made the choices I have made: Slow Time, eventhough it is not a bad skill, forces me to take talents which I do not feel benefiting from much just in order to reach it and leaves me only with a half-bake solution to spend my surplus skillpoints on. In the build I use it may be confusing for some at first as to why I did it this way, however there's solid testing behind that. Force in Balance deals an easy 2.800 to 3.500 damage (full elite gear, not minmaxed currently) and my self heals from using Telekinetic Throw (a channeling periodic damage) are around the 800 mark per tick and it causes ticks of around 1.800 damage. This makes FiB hit approx. 50% harder than Slow Time on my build with only a reasonably higher force usage / CD. Furthermore the Telekinetic Throw's damage is boosted, my self-heals are boosted via crits on the Telekinetic Throw. The sacrifice I make for that is giving up on a 45% chance to throw a second Project at an enemy which even then would not cause full damage itself + the shadow wrap which I do detest since for me - personally - it is very rare to find myself outaggroed or in a backstab position altogether, so those points are wasted to me. I also sacrifice some minor combat technique's effects but none of that is worth it for me much to be fair. However I also cannot stress enough how well Keyboardninja's stat distribution solution works and while I disagree on the build usage, I do whole heartedly agree on the values and numbers behind the mitgiation. Basically my build enhances the self-heals without a sacrifice to damage and that does go down the same vein as the usage of heal proc relics, which I also do agree on by the way. All of this makes the job to heal me tons and tons easier while not crippling me in any given way from my own testing and my own perspective. Maybe someone will give it a try or a thought or two, I for one feel very happy with that build and am using it heavily. Oh and.. it is definitely possible to hit the suggested mitgiation stats of KBN with endurance-heavy items on elite gear, if you augment 2x Redoubt Augment and 12x Absorb Augment, using mostly Robust Most 30B and Vigilant Enhancement 30.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. It is so obvious and I am amazed that yet nobody has mentioned it. The big announcement definitely is Other than that it could very well be that we finally get the new class many have been waiting on, the Faceroller with its advanced classes Controopsmugknight and 1-Button-Joe (or Assawaragenter / 1-Button-Jack). Hopefully BioWare do realize that people have things like Easter Holidays and there could hardly be a better release timeframe for 2.0 than around that date since it'd guarantee tons of extra fun for many people

Some insight from someone who has been here since release, characters in minmaxed BH gear and 10 million laying around - and still does not support the repair costs. Reason 1 - Trimming the market? See, while I personally would have zero problems to pay the repair costs because I know how to earn 300.000 in a single day (Dailies) and would do that on a Saturday morning if I ever got close to broke, it is still quite a nuisance to me and is against the rationale of how a game economy should work. Yes, I understand that people like me and some others are part of the economy problem because we just amass credits and do not spend them easily on something that isn't necessary (or exceedingly nice), so we just build funds and build more funds "for hard times". Those hard times usually never come and lead to people being able to spend immense credits on the stuff they deem worthy of purchase, making the price rise and become steep for those who do not have their ways to gain credits easily. The solution to this however can not be the increase of repair costs by ~300% because this does not affect me anywhere close to severe, but it even further nurtures the existing gap. . Reason 2 - Introducing a repair item via Cartel Market? If that would really be the case, I would still not be affected due to the above mentioned reasons, however this would create huge amounts of frustration and grief for those who are not willing (like me) let alone able to spend much on the Cartel Market, since I'd feel cheated for the sake of others. This would actually make me consider if there's easier ways to get credits and since I can be a bit creative with that, it would not be healthy for the market (like buying crafting mats and selling higher later through various channels and means, disguised as crafted items or gifts to friends who gift them to friends who sell them e.g.). I'd make zillions out of that but I do not do so yet since I respect a fair market and don't want others to have the disadvantage. Also there'd be other ways to get the funds even easier. The solution is not found here either hence, since it will not fix any problem nor generate much of an extra income for BioWare since people will not be willing to continue that fmuch longer, so they'd rather turn to niftier ways and get quite creative at that. Seen that in other MMOs and it destroyed entire game economies. Reason 3 - An oversight? If this is an oversight decision I can forgive that, but I know quite a few people who cannot easily do so and this will not be "forgotten" within the next few months, people will remember this (sadly) and hold it against the devs for quite a long time. So I'd suggest coming up with more than just an apology in this case. Luckily we customers can be swayed with free-to-produce gifts. I am not saying you should totally do this, I just say that those who now have spent 400k+ on repairs are not the ones you will want to fuinction as multipliers of a bad PR since they usually are those who are in larger guilds or have substantial contacts and friends. They do talk about it, right now. So if I'd be a developer, I'd try to please them to a point where they start spreading good things again, instead of bad things. This sums up my reflection on the issue and while I am neither affected personally, nor as the Guildmaster of our zany lot of lunatics, nor as guild (sticking together and helping each other in a close-knit community has its benefits) we still do not support this increase and right now I would not speak kindly if asked about it.

The selected timeframe is evening all over Europe. I did not gripe. I did not moan. I did not rail. I did not threaten. The points you tried to make were already considered in the original post. Thank you for the delightful insight into my own posting. It was clearly meant the way you perceived it apparently, since that is essentially why I used a humorous approach to it. This also concludes my part of the discussion here. If you want to further derail it, I will appreciate a personal message at Noreply@anywhere.com. Cheers!

True. It is why I coated it with humour. It was necessary to be said - but not meant all too roughly. Also.. about the "dead game time" - might be for some, but it certainly is not for us. For example we all share dinnertime in the guild at 7 pm CET usually. Now we do shift this and shift our plans from today which leads to some of us having less sleep. Yeah, we're lunatic about doing stuff together, after all that is essentially our concept. That is also why we aren't affected that much however since we can work plans around the downtime, still I did witness many people who were quite ..angry.. about it, as is one of us, but that's also due to him not having experience with downtimes in MMOs. Still, I found it valid to post that - and yes, "concise" and me, we are complete strangers. I do regret never meeting good ol' Concise much, but we really seem not to get along anyways.

A wonderful thread if you ask me. This is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about some years ago. For me it all began with my first MMO which was good old Ultima Online and I played that for straight 10 years (sounds weirder now that I wrote it than it felt). That alone might tell you how much it amazed me and stunned me for many years - but as any MMO even this amazement has faded, without switching the game. So it cannot have something to do with that or with a specific game "missing" things, at least not from my perspective since I never switched it and the feeling still disappeared. One might ponder if it was all because I was so used to it - but that was not the case either, since after those 10 years I did switch a lot and was in many many betas (Everquest 2 among them btw) - but none has stunned me or had an equally charming appeal to me. Partially that was because I was not willing to sacrifice the huge amount of roleplay we had going in UO, part of that certainly can never be explained properly and some parts of it I have discovered after pondering, I think. What really makes a game shine and stand out, amaze you and drag you in - I for one had a good amount of that reappearing when I began to play SW:TOR with my spouse. That amazed me and I pondered and thought about why it happened here but didn't happen in EQ2, in Eve Online, in DaOC, in Neocron 2 or any other MMO since Ultima Online. Then I started to compare those and eventhough SW:TOR is much much different from UO it does have certain core features that link both, and first of all that is: having an interesting lore and universe. I remember that back in UO I used to frequent a website about it and even printed out the lore stuff from there as well as some newbie guides - and I found myself archiving lots of lore content and spending many many hours on Wookieepedia when I began with SW:TOR because I was sincerely interested in the lore (I always had a soft spot for the original SW movies but I never was a die hard fan... until sw:tor). A second link certainly is the feeling of being part of something glorious, something very new and shining - as for example sw:tors countless cut-scenes and dialogues that never fail to amaze me, right now I am deeply in love with the designs for the Grey Secant (Tron, anyone?) and this feeling has not faded ever since, I still consider sw:tor to be the top of the list when it comes to quest narration and I can understand why a MMO does not offer tons of different solutions to quests (it would be an insane workload) - rather than wasting my energy on lamenting about that, I do enjoy the hilarious one-liners for example my Bounty Hunter drops ("I maybe negotiated with his face a little."). That one even made it into Real-Life communication with friends and guildmates here. Third comes the last link I have discovered that might have something to do with the affect - and that is the game's level of thought. To explain what I mean with this - I do mean the way things are designed and the reason behind that. See.. as I have been in many betas, many MMOs and such I did see tons of bad decisions. When I began SW:TOR I was repeatedly being heard saying things like "Wow, they thought about that? That's quite amazing" and "So.. they blocked this since it could lead to that exploit? Cool thing" - and that is just part of what I thought. Sure, there were and still are bugs in SW:TOR but I dont know any MMO without bugs, nor do I think I ever will. The reason why this amazes me and makes me happy and feel "magic" is because of the way the Devs approach the community - they do it on par but they also do NOT feed the trolls, they don't say "Oh sure we will quickly do as you asked us to do! Sorry, dear customer! Will be fixed right now!" but instead they evaluate community reports as much as their own data. Trust me, fellow readers, that is so incredibly rare and brave that it amazes me. It is the same reason why the Ultima Online community never had many problems with whinery and players "demanding" things in the long run - because they knew that was pointless. Solutions were found where they were needed and if someone was being ganked all day long and robbed clean of all items (that was possible in UO) ...then it was his bad personal luck and his fault for carrying around all the valueables he had. No use to complain. That is essentially how it is here and I really appreciate this. The absolutely worst community-to-staff communication I have ever ever ever witnessed was in "Champions Online" - the staff made hotfixes over hotfixes so much that the expression Flavor of the Month was reduced to Flavor of the Patch, as in classes being completely revamped every few weeks, their skills being changed drastically every few weeks and all of that just due to whining in forums. All of this is parts of the reasons why SW:TOR still amazes me and keeps me hooked. Yes, the magic of the first half year has faded - but now I enjoy the harder content more and more and I take my time about it, as does my guild. We like things close-knit, familiar, on our own pace. That does keep the magic alive on quite some weekends and I dare say that this is also our own achievement and also our own burden. We try to make things special, try to really stand out together in the way we communicate with each other and try to achieve a shared-consciousness level tactical understanding of each another. Sorry for the very long post but it really was needed to vent this here along with my thoughts on the various reasons for what might lack - and that is "Not much" since the main thing that lacks imho is for people to get together and do outstanding stuff together. Just wait until the first musicians among us create sw:tor songs (Midas, I miss you)

Hello, since this is spawning great waves of rage and anger down in this little community called Europe I'd like to inform you about how much we dislike having a downtime on a Saturday evening. It is basically spawning conversations in our minds like this... Polite Polly "So, what do you think Good Guy Greg, when shall we do this downtime?" Good Guy Greg "We should really do that downtime on a regular workday when it's morning in Europe and late evening down here, how about that?" Malicious Advice Mallard "Ain't nobody got time for dat. I say we do it on.. let's see.. Friday night! (Evil laughter occurs)" Good Guy Greg "But.. that would be bad for those poor few hundred thousand players in Europe." Malicious Advice Mallard "You're right.... let's do it on Saturday then!" And thus the case was closed, Good Guy Greg has since been sen weeping icy tears of Ilum-ination. Of course I realize, as do many, that this has to be some super important hotfix we're seeing being applied (at least we do hope so, don't want anyone ragequitting, do we?) and while that is very reasonable - the timing itself isn't reasonable at all. Saturday evening is "the" raid time for many many guilds, "the" RP evening for many many guilds, and "the" ranked warzone night for many many guilds. Not to mention new players who want to take a look into SWTOR on a weekend and find themselves being left out of time rationales as europeans. That does not exactly make a good first impression (nor a second, nor third). I know this topic has been debated countless times in the past when the discussionw as all about "Tuesday downtime in Europe" - but a Saturday evening? I remember only one such downtime in the year since release and it spawned equally huge amounts of rage and anger, especially in hindsight. Just wanted to give this as a heads-up since player reactions might not be what someone expected them to be since barely noone is fuming in forums anymore. I am not affected much myself by the way, just that I have read this countless times as topic since the postponed downtime note.

My significant other and me were looking for something worthy of our shared fun-times online and so we rummaged plenty of upcoming or recently released MMOs at one point - and when we saw SW:TOR being made and to be released in 3 months we knew what we'd give a serious try. Well... now a year has passed and we are very thankful for the great game, the great fun and also the awesome people which we have got to know through the game, meeting in real-life quite a few of them in the course of 2013. We saw many things come and go (and I myself am playing online since '99) - glad SW:TOR made it so far. If things continue this way - we sure will stay around and bring in more and more players, just have recruited another 2 a few weeks ago and going for another one quite soon, Anniversary coming up on 20th of Decembre for us.

Alright..alright... I feel inclined to post. This usually happens for one of three reasons, this time it is "being too mad at something". But this is not about the decision to go f2p. It is about how the community handles it - as if it was some "last resort" measure. True enough the subscriptions went from 1.7 to 1.3 millions from what we last know for certain - no big deal, since a game like this is profitable enough around that number for quite a while. Even EA, who are really picky about this kind of stuff, consider SW:TOR to be a success. This is essential all that matters for the dev-based continuation of the game. The publisher is satisfied and therefore there is enough reason to go on financially. Now comes tackling the community and to make them "stay" and "expand" so the success continues. Only a complete and utter moron would ever have thought SW:TOR "kills" the "Big Bad MMO Out There", that is neither needed nor would I appreciate it (I like my community less whiny, you know..) For this reason Free-To-Play is a very valid option, one I expected from the beginning on. I was awaiting the day when milking the subscriptions wouldn`t work much longer for good and you know what? I still paid happily. And I will even continue to do so. Because I do not mind "paying the pot" if the results are as fine as they are. I do not mind being taken advantage of slightly here and then if that means this project endures. The only really important question to answer next will now be "How to handle this" - and I trust in BioWare`s decisions since so far they have been solid and luckily usually ignoring what whiners want. Whiners gonna whine. Yet they did listen to the needs of the community.. and I would not think they stray from this here. So do make yourself et heard but please.. cut the emo drama crap and get down to facts and if you don`t know much about game economics please just don`t jump to weird assumptions. 1 million subscribers = 13.000.000 euros a month. That is a lot of money to be spent on server costs, customer support and development. What has to be avoided at all costs is to provide stuff for Cartel Coins which in any way imbalance the game (no faster allocation of credits, no stat increases e.g.). However providing "alternative looks" for weapons and armors for Cartel Coins would be valid for me to spend mine on (since subscribing earns you Cartel Coins anyways). There is one game that did this quite well (even if it did almost nothing else very well) being "Champions Online", that game had one of the best F2P and item-shop systems I saw and it strongly resembles the one we are going to see. You could buy "additional expansions" with the currency there, subscribers got them unlocked for free, but if you wanted some extra-neat outfits or some extra-convenience features (exp boosts e.g.) you could buy them with the currency as well and you also received some of that currency upon a subscription. To sum it up: My spouse and the rest of our guild will stay subscribed. Enough said. - Order of the Grey Wolves, Progenitor

Well... since I am a DPS-Tank (Shadow) it is fun to me playing th half-dead as well. Many lives have been ended due to players thinking "Ah I can take that chick down, she`s at 20% health." then get lured away from their objective and get beaten up thanks to my spec, popping all defenses and building up my Harnessed Shadows for a 1.500-damage-per-tick ..and once they try to run away I just pull them back, paralyze them, backstab, hit the finishing move and if they really survive that.. throw some pebbles at them. Occasionally I die from this if my enemy proves to be a decent combatant - but even those are distracted from their objective for quite a while since it isn`t easy taking my Shadow down, nor quickly done. On the other hand I do even commit suicide in Huttball for example, since it can be a huge advantage. Take for example I just scored and now the enemy team is on full swing on offense - I would never make it back in time by feet. So.. I get myself killed, respawn and usually end up near our own endzone just in time. Dieing is no big deal... but doing it strategically is a very viable thing. On games like Civil War however I am a survivalist, I am of much more use alive than dead there since respawn takes quite awhile there (due to the speederbikes) and I could rather pull back, meditate and return to guard someone. -PO Valorea / Adreianna, Progenitor, Order of the Grey Wolves