Nur eine kurze Info zum Ablauf. Jeder Charakter muss einzeln für den Transfer ausgewaehlt werden. Der eigentlich Transfer dauert weniger als eine Minute (wenn man den naechsten Charakter ausgewaehlt hat, ist der vorige Transfer schon beendet). Ich vermute die "drei Stunden", die der FAQ erwaehnt, sind falls der Transfer schief geht, um menschliche Eingriffe zu ermoeglichen. Wenn man mehrere Charaktere transferiert hat und mehrere wegen einer Namenskollision umbenannt wurden, muessen beim ersten Einloggen in den neuen Server alle neu benannt werden und zwar in der Reihenfolge in der sie in der Auswahlliste stehen. Unabhaengig davon, welchen Charakter man zum Einloggen ausgewaehlt hat. Vorsicht, das kann leicht zu Fehlern fuehren (ich habe es noch rechtzeitig bemerkt).

Concerning gear-checks (sorry for second post in a row but I think this deserves an own one): "Gear checks" should be a purely community enforced thing, i.e. not at all instutionalized in a tool for group forming. Why? Different communities might have different agreements on what constitutes well enough geared. There might be servers with lots of competive people wanting strict checks (bordering on unfulfillable without having been in the instance) to servers filled with people who fled from other MMOs when gear checks became prevalent (and thus take anyone with them as long as they are able to follow group leader advice). Thus gear checks can never be done by a tool to everyone's desires. How then? There are sufficient social measures to ensure people are geared approprieately to the consensus of the server community (or even a subgroup of it) but they don't work on the test server (due to lack of established community and lack of long term repercussions). Vote-kick (if implemented) is one, putting undergeared people into /ignore (and have the group finder observe the /ignore list is another). Both rely on the learning ability of people (which obviously should be told why those measures happen to them) and the general undesirableness of being kicked (after having waited for some time) or being unabled to join groups due to being ignored by too many people. The /ignore thing would work especially well as it would allow to respect different people's ideas on what is appropriate gear by keeping 'under-geared' people away from the "appropriate gear necessary" crowd but not from the "anything goes" one.

And you think a group of people who are at-level for Colicoid Games would welcome you ruining their experience by pulling them through? Level restrictions are IMHO fine as they are. I have to agree with this one. A rule of rhumb solution would be to e.g. allow one to only queue a role if he has at least half his skill points-7 in his role tree(s) (so e.g. overall 41 points, at least (41-7)/2=17 in healing). Still allows for a wide variety of hybrid skilling (and does not restrict queuing for hammer station at all, where a DPS skilled healer IMHO can still work) but does prevent people to completely misqueue.

Concerning some other feature wishes here: Don't overcomplicate it. After saying that I have of course my own problem report/improvement request *cough*: The group finder currently always looks for groups of 4. Even if content is only for 2, e.g. in Black Talon or for many Planet Heroics. For [Heroics 2] it is worse than for Black Talon because to get four people together, the finder uses a large level range. This means that the people grouped will be on completely different parts of the planet and wanting to do completely different heroics. Possible improvements: * For Heroics (and maybe the Esseles/Black Talon) allow player to specify seeked group size. * For Heroics apply a stricter level range (gives a higher probability people will actually have the same heroics) _or_ actually look at people's quests to ensure they have at least one heroic in common.

The trinity system was out-of-date long before SWTOR. Take Lotro: In addition to Tank, DPS and Healer they have * Debuf, CC and Energy replenishement class (Loremaster) * Jack-of-all-Trades, Buff and Battle Rez class (Captain) * Mixed Buff/Debuf, CC and Conjunction triggering class (Burglar, also does DPS) The problem in SWTOR is that everyone has a Buf, everyone has some Debuffs, everyone has one CC, there are no conjunctions and everyone uses a different energy scheme (so no globalized replenishment possible). SWTOR already dumbed things down a lot. Actually in Lotro you can often go in a variety of mixes. Bring two healers and a heavy armor DPS might be able to tank (if he brought a shield). Bring enough CCler and your healer might start doing damage (except for the end bosses). Don't bring a Loremaster and the tank has to better control everything lest the healer will run out of energy healing non-tank targets.... This is _due_ to the class variety, not despite it (and the fact that groups are size 6). And have everyone just hack&slash the mobs? Encounters that don't demand at least some kind of tactical thinking look booring to me.

Two feature requests: A) Observe Ignore lists B) Allow differentation of people according to playstyles Ad A) I yesterday organized a PuG to do the false imperator and it turned out one of our damage dealers had absolutely no idea about his class (or was devious). When the fight started his Focus meter went up and never moved one focus point down before end of fight so he never used any focus consuming ability. We had to abort after several tries to explain to him what to do (because even in normal mode HK-47 seems to have an enrage timer) and he is now on my ignore list preventing that he will ever join a group I organize. I guess others might have similar uses of their ignore list, maybe even containing me (see point B below on why). An Auto-Grouping tool which does not observe the ignore list and groups people together which already expressed the strong desire to never again hear from each other is doomed to failure. One can observe this e.g. in Lotro where the grouping tool spike for a few weeks after introduction but is nowadays largely unused for this reason. Ad B) When I search for groups I normally use wordy postings into General and the server-wide SNG channel like "Attention, Darth Malgus has declared himself "Emporer". Since he is the false one, members are searched for a mission to hand over a disaproval note from the Republic and ask him to resign. ((FP Level 50 ))" The idea behind this is to discourage people to join who want to race through the FP (plus I like to write such things (in German)) as I tend to take the time, look around, do some remarks on the scenery, .... . Joining with what I call 'hectics' will be a bad experience for both sides. For that reason it would be nice if an Auto-Grouping tool somehow would allow for players to specify their prefered playstyle (or specify no preference) and try to group accordingly. Albeit the implementaion itself would probably be simple (just a few checkmark buttons) I must admit I am lost at what styles should be offered as choice. "Fast completion" vs. "Take your time" seems a bit meager as choices. Note that in principle a player could abuse the ignore list from A) to build up a B) lke feature for his playstyle. But I am not always opposed to racing through an instance as long as I know about it before and agreed. Building up an ignore list would prevent such changes of mind.

Nun ja. In gewissem Sinn ist Bioware schon Schuld. Nachdem nach dem Hype-geschuldeten Spike am Anfang die Server wieder leer wurden, hat BW es versaeumt sie zusammen zu legen. Vermutlich hatte nie ein Designer damit gerechnet, dass sowas bei einem Star Wars Spiel jemals notwendig werden koennte. Da das seit Monaten so ist, hat eine unkontrollierte und sich selbst verstaerkende Wanderungsbewegung eingesetzt. Und wo wandern die Leute natuerlich hin? Auf einen der wenigen Server, die gelegentlich mal "Hohe" Last zeigen. Frueher oder spaeter wird das dazu fuehren, dass von jeder Kategorie nur noch ein Server existiert, der dann in Spike-Phasen, wie etwa nach jedem Update, ueberlaeuft.

1 And I always love the quote of the "very healthy game". Maybe admitting that there are too many servers would be the first step to improvement. Before it is too late for the "very healthy game".

Character Transfers will not solve the problem. If you got the chance to transfer, would you go a) to a low-medium pop server and hope the local population won't transfer out at the same time (and others also transfer there) or b) to an already high-pop server making it even fuller? So the only way transfers would work is if start and target servers were closely restricted. But then, where is the difference to a server merge except for leaving open a then completely dead server which newbies could accidentially end up at. Thus Server Merges. No Transfers.

Ganz grosses Kino. Man beachte dass sie sich sogar die Muehe gemacht haben, die Dialogtexte in den Filmausschnitten einzudeutschen. Will man es boese interpretieren, zeigt es, dass die Ausschnitte mit dem wirklichen Spiel wenig zu tun haben. ;-)

Vermutlich weil Dromund der "Zweitplanet" des Imperiums ist (sprich ab der 10. Erfahrungsstufe treibt man sich dort herum) waehrend die anderen Planeten viel hoehere Stufen erfordern. RPler haben es haeufig nicht so eilig.

Tja, da stellt sich doch die Frage, wann sich die RPler mal treffen um die Nicht-RPler zu begruessen. Als Jedi (Varnik) boete sich da natuerlich Tython an, wo wir als erfahrene Jedi, den Padawanen bei der Ausbildung zuschauen und uns an lange *huestel* vergangene Zeiten erinnern koennen. Wer kommt mit?