I do believe they've had 5 years (and it shows, as the systems in game all "feel" 5 years old in their design concept).

Yeah, I have to agree. I'd take Rift's launch day UI over this one at any and every opportunity. I really hope the UI changes TOR spotlighted in their video are more than what they showed, as well as SOON. The UI here is by far the worst I've ever seen in an MMO. It's worse than EQ2's was at it's launch, in late 2004, in terms of customizability and ease of use.

I sort of feel like I'm in the "tolerating" camp. On the one hand, I generally have fun while in game. I put this down to lightsabers. I'm a juggernaut tank, and I really DO like the way my character moves during combat. While my server is dying (in terms of level 50 population), I am in a good guild for my server, and generally can get hardmode flashpoints at least 1-3 a day. But if there aren't any free healers in guild on, pugging one is simply a nightmare (in other words, simply not worth the time). If the ones on my friends list aren't on/are busy, I don't even try anymore. On the other hand, every time I log in I notice the deficiencies of this game, and I can't help but want them fixed/changed/brought into this decade. I'm in the camp that thinks LFD and dual specs are, pretty much, a must for a "modern MMO", and this game lacks both. The PvP system is a weak clone of WoW's (which is decent) with a huge RNG factor thrown in for gearing (which is amazingly poor design). As an avid PvPer in WoW, with multiple 85's pvp geared for 4.2 (which is the last time I played WoW), I see absolutely no point in PvP at 50 in TOR. The FPS hit I take immediately upon entering a warzone doesn't help with this opinion. I do find PvP a good way to avoid redoing the planetary quests that I've already done (30 healing sorc as well), but the moment I ding 50 on that char, I'll occasionally do my daily 3 wins in the hope of getting lucky, but expertise and RNG (and the god-awful Ilum) make 50 PvP quite pointless, IMO (and it's an opinion I know not everyone shares). Overall I feel that TOR is an MMO that has really only done one thing exceptionally - that's single player story. But that is Bioware's strength, so it was to be expected. Everything else about this game sort of feels stuck in 2005 or 2006, and the communication (or lack of) from the devs has been awful. If this game wasn't Star Wars, I know I wouldn't have lasted a week, with all the problems and lack of features.

Having played WoW both pre and post LFD - I don't see how the LFD tool at all ruined communities. At least not my server. I saw no evidence of this dramatic increase in jerkitude that people claim. Maybe I saw more ninja looting in dungeons, but I was able to run so many more dungeons that I'm sure the actual % of people that I ran into that were jerks went DOWN.

Wonderful. Send those new players to The Razor. I'm not at home now, but last Tuesday through yesterday (Sunday), I did a check for level 50's at 8:30 p EST (east coast server). Tuesday was the highest number, at 68. Yesterday was the lowest at 52. I have never seen Fleet reach 100 (I am Imperial), but I wasn't on Fleet during the level up process. As my server is one of many that's 2-1 or more Imp-Reps, I can only imagine how lonely the other side is. I do not feel like I am playing an MMO. I know I'm on one of the lightest servers, but as it wasn't light when chosen (very heavy), I can't control that. But Bioware can by closing/merging the both 15% of servers to make them feel less dead.

Well the moment I chose my server, it was "Very Heavy", as were nearly all of them. Some of those "Very Heavy" servers stayed heavy, some have dropped to standard in prime time (and standard seems to have a big range). I'm subscribed to the game. I like it. I don't like being on such a low populated "standard" server. I also don't like the game enough to completely reroll on another server because Bioware won't offer free transfers or merges. I paid for one month, and while there are MANY issues with the game, I'm still generally having fun. But the dwindling population on my server is diminishing my fun. If at the end of this 1st paid month, my server is still shrinking, and there's no news from Bioware on merges or free transfers, I'm planning on unsubscribing. There is an option to rerolling, and it's called unsubscribing. I have no desire to redo everything again when I would even PAY to transfer.

I'm afraid you're not correct. Easy way, with very little typing - open your social tab (whatever it's called - the one with friends/guild/who/ignore, etc.). Go to the who tab. This will default to your zone. In the search box, put whatever you want in there. You can put "The Pit" to see how many people of your faction are in Huttball (Voidstar and Civil War for the other 2 warzones, though that number is almost always zero on my server). You can put "50" to see how many 50's are online at that moment. You acn put 1-10 to see how many people level 10 or lower are online. 11-20, 21-30, etc. If any of these numbers are 100 or higher, you will get "showing first 100 results", so narrow your search with 1-5, 6-10, etc. These results are only your own faction, of course, but they will tell you how many people are on the server at the moment of your search that fit your criteria, and you can easily tell exactly how many people of a given faction are on your server right then.

My server is "standard" during prime time. It's an East Coast one, and I have checked the level 50 population at 8:30 p EST the past 5 days (last Tuesday through yesterday - Sunday). The highest was 68 on Tuesday, and the lowest was 52 on Sunday. I have never seen the Imperial Fleet over 100 people (I wasn't on the Fleet much during December during the level up process, but am quit a bit now). I know the Imperial side has more than the Republic side, so the other side is worse. This is a "standard" server.

As a WoW raider (and before that EQ 2 and some FFXI world bosses), I find PvP much more enjoyable, with a couple of caveats. Assuming roughly equal skill, and roughly equal gear, a close PvP match is so much more enjoyable than any boss kill could ever be (except perhaps your guild's first on a particularly challenging fight) simply due to the opponent being not a scripted NPC. Sure, you'll end up with a general overall strat that gets followed, so PvP can end up feeling very samey, but it's never 100% the same, like all NPC boss fights are. The caveats are the skill and gear. "PvP gear" is the worst thing MMO PvP has (however a necessary evil it was back in Vanilla/BC WoW) because it creates the gear grind and that gear grind puts off SO MANY people from taking part in PvP - the ones that try it and simply won't go through the days/weeks/months in the case of RNG here in TOR to grind up their PvP gear to be competitive. A smart developer could have implemented a better system of rewarding PvP than what we have in TOR, who don't employ said developers. The other one is skill - which also relates teamwork. Premades in vent and just general knowledge of PvP and the game (in this case TOR) will stomp PUGs. But given that gear and skill is roughly equal - there is no more fun content in an MMO than a good battle, where you can do things "right" and still lose, because the other team also did things "right" a second before you did (or 10 meters closer to the flag, or whatever). I've tanked Black Talon hard mode like 10 or 12 times now. While it's fun to "run with guildmates who just hit 50", the running of Black Talon itself ceased to be fun about 8 or 10 runs ago. Every PvE boss ends up that way. I had 3 ICC drakes during LK - mostly because we were bored waiting on Cata to launch. That 2nd and 3rd toon that got drakes - not one of the encounters were "fun" because we had did them (about half the same people were in all 3 groups, just different alts of course). We just did them because "we could", and to help any guildmates/friends who were unable to raid while that stuff was current see it. But PvP can always be challenging. And I find that I enjoy losing an incredibly close match more than winning a 6-0 8 minute Huttball, because the 1st one is competitive, and the 2nd one isn't.

During peak hours, my "standard" server hasn't hit 100 on the Imperial Fleet this year (that I've seen). I've only seen it above 90 once. The number of 50's Imperial side on my server that are online at 8:30 pm EST (East Coast server) fell throughout this past week from a high of 68 this past Tuesday to a low of 52 yesterday (Sunday). It never hit 70 when I checked, which was always within a few minutes of 8:30 pm EST. Given those numbers (and assuming that Republics are less populated, since 80% of all warzones are Huttball and I saw exactly ONE Republic - on Voss - while leveling up, and have seen 2 Reps ONE time on Ilum PvP area and 3 Reps ONE time on Ilum PvP area), "standard" is by no means enough people for an MMO to feel like an MMO.

Oh, since this is the PvP forum, people will assume when you say Ilum is "fine", that you are talking about the PvP area there.

Wow. I fail to see how anyone can think Ilum is "fine". But then again someone did design it. Low pop server here, I'm lucky to see even 5 Imps, let alone 2 or 3 Reps. The only "pvp" I've seen on Ilum on my server was myself and a guild mate (me tank, him dps - both of us about 1/2 geared - so in the 300-400 expertise range) and a fresh 50 (another tank, but NO pvp gear) fighting against 2 Reps - both geared - one a dps and one a heals. Because they had a heals (and our 3rd was 0 expertise and under 11k health), it was mostly close battles. Did 3 or 4 engagements (I got my last 3 armaments that day from kills), and that was it. I have not seen any actual PvP on Ilum besides that one day. I've been 50 for 3 weeks now.

Not for the PvP, no. This is the worst PvP system (because it's a clone of WoW, but a bad one at that, with RNG thrown in) I've ever come across in an MMO. The performance hit my computer takes in Warzones doesn't help with that perception. The PvP at 50 is already bad (and worse on a server like mine that can't always get a 50 warzone going because the 2 heavy PvP guilds have rolled alts and so don't queue for 50 anymore). The PvE is ok. Not great, not terrible, but ok. I do enjoy the "world" more than WoW (and a LOT more than Rift), so perhaps. But my server is also a low pop one, and getting lower. With out free transfers or a merge, Ilum is pointless except for armament gathering, and my guild is nearly 1/4 of the server's 50's at the moment, so there's not much out there when you need to PUG anything.

Titles, alternate skins for gear (like transmog in WoW), mounts, pets and the like. You could even throw in long (or short, depending on the power) skills that are unlocked via Valor ranks and only usable in PvP that do various things that give you an advantage, but not a permanant advantage. These could be 5 or 10 minute cooldowns that could help you get the ball across the line in huttball, or an extra CC break, or an extra slow, or stun, or whatever. Something to give those that grind out Valor something extra, but not overwhelmingly faceroll powerful compared to a new 50. They could even be "use once per warzone match" or something. In the meantime, "bolster" everyone at 50 in PvP to a set gear level, and gear suddenly doesn't matter at all, and nearly everyone is happy (at least happier than things are now). That way the raiders don't have gear advantage over the PvPers, because everyone's "gear" is preset to balanced stats (let's call those stats current T1 PvP gear for your spec - whatever it is at any given time).

In WoW, there is level 85 crafted gear with resilience you can buy/craft. I didn't do it on my 1st 85, because i was able to BG without stacked resilience on other toons (I was 85 on my resto shaman very fast and geared up with the first wave). That being said, this armor was expensive to buy/craft at Cata launch, due to certain mats it needed. By the time I got to my 2nd (and 3rd) 85 to PvP gear, it was relatively cheap, and having the set most definitely helps a fresh 85. But if you hit 85 on your 1st toon when everyone was geared, and didn't have money, buying/crafting the crafted could get expensive. Obtaining a full set of honor gear was also way less time consuming. If you had the time, you could do it in a weekend, easily, for one character. There's simply no RNG for PvP gear in WoW. You are fodder for a much shorter time period. Honor gear wasn't as good as conquest gear, but was always decent enough for random BGs, and compared to my server in TOR right now, the BG queue was a lot shorter than the 50 warzone queue I go through (I only PvP at 50 to complete the 3 win daily now). As someone who did the honor grind dozens of times (each major patch added a new level of gear, so going from 4.1 to 4.2 gear, for example, was a mini-grind), usually as a healer (shaman, druid, priest and DK all were geared from around 3.2 onwards, and shaman druid were geared prior to 3.2 back to the end of BC), I hate the PvP gear grind, in both WoW and TOR. It's just a LOT longer in TOR, the performance of the game is way worse in warzones than in battlegrounds (and worse than anywhere else in TOR), Huttball is annoying, and queues pop less frequently. I'm ready for a new style of PvP - one that relies on teamwork and skill (WoW has this with rated battlegrounds, but you still need to gear before you do them).

I'm sorry, but this is dumb game design. I know every MMO does it now, but it's still dumb. I've done the resilience grind in WoW dozens of times (each expansion, each tier, multiple characters at 70/80/85, multiple healers, etc), and it was never fun there. It's also not fun here. Developers need to come up with another way. Normalize gear in warzones/designated PvP areas. Give 5 min cooldown abilities as rewards for high Valor. Put armor skins up for commendations, titles for valor, whatever. But do something other than a 2-3 week gear grind that's made even worse by the RNG bag system, please. Make PvP about teamwork and skill, and ONLY teamwork and skill.

I don't play in Europe, so the maintenance time there doesn't affect, but this quote does. Surely you should have seen that maintenance during non-early am hours would be an inconvenience (you do, because you make the server down times start at roughly 3 am US EST). Your quote just seems like it's only since the game has launched that you are realizing Europe is 7+ hours ahead of the US, and that US maintenance times aren't the best for European servers. The answer, from like 10 years ago, is to do patches local time, not worldwide at the same time. It seems you guys could have planned for this around day 2 of this game's planning. I only point this out because in so many areas of this game, you guys seem to have simply not learned from over a decade of MMOs being, well around, and seem fixated on painfully, and slowly, learning for yourselves what others took years to learn and take into account, instead of just building on what other MMOs have learned, and planning your game with learned lessons already accounted for. Oh, and for the thread topic - your guys' communication is pretty piss-poor. That 3 minute video of "upcoming features" is it?

Then those people should be forced to move onto a low pop server and see how bad it is. Mine isn't as bad as the OPs, but honestly it always feels desolate if you're not on Fleet. There's that census page I don't have the link handy to, and it's got 6 and 1/2 pages of servers in their default sorting. Mine's near the top of page 6, in terms of pop (page 1 highest, page 7 lowest). I would say anything on page 5, 6 or 7 needs merged with at least 2 others on page 5, 6 and 7. Honestly, reroll isn't an option I'll choose, when another option is to simply unsub. I'm having fun, but not having THAT much fun I'd do it all over again, same char, same AC, same spec. Fleet on my server hasn't hit 100 pop (empire side) this year, and the number of 50's online at 8:30 pm EST (which is when I usually check) has slowly dwindled over the week from mid 60's to low 50's. Yesterday (sat) at around 3p est, we had 5 huttballs in a row that ended early because 1 side always started at 5, and never grew. Anyway, I fully support merging the many low pop servers at this time - with other low pop servers. I don't care what PR monkey's think or say, and I would hope Bioware wouldn't either. But I'm sure they do.

It's really up to you. If you are having fun, keep playing, if you're not, stop. Myself, I am still having fun, so I am still playing. But the design of this game, from an MMO perspective, leaves a LOT to be desired. I look at so many of the systems and the decisions of Bioware have me baffled in many places. Poor UI, lack of decent LFG tools, no dual spec, sudden drop of FPS in warzones, PvP system a complete mess, my own server's population dwindling, seemingly uses way too many resources for the performance it gives, etc. On paper, without stepping into the game, I would say "no, this is not a good MMO - it's a good single player RPG." But I am still playing! Yesterday I ran every level 50 daily (guild groups!), and 5 hardmode Flashpoints, and had a ton of fun. I put this down to 1 thing that, I don't think, is entirely in Bioware's control - it's Star Wars. True, they did the design of the world, and I am still in love with Juggernaut tanking animations - I think it's just down to lightsabers. But if I wasn't in a decently populated guild (for a nearly dead server), I suspect I'd be incredibly bored. Probably wouldn't be if I was on a high pop server, but I don't want to reroll. There was a point on my server yesterday where 5 huttball matches in a row ended in 120 seconds because there weren't enough players. Each started 5v6 and never got another, because only 11 level 50's on my server were queueing. This was probably around 3p EST on Saturday afternoon. But I'm still having fun, and still playing. And whether you think it's a good game is up to you.

1 - Awful UI - being addressed in some fashion "soon", but this UI is worse than EQ2's was at it's launch (late 2004 - I didn't play WoW at launch, so can't compare). The simple fact that there are not enough usable hotbar buttons on my screen to place all my abilities shows there was simply no (or not nearly enough) communication between different teams and the UI team. 2 - No Dual Spec and no LFD tool (be it same server or cross server). These go together, IMO, because the lack of both is a huge obstacle to doing the actual content that's been put in the game. People do PvP as they level up, whether they're PvP diehards or not, because they can queue and then be in. If people were able to queue and be in H4's/FP's as they level up, I can promise more PvE content would be done than PvP. But even if you are able to find a group of 4, the lack of dual specs means you are often missing a tank or heals, so the group is not going to progress simply because the roles aren't filled, and of the 8 advanced classes, I believe 6 of them can heal and/or tank on top of dpsing. The lack of both shows the planning of this MMO is stuck in 2006 or so. 3 - Simply horrible PvP system. There is so much wrong with the system, one post isn't enough to go through it, but I can not remember a worse system in an MMO. From Ilum to faction imbalance (that was easy to see coming 2 years ago, and seemingly not planned for in the slightest) to instant performance drop the moment you zone into a warzone, to RNG, there is nothing good to say about the PvP system except one thing - they added a same-faction warzone. It may be the worst of the 3 maps, but at least it's there. Beyond that, my server is dying, so it feels not at all massive or anything close to it. My guild has about 1/4 of the active 50's on my server, and we struggle to put 3 4 mans together when there are 20 of us online, due to the lack of dual spec. We struggle to pug that elusive healer or tank due to awful LFG tools. So we are struggling to stay motivated. But obviously we paid for 1 month (at least), so hopefully things get better in this game. Not that Bioware has done a good job of pointing out how things will get better, but surely they also see the problems?

Eliminate gear from PvP. "Bolster" everyone's gear to a set level and let skill and teamwork win a match. Think outside the box with what you will reward people with. Expertise/resilience/whatever pvp stat you choose is like pitting 2 equally skilled basketball teams against each other, only team is made up of 5'2" players and the other team is made up of 6'7" players. In that situation, skill doesn't matter. Same thing with full expertise vs no expertise, and it's stupid (the expertise grind). Or, sweet jesus, add in crafted starter expertise gear, and make it cheap to make.

Disappointing.

No one reinvents the wheel, because it would be a waste of time to do so, as it's already been done. A brand new tire company in 2012 isn't going to launch a tubless (solid rubber) tire because they haven't, themselves, done the research and learned that inflating a thin layer of strong rubber is actually a better design - they know the research is done. Bioware, in many areas, seem to have acted like a new tire company releasing, for it's first tire for market, the original tire design from over 100 years ago, and they want you to have faith that they'll eventually figure out how to make inflatables, so in the meantime will you keep buying their solid rubber tires? I could list all the areas where their design is years behind even games released over 5 years ago, but that's been done elsewhere. What many people are wondering, though, is if this is all Bioware could come up with in terms of design, after hundred's of millions of dollars and years of work - how long will it take them to bring the game up to 2011 MMO standards, and is it worth their time to stick it out? I paid for 1 month, and from what I've seen (or, rather, what I've not seen) from Bioware since launch, it's probably not worth my time, as I've actually heard very little of substance from anyone at Bioware in the 5 weeks I've been playing, compared to what I think they should be saying.

Actually, people complained about getting their butts kicked by level 50's WITH EXPERTISE GEAR (while they were under 50 and therefore unable to get any), and also complained about expertise in general. If you're going to generalize, be accurate, please.

I may be in the minority, but I'll choose the unsubscribe option at the end of the 1st paid month if my server is as dead as it is now and Bioware doesn't give me another option other than reroll. I enjoyed leveling up, but not enough to want to do the exact same thing again. Plus, I like my guild, and unless there's a Guild Transfer, I'd rather leave the game entirely than leave my guild for another server - and at the rate my server's population in prime time seems to be dropping, both options are more enviable than "sticking it out".