Bioware gave almost all of us 30 days. My 30 days ended yesterday and I won't be coming back anytime soon. It certainly didn't help that my server was one of the last to get a transfer. Instead of having a whole week to play the game and fall in love with it again, I got 2 days. Mostly because BW decided that it would be a good idea to make 20+ servers wait the whole weekend for a transfer so they all could take said weekend off. Whether that is what actually happened or not is irrelevant to me, that's the way the situation FELT to me. And I am dissatisfied. Now that they are finally trying to put in a group finder for the game (which REALLY should have been in the game at launch, this was a huge mistake), they are moving in the right direction. My biggest problem is that they are not moving in that direction fast enough. I might come back for 1.4 though. They will need to work out all the kinks in the group finder and rated warzones. There are going to be so many people that will have no clue how to run these flashpoints because they were not accessible without a group finder. I see no reason to pay Bioware while they finish play testing their game. Hopefully, most of the growing pains will over by the time 1.4 comes around. Until then, I'll save my money.

My main is sadly on an East Coast PvE realm as well. This information that East Coast PvE servers have 3 times the dead servers waiting for merges does make me feel a little better about my server not having transfers yet. However, this kind of oversight is exactly why I won't be renewing my subscription. I was really looking forward to the transfers and that they would hopefully revitalize my interest in the game. And yet, here I am, 3 days later and nothing. My server is probably more active than most during "peak times" which is all fine and good for those people that can play at those times (even though there is really only 1 PvP guild and 1 PvE guild on the server). I can't play during those times 5-6 days out of the week. So, until server transfers, there is really nothing for me to do except ride in circles on the fleet. I have about 1 week left on my sub. I HAD HIGH HOPES of getting server transfered, playing the game again, and actually enjoying myself. Instead, it looks like my server won't even be in line to get transfers until after my sub runs out. Oh well. I gave Bioware one more chance. I shouldn't be surprised that they blew it.

I'm so glad that this group finder isn't going to be cross-server so that we can avoid all the bad behavior that comes by tossing 4 random people together. /sarcasm off Seriously though, the thing that I was most bothered by was the fact that the group finder TOLD the person they were going to be kicked and why. This is a very bad idea. Imagine you've got 2 kids with nothing better to do than grief people through the group finder. The play is that one of them is a total jerk, and the other guy keeps voting down all the attempts to vote kick the jerk. Not only will this basically be rewarding them with recognition for their bad behavior, but it feeds them with more options to be bad. "So you guys wanted to kick me because I pull groups before the tank, huh? Well, I'm still here! So now I'm gonna pull TWO groups at a time before the tank does!" Vote kicks need to be annonymous. If there is a successful vote kick, a message to that player AFTER they have left the group might be appropriate, but even that situation would have to be handled very delicately.

Short answer, no. For me personally, a new warzone and a new operation are not reason enough to come back. The other stuff that they are promising sounds like things that would be included as part of an expansion pack or something, i.e. the increased level cap, additional abilities, new companion. If they are SERIOUSLY thinking about doing an expansion pack at this point in time, I think the developers are a bit dilusional. My sub is currently cancelled, I'm in my "free month," and I haven't logged into the game for more than 10 minutes at a time in about a week. Why? Because there is nothing to do. My server is basically dead, the pvp is controlled by 1 rep guild and 1 imp guild. There are like 2 guilds that can field enough level 50's to do ops republic side. My old guild actually merged with another guild just so they'd have enough people to do the ops. The only solution to these problems that has even been offered by BW is server transfers. Aside from knowing that they are coming at some nebulous point in the future, we have no information about those either! All this new stuff might look good, but without any concrete information how they are going to solve the server population problems, I don't see any point in resubscribing. If this IS an expansion pack that they are advertising here, then BW is definitely counting it's chickens before they hatch. If this is simply a random mish-mash of possible updates, which the video comes across as, that is not nearly enough information to make me want to come back. I've also heard rumors that they will be charging for these updates. If they start charging for content patches, they can literally kiss their fan base goodbye. However, if this is simply them trying out prices for an expansion pack, they need to make that clear. So, I'll say it again, NO, none of this information has me interested in resubscribing to the game.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I hate the way the Legacy system was implemented. It really should be an either/or system of progression. Either you can play the game and get legacy unlocks on different characters, etc. OR you can pay credits to get the same features if you don't like rolling alts. Instead we got this credit sink version where you not only have to get legacy levels but THEN have to pay the credits for them, so you're basically paying for a feature twice. I don't like the Legacy system one bit.

Well, let me ask you a question. Do you want TOR to be competitive with a game like WoW? If you do then you have to realize that in order to compete with another game, this game has to fit into two different situations. The first situation is to offer features that the other game does not. The two main features that TOR has that WoW does not are the voice over/stories and the Legacy system. Neither of these has proven to inspire people to stick around or continue playing. So TOR isn't competing there. The second situation is to offer comprable game systems and features and hope that people like your version better. Since this game lacks SEVERAL of the same features and quality of life improvements that WoW offers, TOR really isn't competitive there. If people want TOR to be compared to and competitive with WoW from 7 years ago, this game would have needed to be released 7 years ago. Since the game was released 6 months ago, it will be compared to the WoW that exsisted 6 months ago. And it does not stack up well. I'm not saying I like where WoW is going, but these "WoW had 7 years to get it right" arguments are just ridiculous. Ironically, the WoW that exists today is the same game that existed 6 months ago, so there has indeed been plenty of time for TOR to "catch up." It has not.

I have a few problems with this idea. First, a cross server group finder will also allow you to meet new people. In fact, it will allow you to meet thousands more new people than you could meet on your single server. So if your goal is meeting new people, then why would you want to limit yourself to one server? Also, what about the small servers that really only have at most 5 functioning guilds with active members? I can promise you that most of those people who play often will know a lot of people in those other guilds and they won't be meeting "people whom you may never would have known before." The only way a single server group finder can really introduce you to new people is if new people were contiually joining your server. So, I suppose of you are currently playing on The Fatman, your argument makes sense. I don't think your statement applies to the majority of servers though.

Check out darthhater.com. There is a Q&A article there were they FINALLY mention ranked warzones. The response was not encouraging. Basically, their biggest achievement in the last month was making it so you could que for a normal WZ while waiting for an RWZ to pop. Then you have to wait for everyone doing normal WZ's in your RWZ group to finish those normal warzones before the RWZ que will finally pop.

I certainly have to agree with this. A lot of the answers seemed like they either had no idea what the question was about or they weren't talking about the same SWTOR game that I've been playing. In particular: "The legacy unlocks that are earned by reaching certain thresholds in the game (such as those found in 1.2) are designed to mostly be unlockable by either cash or game progress." - The only unlocks I can think of that are either/or are the playable race unlocks. The really useful ones, the multiple class buffs are story only, no credits. Everything else I can think of is both a legacy level AND credits unlock. No clue what the guy meant by "mostly." "As an example, you can buy perks that allow you to increase a type of experience earnage." - I want things to do on my level 50 character. He doesn't need more xp. This only reenforces the idea that the system is only for people that like to roll alts. I am not such a person. "At any point in time, content planned for future release (or references to previously planned content or test content) may be found in the game resources. We have no comment about such resources." - This was my favorite. Basically Georg Zoeller telling the interviewer (and by extention the community) to shut up about "promised" schematics. The community and the development team obviously have different definitions of "a multitude of new orange schematics." "We may revisit this decision in the future if our metrics show that flashpoint queues are not firing enough, but in general, queue firing should be more about distribution of key roles (tank, healer, DPS) than about overall population." - When I logged into my server earlier today, there were 6 people on the republic fleet. Now, what are the odds that those 6 people are all the same level and at least 1 of them is a healer and one is a tank? It's absolutely improbable! Is this group finder going to magically create new people for me to play with on my server? Cause that's the only way I see a single server group finder working out right now. I cancelled my subcription last night after reading all this 1.3 info and not seeing anything about improving my play experience on MY server, not on some server I am forced to transfer too. This article only reenforces my decision.

Just wanted to say that this post was so awesome, it is now my forum sig. This game had SO MUCH potential, they had the PERFECT business model to copy from and improve off of (WoW), and a great core of game play. Instead of realizing this, BW spent their time reinventing several MMO wheels, canceling promised features, and basically ignoring our pleas for help with low server populations until it was too late. /sad face

I unsubbed today as well. This makes me sad, but I don't feel the game is worth paying for when I have no one to play with.

Or Bioware could fix the game so that which server you play on doesn't affect how many people you have to play with by giving us cross server grouping. Just an idea.

Based on the information that was provided in that interview, and the either delusional views BW has or lies they chose that make them seem delusional, I have cancelled my subcription today. The game is fun to play, but what's the point if you can't play it!? I'm not sure why BW isn't taking the server population issues more seriously. However, their inattention to this problem has lost them yet another subscription. The only way I would come back now, even if they fixed the population problems, is if the game went free 2 play.

Daniel Erickson: "We still want to respect the communities that have developed on servers so it does not support cross-server play." From the IGN interview. So, you want to support the community on my server? The community that has maybe 5 active guilds on the republic side? The community that has 1 guild on the republic side and 2 guilds on the empire side that basically control when and who wins the level 50 pvp matches? You want to support the community that has so few players I was almost to the point of bribing people with my own credits to get people to tank for my guild? I'm sorry but this is just asinine. Who is going to tank for these "groups" the group finder will supposedly find on my dead server? How are people going to survive on the server when they start biting each other's heads off because they died to a glitchy boss that none of them have ever fought before? No one on my server is going to want to use the group finder with anyone outside of their own guild, so what's the point? Again, I'm sorry, but if you really believe that most of the servers in the game right now have a "community" on them that encourages player growth and is worthy of respect, you guys must be delusional. Just come out and admit that you can't figure out cross server technology, or that you don't have the funding anymore to develop the game fast enough to keep up with player expectations. Whatever the reason is, this "respect the communities that have developed on servers" line is like a slap in the face. At the very least, it's a bald faced lie. I guess my respect for Bioware and my subscription will be ending about the same time.

Dailies are probably the worst thing that an MMO can add. And yet, they all do because they are relatively cheap and easy to program and give people a reason to log in every day. The problem is, they are BORING! I can do a quest maybe twice before it starts to feel like a burden to me. And usually the rewards take an incredibly high number dailies to acquire. If dailies disappeared from MMO's, I don't think many people would even care beyond the lost potential for loot. Even dynamic dailies get boring, they just take a couple weeks longer. The PvP daily/weekly are slightly different in that they reward you for doing something you were going to do anyway. So they are more like a bonus than a daily quest. I do slightly miss the weapons collection quest on Ilum as it let you at least do SOMETHING to help your PvP gear while you waited an hour for your WZ que to pop. That being said, I don't want to see any more dailies. Ever. I want developers to step up and find new and interesting ways to keep people logging in, instead of the carrot at the end of the mind numbing, weeks long stick.

This is probably VERY accurate. Which makes me very sad. I really did enjoy this game a lot and met a bunch of cool people. To bad a lot of them don't play anymore cause there is nothing to do. I for one will be cancelling my subscription if cross server ques/server mergers are not included in 1.3. That's assuming I keep playing long enough for them to announce 1.3...

It's a good thing all those people playing WoW realized that this was a problem a couple years ago. Then Blizzard was smart enough to do something and make the dungeons worthwhile for people to run after they didn't need any gear from them. It's a real shame that Bioware didn't bother to look to other games, see the mistakes and fixes they made, then just skip the mistakes part straight to implementing intelligent features. For some reason, Bioware seems content make those same mistakes and reinvent the wheel. I really had fun playing this game at first, but when I see blunders that other games already made then fixed, and Bioware decides to make them again, I just have to wonder what's going on...

Unfortunately, for me at this point, the only thing that will keep me playing is if cross server ques are implemented in 1.3. There just won't be enough people playing by the time 1.3 is even on the test server to make anything less than cross server grouping viable. Right now, the only reason I'm still subcribed is because of RL friends and my guildmates. My server sucks and there is nothing going on. Since I'm not going to do a server transfer as that negates the only reason I'm still playing, I just won't continue subscribing if I can't play on my current server with my current friends. The only way that is happening is with cross server ques and grouping.

Thank you for writing this. I couldn't have come up with a better example of how server transfers will do nothing to help server populations and only make them worse. We need cross server grouping, not everyone ending up on one giant server.

No, I will not pay for a server transfer. I won't even take a free server transfer. If server transfers are the only option being offered to offset low server populations, I will simply quit playing the game. Server transfers should be a bonus or perk. If they are being used to try and relieve server population issues, a good analogy is taking an asprin to relieve a headache caused by a hole in your head. Yes, taking an asprin can stop a headache, but without addressing the cause of the problem, you don't really fix anything. Server transfers are not the answer to SWTOR's population problems.

A single server group finder would have been fine for this game. IF IT HAD BEEN AVAILABLE AT LAUNCH! At this point, if the group finder is single server, there aren't going to be people using it for groups to be formed. My pitiful server can't even get WZ's to que up some nights. How is my server going to support a group finder tool that needs a tank and a healer for every 2 dps? Dps are going to que and wait and wait and wait. That 1 level 50 that isn't tanking for his guild at the moment will finally join the que and 2 of the 10-20 dps waiting will get to run an FP. And I'm being optimistic with those numbers. Some of the people in my guild tried to do a normal mode level 50 FP the other day, all we needed was 1 dps. Could not find a single level 50 interested in running an FP as damage. I couldn't believe it. Cross server is the only thing that is going to keep this game running what with servers dying by the week. The less reliant your play time is on your single specific server, the more opportunities you will have to play the game. All BW has to do is step up and say, "this is the acceptable behavior for these group functions, and we're making the game enforce these rules." Because Blizzard was too cowardly to do this, their dungeon-finder turned into the cespool that is currently is. TL;DR- If it isn't going to be cross server, what's the point?

I'm casting my vote for "because no one has noticed it yet cause no one plays flashpoints." Seriously though, I know what you mean and since esseless is one of the VERY few FP's that people actually play, it's really annoying.

This is the stuff that just makes me scratch my head. WoW is there making all the mistakes and yet BW seems content to make the exact same mistakes over and over again. It's like they don't pay attention to their competition. And now, WoW announces something cool like this and BW has a chance to one-up them. That's how they should have been running this MMO from the start, then BW would be the innovators. Anyway, I think this kind of technology is really what they need to start focusing on if BW is serious about the game continuing into the future. This game has unfortunately been stuck long ago in a galaxy far from inovation.

Link: http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/10/cross-realm-zones-coming-to-mists-of-pandaria/#continued Forget server mergers, forget server transfers. Give us cross server planets! This is one of the truly brilliant ideas that Blizzard finally got right. Anything that makes the number of people on my server less important is a good idea. I'm sorry, but I don't want to transfer to a new server, only to have it die off again. I don't want to have to find or start a new guild all over again. I want to keep my connections with the people I have on my server, but NOT have it's dwindling population impact my game time. Yes, this is a "I want to have my cake and eat it too" opinion, but hey, Blizzard says that now I can. I won't be going back to play WoW, but now, this is bar. Bioware would be wise to raise it.

The OP is clearly on one of the servers that has plenty of people on it. I however am on a server where having 20 people on the fleet is a big deal. The only time a planet has more than 20 people on it since Tatooine and the Rakghoul event is when people form an ops group to kill one of the world bosses. Now you might think that based on that comment above, I'd be in favor of server merges. I would MUCH rather have cross-server quing than server mergers. I like my server, most specifically my guild, and I don't want to have to start that over. As others have said, server mergers don't actually solve any problems and instead create new ones. I can promise you a server merge is going to damage your "community" WAY more than cross server ques. The other reason I'm all about cross server ques is directly related to this "community." Pretty much the way Warzones go on my server is that if the 1 republic pvp guild on the server is playing, things go fine. We win some, we lose some, ques pop fast. However, during off times, you can never get a WZ to pop, and when you do, it's likely against the 1 Imp pvp guild on the server so you know you're going to lose. I've been in several WZ's where we even had an equal number of players, but the Rep side just gave up because it was the same Imps that steamrolled us 15 min ago. Single server ques just can't be sustained. This idea that people have about "community" on a server is a pipe dream and usually boils down to situations similar to the one I described above. The best thing for the health of the game is to make it so that you can play on ANY server you want and still have access to all the game's features. This is what cross server ques allow us to do. Please give us cross server ques.