true. however it still shows the population at a given time in a given place, which can be used to verify numbers. not saying numbers go up or down (don't really care tbh), just that it can be used to establish a trend (for a faction on one server).

social thingie in the upper left shows the number of players

if anything, it reeks of logic, because there are exactly THREE places 50s hang out, so if you really want to find people for a hm fp (which sooner or later majority wants to do), you do a /who ilum/belsavis and be done with it. the sensible step would be to have a lvl 50 only chat as rift does, and one for 1-49 for the other FPs. I don't need to see hm fp/ops lfg when I want to do a lowlvl instance.

well, people are probably gonna resub, see 1 new instance and maybe 1 new operation, and if the legacy system finally makes it in, this too (and depending how bioware handles, it might piss more people off than brings them to reroll a character with a new race). the whole "hm, let's resub for a month to check it out" only works so far tho.

I know, but what does it fix? half the items from heroics are non-moddable, and the rest of the items either look bland (jedi) or are 4 models with a different pattern (trooper) - in the case of trooper, the only items that are NOT white/x are greens. and good luck farming instances to get a decent looking set. ripping out the mods is fine and dandy, but we still need to put them into something

don't know where it drops, but I don't expect it to be in the game. there are several other "sets" where items are missing or a mix of orange/blue items. additionally, at 50 you mod your existing pieces till better gear drops where either only half the mods can be removed or not at all, not to mention you get no set bonus then.

actually, I'm more of a realist. played 2 chars to 50, did pretty much all heroics, tried to collect every suitable customizable item I can get my hands on for my class... in beta every item was moddable, which got changed to customizables only. which, on paper is not a bad idea. however: - lvl 50 either does not let you remove mods or only some of it -> everybody looks the same. not to mention the progression at 50 is "get orange gear, get daily mods, put mods in, then run ops/hm fps for gear (not mods). - "sets" of gear with the same look (like the transpari steel) are incomplete or an inconsistent mix of orange/blue items -> and since you can only mod orange items, you have to look all over the place for another "suitable" orange replacement. take your pick if this is planned or carelessness (and I don't know which would be worse); and this is only regarding the visual aspect of your character. and last but not least we are talking about bioware here, which admittedly takes cues from wow how to design a mmo (sparklepony-speeder is only a matter of time then) and sells items as dlc for a SINGLEPLAYER rpg (and if you look over to mass effect, if you don't get the arrival dlc it's pretty much like you missed an episode of your favourite series). so it's not that difficult to estimate what to expect.

if you are a pessimist, you can expect it to show up later as "new" content so they have something to put in their newsletter. as an optimist, you can hope they figured out it didn't work gameplay-wise and it gets a work over. now compare that to the stuff which is still ingame, still is in desperate need of a work over, and the question how moddable gear with unique appearances could not work regarding gameplay, and you have your answer. (yes, theoretically limiting the options of possible appearances also limits the the stuff the engine has to show is a good argument, but if that really is the case there are bigger problems than looking like everyone else at 50).

which I think comes down to 1. people still leveling and playing for the story (and happily pay 15 bucks a month for it, don't ask me why) 2. people at 50, where the story is over and the endgame is a badly designed copy of wow's endgame.

this. one of the reasons I can't understand why people celebrated the dialogs like the 2nd coming of jesus. so in other games people don't read the questtexts with "random reason 354 to kill 10 boars", but as soon you get a cutscene where a random npc tells you to kill 10 boars because of random reason 354, it's all of a sudden 10 times better?

you can send in a companion/party member, wait outside the door, when the companion/member dies the boss runs out through the door without resetting. exploit? debatable. but if it's the only way to kill a bugged boss (which a) was fixed already and b) bioware can't even bother to hotfix), it's pretty sad. and no, I won't do X numbers of tries and stack repair costs just to get lucky and the rockets not to bug out.

expect the odd questgiver with rehashed text and your char using a lot of rehashed text (which already is the case, there are some lines I hear pretty often, especially in bonus questlines).

trooper has some traps to disarm and stealth as bonus quests, compared to the jedi knight where everything is "go in and kill X" and once in a while persuade someone instead of killing him (which yes, makes him show up again, but I'm pretty sure if not him someone else would have shown up later). and I think he means the the choices do not change anything. what it changes is if you get a mail or a npc shows up. the outcome is still the same. It's like the choice of taking the train or the bus, but you still end up in the same city. in the end, it changes nothing. as for quests in general, all western MMOs did was to exchange the mobgrind for a questgrind ("look ma, I got a reason to kill all that mobs now!"). but seriously, how many damsels in distress can you save before it gets old? runescape did quests right, but OTOH, how would you fill the rest of the game (besides mob- or skillgrind?).

which, imho, is poor design, forcing people to grind "lower" content just for currency /fixed that for you

thats the thing, why would it even become a huge issue? we're still all on the same server. this alone should prevent any stupidity. and why doesn't esseles/BT (or all normal instances while were at it) automatically distribute loot as well? I've seen quite some ninjas there, WAY more than in every op. and it's still about learning the instance and not the loot, right? there might be a reason for automatic loot, but in context it makes no frigging sense. it also removes control from players - we are perfectly fine doing it within a guild, we don't need it and we don't want it. wonder how long people will pay a sub to be treated like imbeciles.