A permanent stat boost means you are permanently more powerful than a player who has decided not to participate in that gameplay. Finding shards means that you also have to find the Matrix Shard Assembler, which will construct relics for your relic slot. You can still get your stat boost, but IT IS NOT A PERMANENT boost, and it uses up one of your Relic slots. So, players who want to explore for Datacrons gain flexibility. They have more relics, and can reconfigure their relics to support their builds, whereas a player who hasn't found the datacrons would have to make do with other found or purchased Relics. The reward for "finding" a Datacron is way out of whack with the difficulty involved in actually finding one, and I think that's my major issue with the system

There are better ways to handle this sort of thing than a permanent stat boost. If they were to remove ALL the permanent stat boosts, and replace them all with matrix shard pickups from every Datacron, that's a far more interesting mechanic in an MMO.

So, basically you either make the decision to not play half of the game in perpetuity or you get the Datacrons. Where's the choice?

Of course it does. Not getting the Datacrons must be considered a serious impediment to any kind of competitive play, unless they're not taken into account during it. Which would just make the entire system even more pointless.

If the locations of the Datacrons could be kept secret, then maybe I'd see the point (to encourage players to explore the world). But since exploration is basically moot (trying to stick your nose off the levelling treadmill is liable to get it bitten off by poory realised world), they're basically just stat penalties for people who don't follow an online list to get them all. It's yet another singleplayer gameplay mechanic that just doesn't quite make the leap to online gameplay.

So do it. Do you really need support for it in the game mechanics?

They didn't hire Mythic so much as Mythic are/were EA's MMO specialists.

Chests contain loot which is decided by the level of the chest-opener (up to a maximum of the level of the area). Everyone keeps ignoring the elegant solutions for a more civilized age.

All they had to do was invent a "near cabonite". Like they did by replacing Bacta with Kolto.

Actually, the carbonite thing has been kinda bugging me. I got the impression it was dangerous and not done a lot in Empire Strikes Back... So seeing people running around casually freezing other people in Carbonite 3000 years beforehand in The Old Republic just sets my teeth on edge.

The thing is, WOW dripfeeds you skills in a way that teaches you how to play their game. By the time you're finished the first planet, you've got most of the skills you're ever going to use in TOR, certainly all the ones that actually fit on your toolbar. By the end of the second, you've even got a ship. The game should take the leash off then and just let players go where they want. With a level-less system, the Galaxy could be your oyster. Exploring on Illum. Prospecting on Tattooine. Bounty Hunting on Nar Shadda. All of the above, with friends, forever. But they just can't bring themselves to disengage the levelling treadmill because they don't know how to create content that rewards in and of itself, rather than offering an in-game reward. What's really needed is a way to empower the players to create the universe.

Bioware have been dead to me ever since Dragon Age 2. It's sad to see EA crushing the spark out of a developer whos work I used to love, but to paraphrase Dave Gaider, the timescales and budgets of being an arm of EA simply don't let them make the types of games that I once loved the company for. Adios Bioware, it's been a blast while it lasted. QQ

That's certainly one possible interpretation of why they might choose to do this. Another might be "damage control". Mind you, when my sub runs out, I honestly don't think I have much more to say on the matter, so it doesn't particuarly affect me.

Unlikely to happen with the high price of the game. If they haven't already bought it, they're likely to be scared off by the general negativity of many of the people who have, rather than invest 30 bones in the game and then a monthly sub. Free trials will probably need to be deployed sooner rather than later.

Significantly less than there were a week ago?

I think they first thing they need to do is drop levels entirely. It's nothing more than an arbitrary restriction that prevents you from having fun. You can't use this gun because you're not high enough level. You're too high level to play with your friends because you'd breeze right through their quests. You can't move quickly because you've not punched enough giant bugs yet.

Conversly, I finished both games once, and never went back. The story was told, I didn't need to see the outcomes of the other choices because I'd seen the outcomes of the choices I'd wanted to make. Not everyone plays RPG's with completionist zeal.

Actually, I'd like to see this. There are some sections of the game that might work incredibly well if played offline. Specifically, I'm thinking of the space combat. It'd be a good way to kill server downtime if you could grind a few space missions.

I wouldn't say "everyone". There definately seems to be an audience. And in any case, the forums of these games are always full of complaints.

I mean, during the average play session, we get stacks and stacks of grey items that exist solely to clog our inventories and then be sold for credits. Is it too much to ask that at least a couple of them do things? Perhaps they could be given default animation when used? like the Social badges?

Eh, seen one gigantic space-bug, seen em all.

Honestly, I like the space combat. Very simplistic, but at least it's something a little different.

It has bog-standard MMORPG gameplay. Maybe it was kinda foolish of me, I've played this same game now in many, many skins, and I was hoping for something that perhaps captured that freewheeling Star Wars adventure movie feeling a little better.

MMO isn't really a "genre", though. At best it describes a situation where a publisher trains you to give them money every time they ring a bell.

I'm going to have to say no. Bioware are great at what they do... which is story. But for me, what made Ultima Online a truly great MMO was that it didn't place any expectations on you at all. It literally just turned you loose on a great big open world and said "do what thou wilt". And players did. They made towns. They mined, they explored, They killed and murdered. They loved, lived and died. And all without cinematic talking heads. From what I've seen of TOR, the game simply doesn't have that kind of worldbuilding capability.