I avoid fleet if I can. I think the toxicity of it is beyond stupid for gen chat. Let it be whose genitals are bigger than the other to an urinating contest to politics, I rather just avoid it all together and use whatever shortcuts I can to not go to fleet. However, there are times where you need to go to fleet for whatever reason (normally turning in missions). In those cases it tends to be get in and get out. So is it the center of my social hub? Far from it. If I needed to name mine it's probably one of the stronghold worlds like Nar Shadda. I know I am not alone. I get it that SWTOR 'wants' it to be the hub of their faction, but there are a very large number of people that avoid fleet like the plague. Most times if I am there, I switch to something like guild chat to avoid the BS. As for the argument of using it as a barometer for player activity, the only ones that will know this is EA Bioware and up to them to share the results if they wanted too. I personally wouldn't hold my breath for these stats.

TUXs Is right here. I do help speed along the boss fights myself. Reason being is that on some worlds there is a crowd waiting for their turn and only way to start it is to have the active boss finished. However, I monitor the health and when it gets near 10%, I place my companion on passive and stop firing if I can. Call it a round of golf with me loading their golf ball in a cannon and firing it to the green. As for the PvP instance, yes its an option for some but not necessary for all. I have gone to the PvP instance and as its stated, its generally a barren wasteland of players. However, the gankers are there too and they travel in packs. So the point of getting ganked in combat is a legitimate concern. Unlike a straight PvP fight, if you die while fighting mobs, you do include repair costs. Of course a 'fair fight' in PvP is relative - so some its fair if its 4v1 and they are part of the 4. Finally, if you have anxiety to the point that you can't stop trembling at the thought of PvP, I think you need to find something other than online games. Being serious here - MMO's are likely the last thing you should be doing even with PvE only. I get it people have bad days; but if its like constant, I swear MMOs will give you PTSD simply off pugging a flashpoint and the comments people make. Its your money but there is no game mechanic that can stop a jerk from being a jerk.

For crying out loud - if you hate the game so much and waiting for its demise, then here is a simple way to make it happen quicker: Stop subscribing. I personally will play till the game closes and remain subbed till they announce they are shutting down or cross the Rubicon in my opinion. I like SWTOR and have been playing since 2 days after launch. But, honestly never understood the mental math of paying to play on here then wanting the game to "fail". Given the number of games on Steam, I am pretty sure there are other options out there that you'd like that would likely be less in the long run. I understand that a sub is the gateway to comment on the forums so we are all subscribers. Before I get accused of "White Knighting", I want to point out that I do think there are things that should be changed on here. However, none of them are stopping me from playing. I just don't think the negatives are enough to drive me off at this time.

To answer simply - No. More complex - somewhat. You will get points for crafting offline. However, you applies when you log back on and its across legacy. So if you plan on 'queuing' up a bunch of characters and cycle through, just realize that it will be cumulative when you log in. So assume you are doing 1:1 for crafting (i.e. can queue up 40 items at level 70) and did it with 5 characters, here is how it would go. Assumption here is the items don't 'double' on critical. Character 1: 40/50 Character 2: 10+40 for the 50. Then would have 30/50 to go. Character 3: 20+30 for the 50. Then would have 20/50 to go. Character 4: 30+20 for the 50. Then would have 10/50 to go. Character 5: 40+10 for the 50. Then would have 0/50 to go. If they double on critical or do something like medpacs, grenades, or otherwise multiple X:1 queue slot then of course the numbers change. I personally will not do war supplies or invasion forces as they tend not to give the optimum CXP to time for crafting unless there is a bonus point given for that item (like last week I think it effectively doubled what you got for the 50 conquest objective). However note that if you critical on this you only get credit for doing it once and not twice for the x2 result. Hope this helps. Blak

Unlike what appears to be a common theme on the forums, I am not so doom and gloom. I have been subbed since 3 days after launch and likely will remain subbed till they announce the closure of the game. However to answer various points people have made, here is my insights. The "DOOM!" article by whoever published it I admit when it comes to game information, I tend to stick by a few more 'reputable' sources. I personally think its someone trying to drive click-bait. My reason is simple - any company with half a business plan or more reviews their BCP (business continuity plan) at the minimum annually. I am sure they have talked about the closure of SWTOR more than once. In fact, i am 100% certain it was a semi lengthy discussion. It probably went something like this: Executive #1: "Lets talk about SWOTR. Our licensing agreement amounts to $X Million per year. Is the IP sustainable?" Executive #2: "Well subscribers are (up/down/ flat) from last (year/quarter). Revenues and EBIT on this line are (up/down/flat) from last period of review and our profit margin is (up/down/flat) as a result." Executive #1: "So what about its profitability?" Executive #3: "Well as this is part of my division, I believe that revenue growth will be (up/down/flat) in the next 5 cycles. This growth model is reflective of the overall market for online games." Executive #1: "So what I am hearing is that the game is still a viable revenue stream during this period?" Executive #3: "Yes. Given the demand for online entertainment associated with the Star Wars IP remains high, we believe that SWTOR will remain a viable revenue line for the foreseeable future." Executive #2: "I concur with these findings and feel the same." Executive #1: "It's done then - SWTOR will continue. What is the next item on our agenda today?" It literally is something like that. Having sat through my share of these types of meetings for everyday products you use on a daily basis, a decision to cut a lien of business is far more complex than most people know. In most cases the game would need to sustain repeated losses for multiple quarters and even then the losses would need to exceed the shutdown cost associated with the discontinuing of the product. Example of this is as none of us have a copy of the Disney / EA agreement, there might be outside factors such as termination fees in the amount of millions for the discontinuation without a viable replacement product being offered. Look at SWG - regardless of the '20/20 hindsight' and fanboy-ness of the game, it was accruing losses for a few quarters before they shut it down. When they did - it was because SWTOR was coming online (a replacement of the model). Sony at the time decided that the IP cost did not justify the revenues earned. This is one of many factors at play. Heck, Keith could be a silver-tongued sales guy and has a plan for growth and has the executive team convinced. What I don't buy into is some article that is rumor and extensions of rumor in the hopes they will be right in the future. Statistically I could wake up and claim the economy will go into a recession this quarter. Eventually i will be proven right simply off normal business cycles. For SWTOR, there is a date in which it will shut down in the future, but none of us can say if it is next month, next year, or a decade from now simply because we are not privy to this information. Subscribers are up / down / flat from some arbitrary period of my choosing My simply question is this - what proprietary information do you possess that says this? On the forums there are 3 people that post that would know that - Keith, Charles, and Eric. The likelihood of them releasing this information is about 0% because they would be crap-canned in about 30 mins after posting a nugget like this. Again, absence of data does not conclude or disprove the hypothesis. With the cash store, subscribers doesn't mean its as relevant as pure sub model. Even if they are on a shoestring skeleton crew for the game, the cost of servers and bandwidth is relatively low. Analyst projections I have seen says the game could fall to 25,000 subs and remain viable, excluding revenues from the cash store. While I don't have sub data in front of me, I thought SWTOR was still north of 150,000 subscribers monthly. Content has slowed - means they are going to maintenance mode EA does accounting a bit different than most game producers. EA writes off development at the time the charge is accrued as opposed to other companies deferring the expense until revenue is generated as a tax shield. To make it more complex, game developers are not a dime a dozen. So if you have a limited number of a developers they likely get shuffled around. Its quite possible with all the press EA feels the need to promote Anthem as a win after the embarrassment of BF2. So they may be 'borrowing' the developers from SWTOR to assist with meeting the launch date. Alternatively, they may have learned form KOTFE / KOTET and circled back to large "content drops" like RoTHC or SoR. This will take time to develop, so what we are seeing is smaller and less frequent content drops as they focus on the bigger drop and changes we are hoping for. Rumor has it that there will be an Old Republic film trilogy after Episode 9 I cannot get any confirmation to this rumor to anyone I ask from Disney. I don't get a denial either... Assuming for a minute this is true. EA will likely bank on this to maintain the IP. Additionally SWTOR would also be a vehicle to promote the lore and as a hype tool to get people excited on the new expansion into the film canon. If that is indeed the case, Disney may lax the royalty fees or have SWTOR as a condition to keeping the IP or even subsidize the continuation of the story. What leads me to think this rumor might be true is some comments made about KOTFE when it was announced. Remember at the time, they mentioned they had the direction of Disney and support for the story change? That alone is worth remembering since the game is the only active "Legends" canon left open for development. Since this has an much clout as the LEGO STAR WARS series in terms of impact, SWTOR could for the most part have Obi Wan come back as a force ghost, immortally slay the Sith Emperor only to be chased by a time travelling Darth Vader and Anakin chasing Vader from another time line is a time travel grandfather paradox that makes no sense and have absolutely 0 impact on the canon and continuity of the Star Wars Disney Universe. Yet Disney appears to have a vested interest in the game. That should tell you something. Its not about protecting their IP, because they have licensed Jar Jar's likeness as a toilet bowl (seriously) and pretty much will license almost anything as Official Star Wars merchandise if you pay enough. Just Sayin'. Of course this is all rumor, so take it how you will. Closing Thoughts I'm not saying I have some special knowledge - I don't. I just think that the end of SWTOR isn't anytime soon. It eventually will cease at some point but till that day, I'm not going to waste an ounce of energy on predicting its demise. I figure its time for some positive comments about the game. You can call me dumb for spending my money on a sub but its my money. And I look forward to remaining subbed till the day at some point I am no longer subbed - whenever that day is. Blak

I used to save mine from the Makeb launch after I maxxed out thinking the same thing. Then I sold them off to a vendor because I needed the space... No one says you can't hold onto them, but given how easy they are to acquire, unless you are sitting on stacks of 9,999 and want to stare in awe of that achievement then I don't think there will be a secondary use for them outside of cashing them out.

This is pretty much every AAA MMO on the market anymore. In fact its par for the course. The bigger fight though is international commerce. This is really a "East vs West" fight in gaming in that the Western model was subscriptions and the Eastern Model was Freemium where you can play for numbers but if you wanted to win you needed to pay (Korea and China). Now lets look at the gaming population globally. Due to access of technology the North American & European Markets are about the equivalent in market power for both potential buyers and spending power as Korea and China. However unlike the West, China and Korea have a growth factor in more population and potential for the current population to gain access to play games. On paper it makes it look like the Freemium model is the way to go. The other factor is cost. Originally there was a limited number of MMOs. Today you have more MMOs than I can count or think of - some of which are likely insanely huge and I never heard of them. So where market shares could be done in the double digits early on, today people are fighting for fractions of a percent in a matured market. Games however are still expensive to produce so or need some factor to recoup costs. EA actually had an advantage with this given how they do their expenses - they write off expenses at the time of accrual rather than carryover expenses to the product line. While I cannot quote the source, I remember reading at the time when SWTOR launched that the number of units sold effectively recouped the cost for development. So the only factors applicable for the game is paying expenses needed to maintain it today - IP royalties, bandwidth, maintenance, and new content development. However, this accounting process might hurt SWTOR now in that revenue from SWSTOR is used to pay for development of the next big idea from EA. This brings us to SWTOR and Free-to-play. The game is effectively a sunk cost. EA cannot go back and reclaim development time on the game. So you have an asset which you can do two things with - let it die like the direction the game was pre F2P or open it up and hope you can generate enough micro transactions for access to content on players that either cannot or will not pay for a maintenance fee (i.e. subscription). As a father with 2 sons that played F2P, I can tell you F2P for the story isn't a overly enjoyable time if you ever experienced being a sub (which is why I got them subscriptions). If Free to Play was to be effective (like it turned out here), the F2P enables players to get enough of a taste of the game in which they will want to experience the game completely and hence subscribe - which is what ended up happening. Enough people that were originally turned away from subbing for a variety of reasons for SWTOR have since opted to sub at the minimum intermittently to the game. This brings in balance between F2P offerings, 'preferred' incentives that are enough to keep you around for critical mass in group activities, or subscriptions. F2P should be playable enough to let you experience the game without quitting in frustration or hate but burdensome enough to incentivize you to spend money. Preferred should allow you increased playability and fun to make you stick around, but annoying enough to make you want to sub. Finally the sub needs to be worth the price to pay for the game and add enough value to ensure your continued monthly payments. We can argue about what standards should be for each but ultimately its a balancing act that can help or harm the game depending on what is granted in each case.

Lets look at where we are now in the story and think about this. I dislike the Imp vs Rep war theme but prefer light vs dark or civilization vs natural order. Right now we effectively have 3 power players in galactic politics - The Imperials, the Republic, and the Alliance / Empire. There are others out there (like the Chiss) but they alone do not have the power to tip power one direction or another and need to align with one of the 3 political powers for safety or survival. Lets look at another sci fi universe called Battletech for comparison. Originally there were 5 Houses vying for creating the new Star League. 1 effectively (House Liao) has devolved into a buffer state with the formation of the Federated Commonwealth. When they (the FC) became the "driving force" the Clans were introduced resulting in more factions to keep the conflict going. This of course formed the new Star League out of necessary to push back the Clans and a few new entities and powers. When this began to settle and the Inner Sphere was able to hold their own, ComStar broke into factions causing yet another power shift and formation of even more powers. With ComStar arc resolved and the powers that be shifted the story evolved into the loss of HPGs (faster than light communication) again pushing people into a reason to continue to fight. In the end, most stories rhyme what we know as history. In the case of Battletech, the creators jumbled up and tossed historical players into matches for the story. The Original Star League was the Roman Empire. The Houses were the great powers of Europe that arose after the fracturing of the Roman Empire. The Clans were "Lost Tribe of Israel" that morphed into the Mongol Horde. The Word of Blake was the Arabic Invasions and Spread of Islam. ComStar itself was the Byzantine Empire. For Star Wars, its a story of the Colonies vs the British Empire or the US vs the USSR. In my mind, the battle of Rep vs Imp is similar to the early days of Rome vs Carthage. With the destruction of Carthage, Rome became the dominant player where its "symbolism" can be seen in the Republic. The Imperial resurgence is a king to the Mongol Hordes or Barbarian waves (with we want to keep the timelines somewhat uniform). In the end the Republic will fall to arise something new that will replace the republic. Sure the Byzantine Empire could be considered the Republic post KOTET - but the Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks which led to the Age of Exploration and the foundations of the modern world we know today. Point here is we could have a Good vs Evil war for simplicity or they could turn it into a multi-factional battle of players aligning and dividing to seize power, but in the long run it will form out to be two camps - good vs evil with factions of slippery morals justifying their switch from one side to the other playing a political game of fence sitting. I think there will be the "Alliance" vs an "Empire" in the end. The Alliance winner of this fight will form the foundations of the prequel Galactic Republic either thru a domination of evil and a effectively ancient story like the original trilogy (where the "republic" fights the giant evil empire) or in that the republic will be reborn from the Alliance in the image of the ideal the Republic once stood for. In the end I see it being Rep vs Imp, just potentially not in the manner of the current factions existing as they are in the original storyline.

I agree with the OP, but on a slightly different basis. To me, star wars isn't about rep vs imp or sith vs jedi, but more good vs evil. Given the time in the Star Wars former canon - these are the unknown times where the galaxy fell apart. I consider it like the 'dark ages' where the Roman Empire fell (i.e. the Republic) under its own hubris and the western world fell apart. To me KOTFE and KOTET is like the Outlander being Charlemagne and a light in the darkness. I actually see how this works for the history of the Star Wars canon like Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. For millennia kingdoms sought to be the next Roman Empire. Charlemagne sought to rebuild in the image of the Roman Empire and for me it would be great to see both the Republic and Sith Empire fracture into a bunch of feuding factions. For the Outlander you have a choice - lead thru light and freedom as a Grand Coalition or oppression as the New Sith Empire. "Canon" wise the light will win in the end (i.e. the Galactic Republic prior to the Galactic Empire for thousands of years), but the time is one where the struggle existed to unite the galaxy or the horrors were so brutal that history best felt it should be forgotten. I think where people get lost on the Star Wars mythos was we look at the original trilogy as some seamless work where a new hope led to ESB which snowballed into ROTJ. Several decades later we view it as a unified story rather than 3 separate movies. Even for the prequel we knew how it was to end - Palpatine becomes the Emperor and Anakin falls to the dark side. Most of the 'hate' I have seen isn't the story arc but rather on the story in that people wanted a story to be better told rather than the outcome. Even for Episodes 7 & 8, the hate and complaints isn't that the story sucks but more they view it as 2 sequels to the original not as 2 parts of 3 part series. Yes there are parts of both that make you ask "WHY?!?!?!?!" but without the 3rd part to unify the story its shocking to your senses. I think with Ep 9 my point will be proven in that the items we dislike now become apparent - that or prove why JJ Abrams should get out of the sci fi genre all together. To bring it back to SWTOR, I honestly WANT a 3rd part of KOTFE / KOTET storyline. This is more to explain the content of the canon - does the Eternal Empire / Alliance help or hurt the galaxy and the what is the outcome. Even the last few plot points are showing this to be the case in some off hand dialogue you might have missed. The galaxy is moving to the side of a cliff - does it turn or stop and avoid going over, or does it pull a Thelma & Louise and hit the accelerator got flying off the cliff. For this reason I see the battle for dark vs light - can we redeem ourselves and be the shining light and source of a Galactic Republic of the future generations (the Republic that existed before Palpatine) like a seed, or does the Eternal Empire become something so dark and deprived that it forces the galaxy to fall into a centuries long dark time where the depravity makes the most evil sith all warm and fuzzy. Least that is how I look at it.

I have been attempting to log into a character that is on the gravestone and I am stuck in the loading screen for multiple minutes (normally takes a few seconds to log in). Thanks, Blakinik UPDATE - got in just extremely slow on the login times.

I wouldn't mind a full account ignore. However, on the same token I would like to see a "Full Account Friend" choice too. Literally now that we can have up to 100 characters per server, for some of my good friends, why do I need to litter my friends list with them as a friend when if I friend the account then regardless of who they are on they can see me and vice versa? I would even welcome a 'hidden' feature that would allow people to look "offline" if they wanted too in regard to the friends list as well. This would solve the whole "don't want to be bothered on every character" complaint that would come from account wide adds. On the same note, wouldn't mind an option for an "Enemy" list too. This list would inform you if someone logs in as well - just that they are online. For RPers, it would a good way to have declared vendettas etc. and make it work. For non-RP types it just is a way to know if someone you hate is online. This could be account or character specific given the tendencies of some people, but wouldn't impact you where you can still communicate. Finally, would be nice to see who has you on their friends list and the option to individually set yourself as offline to them. Benefit here is it could tell you who would be a good person to group with or even build a positive relationship with other players.

Must. Stay. Awake.

The login servers crash now? Keeps telling me its unavailable. UPDATE - able to get in now

Eric, Hope you and Keith get some sleep at some point. If needed use Uber / Lyft to get home and be safe. Blak

Reminds me of the ball room dancing on Sid Meier's Pirates - was like A-A-D-D-Q-E-Q-E to the tune of the music. Too fast or too slow and you erred.

Thanks! So nada for me, but glad someone gets some new goodies!

Its a speeder we got a while back. My question is what is the Revan Returns Expansion? (Code is REVANRETURNS)

If we were talking Mark Hammill, I'd buy this. However, he does talk in the cut scene. So unless they were planning KOTFE back prior to 2012 or spliced together a computer voice over of him, then don't know if this was the reason. I'm not 'opposed' to the '1 that was left behind' in terms of characters where you would really need to get them from the terminal - just left me scratching my head that Vik was off on the sidelines. Frankly after a few short sentences, do any of the companions talk to you short of Lana and the man I am gonna have soooo much fun with after the next patch frying with lightning bolts? Even with Quinn and Dorne on Iokath and the decisions you made about them, regardless of which side you went for you got both companions. Not saying Vik is absolutely essential, but I am a companion collector and would liked to have had a chance to snag him for my 'motley crew'. Blakinik

A simple and easy method is to allow 'guild alliances'. I know my guild will not place on a board in a given week. I am not a power gamer and have a life outside of this game. However, I can generally break the million point mark solo across a few chars in weeks where the challenges align to my play style. Why not an option for me to add my points to another guild on the leaderboard if I meet some set criteria like I couldn't place in the Top 10 alone for my guild. Alliances can work 2 ways for a suggestion (maybe more if others have ideas too). First is as a GM I can align my guild with other guilds and we form a 'scoring bloc' where together we can place on the board. For sake of fairness, the total 'headcount' of the combined 'bloc' cannot exceed 1,000 characters total. This will allow for niche guilds to participate and influence and potentially swing winners. So 10 100 character guilds could ban together or 20 50 member guilds, etc. Second is change the point scoring mechanics to allow for alternative methods of winning. Example of this would be the overall points scored (current), points per active participant, and points per guild member. What this would allow is for a small guild to place on a secondary scoring mechanism like points per active participant without the need to rank up 50 million points in some cases so long as those that do participate are extremely active. The other scoring of points per guild member is to encourage overall guild participation as opposed to 10 high point scorers driving the win if you have 500 members. Not saying either is a perfect solution but it does give a start. The only other option I can think of would be to do brackets based on guild size - under 100, 101 to 200, etc. Issue would be the gaming of guild size to increase / decrease your chance of placing that round with the addition or removal of characters from the guild. Finally it could be a faction driven contest, but that takes away the guild aspect altogether. Blakinik

Tanno Vik. Every other companion from every other class seems to be a recruitable companion expect for this guy. Can we get an option to recruit him (assuming you made the right decisions)? Alternatively will there be a 'blackout' to a unique companion for each class and it possible to list who? By blackout referring to they are only available to that class. Thanks, Blakinik

Worked to pay for my sub and my 2 kids subs. You asked

I agree with this - fair and reasonable. In fact for all the "Give me CC's for my troubles!" requests and greedy people looking for free stuff, well do that math and its 0.625 CC per hour down time. So at $4.99 for 450 CC as the metric against 720 hours over 30 days, being down for 12 hours would be about 8 CC rounding up.

If not them then me please?

Yes - well worth it. In fact my 'rig' costs more alone than this excluding the monitor which would be another 20 months or so for that alone. I personally look at it in entertainment value. At about 8,500 hours of play time over 1,300 hours that is $0.15 an hour. Name other forms of entertainment you can have that cost that little that are not "walking in the park" or "people watching".

Give them a break will you. I mean seriously, you think Eric Musco has no life that he wants to spend it fixing a login queue issue? Pretty sure Eric likely doesn't want to be fixing a server at Midnight Central Time. My lord you all act like its life and death. Get up, walk around, cuddle your significant other, heck get a pet and play catch. Lots to do in this world folks outside of earning virtual currency on virtual paper dolls.