Nope... I have no source... that's why I say it's a possibility. And anyone within the walls of BW or EA would certainly be fired if they made that kind of information public. That said EA has a history of liquidating studios, their brand equity, and their intellectual properties. Converting SWTOR to a full RMT business model would be one way that they could accomplish that with BW and this title. The thing is...a majority of the new content added in the last 6 months has been gated behind a RMT paywall. People have different definitions about what constitutes content, and can argue about that definition 'till the cows come home. My definition is anything related to the title that required effort to develop, simply because that effort could have been spent to develop X, and because content means something different to each player. I really don't have an issue with new game content being behind a RMT paywall. What I take issue with is how much of the new content has been behind a RMT paywall. And that's why I cancelled my sub, because a SWTOR sub in 2013 doesn't purchase the kind of additional content that it did in 2012. It no longer provides me with the same value that it did. BW has effectively raised the price of the SWTOR product ~ at a time when they were struggling to sell it. Kudos to them for being able to pull that off. For a brick & mortar business that is almost always suicide. But they need to remember the players who paid to keep the lights on between April and December of 2012. Those players are the real SWTOR community. The players who were interested enough to pay for the game, and to pay a sub when subs were dropping like flies. Once they're all gone....what will be left is just another RMT time sink, full of jackhat players who don't care enough about the game to be worth grouping with for a rehashed FP or OP.

There is another option... There is a corporate manager from EA overseeing the SWTOR project who is insisting that the BW devs monetize all new features and content through RMT in some fashion. This is the the most likely scenario. But no matter what the reason behind it is.....the community will never get any confirmation. They can't publicly confirm any of those things without causing a nearly instant and negative impact on revenue. I take no issue with BW or EA making money. And I'd happily pay them for a better product. But if they expect me to shell out for a sub and then shell out some more if I want anything I havn't already had for the last 12 months....it's not going to continue to happen. I will only pay a sub, if they will provide me with new content that I can get excited about and enjoy playing WITHOUT having it gated by a CC paywall. Anything gated by a CC paywall IS NOT a feature of my sub ~ it's just a different kind of RMT shop. **EDIT** WAS NOT - my sub has already been cancelled Right now - the preferred f2p experience is very comparable to what I got for the price of my physical copy and the first 4 months of my sub. What I paid $100 for ~ is now being sold for $5.

There are only a few possibilities. a) bad leadership. b) they don't actually intend to support a subscription model in the long term & would prefer to survive on revenue stream of f2p players who spend $10 in RMT to get to preferred status and subs who are gambling addicts. c) they no longer have the human resources they need to address the problems. d) all or part of the above

That's the real rub to most subscribers... features that come standard with a f2p account are not features that are being paid for. They don't count in the value calculation anymore. Launching a f2p option devalued the sub. BW recognizes that. It's why they provide subs with a CC grant. The issue is that the lion share sub revenue is now being plowed back into CM crap instead of actual content, bug fixes, and features. I'm not surprised by this. If players are willing to drop tons of cash on the CM ~ the RMT revenue stream is easier money. It takes less resources to develop. And it makes the game more profitable for EA ~ at least in the short term. But if they're going to continue to focus on RMT in the future ~ SWTOR will be reduced to a wretched hive of scum and villainy in short order. There simply won't be any reason to commit play time or effort to the game anymore ~ not when the best in game rewards are earned by simply by grinding credits or by pulling out your wallet. ....and that's the track they're on right now.

Yup... it is. The problems are that it should not be taking this long, and BW has a well established history of missing it's advertised goals for patches by weeks if not months. As it sits right now, by they time they roll out this year's "Summer of SWTOR" content ~ Summer will be more than half over. RotHC crafting was a mess, and the bugs were caught on the PTS a month before RotHC went live. It took 3 months for some of those bug fixes, and some have not been fixed yet. But in that same time frame we got 2 new CM shops? (collections & barber) That kind of illustrates why many subs feel that features and content as part of the sub are not a priority. Afterall ~ crafting is gimped for f2p players, and crafting bugs don't have much effect on the f2p experience. Likewise bugs in Ops, FP's, & WZ's don't effect the f2p crowd as frequently because they don't have unlimited access to those bugs. In 2012 PvP'ers got 2 new WZ, and a set of new gear models ~ not nearly enough imho, and I barely PvP. In 2013, at the rate BW is going, it will be 10 months since the PvP'ers have gotten anything when their next update happens. Who would expect those players to stick around that long without new PvP specific content? Srsly BW.....fire that guy.

The issue is that there are a lot of subs who have been with this game since it launched. Players who paid for a physical copy of the game, stuck it out through the massive sub die off last year, paid a sub to play on a deserted server while they waited for merges to occur, paid a sub while f2p was in dev, paid a sub while the CM was in dev, and kept right on paying. And they're starting to feel like their loyalty has been taken advantage of. I don't blame them. It's been pretty loud and clear what subs wanted all along. 1) The bolster bugs fixed 2) PvP endgame gear that is a different model than PvE gear 3) Shadow/ Assasin Tank survivability issues fixed in the new Operations content (fyi they're getting randomly one shotted at %85 health) 4) Mission and reputation rewards that are on par with CM items 5) bug fixes to RotHC crafting & additional updates to the crafting system in general 6) QoL improvements through the legacy system 7) NEW WZ's/ FP's/ OP's/ SPACE/ Events/ Companions ~ anything that isn't just another daily 8) & new features that don't have a CM element involved. Overall.....something worthwhile to do ingame besides grind credits to purchase CM items from the GTN.

It's not that there are not any benefits of subbing. It's that after you buy a full set of account wide unlocks from the GTN, the additional benefits that remain are not worth paying a sub to receive. Unlimited space & FP content are essentially meaningless when you've leveled multiple alts. The only weekly passes that are useful are for PvP and Operations. But technically the CC "grant" isn't worth anything to players who have an established ability to earn in game credits. For many subs their CC balance has just accumulated, because they havn't been using it. Bottom line, I paid my sub from Dec 2011 - May 2013 because I wanted to see exciting new features and content developed that I would have access to as a part of my sub. That didn't happened. I could understand the poor rate of content delivery in 2012, it was a rough year. But in 2013 for the price of paying my sub I got 1) a $10 expac for the price of.....$10, 2) piles of CM fluff, 3) CM button added all over my UI, 4) an achievement system where some of the best rewards depend on purchasing stuff from the CM 5) a rep system with almost no carrot 6) a collection system that is really just another CM shop 7) a barber that is just another CM shop 8) a dye system where %60 of the dyes are CM items 9) & ONE event that I've played through 3 or 4 times now. <--this is the kind of content your sub should have provided. If you've subbed since Jan 1, 2013 & play at level 55 you've given them at least $88 for ROtHC, the Gree Event, the perks of being a sub for 6 months, and 3600 CC. I don't know about you...but to me ~ that deal stinks.

It's a camera angle problem.... From the player's own 3rd person perspective, you really can't tell how fast you're moving through the environment. From the perspective of another player watching another player walk, the speed looks very appropriate.

Agreed. They did a very good job designing Kaliyo. And there are quite few places where those eyes really shatter the 4th wall. But to me the eyes express just how much of a sociopath the character is intended to be.

Of the 6 bowcasters available in the Chevin event - there are only three unique models. So it was actually only 3 bowcasters with 2 reskins each. The new bowcasters are reskins of 2 of those models. The new pistol is a reskin of the Survival carbine blaster rifle that is already in game. I don't really care that they're reskinning the Chevin weapons.... but I would like to see new models used for rewards more frequently in these events.

Additional notes: 2) the snare from slow, weaken mind (if specced), & TK throw stack ~ you can slow a melee mob to about 25% of their normal speed if you cast "Weaken Mind>Slow>TK throw in that order. This can give the tank time to regain control, or slow the mob so severely that it will die long before it damages yourself or a dps. Slow + the slow from weaken mind wins huttball matches almost by itself. 3) yeah- don't knock mobs away from the tank......... 6) Should have made this #1 on the list - if you're not cleansing ~ don't DPS. This solves a lot of problems with tanks losing agro, and protects the dps players from taking damage that way. It also mitigates large amounts of damage if you get your cleanse in just after the effect is applied. It's also worth it to remove armor debuffs on the tank. 10) yeah... that situation shouldn't ever happen. But players lose track of targets, & weaks can be knocked around hard without ever actually being the intended target. But the way the game is structured the weaker oponents do a disproportionate amount of dps. 3 weaks dps harder than 2 strongs or 1 elite ~ in most cases. So in a "six pack" with that structure ~ the weaks are usually doing almost half of the incoming dps, but have much less than half of the hit points of the pack. Always follow a good firing order - focus on the weakest mob first & avoid the tanked target until all other mobs are dead. If its done this way a good tank can hold agro on the elite with only 2 hits, and then tank the strongs. That equals dps not needed much healing at all ~ and the healer getting to spend a whole lot of time dpsing.

They don't interest me personally. However, an achievement system is pretty much a standard game feature these days, and many players do enjoy them. I think it's good that they introduced it. However I also feel that NONE of the achievements should require a CM item to complete.

GJ.... when this thread was started augment kits had not even been added to the game.

I've got T7 geared as a dps for my Guardian Tank. Turn off all the AoE, taunts, & gap closer ~ he's AMAZING. Always fights from maximum range, and almost never takes damage.

Okay... You Win... I hate the Ewok.... but if it kneecaps people? --- AW YEAH

My 3000+ CC actually contributed to my decision to unsub. I couldn't figure out what to spend it on... so I figured I may as well spend it on weekly passes & save my sub money for at least the next few months. Things they could do for subs. 1) add content for subs that cannot be unlocked through the CM. That's about it. a) This could be daily areas, FP's, OP's. b) They could do it by introducing legenary quality items & neglecting to create a CM unlock for equipping legendary gear. c) It could be a new companion. c) It could be a game feature, like personal ship skins. Point is... right now, the account wide unlocks devalue the sub. The lack of new features & QoL improvements for subs that do not require CC further devalues it. And the introduction of additional new features that require the use of CC, directly devalues the CC grant that subs receive. Players sub so that they can enjoy regular updates and new content in an ongoing fashion at a fixed price. It's a value calculation. If the new free content isn't worth the sub fee to a player, they won't pay. And they certainly don't feel like discounts on features locked behind a RMT paygate, provide value for their sub fee. Those discounts only have value if you are willing to spend the required CC to use the feature. If you are not willing ~ the feature may as well not exist. If they want to use an item like the black/black dye to drive the sale of RNG dye packs because it has an insane value on the GTN ~ fine. But provide subs with an ingame way to acquire the item. Let them craft the item using an insane amount of mats. Or just put it on a vender for 2 million credits. Then everyone is happy - the item still drives pack sales, but the GTN price is capped, and the item is always available.

Wait till you try a KB on a vanguard or a BH to put them off a bridge in the Voidstar WZ and they harpoon you over the side with them.

What we need is Yoda's "throw my saber through your chest" move. A different saber throw to be used as a finisher from a 20 meter range on targets with less than 15% of their health left. 30 second CD, cost 20 force

Just noticed earlier this evening that thee is a taun taun standing in the way of the cargo access inside Aurek base on Hoth. Now.... that taun taun might have been standing there before....but I sure don't remember it being in my way last time I was in Aurek base. (about a week ago)

Yeah... The truth of it is that the AI just isn't sophisticated enough to determine if a KB is an appropriate action or not.

Huge is right ! it costs a WHOLE FIVE BUCKS to upgrade to preferred status. I mean.... what a rip off. Fact is.... long time players that have been around since the game launched, are unsubbing right now. Players who paid BW between $300 to $360 EACH to play the game over that time period. They paid retail for a copy of the game, and the restrictions of a preferred account are actually very similar to what the game was like for the first 5 months after launch. There have not been enough content and QoL updates to differentiate between preferred and subscriber status. Subscriber concerns have been pretty well been ignored since the launch of f2p, with bug fixes that take months and create new bugs, while the CM has hit every one of it's dead lines like an atomic clock. As it sits the difference between playing on a preffered account and playing as a sub - just isn't worth the price of the subscription. And if they're not going to address the game play concerns of subs ~ why play at all. If subs won't pay $10 for a vanity item in the CM - they're not going to resub to earn one. I know I certainly won't.

Yep... that encounter scales for group size. If you started with a group & then exited.. you'd need to reset. Otherwise you'd never be able to beat it.

I've long advocated that healers are more than capable of signifigant dps at the expense of a much smaller amount of healing. And there are plenty of reasons why it's a good thing to be good at. 1) Dead mobs don't do damage. Dpsing lowers the need for healing. 2) Waiting for someone to get hurt isn't as much fun, if we have the time & resources ~ we should use them. 3) Waiting for damage to heal doesn't develop the tight healing rotations needed for more difficult content. 4) Healers with solid dps play don't need anyone to rescue them from a trash mob. 5) A good player in heal spec can still do more damage than a bad one in a dps spec. ~ and still throw out a heal or two. 6) It promotes awareness of what the boss is doing, and develops good target management skills. That said, whether or not I dps during a fight just depends on the rate at which damage is coming in, how much skill my teammates have, and how long I have before the next burst damage phase begins. Little things Sages can do once they've taken off the "I must heal" blinders, that make a big difference 1) Thowing out weaken mind &/or Project on the boss while repositioning with Speed. 2) Casting Slow on the melee mob that has turned to focus on a ranged dps. 3) Using Force Wave to plant a mob within an AoE that a teammate is about to lay down. 4) Using Force Quake to immobilize trash & help dps teammates power them all down. 5) Using Stun & Interrupt to mitigate damage when everyone else is on CD. 6) Using Cleanse to remove a snare from a melee tank who'se gap closer is on CD. 7) Using Project to stun a weak for a few seconds & prevent their next attack or two. 8) Using Rescue to lower the threat of a dps who has just out aggroed the tank. 9) Using TK Throw to lay out big hits ~ when the situation permits. (never be afraid to end it early to lay out a heal) 10) Using any attack to finish off a gravely injured mob that no one else is attacking. Scoundrels/ Commandos & all the mirrors have the abilities to do similar things. Mind Crush isn't particularly useful to the healing Sage imho. It can be used to amp up the rate of dps when playing solo. But while grouped, it can be tough to find a situation where time permits the long cast ~ without a sacrifice in healing.

it's sad everytime someone with your passion for this game decides they've had enough. You've been an asset to the community. May the Force Be With You.

I'm stoked about the new FPs. Most of the FP's are too long as it is, and it's about time they put in a SM endgame encounter for completely random groups. If you're random group forms up a trinity ~ it will be too easy. But it's good that there is something out there for all the dps players to do when they can't stand waiting in the queue anymore.