Mind.... boggling. So the entire argument is reduced to the semantics of "No" meaning "absolutely none, ever" vs "a statistically insignificant number"? Or that by tagging something "rare", it is automatically, actually rare, despite the fact that it can be made and/or found in limitless quantities?

It's a valid example of ONE ITEM out of thousands. When 0.1% of things do not fit a pattern, they are an anomaly, not proof of anything.

Whether WE see it as a failure or not is irrelevant, it's where it performs based on the expectations of the company that launched it is all that matters. The signs of whether or not the company deems it a success or failure are easy to read. A) How much capacity did it launch with? That will tell you exactly what "success" they planned for, on the low end. B) How much capacity did they have to add or contract after launch? That will tell you how much they over or under estimated their "success".

You play this game a lot... cite a sole example of something as if it negates every other contradictory example. I'm sure the most revoltingly evil person in history was at one time nice to someone, but that doesn't mean they were a nice person. It just means that there are sometimes exceptions to rules.

Again, it depends on the type of game they make. If it's a game designed to make money from high turnaround of console gamers then a Cash Shop is likely inevitable, if it's a game designed around making money from long term player retention, then a Cash Shop is self-defeating.

Neither am I. The giant difference between games where ultra-rare items actually were rare is that they didn't make much, if any, difference to the "power" of your character. They existed solely for their panache value and for the self-satisfaction of actually getting them.

Yay for you. Exactly my point. There is no challenge to getting anything in TOR. You do X, you get Y. It's all guaranteed. There are no uber items that are rare or require particularly anything, other than showing up, to achieve.

There would have to be a "penultimate saber with better stats than everything in the game combined" for your argument to even apply. Prior to endgame, every item in TOR is purely cosmetic. All stats come from mods that you can buy from vendors.

I'm not talking about actual villains as heroes, I'm talking about movies in which the "hero" is fighting the system that deems them to be "villains". In almost every movie of the 60's-70's era, "the Man" (the government, army, police, church, or any establishment figure) is either the villain, or they are an obstacle that the hero must overcome to defeat the badguys, even if the hero is technically part of that establishment. Dirty Harry being a prime example. James Bond was always a rogue. He was always played as being more interested in the thrills of what he was doing, or in just stopping "evil" than he ever was as an agent of the Crown. Every Connery Bond movie ended with him "giving the finger" figuratively speaking, to his superiors. John Wayne was always an "Uncle Sam" type. Look no further than Green Berets, one of the worst pieces of entirely made up propaganda ever put on film.

TOR went Cash Shop because it tanked. End of story. It wouldn't have a Cash Shop if it had 2 million subscribers six months after launching. If the same thing happens to ESO then they will likely go the same route. Same route that STO, CO, LotR, DDO, and every other failed MMO has taken.

You are probably right, but it depends heavily on which type of gamer they end up with and how many of them. It also depends on how they designed the game in the first place.

Is it the thrill of the Random Number Generator that you love? That is the only "game" aspect to the CM.

Selling a single mount does not equate to a game which earns the majority of its revenue from Gambling Bags. It's much more akin to selling a "collector's edition". In fact, that sounds exactly like what it is... a collector's edition perk via a different pay method.

This game is now built around the concept of Cash="success". It's built to cater to people who think they are entitled to anything they want by purchasing it. It's now built to cater to the collector mentality and not the hobbyist mentality. It's way too late to switch that up (again) and revert it back to a game for gamers.

Why is that the more solo-centered MMO's get, the more people seem to think "group finders" are important? Group finder? How about some group content instead?

Have you seen any movie from the 60's-70's? The hero is almost always an outlaw and the enemy is almost always "the Man".

It's got more Bioware employees than are on the development staff, and some of them are even official!

It depends what is trying to be spun at any given moment. If you complain that it's a cash grab that is used to fill a void of missing content (customization, armors, crystals, dyes, emotes, mounts, pets, etc) then... it is NOT content, it is FLUFF that is purely cosmetic and optional. If you complain about the overall lack of basic MMO features that TOR launched with (customization, armors, crystals, dyes, emotes, mounts, pets, etc), then the CM IS content, because it now exists, so TOR does indeed have that CONTENT that people complained was missing. Hence, Bioware is awesomely awesome, times infinity.

It started way before that. Probably back as late as the 50's as a reaction to the sanitized and government-approved heroes of those days. James Dean, Marlon Brando, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, all were pretty 'bad' in their day. Later, Marvel comics made the flawed heroes far more interesting than the white bread, Uncle Sam DC ones. Most movies of the 60's and early 70's had 'bad guy' heroes because society was corrupt and repressive and being an outlaw was actually the heroic thing to do.

Nice work.

The Sith guy in the Esseles Flashpoint sounds exactly like Timothy Dalton, specifically the cartoonishly dastardly Timothy Dalton from Hot Fuzz.

On RP servers, there are far more players Imp side than Pub side, usually. Can't really RP without other players, so many people pick the more populated side.

It's a non-competitive game that is super-easy to level in, no matter what class you play. If you're cool with the concept of the Cash Shop, I don't see any difference between buying swag, swapping classes, or even buying an "instant max level" button. The Cash Shop is all about offering instant gratification vs attaining these things through game play. Same difference if its armor, a mount, a crystal or your class/level.

That about sums it up. There's no impact on anyone else if someone wants to switch their AC. There's a possible minor impact on EA/Bioware's bottom line. Anyone who desperately wants to switch a Shadow to a Sage may potentially not play as long as they would if they had to re-level, but EA/Bioware have shown little concern at all about allowing people to speed their way through the game for cash.

No kidding. Someone even claimed "hardcore" gamers aren't seriously hardcore like... skateboarders?!