Because legacy was supposed to push you to rolling alts and experience something new. Not a huge load of credit farming. Mind you I've farmed 4m in 3 weeks, yet I'm still FAR from unlocking half of legacy stuff, considering you need those millions for many other things such as modding level 50 gear, vehicles and whatever. And TBH, now I'm completely tired of money farming. I don't think I'll ever unlock any races or that ship GTM unless their prices are reduced.

That's not true. My server is the 7th most populated EU server and I can say it has a healthy population, not super good but there are working guilds, pvp and FPing going on. Even pug OPs happen. I mean I could do with double this population too but it doesn't feel lonely, even while levelling usually.

Finished smuggler 7/10. Story sometimes feel like a filler between you flirting women. As a male smuggler you get a LOT of flirt options. The story is about some personal vendettas. Halfway through consular: 6/10. Bit too mystified but not very beleivable. Still interesting though. Halfway through trooper: 8/10. The story is really intact and feels compatible with side quests (It's never like you're sidetracked). My only complaint is some dark side options are just pointless (a lot of lying for no reason or benefit except dark side points).

If I beleive the dev team is really working, I'm always up for second chances.

Yeah I understand since DA2 was changed in several ways to adapt to consoles, but these changes, such as the world, the combat system and camera were the very things old schools hated. And to me, DA2, despite its alright story, was a meaningless game. The possibility that the same devs, if any of them is here, might give some of those bold (!) decisions for SWTOR scares the hell out of me

If it isn't bugged or broken, it has a 4.5 sec inner cooldown and doesn't proc twice in a row. If you equip 2 of the same relic you will effectively double the proc chance but that won't double the DPS output since they will put eachother in CD. Do the math, if the proc chance means it'll proc once every minute, then don't hesitate to buy 2, since it will be a rare occasion for them to proc one after other. If the proc is once every 10 seconds, don't buy 2 since they will often cancel eachother's proc.

I agree on everything you say except for that players ignore the scores. It might be just you, cause more than half of my friends some of which were ready to buy a new PC for SWTOR, gave up after reading the reviews. Note that the game wasn't released in more than half of the world for the first 2 months (which was also a huge mistake).

Now that the sub numbers are all around, we can assume SWTOR is somewhat born dead. I'll try to write up my views on how the game can be saved as a MMO veteran. First off lets check out why the first 6 month has failed. What the community is missing here is, 1,3M out of 2M is a good percentage for 6 months. But 2M was a small number for such as huge production, and secondly the game is on the verge of deciding if it will make or break. The sub numbers will either go up or down steadily after this point. So what was done wrong to begin with? I'm not going to go into all the bullcrap people have been whining about, as sub numbers aren't based on that little problems. Shortly: - Lack of advertisement. Yes we SW or BW fans knew about the game, but what we usually heard about were the concerns, problems and all that negative stuff. Other MMO players simply overlooked the game, because game magazines and internet sites have been busy with pumping out other games at that point. SWTOR never made a big entrance. - Gaming sites underscoring the game. This was probably the biggest cause of the low sales. I've seen mostly scores between 8.0-8.5 and this doesn't give the incentive to spend a few hundred dollars and sleepless nights. Yet we can't blame the sites, since they complained mostly on: 1- Lack of character customization and races. And they were right. This is probably the biggest fail of the game since it should be the welcome gift to the players. 2- Bugs, they were right, 3- Lack of open world PvP and they were right, 4- Lack of a living world/sandbox content, we can argue there but again they had a point 5- Lack of end game content and they were right again. - Voice overs. Yes while VO is the best part of the game, most gamers felt that it is not enough for a monthly fee. They feel that whenever a new content is released, BW will spend three times the required effort/money just because the need for VO. They don't consider the VO as the content itself. Many of them just spacebar through it, especially in the end game. (please note this is not my personal view) - Holiday release. There's the fact that SWTOR was out just in time for christmas which is a viable strategy for EA games such as racers or FPSs. Yet I've observed that the games that have a more complex player base such as RPGs, MMOs or RTSs look down on holiday releases, since it gives a message to the playerbase as "You don't really need this game but we rushed it for the holiday so you can perhaps receive it as a gift and check it out on the christmas holiday." Yet unlike other games from EA, a MMO is not a 7 day thing, thus such messages give a negative feeling to possible buyers. In fact, we, as players mostly agree that the content was indeed rushed and the game probably should have gone gold as 1.3, with legacy and LFG implemented. - WoW model. Most reviewers on the internet repeatedly said that the game is based on WoW model. But we can easily agree that a new game can not be expected to contain the same size of content with a 7 year old one. The players knew this even before they bought the game or understood this in their free month. Actually I have a friend who reviews games for a very popular internet site and he said to me: "This is basically space WoW and I don't think people will play a fake WoW over the real one." I think this especially turned out to be a big problem because of the revolutionary promises BW had given. So now there are 2 main things to be done naturally, to keep the existing players and get new ones. Getting new players. Driving new players is easy as any successful MMO we know had had a rising graphic as long as it keeps being played. Yet it's also complicated because you have to keep the content newbie-friendly. Releasing exciting content (where the definition is exciting is certainly not more OPS or WZs, but something that was never seen in any game) is good but it means nothing without proper advertisement. The critical point here is, the new content must aim the new players. OPS (while I'm personally a big fan of them) don't aim new players as opposed to the ridiculous pet-wars of WoW:MoP, which is completely a way to attract casual players who never touched any MMO, and a viable one. Mini-games, 3D space, new playable well-known species, new classes, new combat dynamics, new stories that involve well known characters, such things mean something to the new player. Again, with good advertisement. For comparison, think of these 2 advertisements on ign.com like you've never played TOR and say which one would make you more ambitious. 1- Wookies are now playable in SWTOR! and 2- New OPS: Explosive Conflicts! You get what I mean. Keeping the existing playerbase. There's no denying the biggest danger the TOR players face is empty servers. However problematic, the server merges is a must. As a player in a living server I can say that my stomach twists every time I think the server or my guild may die in a few months. This problem is closely followed by players being bored. Although the legacy system was an incentive for players to roll alts and experience other class stories, it also brought a HUGE credit farm along. This fact by itself killed the incentive. I know numerous people that waited for 1.2 to roll a pureblood jedi or chiss trooper (or in some cases expected brand new species) and just quit the game when they heard it would require 10 days of credit farming. What the devs overlooked is, 10 days of boring content is a lot, even for %95 of the players who play the game for months. Hence these class-species combinations aren't popular so far. As far as I've observed even people that want the ship upgrades such as GTN haven't been able to acquire them. For PvEers, there are 2 things to look for in any new content. First, the short term rewards should be promising, second, there should be long term rewards to look forward to as well. Along with 1.2 patch, the short term rewards of many players have been killed. Casuals say HM-FPs are too hard for them after 1.2. I personally like challenges and surely few of the HMs should be kept hard but some of them should be available for casuals or people with limited time. Also legacy system has little or no short term rewards and long term rewards aren't exciting, or worth the effort either. New dailies was a really bad idea, no they're fun etc. but none of us have the patience to farm them anymore. Right now on my server, Black hole daily area is all but empty. Before 1.2 some people were doing Belsavis or Ilum, but they are not anymore cause they gave up hopes on where this will go. Any new daily should either be extremely fun itself to be worth repeating 30 times, or should have a brand new, very exciting goal, such as unlocking a new species or a new FP. But that goal should ensure that the players will not have to keep doing the dailies forever... For PvPers, open world PvP is a must to keep the fun going on. Rated WZs, just like WoW's arenas is a bad idea, cause it makes 5% of the community feel successful while making the 95% feel incompetent. Am I talking bout the skilled 5%? Nope, I'm talking bout the hard core, cause Rated WZs will require you to find this group of people which you can hang 6 hours a day and will be kicked out of if you go out with your girl friend a lot. We really want that 5% stay, but we need the 95% to keep the game going on. On the other hand Open world PvP is fun, sometimes epic, and it entertains both solo players and groups; both the skilled and the unskilled, both the hardcore and casuals. It can support both short and long term goals. It gives the players "that moment"s. It's also great advertisement for the game. The only downside is, it's not fun on dead servers. Other things: World bosses, while good in theory, don't reward the players enough to push them travel that far. The achievement vehicle was a good idea but who cares for that vehicle with different map enough? Apparently no one. That achievement should have a much bigger goal. While it might be something new, it can be something like unlocking the ship GTN for free. Crew skills: The useful stuff that you can craft with crew skills requires mats from HM OPs. And if you run HM OPs you don't need them. This is a big conflict and renders the crew skills useless. Space missions: No one argues space missions were fun for a day or two but they got boring quickly. The biggest cause is they don't have any kind of reward except a light armor which most classes aren't supposed to wear and mods for your ship that you only need if you do space missions. They are basicly dead now and adaptable armor with 1.3 won’t heal them. They should have a MUCH bigger goal, that everyone will want to achieve. For example, 200 space commendations to unlock a new or existing species can be a viable goal. Conclusion: The game needs more than what it is for new players. It needs such big features that it will get some more air on the media. For existing players, it needs more carrots, things that the players get a little while they causally play, and want more of. They need the incentive to repeatedly do the same things over and over again. Gear, vehicles, etc. don’t cut it. TL;DR: We need exciting features for both new and existing players, unlocking these features with current or new mechanics such as pvp, space missions, world bosses seems like a good idea. Also server merges and working open world pvp is a must.

Not many secrets to be honest. 1.3 will contain group finder, this is confirmed. it will also contain a generic droid assassin companion (hk47 or whatever) according to torhead.com. it will also contain legacy rewards that apply to 1 character, this is also confirmed. there's a big chance the companion above will be a legacy reward. adaptable social armors will be implemented.

space battles and server merges.

Questing planets: Utapau, Kashyyyk, Naboo, Dagobah, Dantooine (although I find the latter visually boring I'm interested in its future) Instanced planets: Mustafar, Geonosis, Kamino (love the water based environment) But my two biggest choices are Utapau and Kashyyyk.

hah excellent thread. wish that led us to some kind of in game event.

It's going there mate, slow but steady. I believe this game will be ready to be shipped around 1.5 ) I know this is unacceptable but well... At least they are still developing and when it's finally a finished product it will be beta tested beforehand PS: If you like mindless grind, go play some free korean MMO. We don't expect a bioware product to involve any kind of boring obligations.

There's no denying Armstech was the weakest crafting skil pre 1.2. I'm an Armstech since the start and I can assure you, patch 1.2 brought absolutely nothing to the crew skill. First off the portion of augments that Armstech got don't sell at all, since people tend to go for either their main stat or defense. Other than that orange blasters/rifles/cannons are too easily obtained. No new OPs schematics for Armstech is a bonus, while all armorers/synths got dozens. What's being planned about this?

I hate level cap increases. But that's what we're gonna see. More of the same thing. More planets, more quests, FPs, OPs and WZs that don't matter except having different skins.

Server capacity is not hardcoded. It's just a number. Think about all the hardware that can be directed from 200+ servers to 50.

Server numbers should be lowered by 80% with capaticy increased.

Legacy companion. Like a servant serving the whole family. Could be unlocked with something like 3 characters to chapter 2, or legacy level 30.

First off, starting the event without notice wasn't the best way to do it. It happened in the week I went to vacation + when I came back I didn't have 5 days to complete all the quests. So, either make these last 2 weeks, or don't block the dailies from day 1. Also I'd rather see some major group stuff and/or mini games rather than the same farming every day.

I wouldnt mind server merges. Actually I'm on a living server but I would expect at least thrice the population from a real living server.

It sounds like they were priced supposing they would be levelling along with your character (as in WoW) but then the feat was removed so they are just ordinary pieces now. There's no point farming them.

you buy the ship upgrades once. not for each char.

Lol? 3 weeks is a way long time to roll those. People get it done in less than half that nowadays.

Yeah why this is a really huge gesture on their side. It may be more than several million dollars given away free.

I respect that but then why do you care about 30 days free?