My SW is definitely on the darker side of neutral, and I felt like that was a good place to be. She is Sith, but doesn't bathe in the blood of her victims. She doesn't like the institution of slavery, and doesn't slaughter people without cause, but is merciless in battle against her equals. IMO, going totally light-side doesn't really fit with the game-play, since all your combat techniques are based around channelling rage.

I really like the new conquest system. But I get your point, and I always support the addition of nuance to any debate. While I agree that they could communicate more, player feedback can be troublesome. I believe that they listen but don't necessarily act, perhaps because it would push them in a dozen different directions.

The game is struggling because it doesn't have the development resources that it needs - its as simple as that. It had a troubled development and so got off on the wrong foot. Most of the article is a list of "they should have..." or "they shouldn't have..." and while I may agree with some of those points, it omits the fact that a) development post-launch was done on a limited budget, and b) game development is hard - compelling game mechanics, story and design don't just happen. Its a valid point that swtor combat mechanics (and other things) were lifted from WoW, but maybe that was because they worked, and the alternatives didn't. Every game is built on a graveyard of ideas - bad ones, but also good ones that didn't work in practice.

Exactly my thoughts. I sometimes get morbid enjoyment out of reading the hyperbole and doom on these forums (hey, I'm not proud of it ), so that's what I expected when I clicked on the thread - I am pleasantly surprised!

Well, it is Star Wars... That being said, I dislike the JK storyline because its too on-the-nose. Everytime a companion (exc. T3 - it's like a hyperactive puppy) says something like "enough talking, we have a galaxy to save!" I roll my eyes. The SW is definitely working for the villain(s), but with some nuance in how you react/feel about that. There isn't a lot of room to be the hero, but you can at least be honorable. There's some dialog that I really enjoyed where you can express some self-awareness about doing bad things - you're doing what you must to survive in the Empire.

Agreed! Feeling that much negativity to something you're not invested in can't be healthy. I enjoy GSF, and I'm definitely a novice. A good match for me is when my kill/assists outnumber my deaths, regardless of the team score.

I don't know if its a problem with matchmaking, just the steep learning curve that's intrinsic to GSF. One must have patience and a good sense of humor to get out the newbie zone.

I understand the cynicism, but I choose to be optimistic

You made me lol. Thanks

I understand its not rainbows and unicorns As a fan of Bioware's games, I want their mistakes to be their own, because that means they can (potentially) learn from them. So, in the case of Anthem taking up the majority of Austin's resources, would that be an internal decision on where to allocate their allowance, or is it decreed from on high?

Thanks Kryptonomic for this post and others. I suspected (maybe hoped is a better word?) that there was some degree of autonomy, but its good to know for sure.

Or maybe a successful Anthem will mean BWA gets to continue existing, and swtor gets more attention. That's the outcome I'm choosing to hope for

They get bound to you for 24 hours.

What's a mobile sausage?

Nice work, keep it up! My belief is that Bioware would be more than happy to devote more resources to the game if given the chance, so its EA than you need to convince. EA is a cautious company that really only cares about maximizing return for its investors, and we've seen them back-pedal on things (ie: the whole loot-crate thing in Battlefront) when public opinion is against them. I've seen a few threads and comments around here re: Anthem and how its sucking up money that could be spent on this game. People are going to "take a stand" and boycott it, which I think is a completely backwards way of thinking about it. The money has already been spent - if Anthem does badly, EA might just close Austin down, which would absolutely be the end of swtor. EA doesn't care about individual gamers. It does care about gamers as an aggregate, or rather our aggregated wallets.

It's the shoulder-pads and spikes-on-everything look. There are lots of interesting sith NPCs throughout the game, but it can be hard to take them seriously when they look like they're doing sith cosplay. If your shoulder-pads prevent you from walking through a doorway, you're trying too hard.

Signed!

In the films, its completely inconsistent from the beginning. In Ep4 there's some time for exposition, in Ep5, when the Falcon escapes the imperials at the end, an imperial officer says something like "They could be on the other side of the galaxy by now!" less than 5 minutes after the fact. Maybe I can try bring this back into the topic, which sort of ties in with what I was saying: In this game, the player needs to do most of the heavy-lifting in terms of narrative and suspension of disbelief. As has been said, most plot elements of supposed great urgency, aren't; you can take as long as you like getting out of the exploding space station. I can't speak for anyone else, but I pretend - If I have an urgent mission, I don't stop to do some shopping on the way. Of course I'd love for there to be actual mechanics and consequences outside of my imagination, but there isn't, and I'm resigned to the fact that there never will be. Edit: On the subject of hyperspace travel, you can kind of pretend its like KOTOR, by going to talk to your companions, and triggering your travel from the galaxy map menu instead of the cockpit.

I play for the story, but its not really grating to me. Game development is expensive, so what we do get is probably what they can afford to give us. There is a HUGE amount of environment and level design work in the Nathema flashpoint, for example, but I imagine 90% of players don't notice because they're sprinting from mob to mob. Cartel market stuff is much cheaper/faster to produce than fully fledged story content and all that it entails. Well, that jarring is kind of on you You don't have to pick up all the side quests in a hub and then chase objective markers on your map. Pretty much everyone does it this way, and I think its probably why they chew through story content so quickly. Granted, before level sync, you were somewhat forced into it to get the XP rewards. I tend to RP with myself, so if my class mission is urgent, then I'll focus on that and come back later to do side/planet arc missions. Yes, you have to backtrack, but I'm ok with that. How much time passes is entirely up to you. The writers would have had vague ideas (I've read in the past that each act of a class story was something like a year), but it has to be left to the player's imagination if they're going to have the freedom to approach it as they see fit. Hyperspace travel is instant in-game, but it actually takes hours to days. Also, presumably, things happen "off-camera" - eating, sleeping, bathing etc...

That's awesome. It was a shame when they removed that mechanic. I do think that the classes had more identity in the early days, but honestly it was pretty thin to begin with; it had to be, to allow a smuggler to go 1-on-1 against someone with a lightsaber...

There were skill checks in the Athiss flashpoint, when I last played it (which was a few years ago). If your group had certain levels of a couple different crew skills (Archaeology and Slicing, IIRC), you could unlock a shortcut, or something. I got kudos from my team for having both - that was a nice moment.

I agree. It must be a lack of football in RL. Seems unhealthy to me - they should get therapy.

I've always enjoyed them, although they do become boring after a while, since there are only a handful of templates with higher grade enemies as you progress. The grade 7 missions are something else entirely. I've only ever cleared them on one character, and only then by dying a lot to rehearse the patterns. Your mouse, WASD keys and barrel-rolls are all important for dodging obstacles. The EMP blast and power conversion upgrades are essential, and timing is very tight - working out where to concentrate your attacks at various points is key. One of them involves taking out 3 frigates, and IIRC, the key in that case was using the EMP as soon as they appear behind you. That'll do serious damage, and the EMP will be recharged by the end of the mission when you need it again.

That would be viable if all developers were programmers, but they're not.

Wow. That's offensive.