What you say the should have done might look good in theory, but it opens the door to problems. You'd end up spending inordinate amounts of time to find that Smuggler so you can get the best outcome in a multi-player story. There would be the "best" class composition for each flashpoint, and classes would get left out, even if they were willing and able to go along. The complexity you're expecting just isn't feasible in a game with the scope of an MMO. It would require much, much more time in development. There would be big chunks of story branches underutilized because they aren't desirable. And requiring groups for the "best" outcome goes beyond encouraging group play. It forces it. Sure, you could do it without a group, but you're penalized. That doesn't incentivize grouping, it disincentivizes soloing. BTW, The Battle of Ilum and False Emperor ARE tied into a planet's (Ilum) story arc. The missions lead directly into those flashpoints, and the entrances to those aren't even on the fleet. Wonder why I never see people forming groups for those ones...

What? What do they need to do, automatically put you into a group when you log on? There is TONS of group content in every area of the game. The fact that people cba to do it isn't BW's fault. They put the group content there. They incentivized grouping through increased xp and drop rates, and with the social system. That's more encouragement to group than any other MMO I've played. Or is your issue with the fact that there's no x-server LFG that automatically ports you to the content?

How about spoiler tags?

Your stats are still off. You're using WoW's global population to arrive at the 10%, then you're using their NA/EU server count. The 10M subs that WoW has aren't all on those 491 servers. You'd have to use WoW's NA/EU sub number (whatever those may be) to arrive at valid percentages. Since we don't know the numbers for WoW's NA/EU subs, it would be purely speculation. I'd say TOR being 25-40% of WoW's numbers in NA/EU wouldn't be too far off. TOR would be better off with ~100 servers give or take, but I think 50 would end up with nasty queues on most of them.

Just to correct you, WoW has more than twice as many NA/EU servers as TOR. That's not "close to the same amount" in my book.

No, they're just licensing it from Blizzard. Why do you think the game was so expensive to produce? Edit to edit below: Ha!

There's no way you're 1-2 levels below a zone by skipping the bonus missions. I do every mission, heroic, bonus missions and series, flashpoints, and I'm always 4-6 levels over the next zone when I go there. Skipping bonus missions isn't going to drop that by all that much, maybe 2 levels. You're missing missions.

How about when they said they wouldn't do the comic two Fridays in a row, then they did. Oh, the outrage! Good times.

Republic or Empire?

What? I've never grouped as much in any other MMO than I have in TOR, especially in the leveling game. More than I did in EQ, though I only played that for 6 months. Forced grouping is worse than "multiplayer capabilities", but TOR has far more than just capabilities. There's at least one Heroic mission in each area. There's a flashpoint after every planet. There's PvP. There's Operations. There's guild support, which they plan to expand. There's plenty of multiplayer outlets. The issue isn't the lack of content, it's the lack of people on the low population servers. People are too spread out, so the group content just gets skipped over. Adding to the problem, many don't even bother looking for groups. It's assumed it will be a hassle, given the common sentiment, and they don't even bother trying to form a group. Some servers are alright. Some are terrible. That needs to be addressed. That, along with a better LFG system (not necessarily xserver LFD) would go a long way to facilitate grouping. It's already incentivize. It has unique mechanics and content (most of it). There's plenty there. It's just a pita for a lot of people. It needs to not be a pita.

Just want to correct this. It took WoW more than 3 months to get over 1 million subs. Probably had 500-800k after 3 months (and no one was panicking ).

This.

The intercom is used in the 2nd and 3rd acts. If you're still in the 1st act, you don't need to do anything at the intercom yet.

I have a theory, just from my own experience on a decently populated server. Even with a higher population, I rarely see people looking for groups for heroics, though the fleet is pretty alive with FP requests. I think too many people pick up a heroic, especially a heroic 4, look at it and go "not worth it, I don't want to spam. Too much of a bother. I'll join if someone else is looking." What you get happening then is no one ends up posting LFGs. It's not that people don't have the missions or don't want to do them, they just don't want to put up with what they expect to be an extended wait to group. There's going to be some waiting involved with forming a group, especially since no one uses their LFG flags. This is another thing people refuse to bother with, I assume because they're convinced that it's worthless. I've use it. I've found groups using it. If more people used it, it wouldn't be worthless. As much as some dislike it and rally against it, there's going to be a LFD type thing, eventually cross-server. It's evidenced by the fact that there's a perfectly functional tool in game for finding groups and players outright refuse to use it. People want a "set it and forget it" tool, and they don't want to wait. Doesn't really matter to me. I'm always in a duo. I find groups now, and I'll find groups then. Edit: Forgot to add that several Heroic 4s are actually not worth the pita they are to complete. The outdoor areas with light speed respawns. Yeah. Not fun. Usually not worth the reward. There's a broken one on Belsavis that can only be completed by one person at a time. Stuff like that really taints people opinions of heroics.

heh, I remember WoW's filter filtering out bastard sword, even when you linked a bastard sword.

You're not forced to do bonus quests. I hit 50 on my Assassin before finishing Voss and I didn't touch PvP or space combat. Only did each FP once. You aren't going to be underlevel if you don't do bonus quests. Fact is, you're going to be 4-6 levels OVER level if you do them all.

Not going to happen. EA doesn't do F2P. No matter what state the game is in, it's not going to happen. Warhammer isn't F2P. Hell, DAoC isn't even F2P and that's been out since 2001 and it has very, very few players remaining. Anyone saying TOR will be F2P within a year is living in a fantasy world.

There's auto attack in DDO. You can toggle your basic attack to automatically fire. My wife did it all the time. Another innovation no one's mentioned here yet: social point system, group convos.

Hey Miaxi and Super, how about using spoiler tags?

Refuting something that isn't true with objective fact is hair splitting. ooookay

balance, that's why

Doesn't really matter if you like the stories in them or not. That's subjective. The person I quoted said that all the flashpoints after BT/Esseles were "seriously lacking any story", which isn't true. Only six of the sixteen flashpoints are light on story.

Have you done any flashpoints past Cademimu? The game has 16 flashpoints, 6 are what the devs call "Story light" and 10 are "Story Heavy". They are admittedly regretful of the order that they put them in, though. You start with the story heavy BT/Esseles, then have to slog through 4 story light flashpoints before getting back into story heavy with Boarding Party/Taral V and Foundry/Maelstrom. Most of the flashpoints are story heavy, though.

That's the devs' opinions of TOR characters. It's also the reason why companions do the crafting.