I'm honestly perturbed and vexed by your failure to grasp the basic truth that anything posted on the internet is self-sourced and, hence, inherently factual.

Or at least the Commodores' "Brick House" for Ashara.

That's the thing though, we rarely see posts from new players announcing their arrival. Most of them fall into that "quiet players" category who simply join up and start playing. It's a given that gaming forums engender more negative posts than positive. Happy players tend to play rather than post. Plus, the psychology is such that we feel more motivated to grouse than to compliment. I never dropped sub, but I sure as heck stopped playing SWTOR before the release of KOTFE solely because they announced the "Level Shifter Thingy" was coming. I abhorred the idea. I denounced the game, the developers, and the developers' barbers. I worked to persuade other players to protest with me. A few months after KOTFE released, I ended my boycott and tried it. I love the "Level Shifter Thingy" ... it's one of my favorite features in SWTOR and I wish the other MMO I play would introduce it.

Pretty much covers it for me as well. Though, I started crafting a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away). Back when crafting had even greater utility. I.e., before Cartel crystals and Adaptive Armor. So, having previously invested in maxing out all the crafting skills (on four servers), the further investment to remain capped is minimal. For someone starting from scratch now, meh ... maybe not.

Agreed. Unless the feeling lasts after you log out off the forums, it's not "hate". I reserve my hate for those who truly interfere with my enjoyment of life. I've yet to encounter a videogame forum poster who wields such influence. Drivers who don't use turn signals? Totally worth hating. Eggplant ... the vilest of all vegetables? I hate eggplant ... and I'm not that fond of those who don't hate eggplant. The authors of anything on a gaming forum? Not so much. Also, I'm pretty sure that before I'd allow my emotions towards a specific poster to reach the point of "hate", I'd just put that poster on /ignore.

Seems like you're expecting a lot from your Roomba.

Your comment reminds me of the South Park episode in which "vampire" Butters became "ungroundable" ... after all, how can you ground someone who cannot be grounded? Or maybe the "World of Warcraft" episode in which the guy with no life kept harassing WoW players ... because how do you kill someone who has no life? I know for a fact that Ebon Hawk is not "dead", which I guess means that, at worst, it is "undead". It's best not to tamper with the undead ... so EA/BW ... leave us alone and let us remain vibrantly undead ... er ... not dead.

Perhaps to give it a name better suited to it's new role as his personal guild? If I inherited a Guild called "Superdude's Heroes" and Superdude no longer played ... I'd change the Guild name to "Thoronmir's Minions." Perhaps due to a difference of opinion over governmental structure? If I inherited a Guild called "Defenders of the Senate." I'd change the name because I prefer a parliamentary paradigm when exercising legislative power. Likewise, "Champions of the Republic" would be quickly changed to "Champions of the Hegemonic Democratic Polyarchy."

I'm not saying that I've never used multiple spreadsheets to track MMO characters, races, guilds/kinships, classes, levels, crafting skills, goals completed, permanent buffs acquired, cash on hand, server, and other aspects of character status and/or progression. I just never did so in SWTOR. For example, in LOTRO completing Deeds (Achievements) actually improves your character. So I track each Hunter's progression through the six series of Deeds I try to complete as I level. I also track which characters have completed which portions of the Epic quest line. Which have completed various explorer Deeds to acquire titles I like. And so on. The spreadsheets constitute a "to do list" for my LOTRO characters. I will confess to keeping spreadsheets on the Companion Affection gains from each convo in Esseles and Black Talon, organized by Class, which lets me maximize Affection gain from spamming runs of those FPs to farm love from my original Companion (i.e., Qyzen, Vette, Corso, etc.).

In LOTRO, one of the decorations we can add to our houses is music. I can add a lilting Elven tune or jaunty Hobbit ditty to help set the mood for my home. I'd pay crazy amounts of CC to have that option in SWTOR just to slot "Chanting Minions" sounds into my cultist Stronghold.

You're certainly entitled to your own opinion ... which is all that is. You have no facts to support your claims of "fringe" and "mass majority" in regard to degree of activity or population. Though, I gleefully concede that a "mass majority" of players prefer servers that are as active as each player subjectively defines the term "active" and are as populated as each specific player wants it to be. I.e., We're each happy when circumstances conform to our individual preferences. And, in the context of my post that you quoted, population is irrelevant. The "doing it wrong" comment relates to a poster doing us the favor of explaining how we should all be playing.

I wonder if it's just the subjective factor of how "important" a specific game is to a player. Not even factoring in genuine priorities (work, family, home, football, religion), I'm not sure SWTOR ranks in my top five recreational activities. I'll pass on SWTOR on a Sunday to play a round of golf. I'll pass on SWTOR on a Friday night to play around. I recently spent two consecutive nights and then most of the next day watching the NFL draft when I could have played SWTOR or LOTRO. SWTOR is a hobby ... one of many.

Okay, this compels another meandering Thor anecdote ... I have trouble reading email. Even using my reading glasses, it can be tough. Luckily, the kid at the IT firm that feeds all the internet hamsters in our office reconfigured that doodad that changes the whatsit into a larger thingamajig ... font! Yeah, that was the word ... font. Now, all my office email is big enough to read without doing myself injury. What I did not expect was that it changed my outgoing font as well. I thought it only looked bigger on my screen. So, this one time, I was engaged in an adversarial discussion of jurisprudence as applied to a set of specific facts with a lawyer in another state. To document my position, I followed up our phone call with an email, rationally and logically expressing my interpretation of the law and facts. He responded, "Typing your message in large font does not make it any more correct!" I called him and explained that the large font was due to my decrepit reading vision (ironically, I'm 20/20 at distance), not an effort to give my words greater emphasis. We both laughed, had another discussion about the case, and resolved most of our issues.

You're describing "maturity", which often comes with age and experience ... sometimes, not so much. My 20-year-old nephew exhibits maturity as a gamer. Much more so than his 50+ father (my brother never outgrew his propensity for throwing tantrums).

I've always wanted to convert my Tatooine Stronghold into a compound for my Jedi's cult. If they add a massive floor decoration of a horde of genuflecting minions, I'm on board!

A few years ago, I attended Alumni Weekend at my undergraduate alma mater. One of my planned activities was joining the reunion of my fraternity chapter. Each member of our fraternity has his own number, reflecting his place in the uninterrupted line of students initiated into our group. The very first member when our chapter was formed in the early 80s was No. 1. At last count. we're somewhere around No. 1500. I was one of the only founding members of the chapter to show up that weekend. Meeting with the current generation of my brethren, we went around the room, introducing ourselves by our names and fraternity numbers. You would hear guys say, "Bill Smith, 954" and "Jim Spence, 319". I happened to be the last guy to speak. I rose from my chair and proudly proclaimed, "<Thoronmir> ... [intentional pause] ... 7." Jaws dropped. Sometimes it's hard for the young to believe (a) that we ever did the same things they do or (b) that we sometimes still do the same things they do.

Not to mention new players who start off with Insta-60 characters. Are they now required to set aside their character to make level 1 alts to work their way through the PvP and OPs apprentice programs? Of course not. Suggesting so is simply dictating how other people play. And no one here advocates that.

So ... what you're really saying is that you're doing it "wrong." Seriously, I wish I could think of some other activity, in which, as long as everyone involved is satisfied with the result, there is no "doing it wrong." Dang! I'm drawing a blank. I know there must be something, but I just can't conjure the word for it.

I can't really mock the idea that some older gamers avoid "competition" ... most of us (50+) have more than enough competitive in our lives and log into MMOs to relax. I'm certainly one of those. It's also why I never have any interest in actually leading a Guild in any MMO. I help manage our law firm ... the last thing I need is to spend my nights herding the egos of MMO divas. It's why I enjoyed the movie Pitch Perfect so much. There really isn't any true villain ... no real drama ... no suspense ... no doubt how it would end ... no true violence ... nothing scandalous ... no explosions (though, now that I say that, I'm left pondering the Michael Bay version) ... nothing substantive at all. Just easily digested "brain candy" ... an entertaining way to pass 112 minutes.

I've never participated in the referral system, and I rarely ever "listen" to General Chat anywhere. But I'm curious. These "many players" who see it as spam ... do they jump on a single posting or do they wait for it to actually become spam? I'm unaware of any prohibition against posting one's referral info or offering to pay someone to use it. Until the poster actually spams the screen with the offer.

Can't say I'm surprised with those conclusions, though I take issue with the insistence that not participating in group content is at all "antisocial". I spend almost all my MMO time socializing and hardly ever play group content. I mostly RP, but I also run characters with friends if they're around.

As I've said before, the most critical action to preserve SWTOR's future is an immediate merger of all the merger threads. I've noticed the "population" on some of the other merger threads has slacked off and those threads are barely viable. Perhaps too many of those posters transferred to more active threads? The only fair response from EA/BW is to rescue the posters who languish on those near-dead threads by merging those merger threads into more robust merger threads.

You say that like it matters to an internet discussion.

I'm sure I'm biased, but there is something ... sacrificial ... about that highlighted phrase. As if the demand is to place more martyrs on the altar.

That's because "Group Content" |= "Socializing". One certainly can socialize during group content, but it's not at all required. And I don't count explaining the fights or giving advice on how to complete the FP as "socializing". If it were, then I spent more than hour the other night "socializing" with AT&T tech support as they explained how to "beat the Boss" at the end of the "My DSL Ain't Working Right" Flashpoint. On a good PUG FP run, the other three characters are really just Companions with slightly askew AI. I don't look to group content to socialize in a MMO. I look to socializing to socialize in a MMO. Some might be surprised just how few players it takes to "socialize" in a videogame. I've even managed to make do with one other player.