You don't need to use ForceSpeed - just Wither when you're about to hairpin back the other way. As I'm posting anyway, I'll answer the OP's question (this thread has so many discussions going on), I'm going to start experimenting with my Jugg & perhaps my PT on HM's leading in to NiM's. This means we'll be running two Juggs as our tanks (8man raid guild). The reason I'm exploring my options is just as many people have stated, my Sin simply dies far too frequently while by contrast, our Jugg tank survives through just about everything all the time; Our healers find our Juggs significantly easier to support. (And now I'm going to wade through more of the many huge posts in this thread, ta for so many contributions to the discussion).

You have no data to evaluate either how many mac users there may currently or potentially be, and you have no data about the cost / benefit of undertaking the project and no data upon which to base any future projections. At the WWDC currently taking place, they've pointed out that Apple has paid developers ten billion dollars in revenue. That's chiefly for iOS applications like angry birds and temple run - a super simple game about flinging things at oblongs to topple them and a dude who runs in a straight line, occasionally jumping or sliding. Everybody's big interest here is clearly to play swtor on their Mac... isn't it? That is the core assumption behind this entire thread, right? Developing for Mac OS and iOS shares many similarities, the SDK's have differences, the UI's have differences but they're not particularly significant differences - so there's some degree of challenge, but are you seriously suggesting that swtor isn't worth building for a ten billion dollar market, a market where the only other competition is an ageing WoW and gimmicky one-trick-ponies...

I hate to agree with Andryah but they are vastly different markets, arguably with diametrically different interests and values. Building the swtor stories as an independent game for consoles however is well worth exploring - as are tie-in swtor themed mini-games for consoles and iOS / droids. I'm honestly surprised they haven't already pursued this, there must be licensing restrictions - not to mention as others have stated, having to deal with EA and MS and... Disney? That'd be a massive headache - an ocean of red tape and meetings and.... urgh I'd be fascinated to see creative use made of voice and gesture controls - having said that though, their scope would have to be quite specific and their use infrequent. People don't enjoy constantly waving at their computers or talking at them (even assuming they're not situated in a shared space). There are serious caveats with these technologies - could you imagine the issues caused by family/friends nearby trolling one-another? The controversies that might arise from relying on voice or the Kinect in romance scenes..

Might want to check your own bias there, pot. The LCD isn't the whole picture.

The logic of your original post then, is that you - an outsider who knows nothing of BW's internal systems are in a position not only to pass judgement but to criticise a specific piece of technology / practice. You're completely entitled to your opinion but with nothing to back it up, it's weightless. Better that you post something concrete about the exact nature of the frustration that vexes you, along with supporting documentation so that they can do something constructive to help resolve whatever your problem is.

They've achieved some fantastic things given the rocky start with their tools but from what I've picked up over many months, it does seem like they've essentially re-created the wheel where the original Hero engine's concerned. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they feel like they're unhappy with the direction their engine has gone while being tied to the foundation of a toolset whose features they don't use anymore. A re-write would be a massive project but if they've been re-writing and building from scratch all this time, starting over in a way that leverages previous work seems like an option they'd seriously consider exploring - in doing so of course, they'd have the chance to reach out to other platforms and a larger pool of much needed players. With Titan being delayed to 2016, they must feel they've had a stay-of-execution, and have a special opportunity to prepare to compete. I hope they make the most of it.

As a total tangent, Mike Morhaime, co-founder and president of Blizzard takes the opportunity during the WCS (Starcraft) Europe Premiere League to (amazing game to watch btw). With KOTOR being released on the iPad and WWDC right around the corner (not to mention the inroads iPhones and iPads have made in corporations around the world), I like to think there's greater visibility and appreciation within BW/EA for the opportunities and benefits that Apple and that developing on iOS / MacOS can offer. I also strongly encourage the devs to find the time to put aside old biases, just for a while to watch a few sessions from previous WWDC's.

Are you trying to suggest the game should have a serious conflict between the Empire and Republic? It'll never happen, who'd play that? Clearly the best option is to focus on tiny neutral parties than some kind of epic 'star wars'.

I'm afraid you'll need to hold your breath a little longer.

It's nice to have the ability to move mods, my old characters in WoW spent a lot of time dressed in stuff that would make clowns cringe with shame. I'd like to think that swtor can hold itself to higher standards, there are some brilliant pieces amongst the swtor items but I do sometimes wonder if they're more a matter of chance rather than any kind of real design sense - "a million monkeys typing for a million years..."

I'd like an option to disable character portraits. I'd like that a lot. - Class coloured health bars. - Role icons on raid frames - though by extension this means being able to designate who is filling what role, presumably by the raid leader / lieutenant right-clicking the frames. - Predictive healing - I can't find a handy link to describe it to those who will assume this somehow automates the game. It's a visualisation on health bars that illustrates incoming heals as they're being cast. - Smoothed damage animation - in some ways the mirror of predictive healing except that rather than showing incoming damage (though that would be nice), it hilights how much damage has just been taken. - Mouse-over (raid frame / character frame) healing. - Generally anything you can duplicate from VuhDo, Grid or Prat (see curse.com for details). - An in-game combat log (yes, I know it's on the wall). - Placable markers - ie for use during raids (I know, they're on the wall too, most of these are). - Alternate UI border colour or perhaps even one day in the distant future, full alternate colour themes. - Right-click functions on character names in chat, particularly group invites. - Some control over scrolling combat text - I never see it with larger creatures as it appears above their heads which are already out of frame. - Colour & symbols used for SCT to make the numbers relevant to whatever attack / heal they're representing. The current sea of numbers really doesn't tell us much because it has so little context. - More prominent display of abilities that have become available because their trigger condition has been reached. A (movable) icon that appears at that time, outside the action bars would be nice. (AKA a simple Weak Auras). - Refined crafting windows - which I won't detail here because that deserves its own discussion. - Ping-able minimap (with a restriction on how rapidly a player can ping..)

It's a puzzle within an enigma within a teapot of soap and daffodils. Black Talon crashes on completion, using the terminal at the end. Every single time, without fail. It would seem that whatever the issue is, it is for some reason, too difficult or time consuming to fix. The obvious answer, to somebody on the outside would be to Turn It Off. Disable the asset and it's associated script... but no, somehow they reason that it's better to let the program crash. Reliably. Every single time. TOR seems to be peppered with such reasoning. I liken it to driving a... an Alfa Romeo - by all accounts it should be a wonderful car and great experience but its beauty is stifled by perplexing design choices and baffling mechanical problems that seem like they could easily have been avoided, but which require the driver to partake of an occasional ritual. It's really only when you're quite familiar with it that you start saying things like "but... why... would they do that... it was going so well..' and "How does that make any sense?" and thereafter just go on treating it like the beloved but quirky Alfa (or leave the keys in the ignition and walk away). I'm sure they're doing the very best they can with what's available but that something's holding them back, be it tools or company practices or structure or some combination of whatever, I really don't know. It's not my place to know or responsibility to fix - presumably though that privilege does belong to somebody. I hope.

I'm glad to hear that they do actually use Python and LUA Rob works on EVE Online now but there are some interesting insights in this GDC interview. The ideas in his blog seem to me to be based greatly on his experience with TOR http://www.altdevblogaday.com/author/rob-galanakis/ Link to the animation software mentioned Morpheme wiki Morphene product info ... which in turn mentions Clumsy Ninja - I remember watching the demo during an Apple Keynote and being well impressed. Sadly it seems it still hasn't been released. Still worth a look though. .. so yeah, you can absolutely find glimpses of insight into the kinds of things you're looking for.

There are likely extensions used through plugins but most UI work in the Hero engine is done with HSL. http://wiki.heroengine.com/wiki/GUI_FAQ Python is a great language but isn't suitable for use in creating a UI in a program like TOR, Flash... no, just no. If anything, the most likely contender would be LUA (and BW may well have adapted their HeroEngine to use LUA) but as noted, Hero is built from the ground up to use it's own scripting language. As for in-depth information from BW about how they work, the most relevant example I know of is on Gamasutra. It's not precisely what you're after of course and being from a management person, it's nearly entirely stock-standard management-speak. This on the other hand from DarthHater is probably much more inline with what you're after.

Use the support section, post your dxdiag info.

I honestly appreciate BW's work and efforts in bringing us TOR and Makeb. I'm quite disappointed by the architecture though. I'm sure there are time and resource constraints but it's still an important aspect of the game. I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be places that are... essentially simple or 'old fashioned' (not quite the words I'm trying to find). Even just a casual perusal of architecture (any, not just modern, let-alone sci-fi) makes Makeb (and some other places in TOR) seem seriously uninspired. The fountain's nice of course, but on the whole it looks like 12th century France and absolutely not StarWars. The lean-to's do add a touch of realism which is somewhat interesting and certainly underscores the idea that the setting is resource constrained but it might be taking the idea a little too far... current 3rd world countries use things like that and this world is supposed to be among the wealthiest, it's certainly written up as supposedly being a very wealthy world due almost entirely to one particular resource - not unlike say, Saudi Arabia. Corellia in particular really comes to mind as well in this regard - the hub of wealthy living in the galaxy and it's choc full of enormous cubes of beige on beige with brown and grey hilights... that old horse though... well, it's not getting up again is it.

He may certainly have been in that category, but if a person who is interested in your product takes the time to try it and provide feedback that they feel is very important, failing to listen is still failing.

Not that the writers will read this but what the hell... An average galaxy is estimated to house roughly 400 billion stars. The StarWars universe is pretty populous, even compared to other sci-fi settings; Even if only say, 0.00001% of those have habitable solar systems, that's 4000 habitable solar systems - some of which will have more than one habitable world, outpost or some kind of presence on or near a planet / planetoid of value. Even if only 40 of those are hubs of civilisations, the idea that an entire galaxy might be affected in any significant way by a conflict of any kind on a single world - even if it does have dominant control of a single important element, be it adam, spice, adegan crystals, <mcguffin> or coffee is prostrating the game before its audience, begging them to take it . The 'ruthless mercenaries' we're set to face off against are just a bunch of people with guns and droids? People've worked really hard for years to establish Mandalorians as a viable opponent for the Republic and Empire to tangle with, though they're too easy-an answer and other antagonists are absolutely needed... this really isn't it though, they're just a bunch of dudes. I'm of course looking forward to the expansion, but the premise that a bunch of dudes with guns pose a threat to the Republic or Empire in anything but catastrophic collapse just doesn't make sense. Edit: What I'm actually trying to get at here is that the writers excessive use of hyperbole frames the situation in ridiculous terms.... and that employing 'a bunch of dudes' as antagonists is incredibly weak.

An arrogant, self-centred American!? Unpossible. 200 - 400ms latency is why we don't re-roll on US servers.

This feature has been in the game since launch; More than that, you can switch to particular quickbars by keybind.

So... it only works when Kiari is sacrificed bodily to the void...

Thanks for sharing & grats on the kill, especially for persisting through all the work to get there. I very much liked how you handled the black circles, managing your ranges and grouping.

I'm slightly disappointed (though not especially surprised) that the thread has devolved into "the current format isn't spectator friendly, therefore it can never work". Competitive gameplay may not be the most riveting thing ever - making boss encounters more diverse and making both PvP and PvE with an audience in mind would clearly make them more attractive to spectators. There are quite clear steps that can be taken to work toward the goal. Making information about the encounter available to spectators would help, though in large part that might well rely on individual movie producers. A healthy community of movie makers would almost certainly develop much needed commentators - I'd point to Husky, Day[9], Total Biscuit as just a few examples of people who not only commentate very well but have built careers out of showcasing the games they're passionate about and in the process, raising a lot of awareness, interest and understanding of the games (complex as they can be) that they play. There are concrete steps that can be taken - foremost is to build the tools that an active community of people who can produce high quality movies of gameplay really need. The second, which you've probably already guessed would be to actively foster that community - e.g. BW/EA could talk to relevant software & hardware companies about discounts for their shared customers, build an extension to the swtor site to host movies / gameplay commentary / interviews... Build a spectator mode into the game, allowing a free floating observer who could act as a cameraman, getting in close on the action and showing various events in a cinematic style. A proper model viewer would be a great tool for movie makers, particularly if it was built from the ground up for movie makers. Actively growing a community of people who make movies about the game would be a win for everybody and while it wouldn't necessarily directly lead to competitive PvE or PvP, high quality vids that show off various kinds of gameplay would I think very provably raise awareness of SWTOR and its communities and clearly lead to essential frameworks. There you go BW - looking for an avenue to get people into the game and to grow interest in activities in the existing community? There it is, get to it. Selling trinkets will only take the game so far.

Hardcore, competitive raiding is in just about every way, probably the antithesis of what you'd want in an E-sport. Most of what really matters in a raid isn't at all obvious to a casual observer. If you browse through the many, very good movies available through tankspot.com or FatbossTV (or warcraftmovies.com or even swtormovies.com), even as an experienced player, even as an experienced player who's read through the fight mechanics and may have attempted the fight, there's still a lot going on that is difficult to fully appreciate as a spectator. Most raids aren't terribly cinematic or photogenic - a tanks point of view is generally a screenful of Boss-groin and explosions while healers mash away at whack-a-mole and dps work exhaustively to chop the boss down by hacking away at its ankles or arse. Having said that it is absolutely a worthy goal to enable players ways they can share their experiences with the world. There are several sites that already help with this but a hell of a lot of work goes into crafting movies of even just passable quality - if for no other reason, frankly than having game companies make more dynamic, visually appealing encounters. I'd point to games like Halo and Starcraft as examples of how to make in-game footage available to a wider audience. Just recently, Red5 Studios have incorporated live streaming to TwitchTV into Firefall (Firefall uses the Crysis engine in case you're wondering, so the graphical quality they're streaming is very high). As the guys of Extra Credits point out though, there are many important questions to address. Before you even consider starting to begin, it's absolutely critical to figure out exactly who the intended audience is going to be and what you expect to gain from courting them.

They're not "getting mad at you for going Darkside" - they're unhappy because you've done something despicable or something that by most moral standards isn't acceptable or because you've done something to them that they didn't like or that counters their goals / interests. The companions for all classes cover a spectrum of attitudes and moral guidelines. Companions who simply go along with you all the time, no matter how you behave are about as interesting as planks of wood. There are several companions who come close to being as arbitrarily evil as you'd seem to prefer - Darkside Jaesa and Broonmark spring to mind, you've already mentioned Skadge. Xalek to a lesser extent. The others are more thoughtful; Scorpio's pretty creepy (I think they dialled her back from original intentions). Gault's story ... would be a spoiler, but his moral compass is pretty unambiguous. "Being a Darksider" as you put it, isn't like choosing a stick-shift versus an automatic or preferring a certain kind of music or following a footy team... though now that I think about it, I guess for some people it actually may be that shallow and simple.. You also seem to have a rather eclectic definition of 'nice'. The kind of game it sounds like you're really after would probably be a lot more like The Darkness, which already fills its niche quite well. SWTOR with an M+ rating though... would probably be more interesting in places... but like so many games, every facet that might make use of more mature content would end up being used purely for spectacle, without any depth or substance.