Thanks for the help guys

....rso?

...really guys?

For my own curiosity and possible guild-hunting, can anybody tell me what the largest Empire guilds are? Besides top tier raiding guilds, and the myriad of tiny friend-and-family guilds, there's usually one or two massive casual/semi-casual guilds to be found. I tend to prefer these as I enjoy guilds for the social aspect. Sound off in the comments as I'm sure others new to the server might find the information useful.

Bump, would really like the community to chime in here.

Not encouraging news. However, WoW progression at the moment is unbearable. Being forced to do close to 40 dailies a day to even remain competitive with other players has me really burnt out. I'd honestly prefer some "quick n dirty" progression right now. At least I'd feel like I was accomplishing something. It saddens me that they may have simply devalued tanking as opposed to making adjustments to the necessary classes. Threat and mitigation as a Trooper was perfect, but Guardian threat was non-existent and balanced around using preemptive Taunts instead of a threat ramp. It felt gimmicky. I was really hoping they would simply adjust the class. Also, is skill bloat still an issue? Maintaining a "rotation" of 15 skills was not fun and led to honest-to-goodness fatigue.

I've been here for years... No, not really. I've actually been gone since capping out a Guardian several weeks after launch. The new F2P options are attractive, however, so I thought I'd touch base with the community and see how worthwhile it would be. I have two main questions. The first is the viability of the Prot Guardian -- has this been fixed? Threat generation at launch was a real issue for the class, and leveling a Guardian only to be passed by for other tanks was very discouraging. I'm really hoping this has been addressed by now. Comments? Secondly, end game. One of the big discouragements of endgame was the poor progression system. Loot was buggy to begin with, and dailies progression has never been my favorite. How does the endgame play out now? Thanks in advance.

One thing you guys are missing here... Bioware started development on this project long before EA bought them. They did not "miss the deadline". They were putting their hearts and souls into this game and EA simply didn't care. They dropped the hammer and wanted the game on the market before Bioware was ready. Period. Will I continue? I don't know. I'm taking a break. I'm 50 on my JK Guardian and to be honest, the last 15 levels were the worst MMO experience of my life. I'm very disappointed in the problems with that class, from the story-crippling Kira bug to a broken final encounter with a one-shot fight. I just..I don't know.

Can't tell if this is a troll or what.

To be fair, WoW didn't look anything like it does now when it first launched. They've updated the client capabilities many, many times to add dynamic shaders, bloom etc. In all honesty though, TOR looks like ****. I love the game but I'm having a really hard time switching to it from say, Skyrim. I realize that Skyrim is not an MMO and I fully understand the limitations placed on MMO's, I'm just using it as an example. To clarify, I like many others have a high-end PC built to handle high fidelity graphics. Why? Because I like high fidelity graphics. It's really difficult for me to stomach the dated, medium-quality textures that TOR offers and I think Bioware did a large portion of the community a disservice in their decision to not render high-res in-game.

"Aesthetically", so are Dark Side aligned characters. And my ex. Invalid.

Pretty much agree. Oddly, though, I didn't mind the Aion grind. I only reached 34, and it took a few weeks for sure. But it was a fun few weeks and I will forever miss the 'sin mechanics.

It probably would have been helpful if you had read my earlier post in this thread about the vanilla WoW grind. To be clear, I'm not "arguing" anything. I'm pretty disappointed in this game right now.

I don't believe you. Unless you're just a dick to people?

There was no MC at launch. In fact, Dire Maul was considered the end-game for the earliest part of WoW's life until they released BRS. UBRS was the first raid, albeit a half-raid. We didn't see MC until...maybe 6 or 7 months in? At least. So obviously they have WoW and most other MMO's beat in terms of the amount of end-game content available on launch day. Unfortunately, its not -quality- end game content by any stretch of the imagination, with broken HM flashpoints, lootless bosses, a ridiculously expensive token system that makes absolutely no sense and Operations that require more luck than skill to defeat the 'bug boss'. Some of this is being dealt with in the coming 1.1. In the meantime, I think I'm just going to be rolling alts.

I hit level 50 last night. I did not rush through the game in any way. The only time I space-bar'd through cinematics was during alien-language scenes where I'd finished reading the subtitles long before the speaker finished. I ran mostly solo, with the occasional group for Heroic and flashpoints. I didn't even do all of the flash points on the way to 50. I did not spend even a moment in warzones. Truth be told, it just doesn't take long to level in this game. Certainly longer than current WoW, but it took me 4 months to cap to 60 back in vanilla.

Facepalm. I want a Rhodian smuggler very badly, it's my first choice! But c'mon.

I bet you wont. I bet you get a magenta one.

Just a quick explanation; Metacritic is the most widely used tool by industry analysts to judge the critical success of a game. I'm not making that up, it's just the pure and simple truth. Gamers look at Game Informer scores (or whatever their favorite mag is), industry pro's look at metacritic. They do not care about the user score because its famously skewed towards the negative. In the end, total sales and subs are far more telling in terms of consumer favor. Edit: This is by no means diminishing peoples honest concerns with the game, I've just seen a lot of people wonder about the metacritic links that pop up in these threads from time to time and thought I'd offer a hand.

When I say EU barely counts, it is in light of the fact that the vast majority of Star Wars fans have never been exposed to a scrap of it. Blue and Green vs Red is a visual motif that is constant throughout every single film -- which is the primary source of exposure the majority of fans have experienced. This is only broken one time, and that is by Mace Windu. If you really believe a sizeable percentage of those who wish to have a purple crystal want one because Mara had one, you're deluding yourself. The outcry is because of Mace Windu, and the popularity of Jackson as an actor. Period. Regardless of what the fiction says, he will always be tied to that purple lightsaber, and every time I see one I will know in my gut that he ruined the visual continuity of six films for the sake of his ego, and I will despise him for it. Anyway, his portrayal of the character was half-assed, his lines were even more rigid than Jimmy Smitts, and his lightsaber technique looked like he was swatting at flies. The character was developed horribly and his role in Anakin's final turn to the dark side utterly unbelievable. A respected Jedi Councilman and "one of the most powerful battle-Jedi in history" is suddenly a murderer and hasn't the wherewithal to understand how he is being manipulated? In a single scene? Give me a break. I do realize I have gone way off-topic here But my reasons for hating Mace Windu's place in the films and Jackson's herpa-derp portrayal of him are many, and you know something? He will always be the purple lightsaber ******e. Because visual motifs matter, and a random mutant shark *****-slapped him and took his Bad Mother****er wallet away.

Maximum PC? Really? While I agree with a few of the points mentioned, this is like reading a food critic review from a McDonald's employee.

Nobody? Sadface.

There was an interesting thread in the Flashpoints section regarding the validity of raid content in current MMO's. I have no idea why it was closed, but I'm going to re-post my reply and offer the community a chance to put forth their own thoughts. Please, try to refrain from condescending attitudes. --- Those who find competitive raiding fun and rewarding, find it fun and rewarding. Those who do not, do not. I know this seems very zen and over-simplified but its the honest truth. Why are we looking at the raiders and saying "Oh thats just dumb, I can't stand the competitiveness"? Then don't raid. Do your own thing. Likewise, why do raiders look at the non-raiders (see how I avoided using the term casual?) and say they aren't real MMO players? Is it really so difficult to simply play the game how you wish to play it, enjoy the MANY facets this game offers, and ignore those that do not interest you? No, it's not. Except for the rewards, and therein lies the true sticky point. Non-raiders think it is unfair that raiders get items they cannot obtain. Then when dev's change this so that 'everyone' can have these rewards, the raiders find it unfair that people who did not go through the effort are still rewarded. Both arguments are viable, however they also perpetuate one another. It is therefor the developers duty to make all facets of the game equally rewarding, and believe me this is a challenge facing Bioware, Blizzard, NCSoft and every other MMO developer, one that becomes increasingly important as the market grows and attracts new types of players. Note, however, that equally rewarding does not mean "the same reward". PvP'rs and PvE'rs have understood this for years, and have different gear rewards. This is necessary because of the different stats needed for these respective activities, however it's had the additional side-benefit of the rewards only being attractive to those who choose to focus on that particular facet of content. Now we have people who do not wish to do either -- they are here for the story. And they want some kind of reward for finishing the story. They do not want to raid, they do not want to PvP. They want to use the abilities that look cool, but are not necessarily the most effective. They want to play the game in the manner that they find most appealing, and you know what -- thats fine. Good for them. And they shouldn't be left out in the cold in terms of rewards for their efforts, regardless of how you and I feel about the validity of calling it 'effort'. It is the developers challenge to reward these players in a way that is suitable to their playstyle, that won't make the 'rest of us' feel like our effort is wasted, and won't leave them feeling like they're being punished for playing the way they want.

That is your choice, and you should read my post above regarding that choice. However if you continue to be insulting and inflammatory just for the sake of being insulting and inflammatory I'm going to start flagging your posts, as Bioware has instructed me to do.

This isn't true. There is a raiding scene, and those of us involved in the raiding scene pay close attention to world-firsts, and are entertained by the race. Do not condescend something just because you in particular find no interest in it.