This is the biggest problem with pushing level 60 characters into PVP that didn't participate leveling up - the gear. They will have high end PVE gear - even if they haven't been doing ops and such and adding augments, the gear dropped in the KotFE story is high enough to reduce effectiveness in PVP, as I understand it. And they don't have old weak gear to switch to, because why would you hold on to it?

If this was a new companion, added in KotFE, fine, you don't want to PVP you don't get him. If they'd said "we'll be taking away your companions in KotFE, you'll get some back but not all", well, I'd still say that was a rotten move but at least expectations would have been set. But "you'll get them back, affection remains..." and then it's "Oh but some require PVP even though you never needed PVP for them before", well, not a customer friendly choice.

I know you've taken some flack for this, but I want to say thanks. Better a delayed patch than huge bugs going live. (Small bugs will go live, it's inevitable, but stomping all the big ones before the public sees it is great.)

What I always want to do, and never can, is split the difference. Give the refugee half of the medical packs, take the other half to the troops (tell the truth if you want, or "these were all I could recover, the rest had been used")

Some possibilities, but I'd do it a little differently. Leading up to the final battle, Marr has noticed that things are going right, far more than the universe normally allows. In fact - somehow Lana and Theron managed to find out a LOT about a conspiracy nobody knew about. This is good, but suspicious. Then in preparation for the big fight, another ship joins the armada, and it's master is revealed. Malgus. "But you're dead!" "(evil sith grin) Not quite. We can talk later, but now, we have a mad emperor to defeat". Big fight, boom boom, lots of death but in the end, the emperor is defeated, gone bye-bye. After the fight, Malgus explains. He'd been in a deep force coma, some of his followers took him away and helped him recover. In his recovery, lots of time for soul searching, and he realized he made serious mistakes. He grabbed for power too soon, and alienated those who had been his allies. He thought it had been to save the Empire, but it nearly destroyed it. So he kept his revival a secret, working behind the scenes to protect it and build a power structure." "So now we fight, Malgus? You still want to be the emperor? I do not trust you." "I try not to make the same mistake twice. Let us... create an emperor. Never seen, rarely heard from except to support our actions. While we rebuild the Empire together and win the war. The three of us, we are more alike than any would prefer to admit. Together, with (insert player character name here) we will be unstoppable."

I miss unyielding stance. /em holdtorch

One thing that's different from the dailies here and the dailies on the other planets it that they are the storyline. Black Hole, the issue is taking down the idiots trying to stop the Republic's/Empire's victory on Corellia. Section X, the forces of the Dread Masters are wrecking havoc and you have to stop them. Oricon, the dailies ARE the story mode of the planet. Same with Yavin, the dailies are the missions you did as the story mode. Ziost, the dailies really don't matter. They're just things to do.

Actually, there's nothing self serving in it. Didn't do Ravagers, didn't do this. I was so disgusted after I realized the message meant "come back in a week" I logged off and only logged back in to transfer basics to an alt (Makeb still has armor mods that cost 10 basics). And yes, there is a relative issue in play, there are in fact SEVERAL relative issues in play. The attitude of some in the thread, from permabans to remove all gear and don't let them group, is crazy. It's insane. It's a fricking GAME. For the most part, it's a PVE game so Joe over there getting some goodies maybe he shouldn't doesn't hurt you at all. And second, the comparison between this and Ravagers is laughable. Ravagers was a way to generate really high end loot with no effort, and they could create a LOT of loot with it. There's never been a way in the game to get loot that good that easy and never will be. This issue lets them do content early, the exact same content we'll be doing on the 4th. It wasn't any easier for them to get it then it will be for us, they didn't get any better loot than we'll get. They just got it early. And yet they're being punished more severely than those who exploited Ravagers. And no, the error message when you try to use the planetary status monitor is NOT clear that "content is over for now". There's lots of content where, using a device, you get error messages like that, meaning you missed a step so go back and find it. I spent 20 minutes, including checking the forum, and all I learned was that others were equally stuck and confused. It was only after that time, someone who had used it on beta said that the content died there on the beta so they hadn't fixed it. It was only some time later, after logging off, I found out it wasn't a bug, but intentional. 20 minutes spinning my wheels looking for a solution makes me annoyed. And for them to only announce later "oh you're not supposed to go any further" - I almost uninstalled the client at that point. I'm not good at the datacron hunt, I get very few, because when I can spot some, my reaction generally is "you can't get there from here". Even following walkthroughs, I tend to fall at some point or another (there's a reason I'm playing this game instead of Super Mario Brothers). Granted, I haven't looked at the wall in question. But seeing the contortions you go through to get them, yes, I can believe someone thinks that working around the wall is the right thing. Hell, there are parts in the climb up the people's tower where you're getting past theoretically impassable blocks. And yes, sometimes when there's new content, I'll get invites to jump right into an op or flashpoint or something. In the past, yes, I had to make my way to the mission point, but after having been transported to other op locations in these past few months, it wouldn't surprise me to be teleported to a place to fight a big boss. I get that for some people they really, REALLY want to see people lynched. They really, REALLY want to see the witches burn. And I won't deny, there are some I'd like to se lynched - but they work for Bioware for doing this in this incredibly lousy way. (Lynch in an allegorical sense not literal.)

How could they have handled it better? (1) make clear in the info leading up to launch, the blog post at launch, and patch notes that the content was split. (2) Break on either a win or a loss, a clear pausing point, as opposed to "OK, go through that switch". (3) When you hit the stopping point, make it clear that the rest unlocks later, not the sort of error message that suggest you missed a step. Or they could've not split. It's not like there was so much content that it needed a break in the middle.

If the stranger hops into the car and drives it off, the guy who ran into the convenience store is royally and truely (bad word) - he's out a device that cost many many thousands of dollars that he'll have to replace if it isn't found, he may have personal items in the car that are also gone, there are papers in the car that can be used for identity theft. And at a minimum, the meeting he was rushing to, he can't get to. If you walk into the house, again you are taking things away from someone else. They will have to replace them. It's also terrifying and can leave people afraid about "what if they come back". Ravagers, arguably it caused a competitive disadvantage, but nobody was worse off or missing any gear because someone else engaged in the exploit. And in this one - these people just got a one week head start on seeing the full 3.2 experience and participating in some of the activities, just like the rest of us will be able to do on Monday. I'm not saying exploits shouldn't be blocked, but please. The analogy is ridiculous. Worse? Seriously? Other people getting gear or going through content before you do is worst than having your car stolen or someone getting some rich loot? How many datacrons are put in places that it's "obvious" you can't get there, but you can figure out a way there. Yes, going around doors and so forth. It was noted on the Dev tracker hours after the content opened, after people were looking for the missing step to finish the content. The Dev tracker which requires special action to check and see if there's anything there, unlike the blog which generates emails telling you about the posts (and there was a post about 3.2 that didn't mention it) and the launcher. Apparently, some people were invited to a group and teleported in, never seeing the gate or anything like that. They said the next half of Ziost would not be released until May 4th many hours after the content unlocked and in a place that isn't in the immediate data path used by most players.

If they'd come down on "the biggest offenders", that would be one thing. From what they said, they treated those who did it several times to those who did it once.

The only thing that really bothers me about the bans is the people who, arriving on the fleet were invited to join a new op in the new content, joined, got flagship-ported to the content, and are now banned. Those who found a way past, well, I remember on my datacron hunts I was finding a way past apparently locked areas (and in the content there are a few gates you have to figure your way around), but not having tried to go to the area, I don't know how obviously it was blocked off. As a general principle, I believe it's inappropriate to ban someone for using the in-game mechanics until it has been labelled as an exploit, unless the rewards are way out of kilter. (You fight a big boss and it drops loot, not out of kilter - invite lots of people in to get loot without doing anything, out of kilter.) But my anger at the high handed way the devs are treating those whose who participated is mostly a reflection of my anger at the way this was rolled out. I logged in on Tuesday expecting to enjoy the whole of Ziost. I found a few missions and "enjoy" was questionable. And then I hit something where the mission just wouldn't go further with a response that looks like a bug or "go back, you forgot to do something". That's lousy design, and a lousy way to treat the customers. So at the moment, yeah, I'm going to be less forgiving and more on the side of the customers who deliberately got frustrated than Bioware's sanctimonious "oh no you can't have that yet you have to wait for Monday."

Dev tracker is not a blog. People aren't sent notifications when there's a new post in the dev tracker like they are in the blog. The forums are NOT visited by the majority of the public. The first year I was in the game, I didn't know there WERE forums, much less check them regularly. And even if you do check them periodically, recently the dev tracker is mostly filled with comments about what's on the test server and the few comments about the real game get lost in the noise. And even then, the dev post only happened after 3.2 launched, after people were crawling over the content, and only because people were asking why the story mysteriously stopped. That lack of communication is unacceptable. At a minimum, it should have been mentioned in the blog post "Welcome to 3.2" and in the patch notes. And should've been mentioned earlier. Actually, the split never should have happened, just a week "aren't we clever" sop to May the 4th - no, delaying part in one week doesn't avoid the problem of "I blew threw the content in one afternoon", it multiplies it into "I blew through the content in one afternoon then got stopped by this stupid bug" "What do you mean it's not a bug?" "OK, it's a week later I blew through the rest of the content in one afternoon". It's going to be months before there's new content, that this content was broken in two over a week solves nothing.

Oh goodie, you should get what you want and to hell with everyone else. It's a good thing that there are hard and really hard modes for those who like that and have the skill and gear to complete it. Yay for you! But to say "It ALL has to be like this, there can't be easier versions of it for players with less gear and less skill" is showing a complete disregard for players with different styles. Level 50 had it right, for flashpoints. There were tacticals (easy peasy), Flashpoints (required a bit more understanding of roles and such) and hardmode flashpoints. Level 55 had tacticals, level 50 HM flashpoints (which for the most part were like storymode for level 55 players), and level 55 HM flashpoints. And both 50 and 55 had daily missions that didn't depend on signing up for everything in the GF. Level 60 launched with tacticals and HM 60 - HM55 was added and they counted towards the weekly but they don't anymore. I'm not saying they should, but there should be a HM55 daily or weekly.

If you mean this line: That's usual marketing blather announcing that more stuff will come later, not "we split it in two". If you mean something else, quote it please. And again, I'm talking blog posts, not forums. As players, we get emails about blog posts, not about postings in the dev tracker. And given the large number of posts in the other thread about "why doesn't the planetary monitor work",most people didn't see it.

I just checked the blog. Hmmm. Nothing in their either about the content being split into two parts or about this labelled an exploit. But surely it's in the twitter feed. Nope, not there either. Communication on this has been LOUSY. Nothing anywhere leading up giving a hint that the content would be staggered. No message now on the "public face" areas (blog and twitter). Didn't post in the forums until people were asking why they couldn't progress. If someone hadn't been through the content yet, no way of knowing they shouldn't have joined an op to take down a big boss until a forum post announcing the hammer being dropped. The devs/community team have a lot of means of communicating issues to the players. NONE of these were used in this case. Unless you spend as much time in the forums as you spend playing the game, you'd have gotten the mushroom treatment. And the problem with the handling of exploits is that it's not an exploit until the devs say it is. Clearly the game is set up not to allow you to send bound gear to alts, but some people figured out that you can rip the mods, put in legacy gear, and it's now bound to legacy. Was called an exploit by the players but never punished as one. End of this week, I transferred 500 basic comms to an alt. The game design is so you can't do that, but there's a not-difficult way. Did I engage in an exploit, or was I merely very clever with the game mechanics? The only time I'll know is when punishment happens.

1. Remove all fog of war from planetary maps. Our legacy has been tromping over these planets a long time, we got maps. 2. Agree on the way to convert bound into bound to legacy. If you want to get creative, tie it to both a 500 level crafting skill and legacy 50, you're "reverse engineering" it to legacy - and a chance (say 20%) of failure and the item is destroyed to add a little risk to it. 3. Once you it legacy 50, the legacy XP charges something. Maybe it's PVE buffs. Maybe it's boosting credit received. Maybe it's an interest on your credits in your bank, or a discount on stronghold purchases/unlocks 4. Legacy stronghold decorations. Someone at the Cantina suggested Huttball practice arenas for strongholds and guild ships, make it a legacy 50 option. A mission console and/or crafting trainer would be good. Some just for decoration too, hero of the Republic/Empire type stuff.

Action on those who do it after it was labelled an exploit, completely reasonable. Action on those before it was labelled an exploit, particularly given what some have said about joining a group on the fleet for "a new op" and being ported in, not reasonable.

The bolster is great, but that last bit needs emphasizing. If you enter a warzone or a flashpoint or your stronghold and return, the bolster is gone and you have to work your way back to add it again. Most taxi stations have them, so you don't have to go back to the orbital station or your faction's main staging area to re-add it, but if you're deep in some maps could take a while to go back and then return to where you were. So be careful about being in queues or popping to your stronghold if you're depending on the bolster.

Some ops do have areas you can use speeders in - Scum and Villainy springs to mind.

I've been negative on the content decisions, but let me start by saying I love the new QoL changes, very nice. Appreciate the changes to comms and 8 person GF, should make ops at level 60 much more common. As for the content: Mainline story that we got isn't bad, but I didn't find it particularly great. No disputing taste. Didn't run into any noticeable bugs and all until the apparent bug that wasn't bug but sure looked like it (more later) The side missions for evacuation landing zone are way out of the area where you're doing at least the empire mainline story. Moving the mission granters closer to the main action would've been useful. The split: I've ranted in other theads about how I don't like the split. I don't. This sort of staggered release doesn't really do anything for the game or the players, particularly when it's just one week. If they had done, say, a four part story, each part released every two weeks with a new patch, that could be useful. But what they did is just a stunt. But if they're going to split stories, they did it in the worst way possible. (1) Tell the players what you're going to do. Some people have pointed to a comment at the cantina that might sorta been a way to talk about what's happening, but that's not telling the players. Make it clear. Part 1 unlocks on this day, Part 2 unlocks on this day. (2) Put the split in the content. Some sort of "to be continued..." line. Make it clear, when you hit the stopping point, you know you've hit a stopping point. Don't give us the first mission of part 2 with an error message that looks like "bug" instead of "come back next week" (3) The split needs to end on an accomplishment, a win for the player. Or, if your story telling is wanting to go dark, a major loss for the player, everything's gone wrong and the universe is going to end. Give Part 1 an ending, not the final ending but a sense that things have stopped.

Because making it unavailable until Monday serves what purpose? Marketing? Please, they blew what little marketing they did on 3.2 in general, they aren't going to do anything else to talk about what else is coming on Monday. Storyline purpose? If there had been an actual cliffhanger break with an actual pause in the storyline, maybe, but now it just looks like a bug. Make players happier? Who is happier at this? If they wanted to release the main content of 3.2 on May 4th, they should have done the patch on May 4th. And yes, I'm saying that from what they've described, what is yet to come is the main content, the stuff you'll be doing for the next months. Yes it's "dailies" but what is Oricon but dailies. And if what was released was the "main content" and there's very little, well, the mountain labored and produced a mouse.

I haven't been in the game from the start. Every expansion since I joined, everything in that part was fully released. Yes, there were sometimes extra bits added weeks to months later, and SoR clearly had a "more coming soon" aspect to it, but in all the time I've been in the game they never launched something live and artificially said "part of it unlocks later". And certainly not with the push that they gave to Ziost without letting anyone know it would only be half released. Yeah, basically, the interesting part of 3.2. The part that gives any sense of finality to it. The part that EVERYONE outside of Bioware was expecting us to get on Tuesday. Lying about when 3.2 would be released, Leading players on. Yeah, that's my definition of abusive.

This problem is Bioware's making. I'm not talking about bugs that make it possible like Ravagers. This is Bioware doing the little marketing they do to play up how wonderful Ziost would be when it shipped on August 28th, how you'd face the emperor, for weeks played it up and gave this launch date. Launch date comes and "well because it's part of our marketing most of it is locked away until May 4th". OF COURSE some players, having been sold a bill of goods by Bioware, tried to get to it when Bioware SAID it was going to be available. And now big daddy Bioware is going to come down hard on them. If you come down equally hard on those at Bioware who decided to split this, and split without telling anyone, fine. No, I didn't partake. I was so annoyed that I did what was there and logged off, to stay logged off until May 4th (and maybe longer). But this was badly played by Bioware, this was abusive to their players by Bioware, this was Bioware lying to its players, and to punish players who did the natural thing seeing an option to get what Bioware told them they'd have, is outrageous.

They told us 3.2 with Ziost would be released on April 28th. So nope, judgement is to be held on what they shipped. If they'd said "oh we're only giving you half of it" it might be a little less obnoxious, but even so I'd advised against it strongly. Would much prefer if they'd just held it until May 4th to launch it if they wanted to time it to that.