There seems to be a lot of hate with the new update, which I haven't played yet.

I didn't really understand any of this, did I miss an obvious Star Wars themed joke? (sad face).

(I did read your entire post.) It's always sad to see a player leaving the game, while many believe it makes no difference to lose one, undoubtedly what you're saying is what several others are feeling; others who will leave in silence. While the second paragraph which sets out your accomplishments was cringe worthy and just sounded like an ego stroke (completely pointless that will likely bring you more flak than the sentiment of the rest of the post), I am genuinely sorry to see you go. Take care with whatever you decide to do next, have fun in WoW, and hopefully at some point in the future the devs do a better job of retaining their players than they are doing now.

I kind of agree with you, but if BioWare think outside of the box, they could quite easily do a Valkorian type shake up. You could have had children of your own who are born into the Eternal Empire, at a time when it's collapsing due to the combined resources of a renewed Empire and Republic. Then you could start with something similar to the original 50 levels when the game launched. Trying to save your Empire and make your daddy/mummy proud! How it would work on a technical scale will leave a lot to be discussed, as nobody is going to want to piss away five years worth of work on their toon. So perhaps a level carry over/gear carry over or whatever? I'm not sure. I mean, the point I'm trying to make is that there actually are many viable options where they could go with this and still keep it really interesting. I'm just doubtful they have the intelligence, motivation or perhaps even funding to do such a thing.

Ahhh that makes sense, I've heard of that, I guess I just wasn't aware of what the abbreviation meant! Thanks for clearing that up. Aha, I'm impressed, somebody else who has played a Troika game! I do believe a couple of devs on Troika went over to Obsidian yeah, which is probably why I enjoy KOTOR 2 so much. I think that game is pretty underrated, despite it not being completed. I've heard of Drakensang, but never played it. I always thought that was more of an Eastern title aimed at the Asian markets that never really took off in Europe or the west.

It seems that 5.0 has received a mixed reception. To put it nicely.

5.0 update went live not too long ago, just finishing up the Makeb storyline on my Sith Warrior and low and behold, the quests are broken. Fantastic, first bug I ever encountered, right as the entire community is joking about what the Devs will break next! Ha, I should laugh really. Defend the generator from 12 deepdwellers. Well I killed 12 deep dwellers, and it hasn't moved on. It's still stuck at that quest step, no matter how many I kill. They just keep respawning. Well done guys!

I think that eventually they have to deviate from the story, and implement/strengthen the core multiplayer features. Most people play MMO's because well, let's face it, two reasons. We're all vain. We enjoy achieving awesome things on our characters and showing them off to our peers. Secondly, we like interacting with people of a similar interest to us - this game. That's why MMO's are here. Whoever said it previously was right, this is a single-player game being shoe-horned into an MMO genre, and it feels so out of place.

I think BioWare could have done this, could have nailed it, but overall their inability to process the communities feedback (however negative) has been their major downfall. They act like children being shouted at by their parents, and then refuse to talk at all. The end result is that they push out content that is slowly killing the game. Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that with each new release, more players flock back, but more players also leave, and nobody stays around long enough for it to be a sustainable project. Very sad indeed.

Thank you everbody for the coherrent and well formulated replies, I will endeavour to respond some time tomorrow, I have read everything. Tonight however, I will leave it just with this: The analogy is so perfect. Pretty much summarises the game's essence. I always find myself coming back and getting hooked for say maybe 3 months at a time, then leaving for 8 months; and yet I really do enjoy the game. Thank you very much for the kind words, it means a lot. I'm not a regular here on the forums, I tend really to keep off forums, there's so much negativity to drown out any semblence of positivity; though with SWTOR it may be justified. I do remember reading a little while back about one of the Devs pretty much admitting that because they get so much criticism, they would stop communicating with the community. That seemed pretty ridiculous at the time, but I guess they really meant it. What kind of professional can't take feedback, whether positive or negative; on their own work? I think the Devs sometimes forget that the criticism comes so heavily because, first and foremost, the original 50 levels, while not completely perfect, where a fantastic platform to go on and do bigger and better things; and well, secondly, it's Star Wars. You take on a big IP, expect big expectations. EDIT: I found the source.

Yeah it's pretty unrealistic.

I haven't read anything about 5.0, is there a link on the main page I can follow to get clued up about what's coming? I don't even know what DDO is; is that bad? But yeah, to bring it back to the main point I agree that the restrictions are pathetic. After this length of time, you'd think they might consider releasing ROTHC for free, just to see an influx of people willing to see the new content. That could inspire a handful of subs, and more populated servers (for a while), I highly doubt anybody after this length of time who hasn't played ROTHC, is going to pay to play it now. So I see no reason to leave it as P2P. I can't remember who said it, but somebody likened the stagnation in SWTOR to that of WoW, and how WoW released new classes to help freshen up combat and tactics in the PvP arena. I think something like a new class would be fantastic for SWTOR, of course, I can't ever see it happening. I imagine that there'd be a lot of pressure on them to release an entire epic story arc for them, like they did with all the previous classes. I don't think so, I'm not a 'cultured' MMO player, by that I mean I've only played a handful of MMO's, but those I have played; I have played for years. I do think that there are radical differences in some MMO's to others. For example in WoW, the game seems mostly centred around PvP/Raids. SWTOR is centred around story, RuneScape is centred around social skills and games like Second Life were all about in-game crafting systems and economy; hell, League of Legends is basically a three lane, tower MOBA, which is very, very different to what the others are. The differences between MMO's is as stark as the differences between something like say, cheese. You have your cheddars, Applewoods, Brees, Stiltons and so on and so forth. While they're all essentially cheese, the texture, flavour and composition, differ from the subtle, to the not so subtle. This gives me flashbacks to a game (quite old game now) called 'Arcanum, of steamworks and magick obscura'. That was an offline, turn based RPG. Mostly voice acted as well, and boy was the voice acting fantastic. Absolutely phenominal game with an absolutely phenominal story. It was produced by what would now be considered an indie developer named 'Troika'. They went bankrupt or something and closed down, I can't recall what exactly happened. But basically the game wasn't quite as successful as it should have been and well, the publishers had enough. I think in general, heavy RPG's are the problem, not whether it's on or offline. They don't seem to be as successful as other games like say, off the top of my head, DooM, which are if anything, 'light' RPG's more focused on their gun fighting. Destiny is the same, for an online Version I'd say Elder Scrolls is a good example. That's a pretty light RPG environment, when it first came out it was riddled with as many bugs and problems (if not more) than SWTOR. But that's turned a corner of late and the Devs have done a fantastic job of bringing it back, it's gaining in popularity.

I just tend to do the original 50 levels (I take long breaks then come back, I've still not completed the Jedi Knight's main story arc, Imperial Agent, Smuggler or Soldier). So I'm enjoying my run through the Imperial Agent right now for the Dark vs Light event. Beyond that, I don't find much appeal in the game. The first 50 levels are phenominal, 10/10 for me. The rest dips dramatically. :/

I'm so glad you brought this up, this is something I wanted to touch on in my OP but I felt I'd already touched on quite enough. This is a major issue, they don't keep the core aspects of the game fresh, leaving it to stagnate effectively turns potential subscribers off who come to the game to see that everything is exactly the same. It's such a shame, but I feel the key issue here is a touch of laziness on the Devs part. Possibly too worried about balancing issues. Agreed, I touch on this somewhat in my OP but it's nice to see a fresh perspective. I don't know about these glyphs, since I don't play WoW; but I have heard that WoW does add subtle differences to ensure that each class feels marginally different. As much as I enjoy the different class story between the Sage and the Inquisitor, the mechanics of each class are IDENTICAL aside from different animations for the skills. Never encountered a bug in this game once. I am for the most part a casual player who doesn't bother with the multi-player aspect (because I'm provided no incentive to, seeing as it's overlooked so much) so that may be why; but that being said, I had no idea that there was a general consensus amongst the community that the game was so riddled with them. I think a lack of 'fresh' content is a more fitting way of phrasing it. At launch, I personally felt that the game had incredible content for release; however as you say, since it isn't updated or kept relevant, therein lie the problems. The new direction with story doesn't bug me with regards to it being solo. What does bug me is the fact that it's the same regardless of which class you go. How are you ever supposed to immerse yourself in that, in the same way that you did for your first 50 levels? It's not possible. I didn't like that at all about the new updates at all. The crafting system in my eyes isn't even a crafting system. It's like a MOBA where you're time-locked and have to twiddle your thumbs until companions complete missions. It's ridiculous, there's no feeling of achievement in it at all. We should be patrolling planets in search of planet specific resources and collecting them in some immersive way, on the watch for the opposite faction's people who may be after them too. Seeing little random deposits of crystals and right clicking them, waiting for 3 seconds and then moving on, doesn't count! I giggled.

One thing I really hate in relation to gear, is the crippling F2P restrictions on artifact items (the purple ones, I think they're artifact, right?). As much as I love this game, there's no denying the validity of this statement. It's £8.99 to subscribe for 30 days, of which 29.5 of those days will be spent bored. The one episode lasts roughly what, 40 minutes or so? It's not good value for money, unless you take long break periods, and subscribe only to play through several of the episodes. A publisher like EA has far too many titles for me to go through searching for a few of said examples, perhaps if you know any off hand, you could name them so that I could look in to it, this wasn't something I was aware of prior to your comment.