Macro is a ubiquitous term, when used in the vain of an MMO generally people are talking about a system designed within the game that allows you to chain skill casts. For instance you can type /macro into the chat window of WoW and a window will open allowing you to create a button press to combine skills or create a cast sequence. In Rift there is a menu option to write macros to combine skills into a single fall through button press. While Bot are run off macros, but those are third party apps. The macros being discussed here are run in and as part of the game itself, and not used for botting.

I am a huge fan of Macros, but the game has to be designed from the beginning to support them, and I don't mean the programming ability. What I refer to is the way a class is played and how the skills rotation etc is meant to be used. Take for instance Rift, which has a wonderful priority system as opposed to a hard rotation system. You can build these great fall through macros that will cast the first available skill in the macro. So if you have not met any condition of a skill it try to cast the next one. This is great for taking a game with a ton of useful active skills and putting them on a priority list without needing 10 fingers. However, they also designed lot of things that still need their own seperate button press outside the priority system. For instance my cleric's magical shield has no cooldown, so I would not want it in my rotation as I only want to cast it when it is needed. On top of that your burst cooldowns are designed to be combined with specific skills, so you would want to make sure that skill is cast with the burst cooldown, so again it does not go into the main priority rotation. These are just some examples of how what looks like a macro that turns the game into a single button press was designed to prevent that. For those arguing that it increases the distance between the haves and have nots I don't agree with. If everyone has the ability to make a macro then there is no unfair advantage. If someone chooses not to use them, then the advantage is simple wasted not unfair. Plus if you are already looking up proper rotation and what not online, adding in the macros to what you look up changes nothing.

The EU book in question is The Mandalorian Armor and is the first book in the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy. Basically since it take so long to be digested, the Beskar armor protects him enough till he can locate his jet back and use it to blast out killing the beast in the process. This was the pre-Disney canon explanation.

Having recently read a similar comment I did en experiment this holiday weekend. I decided to level one of each class only through starter planet (all quests), 2 quests on fleet (crew skill training and Advanced Class), and then the first mission at the planet terminal on Faction Planet. The goal was to see if I could get to level 15 by the time I finished that mission at the shuttle terminal. BH, Agent, Smuggler, and Trooper all overshot 15, but did not hit 16 by the time I finished the shuttle terminal mission on the faction planet. Knight was 16 by the time i landed on Corusant. Warrior and Inquisitor both hit 15 before I even left Korriban and that was without doing the Heroic Quests and in the case of the Warrior only the actual Class Mission in the final tomb. Both ended up almost to 17 after getting to Durmond Kaas and completing the shuttle terminal. The Consular I needed to do the first class mission on Corusant to just hit 15.

I think from their perspective this is true, in the sense that the companions you will use during KotFE (the ones that are specific to KotFE) can die and will stay dead for you. The confusion probably comes from the player not really considering the companions we use during KotFE as 'our' companions, where as BW doesn't consider a difference between pre-KotFE and KotFE companions.

Are we even sure anything is happening with our pre-KotFE companions? The wording there seems like what they are saying is your current set of companions are still your companions, but in KotFE you will have a new specific set of companions that are apart of the Story. The decisions you make during the KotFE story only effect those companions, not your original companions. Now I could be wrong, but I am just basing that off the wording of the quote you posted.

As someone who works in analytics this saying annoys the hell out of me. Number tell no story, they simply are, a person tells a story and can use any selective data set to confirm the story they are telling. This isn't really meant for you, just a popular saying that annoys me.

Probably not. As someone who works in data aggregation and analytics, I would do this by tracking quest completion, and I would specifically be tracking consecutive quest completion. This would tell me are they actively playing and they are moving through the story. Now I cannot speak for BW, but if they want real value metrics this is what they would be tracking. If the bulk of my subscribers are spending the bulk of their time in game doing this then the logical conclusion is because that is the part of the game they enjoy. Whether or not they would prefer something else is not quantifiable, since if they aren't doing it, it can't be tracked, and even if I take a poll I have to worry about report bias. So my question would be, how would I get metrics surrounding what people want to do, without relying on self reporting via polls which are rife with potential bias? Another thing to consider is why would Bioware care which direction they take the game in? They will always follow the money, that always has and will be the way of business. So if you really don't like the focus on story driven content the only way to let them know that so they can quantify it is to not play it. Play the flashpoints and OPS and warzones, and if you can't because you can never get a team together or don't like the results of you Dungeon Finder groups, then you have to stop paying them. If you don't play the story content and/or don't subscribe then they can get the true metrics. But regardless of your reasons, if you pay and spend the bulk of your actual game time doing story missions, you are telling them to make more of that. They can't quantify unknown or unreliable data.

Forces is a loaded term and implies that the player has no choice. Assume this was only a story driven game (so no group content at all), yes you are technically forced to only play story driven content if you play the game, but you still have choice in not playing. In the case of TOR if I were looking at content I would probably only pay attention to what people play while subscribed. This way I know, what people who are actively paying to play are playing, there by giving me an idea of why they pay to play. If someone does not feel that there is anything to do other than story and so they are a false metric, then the real issue is that their paying to play content they don't particularly want to play, which you cannot fault the analyst from being able to determine as it is contrary to logic. To cover your analogy, if you offer someone cheese or chocolate then you can determine which they prefer. So if 90% take the chocolate then you could extrapolate that 9/10 7 year olds would prefer to eat chocolate over cheese. So then you could plan to always have more chocolate on hand than cheese to a much greater degree in the event that you want to offer a choice to a group of 7 year olds. This is basically how it is working here, SWTOR offers character driven storys, flashpoints, ops, and warzones. If 90% of the people who pay to play this game play the character stories, it is not a huge leap in logic to determine that the activity they are paying to play is story driven missions. If that is the case then one has to assume they are doing that because they like the story driven missions so much they are willing to pay for all the other conveniences. This is a Freemium game, that can be completely played for free. In fact if someone only ever wants to play the storys, they could do so without every dropping a dime (though this would get very difficult at some points). You can also run Flashpoints and Ops and Warzones without paying (though this would be extremely difficult), so if you analyze what people are playing while paying, you can get a pretty good idea of what people will pay to play, which at the end of the day is all they care about.

But from a metrics/marketing standpoint you are. Sure you may prefer to be doing flashpoints, ops or pvp, but you are subscribed and you are doing the character story, there is no ambiguity in your actions. The metrics tell them that you are subscribing to play the character story. Make no mistake, everyone can get on them for 'interpretation' of metrics and how that is or isn't reliable or we assume they don't know how to read them, but metric are metrics. The are observable and quantifiable data which can be analyzed. Polls would help to go along with the metrics, but polls also suffer from report bias, which causes a huge problem in epidemiology, because in this case you aren't even working from correct data. What I am sure they are doing is using their metrics, to decide the direction for this expansion, and if it doesn't pan out they can always change (assuming they don't go under). But I am also sure that they will have some new flashpoints, ops, and warzones at some point. Hell all they have to do to know how dangerous having none of that is, they need look no further than WoW.

If I am not mistaken someone did try this with Wildstar, and it failed. They found not only is that niche market not big enough, but people only thought they wanted hardcore MMORPG's (or everyone has alway been lying to themselves about how hardcore they are) Sure Wildstar failed for many reasons, but one of the ones that has been specifically stated by pretty much everyone (players, media, and devs) was that they completely overestimated both the demand for hardcore MMORPG's and exactly how no one wants to put up with hardcore difficulty in MMORPGs anymore.

Commando is my main and I love the class. The story is amazingly good and has a really nice flow to it. Though I would prefer to use a Rifle (makes more sense to me and they could have skipped the AC weapon class altogether for the game) it is fun to cast Full Auto or Boltstorm with the Corellian Bunker Buster. I found Assault to be the better spec since it has a more rigid rotation and DoTs have always been a favorite way of playstyle for me. I did Gunnery till about level 30 or so before switching to Assault and although you won't have the AOE of Gunnery, you can spread around DoTs easily and then focus fire down targets on at a time. I generally only need one Incendiary Round on each target, then a High Impact Bolt + one Charged Bolt will do the trick. Sometimes by the last in a group of three or four a proced HIB or just a Hammer Shot is all you need.

Its a lot like the prequel to OT where you made older tech look newer. That actually might be fertile ground for a story, how the repressive Empire lead to a sort of backwards slide in technological acumen. But thanks for reminding me about the space faring Sith citadels, now I want to explore one in game.

His art style was a little weird for Star Wars, but was perfect for his Red Star series. He also cleaned it up for the Redemption story he did were Ulic trains Sunrider's daughter and redeems himself in the force.

To be fair I gave a list because those 5 I consider my favorite, as they represent; the best action rpg, the best rpg story, the best open world rpg, the best on rails rpg, and the best jrpg for me. If I was forced to pick one of them it would probably be Jade Empire for the combat as the story was top notch, but that was the best combat in an rpg I have ever played.

I too like the older era, but I like older older era, like Hyperspace Wars era. I remember reading those comics as a kid and being enthralled by the idea of lightsabers that required plugs to energy packs, a planet that was so close to its moon for a time that you could ride winged monstrosities from the moon to the planet, and all of the great old sith lore. Then it was all followed up with the Freedon Nadd uprising story, and Exar Kun and Ulic. Really I can do with out all the post KotOR era / prequel era nonsense of the decadent republic and massive Jedi nonsense.

Aren't Chiss completely impossible since they had no contact with either the Republic or Empire until the Outbound project. It has been awhile but I have read all of the Thrawn and Chiss centered books and seem to remember it was Palpatine who was able to convince a small few (including Thrawn) to be the first Chiss to join a force outside their own empire.

Personally I prefer OT era, when trained force users are few and far between. Makes the stakes more interesting when there is less force magic ex machina to go round. Plus the thing I have always loved about Star Wars is the physics defying space battles.

1) Jade Empire 2) Skyrim 3) KotOR 4) Witcher 2 5) Super Mario RPG

Lawful Evil Half Drow Dark Soul (prestige class of Sorcerer) Chaotic Neutral Human Berseker (barbarian/warrior) with a Mercurial Greatsword and hand crossbow Last played sometime around 2004

Given that Rift already had both Lindsay and Gob's chicken dance in it (along with George Sr and Lucille's) , a little disappointing that BW didn't pick something else. Not that there is a dearth of amusing chicken dances available to choose from. Fun fact: Lucille (Jessica Walter) is also the voice of Fran from Dinosaurs. I can never watch that show anymore without imagining that Earl, Fran, Robbie, Charlene, and Baby evolved into George Sr, Lucille, Gob, Lindsay, and Buster.

While quality plays apart it is an insanely complex issue. If you can maintain a sub model in this market you really have something special, but if you cannot it does not really mean you have a bad game. You previously voice your displeasure with Rift but I personally disagree. I thought it was a great game from it's "dynamic" Rifts/Invasions, to its bloated yet fun soul system, to the engine, and even the standard WoW questing model. But I do recognize it suffered two fatal flaws that it could never recover from that ultimately let to it's demise and had nothing to do with quality. 1) It was unapologetic in setting itself up as the WoW killer. From the "You're not in Azeroth anymore" initial adds to the Panda in the F2P announcement adds. This was stupid because you look foolish if you can't lure even 1/4 of WoW's subscribers. 2) It was a WoW clone with only a few minor differences. Meaning at the end of the day everyone who took a break from WoW had to ask themselves, would I rather continue my Azeroth journey or start over here, which probably 7/10 people will choose the later. SWTOR had the IP to make it work, but they simply underestimated the market. They assumed they would get Mass Effect/Dragon's Age/KoTOR/Jade Empire fans who would spend the 180 or so hours doing quests watching full voice over videos instead of MMO locusts who would devour their content in a matter of a 40hr week. SWTOR is an amazing RPG, but only a good MMO. At the end of the day the game has to justify their sub, and with so many quality free games (or B2P) along with established IP's, it's an uphill battle regardless of the quality of the game (unless the company is insanely patient like EVE has been with their growth).

Using a financial term to equate to game marketing is not what you want to do. AAA Bond meaning low risk/high reward, would best equate to an indie game like Braid, which is pretty much the complete opposite of what AAA means in the gaming industry. In terms of gaming industry it refers to either a big release from a big studio, or a flagship title. SWTOR would fall under the first def, while Rift would fall under the second.

Not saying you are right or wrong, but Trion did the same thing, up until the moment they announced F2P. There is a stigma around F2P, no developer (or at least the PR mouth piece in developers clothing) will openly admit that their game is going F2P until the writing is on the wall and they have no choice but to go F2P to survive. WoW is losing a lot of ground as of late (this is undeniable fact they are bleeding subs at the moment) and there may be a point where Blizz puts F2P into motion (starting the cash shop is an ominous sign that they are at least prepared for this). I can remember before I left Rift at the F2P conversion that tons of players were defending Trion's stance of P2P using all kinds of investor data and what not, then boom F2P.

Keep in mind at the end of the day Yoshi and Matt are trying to sell you something. Never 100% trust anyone trying to sell you something. I love GW2, but a lot of what was said during development to the fan base was simply not true. Why? They were trying to get me to buy the product. Sub model will attract the core audience the want (old school hardcore) while not completely driving away the ancillary market they hope to capture (casual goal oriented players). But if they fail at one or the other and the numbers aren't there, I wouldn't be surprised if they are able to just flip a switch and have a full blown F2P model ready to go.