If this was a forum to debate our entire lives, the poor, the needy, the perils of modern society I would agree. Seeing as this is a forum to discuss our current favourite game, I don't. If the current downtime debacle is trivial for you then good luck to you, just don't assume we all agree.

/signed This would have the potential to be truly life changing. I know I look back with rose tinted glasses, but the earliest years in SWG were the greatest time I had in an MMO. Most of that wasn't from scripted quests or the game-on-rails we have here, it was from player made content, player made events and the community the players made themselves. Combine that freedom with the production values of SWTOR and you have a convert here.

Personally I would like a little of both. Theme parks are great for scripted content and for a challenge. Sandboxes allow an active community to not only enjoy the fun the game provides, but to organise their own. While people will knock SWG for being bad, which it was in many ways, what it did well was encourage players to make their own game and their own events. One of the problems with SWTOR is detachment. I have no real investment in my character or the world. I know when I log off, the world will still be there, doing what it does. The phasing takes the massive out of the game for me, and while people go on about community, I don't actually think there is much of one. Sure guilds get together and play, but not much else. At least with sandbox elements, I know if I log off, my player-run city or base might not be there when I come back and I may have a task ahead of me helping the rebuild. While some players don't like this approach, I do. It adds unpredictability and investment in your game. Something I just don't get with SWTOR.

This. Plus I applied to a few guilds on Frostclaw and The Progenitor who accepted older gamers, but never even got a reply. Maybe I should change my aftershave...

Nearly.

The game is whatever I make it. Casual, serious, MMO or solo, it's part of the attraction of an MMO. Nobody except you has mentioned an instant gratification system, merely a technical solution to a problem experienced by some players. What's the problem? You don't have to use it if they put one it. Anyone who doesn't like the system can keep standing on Fleet for an hour waiting for a group. The rest of us can spend our time experiencing everything the game has to offer. If you want to carry on acting like a child, with your "boohoo" bull*** go ahead, some of us are trying to have a discussion here.

This is a reasonably sensible discussion about a sensible suggestion. If you have nothing useful or constructive to add, go back to the CBBC channel.

I have a limited play window of 5 hours a week. I don't want to spend 1 or 2 of those trying to get a grp together. A server LFG channel or tool will help people like me explore more of the group content. Spamming chat just pees people off and is ignored half the time anyway.

Class! It's funny that football was invented before their entire country, yet they can't even use the proper word.

Then that American company should not sell it as a full product to a non-American audience. Or at least come out and say "we have a huge American bias and we don't care about the rest of you." Non NA gamers are paying full price but not getting a full service.

I agree, which prompts the question why was the game not designed in such a way so it could be dynamically updated? We're in 2012 now and MMOs have been in existence for years. Lessons should have been learned long ago...

There may be 1.7 million subscribers, but even at peak time it certainly doesn't feel like that many.

Your opinion. Not mine. I want an LFG system. I get to play maybe 6-7 hours a week if I'm lucky. Do I want to spend 1 or 2 of them spamming LFG or hanging round fleet? No, I want to spend my timer productively levelling or in a group with other people. It isn't about insta-everything, its about being able to play in the available time rather than standing around being bored while waiting to group. The "massive" aspect of SWTOR is largely absent as it is, without grouping it may as well be a single-player game.

I think what the OP is trying to get at is adding all those gradual fixes, "tweeks," additions and changes in the same way many other commercial, server-based services are improved, by fast, rolling restarts that don't take the entire service down for hours at a time.

This. Eve has most of those things. This is not the game you are looking for. 1. The current travel system is laborious and could do with tightening up a bit. Having to travel from planet to orbiting station to orbiting station to planet is a pain, fortunately its only on a couple of lower ones. 2. There is an element of this in the BH line, I have visited Nar Shaddah and Taris several times during my levelling and seen different parts of the planet each time. More character customisation is a no brainer. 3. Slow down levelling? Yes, and give players more to do.This game is too easy, the quests aren't really a challenge and it's too quick to level. Unfortunately that's what having to pander to a US audience does for a game. The poster who asked if you had all the bestiary's and all that is one of a few. Not many people are going to keep playing just to find an entry in a codex that doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to the character. Holocrons might pull a few of those detail oriented people in, but the rest? Only if you have OCD.

I think we can all agree that yesterdays downtime wasn't great for any of us and that BW wouldn't have done it unless they had to. If we didn't care about the continued success of this game, we wouldn't complain, we would just find another.

Yes he does, as a paying customer he has every right to complain, as do we all. Try respecting the OP's position and keep it constructive. This just shows ignorance on your part, not the OP. Complaining is an inherent right of any customer, and of any person. Inaction achieves nothing. If people didn't drive change we would all still be in mud huts eating root soup. While this may be a game forum, and this merely a game, the principle holds. The only bad manners on display here are yours, by making it personal. Whether you agree or not, this is something that affects more than the OP, we just happen to be in their thread. When you spend your whole rant belittling the OP and their point of view, who are you to begin making demands? As above, keep it constructive and discuss the issue like an adult. Feel free to suggest them here. What is a forum if not a place to discuss things? Wrong, companies have a duty to listen to customers and improve their product or service. Whether that's for shareholders or the board they have to justify the performance of their proposition. A company that takes no notice of their paying customers is the one that fails.

Which has what to do with my analogy? How do you think a cell phone service works? With servers, software and patches... Impressed? Wow, good job some of us hold companies to higher standards.

If it helps, stop thinking of it as a game, and strip it down to what it actually is, a paid-for service. The game is just the medium, ignore that and you'll get a better understanding of the core problem. If your "cell" phone service was taken down for maintenance for four hours a week, would you not complain? Would you still not complain if it was on a Saturday morning? Playing devil's advocate for a moment, we don't actually know we're being ignored. We only know we are not being acknowledged, and in some cases, censored. We have seen so far that BW have taken what has been said in these forums and used them. As may be the case here, it's communication that is lacking, not necessarily action. Having worked for an American company for a number of years, this is unfortunately typical of how they operate. As long as they get your "green" they couldn't care less.

Challenging? Really? What we already have here is an easy game for all those American ******* who spoiled WoW by saying it was too hard. The point here is that WoW learned its lesson, yes the early days were more down than up, but that was years ago. The fact that those lessons still haven't been learned by other companies just shows how low standards are...

Gets my vote too. A simple, but important fix as far as I'm concerned.

Erm, yes we have, in the 1970s. Patching and updating is precisely that. Take the server out of service, apply patch, check error logs bring back up, check stability, put back into live. Depending on the side of the patch this can be automated using web-enabled UPS and self installers, or done by a couple of people using network installers. There is no "crew" necessarily needed at all. Most modern companies have automated systems that push out updates over a network which is picked up by the server on reboot. Whether Bioware has something like that or not isn't known. Perhaps you should check fact before coming onto this post and ranting, you're just making yourself look stupid...

Such as? World hunger? Recession? War? I would love to, but this is a Star Wars Forum for a game that we actually quite like so we talk about SWTOR stuff. The whole point of this thread is for Europeans to highlight the fact that we're being treated as second class citizens. Not sure how much more important that could be. We could of course discuss the UI, the new dance exploit, the bans for Ilium or other things, but they, to us, are minor, this is not. It isn't the technicalities of the situation. Most of us work during that time, it's how BW regard us. They are content to have maintenance during your night-time, but not ours, yet we pay the same amount for the service. It isn't about it being a game, it's about it being a paid-for service that treats its two audiences differently while charging the same. All things you would already have seen if you have followed the thread instead of posting pointlessly.

We care. If you don't have anything useful to say, save the oxygen.

This is a canned response copied and pasted from the "we couldn't care less" section of the BW/EA customer support script.