Me: *Works 60 hours last week, at a job which I love* Office: *Enjoys a 3-day weekend* Me: *Files back into the "virtual" office on Tuesday morning, refreshed and recharged and ready for a 4-day workweek this week* Automated pop-up message from IT: "Due to your excessive hours worked last week, and per recommendation by your colleagues, you are required to take a half-day away from work. Please click 'I understand' to lock your computer." Me: Ok, fine, I guess I'll do something in SWTOR. SWTOR: "We are currently undergoing maintenance". Me: Fine, I'll play my other game. Other game: "We are undergoing patch maintenance." Me: *Insert string of expletives here* ------------------------------ For the record, I knew this mandatory half-day off was coming as early as Saturday. Still, I kinda wish I could play SOMETHING while waiting out my "mandatory rest period."

Well, despite today's...hiccups...I have finished the upgrades to my car and am wrapping up my micromanagement in a separate game now. Your mileage may vary. Maybe I'll start that load of laundry I never started...

Usually, for most MMOs, there's a login (or authentication, depending on the technical lingo used for that game) server and the game servers. If there is a large amount of logins to a certain game (whether naturally or by more...malicious...means like DDoS attacks), the login server will usually crash/have issues. Over at World of Warcraft, almost every weekend, there is almost always an issue with the authentication/login servers, so while players trying to get in to that game would be having issues, players already in-game would not be affected other than maybe zoning in/out would be a little bit slower. That said, considering Star Forge alone was having the issues, I doubt this was a login server issue and more likely an issue specifically limited to the game servers. Though what it ended up being, it seems only God and BioWare will know...

Just as a heads up, looks like they are now restarting the US servers, as now Satele Shan is down alongside Star Forge. Hopefully, these restarts work...

For the record, mine is showing green up arrow as well, even after refreshing a couple times. Read into that what you will... Edit: And only just now it changed to red down arrow. Very strange bug, whatever ended up being the cause...

Y'all can officially blame me for this grand mess. I've got to stop teleporting back to fleet right as companions are about to return with crafting mission results.... Good news, though. I can finally finish upgrades to my car, then do that load of laundry I keep putting off...

Blame me. I had just finished my one repeatable mission (courtesy of Rakghoul Resurgence) I needed to get 100K CQ points for one of my toons this week, then teleported back to fleet while also having 4 crew skill missions about to become due. I take full responsibility for this mess. On the bright side, at least I now can finish the "upgrades" to the car I just bought.

As I prepare to head for bed, here's a Bounty Week meme for y'all, both to give you a laugh and to call attention to a fight that honestly makes me go "What are we thinking here, BioWare"?: DX-3 Troubles Good night, fellow SWTOR forumgoers.

There is plenty of incentives for solo peeps to go through story flashpoints. For one, you don't have to rely on group members to complete it (outside of a few fights which are known to be bugged (e.g. Malgus in the new FP) or suspected to be bugged (e.g. Revan being level 38 in a FP where everything else is level 36, Assembler always being in Repair Mode in Directive 7, etc.)). Also, the blue Isotope Stabilizers that you get for every "main boss" you take down can either be used in crafting, or can sell for a not-insignificant amount of credits on the GTN. The gear, once deconstructed, can also net tech fragments and sometimes other stuff that you can trade in for high value stuff you can either use or sell on GTN (and if you find a Legendary Ember when deconstructing, the GTN value would instantly put a free/preferred account over the credit cap). And also, if you're like me and want to kill everything in sight, a story mode flashpoint is the way to go. Most of the time, vet or master difficulty flashpoints (which require a group) turns into a "stealth run" where the express goal of most players is to stealth your way to each boss, kill the bosses, and only fight mobs/trash if there is no other option (which is why some other MMOs require players to clear a certain amount of mobs/trash in addition to all bosses before awarding completion credit for a particular dungeon/flashpoint...at least for some high level/high difficulty dungeons/flashpoints).

First of all, OP, the name is NOT "offensive", BioWare just copied and pasted too much of a standard Customer Service reply when alerting you about the name change (sadly, a lot of Customer Service replies related to actions taken against accounts/characters are too often copypasta that may or may not answer the question...not just that, appeals of account actions almost always lead to more copypasta and a closed ticket with no way to reopen the issue). HOWEVER, the naming rule you did in fact break was you can't name your character the same name as a celebrity or other real world person with significant weight (Jennifer Lopez falls into this category of "banned names", as a quick Google search will tell you). Which is why, as much as I wish otherwise, BioWare is in the right here. TL;DR You did in fact break naming rules, HOWEVER, BioWare's email didn't do a good job explaining the naming rule broken (most likely a copypasta of a standard forced name change email).

Very much appreciated. Time for my guild to lock horns with those guard droids on Voss/Quesh...sorry in advance to any pub players who may be caught in our "mini-rampage"!

There's a dozen threads up about it already, but I do agree with the OP that BioWare should keep us better updated in regards to this bug. They posted that they were aware of the bug here on forums and on their Twitter, then about 24 hours later they tweeted "We appreciate your patience while a fix is found" or something like that, then...silence. If they simply wrote a post and told us "Any rewards affected by this bug will be awarded to players once fixed", players would feel a lot better about playing the game/completing objectives (and while I'm not a server dev, I would like to believe that if BioWare gave this assurance and players started playing somewhat normally again, BioWare would have a better chance reproducing the bug cos as rewards get "eaten", there would be an erroneous line(s) of code somewhere in all that data sent back to server techs which, ideally, will lead to the "A-HA!" moment.). But without that simple post, players (rightfully) fear that any rewards falling victim to this bug will be gone for good, which is only going to add to the collective bad taste in player's mouths following 7.0 launch. People will only tolerate a bad taste for so long before they move on.

To the OP: First, I understand your frustration, and can sympathize with you in regards to "unfun content". In fact, I felt the exact same way when I tried to do Galactic Starfighter for weekly POs back in the first season (although mine had more to do with people hate-mailing me ugly messages following matches cos I was "disturbing the sanctity of GSF"). Eventually realized the harassment and hate mail was too much headache to be worth it (I think I had a forum thread up about it several months ago) and decided to give up doing GSF just for the Weekly POs and use my overabundance of Cartel Coins to collect all 100 levels of the first season. I will say, though, that not only do you not have to complete every Season Objective every week/day to hit level 100 before Galactic Season 2 ends (especially if you're a subscriber), I will also say that right now is a really good time to take a break from Galactic Seasons for a little bit, considering there is a bug with Galactic Season rewards that is currently resulting in a noticeable drop in subs/number of players online.

Yep, I'm not even going to host a guild event (that I previously planned) to complete certain weekly season objectives without a dev post stating that a fix has been found/in testing, or at the very least, we get reassurance that any galactic seasons rewards falling victim to this bug will be retroactively granted if/when a fix is found. I will admit, I would only be mildly disappointed if I missed out on GS rewards, but I also recognize some folks put more value towards GS rewards than I do.

Sub player chiming in. 10 Underworld Syndicate Plans fell victim to this bug. While I am disappointed that we still have no attempted resolution or even a simple "We will retroactively grant any rewards players missed out on as a result of this bug" post from BioWare, I also can't say I'm surprised that something like this came up, especially after the entire maintenance yesterday concluded over 2 hours ahead of schedule. Am I going to complain about servers being available ahead of schedule when it comes to server/patch maintenance? Absolutely not. However, in my several years playing MMOs like this one, I've found that when scheduled server downtime concludes more than an hour ahead of schedule, there is almost always an ugly surprise waiting for both devs and players within 48 hours of the end of maintenance that requires either immediate troubleshooting or emergency/unscheduled server maintenance. So while I was happy that the servers came back up over 2 hours ahead of schedule yesterday (which allowed me to knock out the Swoop Bike weekly on one of my characters before I had to go to appointments and then be the victim of "helicopter supervisor" at work for the rest of the day), deep down, I had a sinking feeling that something like this was going to pop up. And before you ask, no, this whole situation of "major annoyance popping up shortly after a faster-than-expected maintenance" isn't limited to BioWare, almost every MMO game out there (even MMOs like World of Warcraft!) has dealt with a similar situation at one point or another.

While I'm hoping that the Patch 7.0.1 maintenance will solve the issue, while I was turning in "Supply Caches" on Odessen (though WHY the armor out of the reward crates is no longer sellable is beyond me), on several separate occasions, lag spikes were observed both while turning in the caches and while opening the reward crates. When I then stopped at the legacy bank to reorganize, I had a large lag spike which read at 123456 ms server latency (the "latency indicator" had a big red X for about 5 seconds) for 5 seconds before everything operated normally. I asked around, some players were also observing lag spikes (in some cases severe), others saw nothing out of the ordinary. Again, I'd like to believe that server maintenance on Tuesday will give the servers a much-needed timeout and the more unusual lag spikes will disappear following maintenance, but I just want to find out if there's anything I can do in the interim or if anyone else is observing other unusual technical issues/lag spikes that someone on BioWare's side may or may not need to look into before Tuesday maintenance.

While I understand BioWare's need to not have players gear up too quickly (cos time played = money), I think we need to put a cap on the number of characters per account who can earn full rewards for participating in Personal Conquest. Like, after 3 characters on the account get the full reward, subsequent toons who complete a personal conquest earn lesser rewards (say, 75 Medals versus the full 200). As an added bonus, since only 3 toons per account would earn full rewards, it might force the mega-family Conquest guilds to actually prioritize 1 or 2 guilds and make the rest of their stable of guilds "alt guilds", opening up the leaderboard a bit...I don't know about you, but two-thirds of the 30 leaderboard spots of a standard 3-planet week being occupied by guilds whose ownership can be traced back to just 3 unique account-holders doesn't really sit well with most folks (and I say that as someone who was once part of a mega-guild).

Well, this thread went downhill quickly...I see gaming has a long way to go to address the elitism/ableism present in the community. And yes, MMOs are meant to be social, but if you value social aspect with complete strangers that much, I know of at least 6 places in my town (to say nothing of the workplaces in other towns/cities) that would love to hire you and put you in front of guests/customers on Day 1.

I'm finding that companions crowd control ability (Stasis Field, Dark Tempest, etc.) is not working correctly. As in, the effect is landing on the enemy in question (I can see Dark Tempest starting up), but after 0.25 seconds the target is back to firing at me. There is no periodic damage effects on the enemy, there was no resist from the enemy, no direct damage was recorded on the enemy being CC'd after the CC ability was fired, the enemy is at greater than 90% health, and yet the CC ability doesn't work for the full 10 seconds.

Yeah, and these types of dungeon runs are EXPLICILTY FORBIDDEN by Blizzard. They even made several posts on their forums saying as such, and have closed multiple accounts. Now, if people are paying for such services with in-game credits (in the case of WoW, a few gold coins), Blizzard (and I'm assuming EA/BioWare) won't care much (I actually sold runs for free or for a few gold coins in WoW Classic, and then used the money from both proceeds and loot to clean out the auction house of bags and gave those bags away FOR FREE to random strangers in the starter zones who just started a new toon). The instant 1 cent or more of real money is involved in any of the 5 steps above, it's against ToS and the seller is at risk of getting suspended/banned. Unfortunately, the real money runs were so prevalent with the relaunch of WoW Classic/TBC Classic that Blizzard had to introduce multiple "counter-boost" mechanics in several popular low level dungeons to try and stop the practice. All it did was drive away legitimate folks like myself and others who sold boosts for in-game currency...while doing nothing to stop the people who sold boost runs for real money. As one person eloquently noted on the WoW forums back when the problem first reared its ugly head, "You can introduce as many "anti-boost" mechanics as you can possibly think up, the RMT will just ignore the changes and keep doing what they're doing. The only thing that will deter them is permabans." Long way of saying, if BioWare isn't willing to actually take time and actually deter RMT should the problem rear it's ugly head in 7.0/7.1...or worse, if they put in several "cheap anti-boost mechanics" to try (and fail) to stop the problem...well, the 10th anniversary of this game will not end positively for anyone. Sorry, this post got a bit ranty, but there's a reason why some of us left WoW Classic shortly after launch of TBC Classic...and that was before Blizzard's legal troubles became common knowledge.

Alright, before I begin my attempt to jump in-game, I do want to note that I talked with my guild (or more accurately, my family of guilds, since we have guilds on both pub and imp side), and 2 pub guildies both confirmed they are in-game and having no issues atm. And I also have not gotten a single download, even after leaving the launcher up for 15 minutes at least. I use the launcher and not Steam. I am a sub, if that makes any difference. Alright, here goes nothing... UPDATE: I just logged in to my Sith Inquisitor successfully. No problems thus far. Star Forge player, if that makes any difference. UPDATE 2: Just checked my mail (GTN sales), and while I don't know if this is related in any way, shape, or form to the current launcher issues, some of the mails are saying a generic "Someone bought this item" without any description of the item bought nor the person buying it...and with no credit amount the GTN took as commissions.

Just logged into launcher for first time today. No download. Need to heat up some grub quickly just in case these thunderstorms lashing outside my home shut down my microwave and oven again, but after I eat I'll try clicking play and see what happens.

And, as of this morning, more hate mail from the people whose match was "allegedly" ruined by me and other "non-PvPers". Ok, TiVo back to 2 days ago, which was the last time I played SWTOR prior to this morning. I log in, checked what my daily POs were and discovered that I needed to complete 1 more GSF match. "Ok", I thought. So I queue up, land in a Domination match. Match starts. Initially, the other team was handing us our rear ends, as they quickly took control of all 3 satellites. Then, somehow, some way, we not only managed to retake all 3 satellites and come back from being a little over 300 points down, but also win by over 300 points. And for the first time in my short GSF career, I ended up getting multiple final blows (for the record, I consider myself extremely lucky when I get 1 final blow in a match. Not getting focus-fired/killed 5 or more times in a match is considered a victory in my book). So, I go back to doing PvE crap, having done my share of PvP for the day, and after completing my daily POs, I call it a good day, log off, and head outside to help the family out with the landscaping (and it was beautiful, if a bit muggy). And then we come to today... I log in after doing a little bit more post-graduation job hunting (and before you ask, my job hunting has yielded squat, at least in terms of jobs that fit well with my degree...I'm currently planning to just take another stupid hourly position until the job market in my field opens up some more)...and I notice that I have 3 in-game mails that isn't from the Galactic Trade Network. Incidentally, I recognize the sender's names, cos I recognized one of the senders as one of my opponents from the match I mentioned earlier, while the remaining 2 were from teammates. Considering I've received a crap-ton of hate mail since I started dipping my toes into the PvP world as a result of Galactic Seasons, I expected that the 3 in-game mails were hate mail. And boy, was I right. Teammate 1 sent an in-game mail that essentially said "Good afternoon, you sad sad dumb Zoomer. Please stay out of GSF. If you can't, jump off a cliff." Meanwhile, Opponent 1 sent a message threatening to hack into my computer, encrypt all my files, and hold my computer for ransomware, with the "ransom" being my death. I will confess, I laughed at this one, if only cos I just activated my ransomware protection that comes with the anti-malware. And finally, Teammate 2's mail, which I laughed for a couple minutes if only cos this person copied, almost word-for-word, the entire lyrics from the bridge of the song "Down With The Sickness" by the heavy metal band Disturbed. For those who may not have heard that song, the bridge of "Down With The Sickness" essentially is where the lead singer of Disturbed role-plays a young boy who is getting some corporal punishment from his mother. After getting his rear end whooped, instead of learning from his mistakes, the young boy goes berserk, shouts a bunch of NSFW insults at his mother before grabbing some unnamed weapon and telling his mother to get ready to die. Yes, the bridge of "Down With The Sickness" would lead to an instant pink slip at work, even if you muttered it under your breath...yes, the bridge of that song is why said song is banned from MTV/VH1, and yes, all YouTube videos that feature "Down With The Sickness" requires potential viewers to sign in with an account whose owner is 18+...and for that reason, I will not link the song here. ********************* To make a long story short, since I've entered GSF for the same reason most of us entered GSF...because of Galactic Seasons...I've been getting hate mail from individuals who, I must assume, is angry that their match quality is not very high. Why, I wonder, must they send hate mail to people they don't even know? Is it because they are upset at people who dare threaten the "integrity" of their PvP matches? Is it because they had their premade split up and now they have to carry a bunch of random nobodies who are just there for a couple matches and then will quickly bail? Or is it because people as of late have been taking video games WAY TOO SERIOUSLY and need to go outside and get some sunlight for once? Think on that. I'll be back later when I can be bothered.

I have just finished my 3 unranked warzones to complete this stupid weekly PO. I will admit, the matches was fun...that was sarcasm, by the way. It was entirely unplayable. All 3 matches were utter stomps. And you know why they were stomps? Because hardcore PvPers were matched up against people who just want their stupid weekly PO done and over with. People on the "non-hardcore group" often intentionally threw matches just to get out of there faster. The hardcore PvPers in Huttball matches would take advantage of the fact that no one on the non-hardcore team wanted to play by setting up 3 players in the opposing end zone, wait for someone to send a ball up and then scored...and no one on the non-hardcore matches even bothered to try and contest them, because again, they just want to get their weekly PO done. And of course, lots of players in one place means a crap ton of lag, to the point where even attacking someone is a hit-or-miss scenario where one instant they are at one spot, the next they are 90 meters away. And to make matters worse, I received 2 pieces of hate mail from throwing teammates basically saying "Stop trying and let the other team win" before listing a number of incendiary comments about my mog (which by the way, I don't care about my mog as much as some of you, so your mog insults have no effect on me). PvP these days is bad for kids. The Galactic Season Weekly/Daily POs failed to "revive" PvP, but instead resulted in "ruined" PvP as a result of people throwing matches 24/7 leading to easy stomps. The devs should realize that Galactic Season + PvP is a bad combo and should remove them ASAP, cos almost no one except for a few hardcore PvP guilds (the number of which is dwindling by the day) want to do PvP. Rant over. I will now take my official permaban from this forum. King Crazy out!

If it's any consolation, about 15 minutes ago we finally completed a GSF Team Deathmatch where the score ended 50-1. Yes, 50-1. I can't honestly tell if we were fighting a premade or if we had a multiboxer, but sadly I was unable to capture proof because my Print Screen key on my keyboard is for whatever reason not functioning correctly. If the entire goal was to increase interest in PvP by adding those daily POs, then sorry, but all you're gonna get is players just queueing in, flying around with no intention of capturing objectives or damaging opponents, complete the match and then go back to PvE. Faction war/PvP is unfortunately very, very dead. And studios who attempt to revive it have paid the price. Cases of point: RIFT: Attempted to release a Battle Pass and increase interest in PvP. That game is now in maintenance mode, with devs essentially releasing small changes only once in a blue moon. World of Warcraft: Released Battle for Azeroth as an attempt to prove to shareholders that faction war wasn't dead. Mass exodus of players ensued, and it took a re-release of the classic version of the game as well as a complete redesign of the entire game (from the tutorial to the leveling system to even classes abilities) to finally stop the bleeding. The mass exodus also caused other MMOs to have to spin up additional server hardware to handle all the new players. Make no mistake. If players wanted to PvP, they'd go play a MOBA or a team-based FPS.