Once again, from a retired Army guy, helping a soldier desert would NEVER be a light side choice, no matter what the circumstances.

As a retired Army guy, that one bothered me a lot.

I don't think shared suffering has to be the necessary mechanism that drives a community. It wouldn't call it a necessary mechanism but it is the most effective. Someone already said it, I don't really need anyone else to play this game. I've got a level 43 tropper who got there by soloing about 95% of the time. The times I actually did group content was when I happened to be standing in front of the instance when someone did an LFG in General or, in one case, just happened to be there too. Another thing about UO was that it was one big continent. There were I think 7 cities but everyone showed up at the main bank at one time or another. You really couldn't do much without running into a large percentage of the shard's population over and over again. Chances were also pretty good that they would either try to kill you or save you from being killed. With this game, you spend a few levels on one planet then move on. I've been thru Coruscant so many times I can do it in two evening sessions. In UO, you played the entire game basically in one place. In this game, you never stay in one place more than a few days. Since there is no true conflict, no one really needs anyone else. Whoever said that this game does not promote a community hit it right on the head. This is a problem with our society in general. When I was growing up in North Texas, chances are very good that your neighbor when you were born could still be your neighbor when you graduated high school. They became like extended family. With our mobile society these days, that has changed substantially so a lot of people don't even know the names of someone who lives two houses away.

I'm gonna add this as a FWIW. The best and tightest community I've ever seen in any MMO didn't have chat. That was UO. They had guilds but they were little more than a tag over your head. There was no grouping per se. Enemies were hated and friends were for life. What UO had and no other MMO has had since was real conflict. If someone killed you, they could loot you nekkid. You could play the game solo but you were gonna die a LOT which meant you were gonna lose all your stuff a LOT. You made friends to survive and you had what felt like real wars. There were nights I couldn't sleep because of stuff that happened in game, it was that intense. I've got friends from my UO days I still actively game with, they'll probably be my friends for life. I've met a lot of people since I left UO but have kept up with almost none of them. Like I said, just a FWIW.

So Blizzard is to blame for making a game a lot of people want to play, right?

It's mostly RP stuff, a place to hold guild meetings and the like. The only MMO I've seen that made a guild house useful was UO. There were no levels in UO, you leveled your skills and you did that, expecially for weapon skills, by sparring with people higher than you. We spent a LOT of time hanging out on the roof of our guild house leveling each other. Also, since the world was a dangerous place, the guild house was also a nice place to gathr for starting a raid or dungeon crawl. All you needed was someone who could open a gate to your desired destination and everyone could go together. SWG did have some features that made guild houses useful as well but nothing like UO.

It would have been nice if he actually said something we didn't already know.

Just like I don't understnad how you can run, fight and chat at the same time, you have no clue what it's like to be as single minded as I am. I don't care how easy it is, I simply cannot do two things at once. It has it's advantages, I have an extremely high degree of concentration and can laser focus on a task but trying to do things at once just guarantees a double fail.

You guys worry way too much about this kind of stuff. Win or lose, who cares?

I've never understood how people can gab in general chat and do anything else but then I literally can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I think a lot of us are the same way, too busy concentrating on the game to be typing in chat.

How is WoW to blame for this? WoW did very little that was new, they took the same old formula and just kind of super sized it. Oh I know, let's blame their LFG function, that is always good for a few kicks. The only thing you can really blame WoW for is making MMOS accessible to the masses. I guess you neckbeards see that as a negative. The problem is that people have stopped playing this game. I was on the starting Sith area last night for three hours and the population never got over 20. That was from 6 - 9 PM on a Thursday night. Somehow, that's WoWs fault too I suppose.

I was making a new Sith warrior last night (I'm on Space Slug). At no time during my 3 hours or so of leveling from 1 to 10 did the population go over 20. Chat was almost completely silent. I don't think I saw one single group request for the two heroics. I get the whole holidays thing but prime time on a Thursday night? Austin, I think we have a problem.

I handle it this way. I make sure my hubby is asleep, 'cause he is sated, either physically or emotionally, Before I go play those emo RP things. It's really kinda simple. Take care of RL first. RL first, that kind of my message too. I used to take this MMO thing way too seriously, now I don't. She comes first, always will.

I'm ready to move on and tell them to 5$-@ off and go to ell. Bu I've played with them for years across multiple games. What would you do? Get over it or tell them how you feel then get over it. You don't leave your friends because of one incident.

Now both of you have this problem that will never be solved because you have basically told her that it is ok and good to irrationally believe imaginary characters are threatening her relationship First off, I appreciate the rational discussion we've been having. It's refreshing. You're missing an essential point here, the imaginary characters aren't the problem, my interaction with them is the problem. I choose to do the flirting. Extrapolating this out in my wife's mind, that means I'm looking for something she isn't providing and I'm doing it without telling her. All kinds of trust issues and sneaking around stuff there. You can't see this because I don't have the skill to explain it but I understand it. To her, it's like I was watching ****. Once again, it doesn't matter that it's irrational because to her, it is. Is it a little mental, yes. Am I going to change it? Maybe. Should I continue this behavior in the mean time, well, that would just be stupid. Right and wrong don't come into the conversation, they are totally irrelevant.

No, I completely understand everything you guys have said. I even agree with most of it. What you guys don't get is that everything is relative. I see the in game virtual flirting thing as completely harmless. My wife feels like it's a betrayal and gets upset about it. Two COMPLETELY different reactions to the same situation. Which one is more valid? That's the question, are her feelings invalid simply because I say they are irrational? Even if you agree that they are irrational, that doesn't make them, in fact, invalid. You can't turn every disagreement into WW III because, I wish more people understood this, no one wins in a war.

What's the purpose of using profanity in general chat? Do you go to the mall and scream out profanity? Do you use it when talking to your grandmother? Just because you can do something isn't an excuse to do it. Don't get me wrong, I could out cuss any of you on my worst day but there is a time and place for everything. Screaming obscenties in public, yes general chat is "public", is just flat rude and there is seldom an excuse for rude behavior.

People need to realize that "feelings" aren't ALL IMPORTANT. Sometimes feelings need to be reigned in and controlled by reason. If everyone reacted to the world based solely on their base feelings without pause to think and rationalize them we'd all be in utter chaos. She needs someone who loves her to help her realize that her behavior isn't acceptable. Her "feeling" that you're cheating on her with your videogame companion is WRONG. Yes, I said it... feelings CAN be wrong. Anyone who argues otherwise should think about this: Feelings are a part of what makes us human. Feelings are important but so is rational thought but the two are NOT mutually exclusive. Valentines day is a good example. I see it as a totally useless holiday, created by Hallmark to sell cards. My wife and I had a long discussion about this and she agreed with me but admitted that it is still important to her. So, my choice was 1. Ignore her feelings and tell her to get over it. 2. Celebrate Valentines day I chose 2. If I had put my foot down and refused to acknowledge Valentines day, she probably wouldn't have given me any grief about it but every time it rolled around and the other womens were getting flowers and stuff, she would have felt bad about it. I love her, I care about her, I don't ever want to be the cause of her feeling bad. So, I take her out to dinner, I get her a card, I send her flowers or whatever. I probably spend 30 minutes doing something nice for her around a holiday I don't believe in. Sometimes feelings are important. Ignore them at your own risk.

Offense is always taken, not given. FWIW, I don't get offended because I agree with you, no one can offend me unless I let them. However, it comes down to intent. It's easy to tell the difference between someone who is just insensitive, uneducated or just downright stupid and someone who is trolling for a reaction. There is no benefit to keeping a griefer around, we're all playing a game here to relax and have fun, listening to some pathetic loser spout his nonsense is neither relaxing or fun so he needs to go. There is no defense anyone can mount for these people, they need to go play by themselves or learn some manners. Option two is not my responsibility but I have the power to help option 1 on it's course.

It really depends on what they do. Swearing is just flat rude, I'll just put them on ignore. Racial slurs and other more offensive stuff gets a report and a spot on the ignore list.

I can appreciate that. My wife and I both had a lot of issues to work thru when we got married. Holy pizza box to the head Batman, we almost killed each other in the first few years. I'm just glad we made it. She really is my soul mate. FWIW, most of the time, soul mates are made, not born.

I don't understand. In Beta I played the story thru to see where it went and how they handled the sex thing. I ended up in Jaxo's quarters, move in for the kiss, lights go out and then we're dressed in our armor again but we have obviously been doing the nasty. Yes I know this broke my promise. If she had walked in, I would have shown her what was going on. When I hit that point after launch, I kept hitting no and after a "It's not going to happen", that ended it. Two completely different outcomes.

I agree with you that the things that happen to us become our responsibilty but no matter what you say, you can't turn off your feelings like flipping a switch. You can't simply forget the pain because you decide to. It would be nice if this were the case but it's not. If you tell me you never have those old feelings and that they never come back to haunt you, you'll be lying. How you deal with them is another issue all together.

They are different. When I'm watching a movie and they reach a sex scene, it doesn't stop and say: 1. Walk out 2. {flirt} Take it off Baby 3. Stand silently and watch. Jaxo? came on to my trooper like a $3 ******, I just kept telling her no until she left me alone. It actually made it a bit easier to do something later in the game and, from a retired Army Sgt, it's what a soldier (I'm a Lt at this point, she is a Sgt) should have done. I made that choice. See the difference?

That's what you don't get, it's not her fault, it's the way she was raised. She didn't choose to let this stuff bother her. Can she "get over it", probably but it's not like flipping a light switch. Should I continue hurtful behavior just to please myself? I know you see this as a fundamental issue but your attitude just sounds incredibly selfish to me.