I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt LucasArts is putting any sort of input at all into network management or any of the other technical aspects of running an MMO. I think it is more likely LucasArts would concentrate solely on issues directly involving the Intellectual Property that is the Star Wars franchise. I personally think it is more likely BioWare picked up some of the same people (or use the same PR firm as SOE), they are following what other games have done, or PR folks are learning the same techniques (either in school or from whichever PR firm they come from). Disclaimer: This post is meant to be conversational and is in no way intended to be rude, mocking, or negative in any way toward any community member.

I responded before reading the other responses because I wanted to offer my own impressions. However, I really like what you're suggesting for the barber shop. I'll be honest, I was gravely disappointed with the Legacy races because I misunderstood how the Cyborg unlock would work. I thought unlocking the Cyborg would allow you to place cybernetic options on other races during character creation. Given your idea above, I think the Barber Shop (or Body Shop lol) would be an excellent way to incorporate the Cyborg legacy unlock in a meaningful way by allowing us to add Cybernetic options to the other races and would add a little more of a role-play feel to character development (personal story-wise). Disclaimer: This post is meant to be conversational and is in no way intended to be rude, mocking, or negative in any way toward any community member.

I want an opt out for romance options. It could be as easy as hiding any chat option that starts with (Flirt). Call it Parental Control or something. (to be clear: opt out means the individual or account holder can determine for themselves if these options ever appear for them while they are playing and would NOT affect anyone else.) Disclaimer: This post is meant to be conversational and is in no way intended to be rude, mocking, or negative in any way toward any community member.

I think their point is if you continue to subscribe you are supporting BioWare and if you continue to play you are participating. I get your point and I am not arguing or being rude in any way, shape, or form. I am simply offering my impression of what "participation and support" means. I hope you understand. Thank you. Disclaimer: This post is meant to be conversational and is in no way intended to be rude, mocking, or negative in any way toward any community member.

You only see the server status when you are logging in. That means there can easily be queues when you are already logged in and would not know. The hours have been a little off as well the last couple of nights (on Ebon Hawk). At 2030 last night, the server was only showing Heavy. At 2215, it was showing Full. That was a little late for a population boost (usually starts to hit earlier) but I was surprised. Queues can and do happen. That's awesome you have not experienced them. Personally, I have only experienced them 5 or 6 times on Ebon Hawk since the transfer (though several of the others show them nearly every night). My issues, however, revolve around the overcrowding. I just wanted to point out how the population can spike and you not be aware of it. Disclaimer: This post is meant to be conversational and is in no way intended to be rude, mocking, or negative in any way toward any community member.

Well, I guess this is the difference: I separate real life from fiction. Sure, I would feel remorse if the beings I was killing or otherwise harming were real. I do feel bad for the homeless who didn't put themselves there for making poor life choices. At the same time, the fact that video game creatures (and those in movies, etc) are not real removes any guilt associated with it. Otherwise, why would I ever torture myself by playing most video games? Yes, I do have empathy and when I watch a movie I do feel for the characters. To me, that is the entire point of watching a movie. However, I get over it fairly quick. Ever heard "it's just a movie?" That's why people say it. It's just a movie. Just like this is just a video game. No hard feelings. It's cool that you are so empathetic. I do get what you're saying. Yes, I did feel a little sad upon discovering the fate of Taris, but it was the same as when I feel for a character in a movie. I felt it. I acknowledged it (actually thinking it was cool that a story evoked some sort of reaction), but then I moved on. Honestly, I only responded because it seemed like you were taking it a little too hard. Again, it's all good with me that you have a lingering feeling. I'd say embrace it because it's amazing when a story is so well written (especially in a video game) that it leaves lingering feelings. Honestly, if my fiction writing evokes that sort of response from people, I'd feel pretty darn talented. I still think seeing the effects of time (good or bad) is a cool feature of playing SWTOR after having played the first two in the series though. Take care.

Great question! I've been asking the same thing myself. I'll make a deal with you... if you get the answer before I do, let me know. Likewise if I find out the same. I assume it's just for the characters on the server since it is an incentive ("reward" as they call it) for transferring characters, but assumptions aren't good enough anymore.

True. For the naysayer, I don't think forced means "at gun point" in this context. I think it means, due to BioWare's action (or in this case, inaction) people felt they had no other choice.

I think it's weak BioWare is shoving aside the most well known and popular races from the movies to support their love of Thundercats (yes, I loved them too, but c'mon... this isn't Elder Scrolls). In order to hopefully prevent the follow-up racial addition from being pandas, I'll vote: 1. Rodian 2. Trandoshan 3. Mon Calamari Edit: Doh! Totally forgot about Kel Dor. Ah well...

It'll be in August. It'll be after the puppy treats have been distributed. That's what "server merges" mean.

As intended.... http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=502186

No MMO company can truly "win" with everyone. Most of us know that. The damage of poor decision making at launch was already present. The key, from my perspective, was to take the damage control seriously. Marketing gimmicks and wordplay is not damage control when you are dealing with at least semi-intelligent people. We're not watching commercials on television. "If you act now, we'll throw in a set of Ginzu knives," just isn't going to cut it (pun intended). Neither was the obviously veiled attempt to make us feel as though transferring was optional. The only thing that that makes it seem like the marketing tricks should've worked was that people are actually coming around now acting all surprised merges are coming. BioWare would still get complaints, but if they truly wanted to control the damage, they would've handled this situation exactly like this guy (and many of us have for the past nearly 2 months now) have suggested: I don't like to be treated like a moron. I feel like they expected me to be moronic enough to not see very clearly what they were doing. Now, not only did they treat me like a moron ("What a maroon" beat ya to it), but they strung this thing out over a month so far, it will clearly be strung out through the rest of this month, they will continue to string it out over next month (with the actual merges) and then, finally I'll have an option where I want to move. It's annoying. It's frustrating. It's insulting. That's what had me so up in arms over the last week or so. I'm over losing the names I paid extra to have a chance to get (unique or not, it is what I paid early and extra for). I'm over losing my Legacy name (which I powerleveled and missed story and immersion to try and get quickly so I could have my choice). I'm over losing a reputation built up over 5 months (linked to my names, but more importantly my Legacy name). I'm over having to move from a server with a population I didn't mind all that much to one I don't even want to reach 50 on or play the 50s I have. The last hope I feel like I have is the chance to move (for free) to the server my friends of years ended up on. I'm tired of watching BioWare do everything except that, but we'll see. I'm certain the day paid transfers come with no character consolidation or free moves to a destination server of choice will be the last straw. Here's to hope *lifts glass*. BioWare does a lot of things right. When the things they do wrong affect people to their core, or in their wallets, it's difficult to stay focused on the good things.

Actually, it is true for me and apparently many others. It's been so bad for me that I don't even play my 50s anymore. Again, just because you don't experience a problem does not the problem doesn't exist for others.

Obviously. That is why they explicitly state, "By taking advantage of the Free Character Transfer Service today, you will earn an exclusive in-game pet, the Gannifari, and 25 Black Hole Commendations to help purchase high level gear. If you already have characters on a qualifying server (including destination servers), then you get rewarded too!" It's pretty clear the merges will not happen until after August 7th and if you don't "voluntarily" transfer before July 31st, you will eventually be moved anyway and not receive the incentives. Also, where it says, "By taking advantage of... today," they don't mean you have to do it today, July 10th. It is marketing talk for "soon." Like, "Act now and we'll include a set of Ginzu knives free!" They just want it done ASAP.

LOL! We've been telling you guys this for months. This might be the best point I've seen, though. I do believe (and have from the beginning) that it was an issue of semantics and is the marketing illusion of choice they were going for. I could not figure out what the endgame was for BioWare with the semantics argument since I knew there was no way they would leave hundreds of servers open for just a few people on each and would eventually have to force transfers and shut down those servers. I think they underestimated the power of character names, legacies, and reputation based on both. Oh, and the fact many people prefer to play on medium to heavy servers instead of very heavy to overcrowded servers. Just my thoughts.. I could be totally off base. I have realized that regardless of what I think this is BioWare's car. Either I can pitch in for gas money (sub) and go along for the ride or I can save my money and walk. Overall, I'm on the fence but I have more desire to ride along than I do to walk at the moment.

Well, I am certifiable at times so I just went through the entire list. As mentioned, all of the characters I've ever had any character on can be logged into. There are many, however, I know I never logged into before that I can also log into now. The problem is, as mentioned, my son also plays on my account and I cannot say for certain which servers he might have made a character on and deleted it. I am fairly certain the list of servers that I can now log into is larger than the list of servers I have made characters on which have since been deleted. BioWare can probably check to see if this is the case since I cannot remember (or do not know) all of the servers I have toyed with since launch.

Yes and no. I did end up creating many characters at launch, but I do know there are some server types (and various U.S. Regions) I tried today I never created a character on before. There were two where I had characters previously on my list, however. I'm just testing it now. I'm not intending to play any of these characters. I just noticed when I first logged in all of the servers showed as open. I logged in to start missions and then logged out to let my son play on his server. The second time I was on the server select screen I noticed the origins were now locked. So I logged into a server with a character and tried to create one (out of curiosity) and could. So I decided to try and see if I could on a locked server with no characters and could. That's what led me to this post... sheer curiosity. I do have similar concerns regarding your second point, but that is a different discussion entirely. I won't update this thread anymore because I don't see it as helpful, but now I know they're working on it so all will be well.

Then you have my apology for the misunderstanding. That was a great explanation and is more in-line with how I thought these things work.

Yeah... I've tried 6 servers so far and only 1 of them was actually locked for me. I have no doubt they are working on it.

Okay.. I do see this now: To continue to enhance the overall gameplay experience for current and new players, we have eliminated the option to create new characters on selected origin servers. Visit http://www.swtor.com/transfer to see a list of all the selected origin servers that will be affected. Before you lock the thread, I though I would mention it is NOT working as intended, then. I can log into any locked server and create a character. I've done it now on 4 different servers I did not have characters on.

So I noticed this morning BioWare "locked" all the origin servers. This was a great move on their part except that, upon testing, I can still log into a "locked" server I have no characters on and create a character. I understand letting people who already have characters on a server create more characters or use the server until the merges come. However, I just thought I would mention having a server show as "locked" and it not actually be locked is confusing. I hope that wasn't intentional.

Hey.. what is that? Is it... is that a forest? *squints* I can't tell from here. There are too many trees in the way. I understand a professional would look at my analogy and think I'm comparing apples to Oldsmobiles, so I appreciate anyone taking it seriously enough to respond. I used an analogy because we don't really have concrete numbers. I do have research I conducted in the weeks leading up to the transfers, but they are observations, not concrete numbers. That's why I didn't use them. I was thinking of the server load descriptions as absolutes. I do realize the thresholds can be altered so a different descriptor can be used. For instance, 100 people could make a server change from Light to Standard. The next day, they could raise that limit to 200 and I would be none-the-wiser. It would appear no change was made at all on my end. Further, I was mistaken in assuming all of the server thresholds were set the same. It occurred to me this morning that different servers could have different thresholds to handle different loads and, once again, I would have no idea. I could log into the different servers and research the time, but even that is insufficient to draw a reasonable conclusion. While I was incorrect about all of that, I cannot help but think proper communication from the BioWare team leaves no room for assumptions and they could have (and perhaps should have) explained the rough outline of their plan in more detail. Some of us are "too smart for our own good" and over analyze things, whether we want to or not. What I can guess now is July was "Free transfers to specific servers" month. It appears August will be "Server Merge" month. I'm guessing by September we will have "Less restrictive" transfers.. paid or not. (Edit: I just removed the bit about the F2P implementation and locked servers as there is a bug involved that is being resolved.) If I've learned anything, I've learned that guessing is guessing and gets me nowhere fast. I'll just hedge my bets with RecklessMEDIC. While I have no indication he knows any more than I do, he speaks with enough confidence for me and about 20 others. At this point, that's good enough for me.

Wow. Was this intended to be a facetious comment? You totally wrecked my train of thought on this one. While even someone of my limited programming experience could explain a few things about programming where you are totally off-base, I'll let someone more experienced do it. Instead, I'll just point out a few things that I find irritating. First, where are we outsourcing our programming to? Outter space? You do realize this is a global forum, right? This area specializes in the English language, not the United States. Also, you are implying that most people in the United States are too stupid to handle mathematics, let alone programming. While that may be true for you and I, my wife (with her Master's Degree in Mathematics) would sincerely disagree with your assessment. I've programmed far more than she has in my lifetime and if it were not for fingers and toes I could not count past 5. You might have to understand the base concepts of advanced math to program in advanced languages, but not all programming requires extensive mathematics skill. No programming, that I am aware of, require you to come from a country other than the United States. Very few meaning what, exactly? I've been involved with MMOs since 1998. Nearly every MMO I have ever played has incorporated server transfers to one degree or another. I don't think it's as mystical a science as you claim. I would agree with your choice of "few" if you are comparing every single MMO that has ever been developed in any part of the world because that would include thousands of them. Still, it would only be a guess because I have only played around 8 or so. Finally, I have no problem with giving them time if they can do the same for me. You see, I pay a reoccuring monthly subscription. When I cancel my subscription and my play time lapses I am unable to log into the game to play. I can call them up and say, "Hey, I don't get paid until next week. GIVE ME TIME!" and do you know what would happen? I'm willing to bet they would not give me time. The only real power I have (assumed or not) as a consumer is whether or not I open my wallet. No amount of caps, extra exclamation marks, or any other font changes will convince me or anyone else that we have to give BioWare anything more than a subscription fee and only if we intend to play at that time. Thanks, but no. They do not "give me time," so I will not "give them time." They can earn more time by having a game environment I enjoy playing in, just as I can earn the chance to play in their environment by paying them money. Those may be the simplest terms I can explain the consumer / service provider relationship with.

Incorrect. Also incorrect. If only saying it made it true. I think the problem is you are not speaking for yourself. You use words like "you" which means you are speaking for me or people in general. Unfortunately, you can neither speak for me nor people in general because you are not me or people in general. You are you. Speak for yourself and you are probably correct. And you're welcome.

Just for the record, I am typically a reasonable person. Thankfully, the sum of my being is not equal to some of my recent posts in this forum. When it comes to these rare situations, it usually only takes a week or so for the nerd rage to run its course (I updated my signature to reflect this lol). That is helped by other reasonable voices (usually external lol) that actually converse as if they have real knowledge of the situation. I sincerely wish that voice of reason had come from BioWare, but understanding business and politics as I do, I know why it’s coming from a few of you instead. Now that I have found a few reasonable voices (and the nerd rage virus has run its course – again), I thought I would expand my own knowledge base and ask a question you guys might actually be able to provide insight about. Clearly, I am a layman so I will not pretend otherwise and ask from a layman’s point of view. Who knows? Perhaps this analogy will help other laymen understand it as well. Essentially, the situation is like this: You have a glass nearly full of water. You have several other glasses of varying degrees of fullness. You want to consolidate all of the water into the fewest possible glasses. Why would you pour all of the water from the other glasses into the nearly full glass? Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave the nearly full glass alone and just fill one of the other glasses with the extra water? I have been thinking it makes more sense to have two nearly full glasses of water rather than having one overflowing glass of water. I think it would make less of a mess, at any rate. Those who I hope will answer will understand the analogy. The others will just troll me and I’m okay with that. I’ve always been able to better accept things when there is a solid ‘why’ attached. I’m hoping to better understand the logistics involved so that I can know best what to expect in the future and better prepare myself if I end up in a similar situation down the road. Thanks, in advance, for taking the time.