test hmmmmmmm swtor account: 10.21.08 1500th forum account My first post in years, the forum software has been updated a bit.

Just poppin' in to say the final "boss" of Mists of Pandaria is none other than current Horde Warchief Garrosh Hellscream.

Bioware is actively losing subscribers, hopefully they're making this the #1--lest they want the game to be reduced to a very niche audience. My friends have already quit over this issue.

The ability to play with other people on my primary server.

That's awesome, I'd like to thank you on behalf of people on servers like Master Zhar Lestin where we often cannot find a single person to play with--and our Republic guilds are dying quickly.

1. Tranfers/Mergers and a better grouping tool--no question. The game quite simply isn't fun when you have nobody to play with. I might as well go replay KotoR 1/2.

They're all saved to my HDD for emails and submissions to fansites and game blogs/websites. These are crude first drafts for idea syntheses. I suggest you read one. Or as many as you want. Reading isn't that hard once you get used to it. Also I get plenty of PMs and thread replies to long winded posts--sometimes it's right away sometimes it's 10/20 pages down the line.

This just seems evasive and lacks any sort of detail. This is the kind of statement devs typically give when there isn't even a start on the feature. He might as well have just said "Eventually." It's sad that this feature seems to be in it's infancy when it's so badly needed by the community. He has no enthusiasm concerning the issue here--makes it seem trite. In dealing with the press it's always wise to at least sound excited about making good on a problem. One little anecdote about how it came up in a board meeting would have made this a valuable response, even. Instead we get dead-pan nonchalance. That makes me feel like they aren't in touch with their consumer base at all. In the scope of ToR issues this is an awfully childish answer to a behemoth of a question regarding a game breaking concern.

Here's what you might want to seriously think about before you put out another press release to your community, no matter how rabid and unforgiving we may seem. I've broken it down into nice little paragraphs for those of us who hate endless walls of crammed text Call me paranoid but it really does seem like they're deliberately addressing bottom of the list issues here in order to avoid hitting controversial stuff. Problems that matter such as: empty, trapped servers, the fact that there's no reasonable system to form groups or chat channel that spans further than the fleet when you have to take a completely convoluted route to get back and forth lest you want to wait eight hours. We have a poorly designed UI panel to flag for LFG that nobody looks at, with no actual chat channel for groups to toggle on and off and no trade channel either. They literally want us to sit and spam general for everything and anything. This is where it seems like they haven't played other MMOs. This is **** that one other game did better at launch. Hell, not only did they dodge the fact that the game lacks fundamental features that it will need to succeed in the future, it seems the questions answered were deliberately selected because they were trite ********. Even questions like "When will they fix big-booty robes" or "When do we get a hood toggle" would have appeared more intelligent. This is **** that neither the hardcore, casuals or press give a single **** about and are easy to fix issues or have subjective evasive answers. Pathetic, embarrassing PR. They've astoundingly managed to try so hard to make a non-polarizing QA that it bit them back in the arse and they just look, well, like numb-skulls. Zero meaningful questions about actual gameplay systems and fundamental flaws with the engine and social elements of the game. It's like if a politician held a seminar discussion and during the question sections pre-screened everyone and only answered questions on his favorite brand of wrist watch. Sad to see things go this far south. Hope they get some better PR people and start cruising on making a game that allows people to socialize and meet people and work properly. And not treat community members like we're complete children. There's two ways to go from here: damage control or a path towards irrelevance and niche appeal. Hell, maybe the second would be better, a player dropoff significant enough to push major gaming press outlets might take Bioware out of this trance of content and features before fixing fundamentals attitude. Every damn engineer in that house should be working on fixing the server sprawl so paying customers can actually play the game. Also, to reiterate, server sprawl aside, this literally touches on nothing of particular significance in an MMO this early in its lifecycle and the responses are short and identical in structure "Something we may work" like a broken record. So what the hell are you working on, BW Austin? The next expansion pack? Building a lifesize replica of the Imperial Fleet? Because you're answering "flip switch" questions and the MMO community is going to continue to laugh at this. What fundamentals are you changing to make the boxed product we paid for a more enjoyable experience that we may not know about and when will playing this game in a social manner, particularly on a low population server, be fun? That's what I'd like to see in the next QA. P.S. Do you play your own game? I suggest you start a character and go 1-50 on a server whose population is "Low" at peak hours. See how the end game is. Even the leveling game. It's about as exciting as eating a bowl of nails, supplementing the milk with paint thinner. Actually that's exciting and horrific. It would have been more appropriate to say is that it's about as boring as an MMO can get--and we all know you can relocate issues and address your PR team if you were competent enough to erect this game in the first place. Our friends, the "casuals" the Star Wars folks and the "guys who quit that other game" are the folks that make this type of MMOs successful, profitable and subscription rich. They're all leaving in a bandwagon after realizing this game alienates players who attempt to play in a group, particularly after level 50. What baffles me the most is that when such a pathetic press release hits the community I actualize that someone, somewhere was put in charge of relaying questions and answers which mean nothing. Either that person Is being told to play it safe, has no idea how to do their job, or it's just inexcusably a misunderstanding of what's going on with your game community at large. Honest question to you, Bioware: do you want the game to retain it's status quo and become the game it deserves to be, or let your pride be your downfall? All we want is to play your "mmo" with other people. You possess the tech to dupe chars onto a PTR--how far can you be from allowing us to at least create duplicates (with a time limit to avoid excessive exploitation) in the live game? ...otherwise what good is putting all your talent on all these content updates if there's no infrastructure to ensure it's being enjoyed by a healthy majority of core players. *No biblical reference intended. Specificity, even if it's something I disagree with, I'll always respect. But this is intolerable. At least have an dialogue with reasoning of some sort.

Read this first: A summary of this story may be found at the very bottom of this post. But for the masochistic... ---------------------------------------------------- The old Republic Desperately needs to control subscription Hemorrhage resulting from Excessive player Sprawl Across Low Population, Ghost Town Servers. It's sad to see an MMO in it's infancy look dead and barren like the Mohave, with the healthy servers acting as Las Vegas, where lucky core players conquer content and sanctuary is provided for those willing to level up an entirely new character. The prior character they worked so hard on that now sits like a lone, browned cacti surrounded by miles of cracked, dry earth and infinitely long Warzone queues with a dehydrated PVE community on the cusp of death, the only trading post being a GTN that rattles like a can full of five pennies. These proud comfortably populated towns have, since the free month, been gradually reduced to dust and dried up pastures. The few who remain leave their homes only to be disappointed with the lack of opportunities for an accomplished adult. The free month and launch hype migrants have come and gone, and the settlements which remain are distant but serve to remind us of what our hard work could have resulted in. Instead, we grovel alone or break bottles in taverns. The amount of players on these communities combined, however, sport a population several times that that of the thriving and densely populated top five locations. Many refugees are rerolling into the big cities, dropping out altogether or leaving the desert for familiar yet less adventurous pastures. ...but ToR isn't the Mohave, is it? I don't know, it's become a bit hazy like smoke filled taverns under lonely Nevada skies. Things may not change, the towns could dry up like so many did after the great westward migration picked communities dry like vultures on the stringly carcass of a lone wandering buffalo. We could watch as players leave en masse towards supposed mountains of gold and lush farmlands, areas myself and my people don't much care for. IF we had working cars, trains, busses or even bikes we'd make our way to Vegas, Lancaster and even Victorville. Perhaps what would really be most wonderful, though, would be a way to band our distant communities together and form cities in our beloved desert! Thrive without relying on places like Vegas. If folks find a way to rebuild in those cities, that's great! But whispers of unity stop the quicksand from pulling our towns into complete limbo. Whispers and rumors of cluster convergence and allegiances. A way to thrive again without losing one another. Day after day we lose more--and when one family member leaves, the rest are sure to follow. We desperately need a catalyst, or at least an upfront plan to stop the destruction of our communities in our beautiful desert as the sun beats down on us, sweating up our backs and remind us each day may be our last. As homes are evicted it's only a matter of a month or so before we become extinct and leave the Mohave altogether, after years of loyalty since the founding years of our adored town-steads. So when the next wagon arrives and I hitch the horses I hope to take said carriage towards a summit to discuss matters of unity, so our communities can thrive amongst one another and the bleeding can stop and our friends can return. So that water may return to dry, crackled lips of lost vagabonds who seemed to have forgotten what being home felt like. In this open letter to the SWToR devs, I ask to have a more formal response on the urgent server population issues. Yes, I have read the post concerning the labor allocation and effort towards enabling server transfers. Said post is A. not easily accessible, B. indicates a time frame that may just bleed the game dry. What good is new content when the majority of players don't have others to access it with. I'd give up my legacy levels to play the game I felt was advertised in a heartbeat. Like so many MMO gamers, I choose these types of games for achieving goals with others. Regrinding legacy is not a gamebreaker and can be added later after the bleeding has slowed. MMO players are throwing in the towel, even ardent defenders of the game reserve this as a primary concern--this should have been the first issue addressed, no matter how laborious of a task it is. Server emptiness looks, plays and appears bad. It cripples MMOs, and is actively turning people away in droves--making the problem even worse. Posts can be found on the issue across MMO news websites, communities and the general chat within thousands of player fleets within the game. The Old Republic is unhealthy because of server and player sprawl and they dance around questions pertaining to planetary level restrictions? Laughable. It's like they want their game to fail. Hell, if they have to, they should just allow players to move characters and have legacy be wiped. I could care less about legacy and I know I'm not the only one. Legacy enabled transfers could be implemented later AFTER the damage control. At least then I could occasionally play this MMO with someone. Just like you don't stitch up a muscle-deep limb wound before applying a tourniquet, you cannot wait until things like legacy carryover is worked out to fix the most glaring flaw this product is wounded by The bleeding must stop before the closing procedures allow for more comfortable living. A temporary solution must be enacted lest we wish more capable men and women to follow their countrymen to live all new identities (read: characters) within already bloated super-cities. This sort of cyclical bleeding of players from low pop servers isn't necessary. Allocate resources to ensure a fix of any kind happens before it gets too late. Pathetic that there's no easy to access place to find information about this. Probably because they don't want headlines to include a bit on dying server populations. It would ultimately be good for retaining... regaining and garnering new subscriptions to actually make the game worthwhile again for the majority of the playerbase who are scattered on completely dead servers in what is supposed to be a "massively multiplayer" game. Fix this now as it actually is getting too late. Before new operations, before customizing clothing or tinkering with professions and class balance. This forum represents a minority of people, many of whom are established in the MMO community and have groups to play with. That being said, the other million+ of your paying subscription base do not post here. Most of us who don't regularly post have already left or will soon. This can all be attributed to lack of players to adventure with. There's no excuse that this isn't coming with 1.2, allocate the resources if you want the game to succeed. Stop bull******** about classes lacking interrupts and planetary level restrictions when so many of us don't even have much of a game to play at all. It's just offensive. So frustrating. Worst part is I so badly want the game to survive because the fundamentals are damn fun--but for many of us the most rewarding gameplay in MMOs come from what their name implies. Playing with the masses. Plug the sinking ship, Bioware--stop prancing over micro level balance issues and officially announce the transfer feature that is supposedly in the works so my friends come back. The real PR disaster would be an EA shareholderholder meeting reporting an unsustainable business model because of poor resource allocation. I've seen a lot of MMOs die for neglecting these same issues. Good towns.. too bad hard times brought 'em to the grave. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TL; DR for impatient folk: This fantastic game needs server transfers or mergers to survive--and they should be the absolute top priority for the development team if they wish the game to survive. Give us an official announcement, please.

This is the first time I've seen a Bioware comment that just seems genuinely out of line. It doesn't even acknowledge that there's an issue at all--much less attempt to remedy the situation.

What a pathetic response to what is obviously a genuine issue with the high quality shadow setting. The average user won't understand the technical reasons as to why the high shadows setting looks crappy. Fix the damn slider at least. Or make an option called Lego shadows and maybe start adding features like DK heads and 8-bit character models. Medium looks better. You spend the majority of the damn leveling game outside. I'm not on the Bioware hate wagon, but this is genuinely misleading and needs fixing.

Thank you very much for this. I feel foolish for not having been able to find it!

Particularly those who have finished the leveling game. The core, or vital center of any MMO. Loyal repeated subscribers whom provide server backbone and persistent activity. Has it been stated that anything will be done about this in the near future? It's making my real life friends quit, gutting my guild and even killed the Warzones during peak hours. Anyone else play Republic on a launch server that has become a complete ghost town? I've actually recently rerolled just to enjoy the game again. I renewed for 3 months thinking this would be fixed by the time I was 50, and now my character just stays parked in the fleet. This needs to be fixed immediately or the games core subscribers will keep leaving. I'd like to hear a developer comment on this--or at least that they're making it a priority. We desperately need, at the very LEAST, paid server transfers. Or to make your consumers even happier; free character transfers. Mergers shouldn't be out of the question either. ToR's end game has a group focus, and if you can't find a group, the game ends. Does anyone at least have any advice on how to remedy this in the meantime? I'd like to give my friends who canceled some hope.

Qyzen Fess, without question

I don't do them because nobody else on my server does them. I'm wasting my time when I try to build a group at the fleet.

This thread epitomizes the kind of laughable entitlement some game consumers possess. Particularly those who are regular Bioware forum goers.

Asperger's

Yeah, it stinks, and doesn't deviate from the mudanities of the average MMO. You park your toons, tire of the leveling game, and queue up for BGs or try to find FP/OP groups. Hell, I can't even be arsed to get my character on my ridiculously low-pop (launch server) character to 50. A lot of the quests are more boring than what WoW has to offer in Cataclysm. I'm hoping for something more at 50, but until server transfers and a cross-realm LFG tool is implemented all I can do is cross my fingers (and cancel my account after the 3 months are up). MMOs are just as much about story as they are about grouping to me. If I have no folks to heal, then there's just no damn point in my playing the game.

For the most part my concern is not Vette's gender, it's her attitude and treatment--I've made that perfectly clear. Also women have the legacy of being abused, marginalized and sexualized to the point of becoming objects--and for being shamed, even our justice system. But just as I don't expect the world to change overnight, I wouldn't want Star Wars to become some utopia which neglects those facts either, but it seems you've ignored some very obvious talking points which needn't even be researched to discover. Women are blamed worldwide for being the victim of sex crimes due to clothing and merely being out at night, etc. Just look at the strippers in the game. Let's not ignore historical and present facts on sexual objectification and crime. I must admit the topic hits me (and many others) very personally. How many male Twi'leks are dancing from poles in Nar Shadda if you consider a non-problem in Star Wars? (which it seems you can't make your mind up on. The surrounding issues are readily available statistics needn't be sourced here. It's an entire pillar of well documented study. Google will pull up hundreds of thousands of search results on this, particularly if you bring up the revelatory studies and talking points concerning third wave feminism (which defies the notion of any wave preceding it, there's no men hating). I bring these issues up given you brought up society in general. I wish these were points people were all well aware of, and I realize Star Wars has always been this way and just reflects reality but commenting on your post alone because it begs for criticism. Sigmund Freud notably excluded women from his studies--this is the fiercest point of criticism he often receives in contemporary psychology. He's often referred to as an outright misogynist That cigar quote, by the way, is actually satire--and is not something he actually said or wrote. here's a source with well documented academic journals. Not at all, haha. I tend towards a very self-contained attitude in the game itself, rarely speaking to anyone but group members on strategy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/05/star-wars-sexism-dark-side-vette-sex-torture-slave_n_1186371.html http://kotaku.com/5872687/its-not-star-wars-without-slavery-torture-and-forced-voyeurism http://n4g.com/news/714218/the-top-eight-sexist-games <---N4G hotlinked the below Spike article. http://www.spike.com/articles/xd7wnl/the-top-eight-sexist-games (won a lauded spot in the top ten!) http://www.themarysue.com/so-maybe-including-a-shock-collar-wearing-female-slave-in-the-old-republic-wasnt-the-best-idea/ http://lezgetreal.com/2012/01/sex-torture-and-controversy-in-star-wars-the-old-republic/ http://www.swtorstrategies.com/2012/01/is-swtor-bringing-back-retro- sexism.html <--- even taking some heat from the home team Alternatively, you could utilize Google. http://www.google.com

In regards to my continued posting here and behavior: Timidity and lying heavily on humility is enormously important--this is true. However you and I both know this is a board with a community who floats threads largely based on loud and heavily polarizing topics. Sadly, sometimes it helps to add arrogance (assuming it adds constructively to the subject and refrains from avoiding the ToS)--it garners bumps, views, discussion and passion. OK so this post isn't absolutely necessary. But in all honesty, sometimes to get a point across you have to defend your laurels with a bit of red meat. Even the most peaceful of revolutionaries were loud critics of their opponents and relied on a certain degree of grandiosity. But uh, yeah, I'm not Ghandi--I'm just saying, there's a difference between vehemency and dismissing those who oppose entirely. It's also just part of my character. I won't result to outright returning fire unless it adds to my central argument and this thread largely emphasizes that. I apologize if I often appear egotistical and pretentious, it's not my intention and I'll do my best to tone that down, really, but writing is my passion and passion is my writing--I'm being completely honest in the subject matter. -------------------------------------- One major thing that I expected and am trying my best to deal with is reiterating the same points over and over when presented with arguments I've addressed countless times. I'll do my best to ignore those types of posts now as I've made the mistake of consistently indulging these folks. Your question seems to have been honest, that's cool. I care a lot about Star Wars--haha. I also grew up on Bioware AND Star Wars, that contributes to my often fierce tone and self-promotion. I want to see the game mature, and this is one of the ways to communicate a major concern of mine and many others. I apologize for my overly heated attitude. While I do care about the issues at hand, I'll work on being a more active listener here. Cheers.

Again, it is my personal belief that the movies provide adequate character development and continuity to justify the portrayal of spoken atrocities. Even if you ignore that fact altogether, my argument centers around Bioware and the product by itself, not what one should expect from any external piece of media or literature. All forms of atrocity can be presented in a tasteful and commentative way to audiences. I am not condoning violence, sexuality or genocide being present in The Old Republic. That is indeed part of Star Wars. If you'd read the thread, you would have known that. My primary objection is towards how inconsequential and underdeveloped the context, characters and narrative is surrounding these disturbing sequences. Negligent authors. Irresponsible deployment of product. These are the bullet points I'm concerned with. post script* If the game was a vivid Crysis quality FPS showcasing inexcusably horrific crimes against humanity with nothing in between but included intelligently written dialogue and a proper marketing treatment that's fine by me.

Just a quick correction: I recall a specific occurrence on Hutta in which you can orphan a young child and take a bribe from his own mother to forcefully send him to Korriban to become a Sith. Maybe not physical violence against children, but undeniably mental and emotional violence. You do, after all, murder his father in cold blood right before his eyes and force him into a life of malevolent slaughter. (as implied by the dialogue) This is aside from my central argument. I'm not stating my opinion on that quest line, its writing or if it should change the way ToR is marketed. To reiterate, and I'm not referring to any content in particular. My stance remains in the belief that if these themes present themselves, I believe it should be the obligation of the content creators to add proper meaning and justification. I will not discuss the quest I mentioned in the beginning of this post, this thread has enough deviation from the intended topic.

Well by the logic of some of the less contributive posts in this thread, I should waltz over to my car and drive home without so much as glancing backwards. Yeah, I've picked a battle which to some might seem trite--and yes, it's somewhat selfish in the grand scope of things, but why not care? If you take the time to spend countless hours playing the game and frequent the message boards it seems a no-brainer to me to post about what I care about. You know, to use the boards for what they're intended for: feedback, discussion and community building. ------------------------------------ *off topic for a moment* TNT: We know Drama, ToR Forums: We Know Illiteracy, trolling and inability to think critically. Although I must say, given the public nature of the board and the size of the community I'm actually quite elated with how many intelligent replies I've received--both contrarian and in agreement. In all seriousness, consider me pleasantly surprised. It's fun to watch, I agree. -------------------------------------- ...and back to your feature presentation folks! When it comes down to things, I think a lot of the folks who do post in an attempt to aggravate those perpetuating intelligent discussion aren't unintelligent or without a minor amount of contribution. The trolls bump the thread and accurately represent the population of folks who actively decide not to care to articulate themselves one way or another. The anger of trolls and ragers in these situations occurs when individuals advocate for something as seemingly trite as lowering fat content of potato chips to fundamentally changing the way we function as a society. (i.e. Martin, Malcolm) To clarify, I'm not directly comparing myself to those world changing folks in any way. They were different sorts and I have more in common with the average loaf of bread than said revolutionaries. That being said; people who lack the motivation to articulate their convictions resent those who possess the abilities and perseverance of folks that do. I can't say I'm not guilty of the same angry behavior, so live and let live. In this case the cool thing is they're helping keep my points relevant.