I don't think that anyone has ever asked for immediate access to the best gear. Folks have asked for a return of the old gearing system that gave everyone multiple ways to get gear. A method that provided every player equal opportunity to play the game content to earn the gear. No matter if you were running Ops or doing dailies or heroics to earn Comm/Crystals you had the ability to get the gear. You could get the specific pieces you needed this way too. Even F2P and Preferred players could purchase passes that allowed them equal access to all of the same content that subscribers had. Galactic command is not a system based in equality, it is a system rooted in exclusion and elitism. It is exclusive to those willing to pay a subscription. It is exclusive to those willing to grind the content that awards CXP and it rewards those who pay the additional money to buy the CXP boosts over those who are only buying a subscription. It totally excludes anyone who doesn't subscribe or engage in any of the activities that earn large chunks of CXP. Only the hardcore and the elite will gain the best gear quickly. Only the most dedicated players will have the best gear. Only those willing to pay the money and devote significant amounts of time will earn the best that BW can offer them. Galactic Command isn't about Equal access to end game gear, it is the most limiting, exclusive and elitist gearing system any game has ever created and the worst part is that it is all based on blind luck. Random Number Generator. Just like a slot machine in Vegas.

I can't agree more. They keep saying "trust me AWESOME things are coming and you guys are gonna love it! We just can't talk about it yet" But we get mediocre things that don't live up to the hype. Other games announce their awesome stuff MONTHS in advance and let the community build the hype and the stay transparent about what is coming throughout the process. This SWTOR team says something cool is coming, then hype it and tease it and then a week or 2 before it drops they announce it... Then people are like... That's it? Dude that blows. If they just announced it right off the bat then the community would build the hype and people would be honestly excited. ZOS announced One Tamriel for ESO 3 months before they launched it and people were like, "dude, I hate it." Then as the weeks passed they gave more and more info about it and the appeal built and the community started to like it. By the time the patch dropped people were so excited for it that they damn near crashed the servers hours after the patch went live. One Tamriel could have killed ESO if it was done the way BW treats SWTOR updates, but because they gave the community time to build their own hype it was probably one of the most successful patches ZOS has launched for ESO. One of the things that One Tamriel has done is give players a reason to continue working on mastering their main character. I have yet to seriously play an alt in ESO after over a year of game play because playing my Main is STILL so much fun! SWTOR has never given me that, never. SWTOR 3.0 had the potential to live up to the hype and it coulda been AWESOME, but because of all the bugs, the debilitating lag, numerous broken Ops bosses, and the game breaking exploits that overshadowed the cool stuff in 3.0 it was relegated to the lac-luster category. The solo mode fight against Revan was supposed to be the culminating event in 3.0, that moment that you had worked so hard to reach and it was broken for a month and a half. When they fixed it, they had so many, stuns, knock backs and roots in the fight that you could literally stand still for 3/4 of the fight and let the Alliance "companions" take care of business. Honestly the Forged Alliances series leading up to SoR (Tython, Korriban, Manaan and Rakata Prime) was the last time I was in awe of this game. That was the last time that anything in SWTOR was truly awesome. Since then there is more bad than good about each release.

Makes sense, but all of the available content for the past 2 years has been story and solo based. Why begrudge those who enjoy the MMO aspects the content they enjoy? Especially since this is an MMO.

^^^^^^ This, this, this! A MILLION FRAKING TIMES THIS!!!!!!!!!!! It hits the nail on the frakin' head!

If you don't care that others are leaving you are not required to read or respond to them.

It would encourage people to join guilds again and would give guilds a new purpose in this RNG gearing world.

Why are you playing an MMO if you don't like MMO's?

Most of the changes from March of 2012 - September of 2015 have been good. I would roll back to skill trees instead of the cookie cutter diciplines though. Most good decisions they have made from 4.0 on are overshadowed by a plethora of extraordinarily bad ones.

My feelings exactly. I've been saying it for months, they are manipulating the metrics to show them that what they are doing is making people happy. Do they not see that this time in 2015 MOST servers were pushing Standard and Heavy populations and now we struggle to stay just above a lite population? I swear it's like the overall game population is half of what it was when 3.0 dropped and

There is a very large portion of the population that wants exactly that. They want people to pay for the hope that they will one day get a sliver of something they enjoy.

Bioware isn't going to merge any more servers now that they have implemented a payed transfer system. I think that when they stated, during a recent live stream, "we don't have any plane to merge servers at this time, but we will having a sale on server transfers coming up soon," that was the clear sign that mergers aren't going to happen.

Because when they are hired to read their lines they aren't told what project or role they are reading the lines for. They are given a sheet with their lines and some rudimentary direction and they go for it. Those voice actors probably didn't even know that the lines they were reading were for a character they had already voiced in the past. Without knowing that they are voicing a character they had done before they wouldn't know to sound the way they had in the past. This is actually part of the reason these voice actors are striking. They see that sometimes their work lacks continuity and they don't like that, it reflects badly on them. Steve Blum said that he didn't even know he was portraying a character in a Star Wars Game until 6 months after the game launched and the cast was published on IMDB.

Not anymore.

This is a great video! I watched it twice and then started watching other videos on that site. Time well spent. Thanks for sharing that, I really think that this is a video that the dev team should watch and take to heart. My personal opinion is that SWTOR is VERY focused on money and not a satisfying gaming experience. Everything in this game revolves around giving EA more money...

I highlighted that to say this. They never know what title they are working on, NEVER and therefore still only get paid $825 for a AAA title, just the same as if they were working on Johnny Snots: Booger Eater. A little perspective. SWTOR has made over $300 Million worldwide. Jennifer Hale and Steve Blum both got paid SAG Minimum for their work on SWTOR (part of teh reason they are involved with the strike) Through the original game and all of the expansions Hale stated in an interview that she has been in 10 recording sessions (for SWTOR) over the past 5 years. This means that in 5 years SWTOR has paid her $8,250 and they have profited over $300 Million. So I disagree, she was not over paid for voicing multiple characters in this game. A friend of mine recorded lines for a AAA title a few years ago. He was the lead role AND 1 minor role. The studio wanted all of his lines recorded in 1 session so he was pushed to finish all of his lines in just 4 hours. The stress on his vocal cords caused him to have to undergo a $1200 surgery and a month off work.... $825 - ($1200 + 1 month of income) = Definitely NOT over paid! All for $825 made on a game that profited over $100 Million dollars... I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you here. I believe that these people have a talent and that they deserve to be paid for using their gift. All the VA's are asking for is safer work environments, rest breaks, prior knowledge of what title and role they are speaking for and a small royalty. The residual income from this royalty is a small pittance in most cases. They aren't asking for multi-million dollar contracts, in most cases the royalties they would get would give them a few thousand dollars over the life of a game. At best a voice actress like Jennifer Hale would end up seeing her annual income raise to $80,000 maybe $85,000. That still doesn't make her wealthy, it puts her squarely in the middle class. The IRS says that "the wealthy" have household incomes of $250k a year or more. Voice Actors don't even come close to this level of income.

SWTOR IS An MMO. Or at least it used to be...

We are looking for a DPS or a healer to fill a spot in one of our Raid Groups. This group runs from 9 - 11 EST on Monday and Tuesday nights. We are a raid team of players that has been around, doing hard mode Operations for 5 years and counting. Gear isn't an issue since we have folks in guild that can craft you all of the pieces you will need and even many of the higher grade stuff too. For a healer a Scoundrel or Sage is Prefered, but our other healer can run on either a Commando or a Scoundrel so we have flexibility. For DPS any class is good! Please contact me in game as Drivan, Maya'Rae or C'aboose or here on the Forums. May the force be with you, always!

As someone who grew up with a gambling addict and had their own flirtations with Gambling addiction I have had to limit my time in SWTOR since 5.0. I'm not blaming BW for any of my problems, but let me simply say that I agree that 5.0 is a compulsive gambler's nightmare. For those who don't know how to vote on a thread please scroll to the bottom of the page and on the right hand side chose the drop down box to give this thread 5 stars. If this thread receives a high enough ranking BW may take notice.

Hello all, My name is Drivan and I was an Altoholic. (Waits for obligatory "Hi Drivan" from the group) I have 32 characters across 3 servers and until 26 of them were max level. I raided 3 days a week and alternated between 8 different healers depending on the needs of the group and had 4 healers carrying 2 sets of gear so I could DPS from time to time 5.0 has encouraged me to give up my habit and I only play 2 characters on a regular basis, and one of them is in ESO... If BW hadn't made gearing a pure RNG crap shoot I might still be playing 8 characters for hours every day...

Actually $8 an hour is not average for an American family, it is well below average. Average household income in the USA is between $35k and $40k. VA's receive approximately $825 for a 4 hour recording session during which, contractually, they are not authorized to take breaks or sometimes even take a drink of water. The studio wants them to squeeze in as much recording time as possible in these sessions and often time an actor will do all of their recording a single game in 1x 4 hours session. VA's seldom know what game they are working on, what role they are playing, or even what intellectual property it is part of. They often show up, are given lines, direction and are asked to make particular sounds that are honestly, not meant to be made by the human vocal cords. "Make the sound you think you would make if you were shot in the heart. Good now make that sound 50 times with different volumes and different degrees of pain." The VA strike is about them being told up front what games they are working on, what role they are playing and being able to take short breaks, get a drink and rest their voice between sessions to be able to avoid damage to their vocal cords. They want a SMALL percentage of the general profits, or a royalty (the same as movie and television stars get) to be a guaranteed a small income and they want the studios to be required to chip in on their medical expenses if they damage their voices while on the job (in lieu of medical insurance). A voice actor would need to (and usually do) do a significant amount of work each year to maintain a decent income. Have you ever looked up any voice actors on IMDB and noticed how many projects they work on in a single year? It's A LOT! The Game studio's counter offer was a $100 per session raise and an additional $50 if the game was expected to be a top shelf title like SWTOR, ESO, Call of Duty etc. That's it. They still refuse to tell them what the project they are working on what their role is or even allow them to negotiate rest breaks in their contracts. The actors are simply asking for small potatoes and the studio's won't even offer to let them go take a dump during a session... For crying out loud can a guy get a break to use the crapper over here?!?!?!?

As of the December 30th SAG-AFTRA, the majority of SWTOR's and all other games VA's belong to, are on strike against EA & BW, Disney interactive entertainment, Sony Entertainment Online, Activation and Insomniac Games. Jennifer Hale is the most outspoken of the VA's striking, but many others have made statements and the law firm representing the Game companies has issued a statement that the companies will not back down from their last offer which was given in November. Because of this strike we could easily see little to no story content or spoke lines in SWTOR from here on out. I'm willing to bet that any new VA that is done for SWTOR will be new characters and will be completed out of either the Canadian Studio or the UK studio.

This post is one of about a million examples why these forums need like buttons. Your response and TUX's comment are spot on. I enjoy all aspects of SWTOR and have been a continuous subscriber since launch, but their approach lately leaves me seriously thinking of leaving when my sub runs out.

I 100% agree. SWTOR has, easily, twice as much story content as any other game out right now. I'm counting MMO's and Standalone games. The BEST story in any game has always been the one you make for yourself while playing the content between the cinematics. Your personal back story, what you are thinking while playing and the mindset that you have immersed yourself in while exploring and adventuring. When I was young I used to write these stories down, I knew that a game had significant replay ability if it allowed me to use my imagination and create my own stories. THAT is what used to make BW style story telling great, the fact that the stories inspired you to use your imagination and create your own "in between" chapters. I don't know if people have changed, if BW has changed or if it's a lot of both, but now it seems as if folks feel there is no story if you aren't being guided through one. I don't want to be hand held through the game and have a few moments of game play between cut scenes. I want a few moments of cutscenes in between game play so that I can imagine and create my own story. Let me be a kid again damn it!! SWTOR's biggest mistake has been taking so much time to focus ONLY on story content. From Forged Alliances through to the end of KotET you can burn through that story in a few hours. But they have devoted the better part of the past 3 years to developing that story content. They had a much more balanced approach to the release of content between 2.0 and 4.0. Although the OP's content drought between 3.0 and 4.0 was long at least they had a huge expansion that included some good story content 2 ops, 2 flashpoints, a world boss and solo content that was interesting and diverse. 4.0 and 5.0 have been just story, story, story... It's long past time for new Operations.

I have been doing all of that same content for 5 years, the GC system just gave us a pretty little interface to access all the stuff that has been here all along. It isn't like they added anything new. PvE Space missions = 5 year old content that I mastered on 4 characters back when it gave massive amounts of credits and XP Flash Points = They haven't added any new ones in 3 years Operations = The newest ones launched in 2014 Star Fortresses = Over a year old PvP = No new maps in about a year GSF = No updates or improvements in 2 years Planetary Missions = No new ones in the past 2 years Uprisings are the first new group content we have gotten in the past 25 months this content is so short and there were so few released that it wasn't enough to keep players interested. Repeatable story content will never "do the trick" who really wants to run chapter 2 a couple times a day for the next 6 months? The only "content" they have steadily updated on a regular basis is the Cartel Market... It's about perspective, for those of us who have played a few hours a day, every day for the last 5 years the content has been stretched as much as it can be. To quote Bilbo Baggins, "like not enough butter scraped across too much bread." Honestly I'm only still subscribed because I'm hoping that there is good news in the next live stream and because I really enjoy gaming with the folks I currently game with. I play ESO and log in to SWTOR to run group content with my friends and guildmates. If the next live stream isn't an announcement of a BRAND NEW Operation coming in February or March then I'm out when my sub lapses. (No you can't have my stuff, I'll be giving it away to guild mates and keeping a large chunk incase I ever decide to resub again.)

There aren't many people even posting on these forums these days and the few that do have very little to say in favor of BW, EA and SWTOR. I believe that there are far more that 10 or 12 people who are upset about what has happened to this game, lest we not forget that all servers currently sit at "Light" population. Whereas they used to ping out at heavy during the prime time hours. That needle hasn't pointed past light in a VERY long time. The majority of the angry have walked already and given that the population continues to dwindle it won't be long before you and those like you get your wish.