Having tested out the group finder so far i'm quite pleased with how it works. There are ways to make it even better, but the current format is quite acceptable. The only part I disagree with is the cross server queing that causes a decline in overall group performance. This is a bit of a misconception that will vary from play session to play session. Played a certain game about war....with craft in it that introduced me to server queing. Truthfully it is always a mixed bag even if you get players from your same server. Only thing that may act as a deterrent from them acting like jerks is the repercussions on the player and as a result they feel that they are "strong armed/bullied" into behaving. Hopefully we will see a cross server quing eventually down the road. I for one would love to see an advanced cross server community group tool itself allowing people to open a window to chat with friends they make on other servers. Have no doubt this kind of thing will take an immense amount of time and effort, but breaking down the barriers of servers within an MMO only enhances the overall experience players have.

Unfortunately no matter what you call it a healer will be a healer. However, the sadder truth of it is the MMO market is dieing because of people wanting console game play in a multiplayer game. They want things to be like Borderlands where it is 100% solo oriented, except you can bring friends in to play if you want that experience. This eliminating the need for a straight up dps, tank, healer class spec since you are already your own healer. Truly miss those days of pure healing like in EQOA/EQ2. I just have to admit those days are gone since everyone wants to be their own healer soloing all content within the game.

Unfortunately I find this to be extremely disheartening Bioware and my faith in the game is really rocky with this news. Having played several MMOs this is really the first time that i've seen a "core" product of an MMO being left out. Ranked Warzones were highly looked forward to by many people. This news only helps to reaffirm the belief of some that SWTOR is a rocky MMO game. Being perfectly honest I think that it would have been best to actually cancel 1.2 outright waiting until ranked warzones were ready. At the moment this action goes beyond a simple problem to a huge blunder that needs immediate attention. Giving a lot of leeway as the game has promise, but with this sort of debacle what can we expect to look forward to as far as future updates go? This incident will cast heavy doubt on the capabilities to deliver powerfully engaging content to keep players entertained and coming back for more.

I think the Scorpio and Droid match making nearly made me ruin my keyboard. That was definitely well played, but the droid game...should have been the N64 FPS instead of super fighter.

One thing I really want to see included down the road with the Legacy System family tree is a biography option. In EQ2 and SWG it was so awesome to have biographies for your character. Coolest thing was in SWG if a CSR read your Bio and liked it they would sometimes award you a medal for it. EQ2 really expanded upon the idea adding in books that players could write stories into. Could definitely see an option for the RP servers to have players convey adventures to one another writing down stories to some kind of digital medium expanding upon the Roleplaying aspect of the game. Only difficult is getting past the 100 Barsenthors and 500 Captains of Havoc squad.

Yup, Reverse Engineering or REing can be a rather annoying thing in game. I've RE'd about 25 to 30 Prototype belts on my 400 armorer and haven't gotten any artifact belts after 1. After getting that 1 which took me 5 RE's i've not gotten any other schematics. Sometimes i've RE'd blues non-stop to the point i'm well blue in the face getting nothing. With 1.2 on the horizon and the supposed changes to RE i'm tempted to just wait for it to come around.

Unfortunately I can see why people hate combat logs or rather DPS meters and threat meters, but they are good for those that need them. Example: In EQ2 there was a mob that you had to keep a constant level of dps on. If that level dropped or exceeded that threshold the creature would instantly kill you. This made DPS meters almost a necessity to keep track of the main force's dps on the main boss. However, dps meters can be used not as tools to help but tools of oppression by guilds. These guilds/players have strict requirements and if you fall below or perform poorly for a night you can get sidelined. Even worse is if they feel your performance is so horrible they will remove you from raids all together. In all honesty though I think they will be quite useful to help people push themselves.

I wouldn't say never coming out and would never say it didn't work. SWG was a cobbled together game that miraculously worked. Before the CURB and certainly before the NGE there were TONS of players on the Radiant server. Sandbox games do work and I think Minecraft and Second Life are prime examples. The problem is maintaining a sandbox style MMO is extremely labor intensive. SWG had the most robust crafting system and that in and of itself probably took some time to maintain. Personally I think SWG fell flat because developers felt the game wasn't going where they wanted it. As a result they pushed the CURB which mucked things up, but it was still playable to some degree. It was the NGE that delivered the final killing blow removing the complexity of it to give way to casual gameplay. If they were to release a SWG 2 with revamped mechanics, but keeping the 24 distinct class advancement + crafting system from the first one I would go to it in a heartbeat. The problem is as you stated Kheal most casual gamers are used to WoW. They want that solo campaign and moderate grouping experience with little raiding. I've played WoW and in the short 5 months I played it I became disgusted with it. The only thing the game had going for it was exploration and once that was done it became stale. Made 1 main and 6 to 7 different alts leveling 3 characters to 80, and the rest to 20. It required little to no challenge to level up those characters which is depressing.

This pretty much sums it up imho since the game is still extremely fresh. If developers were to implement guild starships/captial warships it really wouldn't serve a purpose imho. They would need to implement a ton of features to make it worthwhile for guilds to go out of their way to get them. Would say that with SWG gone they need to implement a free form space combat system. By putting this in the next step would be PvP space combat between guilds and their capital warships. Can just imagine a sort of defend the objective where guilds put their ships on the line. This allows them to purchase better equipment as well as gaining prestige on their home worlds. Might be wise to also include a guild emblem creator so that a flag can be flown on the capital world. It would also be nice to see a PvE scenario where you can bring the capital warship in and use it in operation combat. Guild leaders or a designated person would have a 1 time weekly charge of an orbital strike canon. This would do significant damage to the boss, but requires TONS of resources to use. For Normal mode it would do 5% health damage to the boss, 4% in hardmode and 2% in Nightmare mode. It wouldn't be useable on end boss creatures since they would be too powerful/able to avoid it.

Personally I think we are seeing population drops due to a number of reasons. 1. No Beta Invite - Several of the players possibly didn't get a beta invite and wanted to try the game out. They possibly liked the game, but felt something was lacking or just didn't like it at all. 2. Quick Hitters - These people i'm not particularly fond of because they burn as quickly as possible to the max level cap. When they reach the cap they say "i'm done" and head off to another game believing they've done everything in the game. 3. Content Lackers - Whenever a new MMO opens it's really a balancing act to keep everyone happy. The max cappers seem quick to complain as they've blasted through everything to achieve their cap. From what i've always seen an MMO will be hard pressed to put out higher end content and once more players reach that end they start pushing for that goal. 4. Solo vs Group vs Raid vs PvP - People get into arguments and feel that one should be represented over the other. If a player feels they aren't properly represented they'll leave the game. Casual gameplay has really damaged the MMO market which caused 75% of content to be geared towards the solo players. Would say the biggest reason we're seeing a lack of players is due to the time frame we're currently in. It's the middle of the second month of the new year with people at their jobs if they are lucky to have them.

One thing that is great is the ability to do 8 man operations or 16 man operations. Will we see 8 and 16 man operations get their own lockout timers instead of being linked together?

Won't argue that once you get a few decent piece of gear for PvP you are really set. Had only PvE gear and was getting ripped apart, but that all changed when I kept staying with the group. After getting 3 piece of champion gear i'm surviving 10x as long and things are hitting harder. It is extremely easy to get into PvP and is way more forgiving to players than other MMOs i've seen. Only downside is like other MMOs when you have 3 to 4+ players ganking the healer, but that's to be expected when you play healer.

What is the current time table on new implementations for guilds such as Capital Ships and Guild Banks?

We did play it the problem is it became bogged down with demands. In addition it just became hard to maintain as people were doing all sorts of things. Everyone played it before the NGE hit mucking up the works even if the CURB was going on to pace things out. Sadly it was the NGE that doomed it to death removing the complexity of it in place of simplistic mind numbingly easy gameplay. Part of me sincerely hoped that I was wrong in that it was going to die a slow agonizing death yet that wasn't the case. Logged on one time since I had the station all access pass finding Tatooine a barren wasteland akin to the movie. Where players should have been congregating there was nothing not even in the sand raider's stronghold. Even Corellia I believe was desolate not a sole in sight roaming around. This was the same case during peak playtime at 7 to 9:00 pm est seeing maybe 5 people when there should have been 90+. From my friend I learned the truth that it was going to die on December 15th 2011 having lost its luster. *Note: Sorry for the stupid picture painting with words i'm writing a story atm.* I'll always have my fond memories though of battling Krayt Dragons, Probing creatures for DNA, being one of few that loved being a Bio-Engineer, and other distinct things. My first raid on an Imperial base was glorious as everyone of us nearly crashed the server (Radiant) hitting that base on Corellia I believe. Amana Wolf Master Rifleman, Master Bio-Engineer, part Jedi Saxx Shadow, Master Commando Yuanja Master Swordsman Master Weaponsmith Those were indeed great memories and guess what, nothing can take them away from me. Nothing can take those memories away from US!! We shall always remember that game and personally I think the devs here are with us knowing what we loved.

We must be playing different professions then cause i'm loving my Artificing. 1. Enhancements - I'm spending tons of credits to RE these things up one side and down the other as much as possible. There are people that despise the commendation vendors with the net result being more credits for me. Finding the enhancements that I make to be more beneficial than the commendation vendors to be honest. 2. Color Crystals - *shrug* I go for stats and honestly I haven't anything but regular color crystals up on the market. Let the people farm for those ridiculously hard to come by crystals while the rest of the population wants the good stuff. Already saving my yellow crystals up so I can make some artifact level stuff. 3. Hilts - Again like crystals/enhancements these things will move at their own pace. Need to break down myself and start REing these things so I can make some nicer stuff. I do have to ask though are you investing in schematics? Bought several schematics making a tidy profit from what was sold. Just recently sold a nice artifact level one for 10k on the Port Nowhere server that I made. Also using one that I made since it has a nice augmentation slot on it. Right now I find Artificing to be quite enjoyable and a heck of a lot better than it used to be since beta. Still remember making nothing but garbage as mods couldn't be reverse engineered making it a nightmare.

Sadly I find this to be the truth since we are still having to deal with economic problems. Another problem is people seem to be demanding easy to play games with 25% solo content, 25% PvP content, 15% group content and 10% raid content. It's not like the oldschool days in EQOA for me where it took a week to get your stuff for epics. Anymore people demand their stuff inside of a day if not sooner. Hopefully Bioware will have deaf ears when listening to EA complain at them making the best calls for their players. One thing I absolutely do not want to see anywhere in sight is an exchange type system setup for purchasing ingame items for real currency. From what i've seen Bioware is a good company that listens to its customers and gives them what they need along with some of the things they want. Sandbox games are a dying art and I doubt we'll see a resurgence of them. It becomes too much code with too many problems to maintain for the developers. As a result it just maybe easier to have linear mechanics to streamline everything. Still miss being a Bio-Engineer going on my daily DNA runs for Mutant Rancors. Was also cool hunting in the Geo caves plowing through those nasty critters.

I doubt we'll see SWTOR have the same level of game content as SWG since that game was a sandbox oriented game while SWTOR is theme-park oriented. However i'm betting down the road through the progression of SWTOR we'll see some awesome things. One thing many of us will admit is SWG was one of the greatest MMOs out there due to its simplicity and complexity. The simplistic nature allowed you to do whatever you wanted yet the complexity was housing, player cities, and most of all the crafted economy where players made everything. I'll truly miss going to a doc, buffing up and hitting up the Geo caves for samples + extra goodies. Taking down my first Krayt Dragon was awesome and loved the X-mas event on the Radiant server. Whole town in Tatooine had a tree put there a PLAYER CITY mind you that had a live event supported by the devs. Hopefully we'll be able to see player created events down the road for SWTOR. Goodbye SWG you were a king among MMOs and you will be missed.

Still trying to figure it out myself but I think once they start handing out those pre-launch invite things you'll be able to get a subscription. Right now the devs might be using it as some kind of gate system so the game doesn't launch early. This is really my first MMO launch to be honest with the only other one being Champion-Online. However not sure how much that counts since everyone who purchased the game and was in beta got early access.