Have you ever played a game that didn't have enough credit sinks? The economy quickly becomes trashed. Prices for the simplest things skyrocket. Why? Because everyone has so much ON HAND cash. The key is on hand. The last time BW posted the metrics, almost every player ( even with multiple 50's ) had less on hand cash than half a mil. See the prices of new things that everyone NEEDS right away? Let's take weapons with aug slots. The first few out were over 250k. That only lasted a few days, till demands were met. Now, the price even on low pop servers rarely peaks at 100k... And I usually see em between 30 and 50k. But... If cash were common, that's called inflation. The value of the currency is in inverse relation to it's abundance. Me, I prefer to, at most, do a day of dailies for that special purchase, rather than a massive accumulation of time and effort 6 months from now, when we all have to barter because credits are meaningless.

to assist in your questions... Armour rating vs number: The rating is the "level" on a specific armouring mod within the item (or in the case of non-modable, the same stat for green/blue/purple) ...this is a base stat that is affected by 2 different things... what slot the piece fits in (chest, head and legs have higher values than belt, bracer, feet and hands) and if the piece is light, medium or heavy. For the record, as a fanguard, you want heavy. EVERY time. as to mitigation, you can see exact numbers on mitigation on your character sheet. Mouse over the damage-resistance listed on the right, and a full breakdown is shown. IF a person has additional buffs from consular based classes, or from legacy unlocks, they can get up to 19% resistance to elemental/internal... as opposed to yours, which may well be 0% at this time. Also, shield chance, and shield absorb play a factor in mitigating elemental damage as well. Higher those are, better chance of having it proc, and be useful when it does. Hope that helps

...thats how we handle it now... if animal populations get out of hand, they need to be cut back, for the stability of the whole... wolf populations, if they get too high, will do a real number on things like small fauna in an area. rabbits, mice, squirrels etc... and then very suddenly, have NO foodsource. Starvation on a wide scale, followed by a MASSIVE population explosion of small creatures that they fed on, resulting in crop ruination in nearby settlements etc. Top tier predators sometimes do need to be managed, in exactly that manner. Seeing it as an emotional moment, instead of seeing the whole... well, that wouldn't be according to the code.

who said anything about passive? ...it's the forming of emotional entanglements that can cloud one's vision... thats why doing it is a dark side choice. not evil, but ...lets say risky. Anakin, as an example, fell because of his attachments. The worst things he did, were because of his feelings, feelings of fear, of love, lust, love. ...if he had had a more.. detatched viewpoint, he could have taken more effective actions, seen the bigger picture. it's to avoid that risk that makes emotions darkside (passion being the realm of the sith, after all.)

Exactly. RPG's are, when played single player, interactive storytelling, you and your medium. But MMORPG's are shared storytelling, meshed together from many sources. No, you don't have to like how I tell my stories. And I don't have to like how you tell yours either. However... trying to -impose- your style of storytelling on others truly lacks... well, class. You can have all YOUR characters use traditional (traditional 4000 years later...) saber colour usage, where evil people must always be out in the open, waving a banner that says "here I am, whoops, i guess im evil and all." , and good guys never seek to be subtle. But leave those who want to tell different tales, have a different vision for their alter-egos be. Just because I like romantic comedies, doesn't mean you can't watch an action flick with guns and gore, explosions galore.

Lets get one thing straight. In IT "Peak time" is when there are more interactions on a server than other times. The servers see more trafic, work harder, and encounter more bottlenecking during those times. In relation to client connections, it also refers to the most individual clients connected. Now, a lot of people are either ragequitting, or complaining that they are being treated unfairly, singled out because they "Don't matter". So lets get a second thing straight. The playerbase is treated as a whole. With upcoming features that will include cross-server interactions, they will continue to be treated as ONE playerbase. Not NA, EU and Asian servers (the servers are physically located in region for faster connection and less lag, thats all) but as the Playerbase. One group. Period. With the cross server features coming, this will never change. The servers must be maintained at the same time. Patched at the same time. Be 100% the same code. Period. As to one region being "singled out" or ignored... this is business. It is not the first game I have seen these threads in... nor will it be the last I am sure. And in business, when downtime is necessary (and make no mistake, read that patch note, there was something wrong with the code as it stood) it happens when it will impact the LEAST number of players. That means during off peak times. That means it will inconvenience players who live in timezones that make off peak for the entire playerbase THEIR personal primetime the ones that have to deal with problems the most often. Not always, some patches need to be done NOW, regardless of player numbers. This wasn't necessarily the case this time... thus it happens when server numbers are low. The EU isn't being treated unfairly, or differently... they are being treated with the ultimate fairness... a pure headcount.

Lets see... a company has stated they are going to let new people try something. they made promises to people, in advertising and whatnot. Then they find a problem with what they planned, just over 48 hours before it is scheduled to go live. so, they need to fix it, because they made commitments. Simply saying "well, screw this, it's broke" Isn't rrally an option, especially cause it's a quick fix. (and yes, a 2 hr downtime is a quick fix. If you don't think that... wow, what games have you played?) They schedule the maintenance/[atch for the first available low player population time... which was right then. The EU players are not taken seperately... they are considered part of the same playerbase. All the servers need the same client/software version... so it's NOT about "consider the EU players!" ...the whole population is taken as a whole. Better this, than a huge shutdown when the trial players try to log in and the system crashes, hmm? (an example of what can happen when fixes in login stuff go wrong, used only for illustration) On a side note... damn, this sounds JUST like the whole "Yes we're Canadian, but Quebecois need to be treated as distinct and seperate" crap we hear here every 5 years or so. EU players are not being singled out, any more than asian players are when the regular weekly maint goes through. It's simply a matter of overall population diring certain times of the day. Period. There are fewer EU players. There are fewer asian players. This, thats when patches happen. Because if you think THIS is a lot of whining... imagine if 5 times the players got inconvenienced? It's about numbers, not where you live.

actually, Bioware is a Canadian company. But as I stated above, since the servers will be having cross server content in the very near future... EU players are not taken as seperate. They are part of ONE playerbase. Servers muct have the same version, across the board. Thus, they patch at times that are lowest numbers OVERALL. The fact that UE numbers are lower than NA numbers is why they patch when they do. They patch when the OVERALL numbers are lowest. To inconvenience the fewest people possible.

Patch times are always going to be the same across the board on swtor. Here's why: Plans for future stuff include things that allow inter-server interaction. Like cross-server pvp warzones, as an example. This means every server needs to have the same client, at the same time. Unless EU players would prefer not to participate in shared content like that, or shared gtn etc? Patch times will always (unless a terribly important emergency) be scheduled like this at off peak times for the -entire playerbase-. If you want to be higher on the priority list for that... meaning they would make north american prime time a lower priority than eu prime time... then there needs to be more players from the eu. It's a matter of offending/inconveniencing the least number of players. Simple math. It is not a "screw UE plot".... it's a "lets annoy the fewest people possible. For the record, as a chronic insomniac, my playtimes are always the ones interrupted, by every patch, heh. but that puts me in the minority, and I just have to deal.

do keep in mind, that they are hoping to do things like cross server pvp matches and gtn etc... it is never gonna happen that servers are updated at different times when something that makes interaction between servers is on the table. the clients have to match. So... yeah.

actually, apparently the whiners are leaving... so... good news for us then I guess. Still don't really get why they feel the need to inform the playerbase. But there it is.

I think his point is about people who feel some kind of need to post that they are unsubbing... the people in Bioware already know when/if you do.. the rest of us simply don't care. So... why spout off about it?

Yeah... you didn't play in the first 2 years then, obviously, heh.

I'd bet it's a whole lot less than the numbers they will gain from the free trial weekend etc that's likely the cause of the fix.

lets be straight here... this is definately off-peak time for the servers. Not as off-peak as the weekly maintenance, but while it does stop some people playing (me, for example, in either timeframe) ANY shutdown will do the same thing. A 2 hour shutdown is a VERY reasonable patch time, for any company. Period. And all the whining about no details? Yes... lets try a fix for something that is likely a major exploit of some kind.. and tell everyone who HASN'T discovered it yet exactly what it is. Sometimes it's better to just say nothing, and fix it quietly. Heck, maybe almost NO ONE has seen it yet. Better they find it before some one starts whining about it en mass like with some of the pvp issues. To those who keep saying "Do things that never inconvenience me or I will quit" ...seriously, did you ever hold your breath till your face turned blue as a kid? Either pay and play... or not. But every game has issues, especially in the first year. Or quit, and move along. Spouting off about it is just whining. Plain and simple. No one likes a shutdown. People like to know everything. But this is life, and sometimes things are inconvenient. You are the same people whining about how bugs never get fixed. So **** and let them actually do their jobs and fix em. And yeah... I'm sittin here wondering what I'm gonna do for the next 2 hours too, since my planned activity is bolloxed. Maybe... damn, I think I'll go outside. ....damn, thats bright out there...