http://www.computerandvideogames.com/319138/mmo-subscriptions-fall-for-the-first-time/?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS It is true that subscription MMOs as a whole seem to be on the decline. 2010 marked the first time the MMO industry declined (whereas it expanded by 10% the year before) and the trend continued downward in 2011. Speculation is that it may be tied to the rise of the free-to-play model (spearheaded by games like TF2 and other MMOs going F2P) or the MMO subscription model is simply not aging well. To tie it back to SWTOR though (so to not be off topic) I do really wonder why EA went with the subscription model, despite massive success from other titles going F2P. The lower the barrier to entry, the better. Interesting enough, up to a few months before launch WoW was going to be a F2P title supported by advertising.

I agree with your write-up. The issue is frustrating, especially for casual players. The loot situation shows very sloppy work. In no way should a player be denied loot for a run and in no way should a player ever be in an intended unrezzable position (like the bridge in False Emperor.) I'm surprised the developers did not come up with a more innovative solution for loot to solve rudimentary MMO loot problems (like maybe loot being automatically awarded in a separate panel regards of being alive or dead/outside or inside the instance as long as you are in the party and have engaged in the fight at some point.)

Any progress on this bug? I would like to be able to do this daily.

Why don't you go to school to learn how to run a business? Lack of communication, a faulty product, and misleading information is certainly NOT how to conduct business with customers. The fact is a bug not tracking progress in an MMO is a critical oversight. The continued lack of any information regarding an ETA (or confirmation of progress) on a fix is unacceptable. It has been over a month since launch (and the bug existed long in beta) with no fix in sight. Customers have every right to be unhappy with the service so far.

http://www.swtor.com/blog/developer-blog-busting-bugs-and-fixing-exploits I do not see how Warzone wins not counting is not a critical bug in their triage process. To me, not properly tracking progression is one of the worst offenses an MMO can commit. Honestly, the bug has existed since mid beta at least and has been documented by countless people on the forums, and yet it is still unfixed. It is demotivating for me, and embarrassing for Bioware.

Perfectly explains the PVP loot system. Nice work!

The problem isn't the players. The problem is the game design. You can't put a system in place that rewards solo killing and expect players to run counter to that. That just doesn't make sense. Warzones should have been designed in a way that encourages objectives. If the medal system stays there needs to be medals for encouraging objective based play as well, such as medals for defusing bombs, targeting the enemy ball carrier, etc. In fact, I find it almost unbelievable that there aren't already medals like that in the game. Moreover there simply isn't enough incentive to win a warzone beyond completing the daily/weekly. The system is set up in a way that gaining a lot of medals and losing is still preferable to gaining a few medals and winning. I'll add that the only reason I enjoy playing competitive multiplayer games is to go after objectives, so I can completely understand your frustration OP. The problem really is the system though.

Thanks for taking the time to post this OP because it was well thought out and thorough. I agree completely. Of course, some of the issues are larger than others, but the end result is so many pieces don't fall into place that it is conspiring to tarnish the whole game. To me, the worst is absolutely the uninspired endgame. Ilum, even after the latest revision, is still far from being an engaging open world PVP destination. It is a shame to see so much space not utilized, objectives largely ignored except for the center, and no population balancing mechanisms. Ilum desperately needs a clear design vision that involves fun, fair, and rewarding PVP. The PVE endgame also suffers from uninteresting mechanics and repetitive structure. Both PVP and PVE also have unrewarding gears systems that stifle motivation. I expected a lot more from a developer of BioWare/Mythic's caliber.

I like the idea of incentives too to even out populations. Incentives don't work quite as fast to balance out problems (it takes time for people to level and such), but over time it should even out populations, without doing things like setting hard population caps which limit what people can do. In PlanetSide, at the login screen it told you the relative populations of each side and the percentage experience gain that side was receiving globally. I think a more developed system, that gives incentives to experience, valor, and commendations would be great. Remember too that people will eventually have alts on both sides (I myself am working on a republic character now, with my main being on empire) so people could easily be swayed to log in whichever side is receiving the benefits, helping even the odds. I'm sure there are other solutions too, but incentives seem viable from what I have seen in other games.

Agree that win trading was better than 1.1 Ilum. There is still very little PVP and now it takes too long finish the daily. A sane, rational player isn't going to leave their own base by themselves, and certainly not if the rest of the zone is controlled by the other side (almost always Imperials on my server). Thus the only way to finish the daily is to circle the Central Assault with the legion of other players looking for crates. If you do decide to sally forth, since the zone is so vast (with so few players), you are unlikely to run across another player. The zone warnings provide a small indicator, but by the time you get there, the enemy players will be gone. The result is still no PVP, except now one side is going to be at an increasingly growing gear disadvantage as it becomes almost impossible for the underpopulated side to finish their dailies/weeklies, which is the primary source of PVP gear. So yes, pre-1.1 Ilum was better. It had the same amount of PVP (virtually none) except one side wasn't being put at a severe disadvantage. I would prefer a deep, engaging, and fun open world PVP experience to win trading, but 1.1 Ilum is certainly not that. I'm not mad though. Just disappointed. I expected better from Bioware/Mythic.

1) The world pvp objective should be winnable. There needs to be meaning for a victory. The +valor per kill in ilum/match is simply not enough incentive to keep the points. WoW accomplished this by having a raid (something of interest to both pve and pvp players) and a global buff. 2) The world pvp objective needs to be on a timer to concentrate everyone at certain times, instead of spread out so there is never enough going on at a single time. This is the reason WoW did this for Wintergrasp and Tol Barad 3) There needs to be some sort of population balance mechanism (or incentive). WoW eventually introduced capping the maximum of players for each side to be equal. I personally would rather see an incentive system (+valor gain or something), but whatever is needed. There are my suggestions. I wouldn't have mentioned WoW so much if not for the fact that Blizzard has examined PVP and developed solutions to deal with similar problems in the past. I am very disappointed at the state of Ilum. Every time I have gone there as Imperial there is nothing to do but do circles around the Central Assault picking up crates, which takes a while since there are many other Imperials doing the same thing. Rarely have I seen another Republic player. I also can't help but think that Bioware could have anticpiated these problems and designed a fun, engaging, and deep PVP experience. I expected more from a developer of the caliber of Bioware/Mythic especially considering the vast resources at Bioware's disposal.

It would have been cool if there was a job where a person thought about problems that could potentially occur in a game and also develop fun game systems. It would be this person's job to come up innovative, fun, and balanced ways to PVP. They could use their skills to create meaningful and rewarding gear progression systems to keep players interested and focused. They could also create objective based world PVP zones that encourage PVP. They could use their experience to anticipate problems like population imbalance by using things like timed events, population caps, and even stat/valor gain tweaking to encourage equal populations; or, even better, come up with some forward-thinking solution that no game has seen before! We could call this person a game designer and everything would be glorious.

Wow that is a lot of Republic players in that video. That would be like Christmas to me on Ilum to see that many in one place.

Yeah, it would be interesting to know what would happen if there were equal numbers. The Trench Strategy was created specifically because otherwise the Republic stays away completely, and then the Imperials move around in a giant ball of roving death seeking out any Republics. Unfortunately, the Republic players are swift and keep evading the ball. Thus, the Trench Strategy was born.

On The Shadowlands, Imperials have come up with a strategy for completing the daily/weekly. What we do is all the Imperials hide in the trench in the middle of the Central Assault point, stacked up on top of each other to reduce visibility. If we are lucky, a few Republic players may venture up there, then we all pounce on them! If we are really lucky, then maybe some of the kills will even count. Obviously, some Republic players get wise and stop going up there, but many don't (Imperials are theorizing that they may also have a similar daily/weekly mission to complete, but there is thus far no scientific evidence to support that claim). If that doesn't work then I circle the Central Assault picking up crates. There are usually many other players doing this, so it takes a while. Sometimes I go clockwise. Sometimes I like to switch it up and go counter-clockwise. Sometimes I make it really interesting and go through the center trench. Good luck out there! Please share any tips you have!