No it doesn't, in this context, popularity is all about number of players in an area. Do you have access to those figures over a long period of time? It is entirely possible for an area with less players to be more active than a larger one. Activity in this case would be calculated by number of messages, message length, and message frequency.

I really think this type of behavior goes far beyond "roleplaying" that it shouldn't be written off as such. That it is the most active doesn't mean it's the most popular, and popularity doesn't automatically equate to good or quality. It could just mean trolls are more active chatters than the average player. Correlation does not equal causation.

When people are forced to turn off General chat because of the trolls, the trolls win. They think of Gen chat as their own personal clubhouse, and they don't want anyone encroaching on their territory. This kind of behavior is not exclusive to this or any game. It can be seen all over the internet and not just with trolls. The trolls of DK think they own General chat, and it's high time they were reminded who holds the keys. As much as I agree with "we just have to grin and bear it today," I only think this way because the game staff is minimal and the subscribers low. Maybe other games with more staff and more subscribers can better afford to ban people like we have on Dromund Kaas or maybe it's just simply a will to do something about it? Since I've only played a handful of MMOs, I can't say this kind of behavior is normal elsewhere. Maybe it is more prevalent in MMORPGs? I have played other types of MMOs and never saw swill anywhere remotely close to what I've observed in SWTOR. I hope more players with experience in a variety of MMOs and veterans of the days of launch can testify to how bad players were in chat, if chat was moderated and if it was, how effectively it was. It's important to know if this part of the ToS was ever enforced to understand how the devs of this game have viewed this, and understanding how other games handled it can give the devs ideas on how to best deal with it. DK chat is only normal because it has persisted for so long with so many participants. What might have been outrageous at launch is now long considered par for the course. The problem with the normalization of extreme behavior is the slippery slope. Do we trust the behavior will reach a point of equilibrium eventually or will negligence only ensure it continues to slide further and further into depravity and obscenity? This normalization of the unacceptable should be the unacceptable part. Furthermore, not moderating chat, particularly DK chat has resulted in it metastasizing to other areas of the game. It was noticed a few years ago elements of DK chat had spread to Republic Fleet, for instance, with people even remarking on the similarities. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away. It won't even contain it. Is anyone actually foolish enough to expect a problem like this to self-regulate? As much as I abhor shadow bans, I think they would be appropriate for this. People that engage in this behavior on a regular basis could be shadow banned to a separate channel, a "prisoner's island," if you will where they can troll each other to their black heart's content. The devs can then decide when they want to ban someone. This would clean up General chat and make it friendlier and more welcoming for new players. A prisoner's island could also help train their own tools to better detect troll behavior. A separate channel for new players wouldn't stop people from trolling it. Aside from the starting planets, the capital planets are where new players get their most striking impressions of the players within the game. I shudder to think of how many new players stopped playing after witnessing the horror that is DK chat. Honestly, the best method we have of controlling chat now is reporting people for spam so they get squelched. I think I new report option called "Trolling" or something like that should be created so it's as easy to report as it, that also results in the player with enough reports being squelched but doesn't conflate this type of behavior with spam, which could make it harder for the devs to sift out the actual spammers from the trolls. It being under its own category could eventually serve to better identify and stop it, much like how the devs have done a great job finally in controlling the credit sellers. But none of this matters unless the devs are concerned about it and have the will to take action. Like they finally did with the hyperinflation and the credit sellers. It's up to us, the players, to make them realize this is a serious problem. I have little faith in the playerbase because of the general attitude expressed here which you can find all over the game as well.

I'm glad I didn't spend money on this. I would be pissed off they changed an original design weapon to look like something from the Disney Contracted Universe. I would want my money back. I'm still angry about it but not as much as I would be if I spent real money on it. It's also strange they would do this instead of just releasing another pistol. They are very different from each other. Stop pulling crap from Disney Star Wars, BioWare! If you're going to do this, just release a separate weapon at least. Don't overwrite your own designs. Leave your original stuff alone.

Unless they allow the source editor, I don't think you can format a table manually, and I doubt they will enable it because it's a security risk. I've seen this forum software elsewhere, and the WYSIWYG editor can be really frustrating at times with formatting. The source editor allows you to get around this, but it's definitely not happening here. That's another thing I liked. I liked the gold text on the black background of the old forum. Nothing to do with biology, which is unfortunate that is the reason for you, but it just looked better. Consider changing the text back to its original golden color and the background to black. The logo with the orrey(?) is OK, but black is friendlier to phones with OLED screens, less power consumption. Not sure why such a short quote is expandable. That's strange and also annoying. People will click to expand and find nothing was hidden.

I agree, BioWare needs to focus on producing content and fixing the litany of bugs that have been inflicting a thousand cuts on what was at one time a pretty damn good game that was only hampered by its shortsightedness of using a beta version of a game engine and modding it so much, they couldn't update it, as well as prematurely releasing, but I know the latter was because EA wanted an impressive annual report for their shareholders. It still can be if they have the will to make it so (and the financial support of EA, which they don't. I know it's not all your fault, BioWare. Not much you can do without the money to hire people and obtain the equipment to make it happen). There's plenty of money this game generates, but not nearly enough of it gets reinvested. Does EA understand this basic concept of business? You have to reinvest a portion of profits back into your products to keep up and improve their quality and competitiveness on the open market. Your customers will notice if you don't, and at some point, there is a breaking point where they won't tolerate the decline in quality and stop giving you business. But the only effort I see is put into distractions: CM items; Strongholds/decos; the godawful Galactic Seasons; completely unnecessary changes, such as the Ability Purge; UI changes; character creator "update" and misguided additions like combat "styles." Projects that took away time and effort that could've been put into what keep players coming back for more: story/content and other signs that BioWare still cares about the fans: bugfixes and QoL improvements. These other things are just a thin veneer. Underneath it is still the rotting wood of lack of content and more bugs than Klendathu.

That will be great for bug reports! It must have to do with that you use icons, and they're definitely bigger than the default font size, which changes the line spacing.

Nope, it's 4, but if it seems the forum is set to display 3 1/2 lines without expanding the signature. What a great idea! I see no way people will bully OPs into deleting an entire thread they don't like, especially the forum regulars, OPs won't delete their threads asking basic questions out of shame and embarrassment, or abuse moderation powers within their own threads. /s Maybe a large portion of threads should be locked to keep this from happening. Someone may bring up something that hasn't been asked before or asked in ages (even though they should've searched for a preexisting thread first), or someone could give a great answer and it would be lost to the ether. Forums are a way of preserving information. There is no guarantee of preservation if any member can delete whatever they contribute to it on a whim.

I don't like the orange color. It's just not representative of the game when the color scheme has been gold since the beginning. Maybe change the gradients to transition from gold to orange. It's also been mentioned already, but the frame on the right side is a huge waste of space once you scroll past the information in it. There needs to be a way to have all the posts after it stretch beyond it. Are our emoji gone? Will they be brought back? The new forum seems to otherwise be an improvement, but I haven't thoroughly checked out all the features. Oh, emoji work in my signature, but hell if I can remember all the codes for them.

I already responded, but it was pretty knee-jerk. This thread is very bad news because: It shows EA's priorities lie in a mobile game, and mobile games are associated with pay-to-win models. This was confirmed by the poster above. It sounds a lot like the Battlefront 2 scandal. It shows how much EA controls BioWare. I've heard claims from others that BioWare has a lot of independence from EA in how they operate. I never believed them, because how this game is managed makes very little sense. This announcement flies in the face of having a lot of independence that apologists often claim BioWare has. It shows that in addition to the needless changes that went into 7.0 (Ability Purge, "Combat Styles," UI changes) EA thinks importing a character from SWTOR into a mobile game to make more money from it is more important than giving SWTOR attention, which is also a big moneymaker for the company. If they told BioWare to spend all their time on creating content and fixing bugs, this update may have actually been able to be considered an expansion in more than just name. It shows SWTOR players and the game are not even a kriffing afterthought anymore. We don't even get a cantina where those of us who could show up in person could at least talk to the devs and enlighten them on bugs or gameplay problems they apparently "didn't know existed" because they either don't play their own game or completely tune out things they shouldn't be tuning out when they actually have technical ability and access to fix them. It further irritates, angers, enrages, alienates, saddens, and/or disappoints SWTOR players, both the new and the old that have long supported this game, and those that didn't leave because of the initial 7.0 debacle are either leaving because of this revelation or have seriously begun to think about why they're still here. I'm not sure why anyone at BioWare should feel threatened the game is going to close if it makes so much money for EA. (Imagine if even a fraction of those profits generated by SWTOR were reinvested into the game!) I know this is your livelihood, so why are you not defending it? Don't you want to be proud of your game? Stand up to EA already! Stop letting them push all of you around! You must have a breaking point? How can you let them run roughshod all over you like this? As the Player can say to Marco Zarik (one of the bounty contacts during Bounty Week):

Instead of collaborating with the Galaxy of Heroes team to bring Malgus to a mobile game, the devs should be working on fixing LotS, because it is an utter disaster from the ability purge, to the horrendous UI, to waiting for Weapon Designer, to the lack of story and group content, to the usual bugs and bugs galore. A collaboration with a mobile game team to add a character from this game to their game should not be a priority, not ever for a game in such an ill state.

By telling Steve not to speak for the OP, I'm pressuring them? If mental gymnastics was a sport, that's a gold medal performance right there. If OP doesn't want to disclose, then they can politely state they don't want to say. You can't leave room for interpretation on the internet, because text is all we have to go by, and a lot can be misinterpreted when so little of human communication is the literal message itself. We can only assume the OP wasn't clear in communicating the problem. I even proposed that it is their monitor is configured improperly, and Steve did as well. Step off.

Let the OP answer, Steve. I know which it could be, but I'm not the one with the problem. I already suggested the OP's monitor wasn't calibrated correctly, but I got no response on that.

Nothing, just that more information will allow the devs to determine how prevalent of a problem this with players. I don't see what is the problem with providing the exact condition that makes it difficult for the OP. I have probably already named it, but it's always good to confirm.

That's a dumb reason to quit the game. It's disabled because the old level cap was 70 and Onslaught introduced the armor with different set bonuses. You start getting drops on newer gear at 71, and at 76. Nothing you can do about that. Also, with the Ability Purge, I'll bet some of the bonuses wouldn't apply anymore anyway. You start getting drops on the newest gear (Legacy of the Sith) where the set bonuses are built into the implants you have to trade for with Tech Fragments at Level 76.