I have characters who have mastered various crafting professions for gear and I don't use guns that I crafted, I don't use armo that I crafted, and I don't use implants that I crafted for my lv 70 toons because crafting is the worst way of getting high-level gear EVEN if you master the crafting professions up to max level. Sad...

I think it would be really great if you could have a home with children and babysitters & stuff. Adoptable children would be a very easy way of doing that and bioware could easily partner with a real world charity to give them a share of the profits from the sale of optional DLC which adds adopted kids to strongholds.

I honestly think that tryng to blackmail current players into staying subbed, while it might have worked in your case, is a terrible long-term strategy since alienating new players is exactly what you do NOT want to do if you want an online game to be successful. Offering incentive for subscribers on the other hand is a great choice and this got me thinking. Adding a few more low-effort chapters like this for more companions would actually be a great way to hook subscribers if the same were offered as subscriber bonuses. It would also be a great way of bringing in characters that Bioware is too busy to put in the main chapters (Mako for instance.) If I subscribe, I can get a new character and a special chapter explaining what they were doing lately. If I weren't subscribed already that would hook me in

Baron what's-his-name's helmet is a cosmetic item NOT a chapter of the game complete with story, voice acting, etc. All sorts of stuff that is exclusive eventually gets re-upped and this is certainly the right choice with a chapter of the game (as opposed to a minor cosmetic helmet.)

Classic Guild wars had that and it was a great feature.

Mako! Where is Mako?

I actually liked most of the changes to the game but one thing about crafting which really annoys me is that it isn't practical to use crafting as a way of getting gear once your characters pass lv 60 because at that point, the only way to craft is by using special rare materials which you can NOT get by sending companions on missions but only by doing flashpoints etc. Making crafting pointless at endgame is a terrible design choice. People who want to craft at high levels will still have to play the game to get CREDITS to send companions on missions even if they prefer not to try to get their materials by doing flashpoints. Trying to force players into flashpoints by making that the only way to get the materials for high-level gear is a big mistake because if you are doing lots of combat anyway, you get gear in drops. Furthermore, the high level mats are so rare and you need so many of them that it would take you forever to get decent gear that way. Simply put, once you pass lv 70, you should be getting your gear from drops and NOT from crafting so basically #$%* you if you like crafting. I don't bother to craft after lv 60 and since that it what really matters, I feel like it was basically waste of time to master my crafting abilities.

I respect your opinion but I don't think that forcing people who have already finished the game to level-grind is a healthy idea nor do I think it's one of Bioware's priorities. When the game launched, it was a lot more grindy owing to slow leveling restricted fast travel etc. (I was so bored that I actually quit playing and unsubbed for awhile) but the game now is much less grindy which is all for the best. Furthermore, Bioware already added a very easy replay system (replaying individual chapters is easier than New Game+) but as noted, the fact that none of the replay decisions actually matter makes the replay feel a bit pointless. Making the replay decisions overwrite the old ones or at least giving players the option to do that would make the replay feel much more meaningful. With regards to New Game+ if you are a subscriber, you don't really need to level grind anyway just to complete the game but of course, redoing the game to fix things that you think you did wrong is something that many people would like to be able to do without starting a whole new character. Actually New Game+ could be added as a subscriber perk or a cartel market transaction, either one of which would help EA's bottom line.

An minor cosmetic item is very different from an entire chapter of the game. Dividing the community by walling off an entire chapter of the game PERMANENTLY is NOT in the interests of the game's long-term survival. As for "implied promises" there is no "implied promise" to NEVER provide the chapter for anyone else in the future. You got the chapter. You played it first. Other people getting it now won't hurt you at all... unless you are so mean-spirited that it actually makes you unhappy to know that other people (who are paying to keep the game alive) are able to enjoy the game that you played.

Here's an easy way to fix the situation. Create a special stronghold decoration (maybe a gold plated scene from the story sort of like the Gold plated Hutt wall hanging) which would be mailed to everyone who had the content already and then offer the chapter (but not the wall hanging) to anyone who subscribes as a subscriber perk. If you subscribe, the chapter is added to your account. Now the new players have an incentive to subscribe for at least one month (some of them will stay subscribed of course) and the people who already had it will get something new that will make them feel appreciated. Heck, maybe you could throw in a couple of cartel packs for the people who had it before as well just to make them feel extra special. Have a nice day!

Yes, if it is the attitude of the company that it needs to blackmail people into staying subscribed by threatening to wall off entire chapters of the story from the "unfaithful" who take a break from the game, then selling said content will definitely put the lie to such threats. Of course, if it is the strategy of the company to blackmail existing players rather than bringing in new ones, the game is already condemned to a slow death anyway. There is no future in a game which seeks to "punish" new players for not having been subscribed in the past. If that is your attitude, then you should just take for granted that the game will slowly die as a steadily dwindling number of bitter old people complain about how these young folks seem to want everything just because they pay for it... as if being a subscriber in the past was somehow "earning" something that can't be equaled by merely paying for the game and keeping it alive TODAY. Enjoy your game while it lasts... and try not to think about what happened to Star Wars Galaxies.

Not a good analogy. Shroud of Memory isn't an achievement or a limited edition cosmetic item; it's an entire chapter of the game.

I honestly can't believe that there is anyone whose happiness depends on knowing that new subscribers will NEVER (even years after the launch) be able to play a certain chapter of the story but if you are such a person (and I hope for your own sake that you are happier than that) then please do yourself a favor and skip the rest of this post. For the rest of you, please consider that no matter how good a game is, there are a great many games vying for people's attention (I have more than 1,000 in my steam library and about a dozen on origin) so it is very possible for people to have lots of fun without even starting SWTOR much less subscribing to it. I already have everything there is in the game with regards to expansions but for someone who hasn't started the game yet, knowing that they won't be able to access one of the chapters EVEN IF they subscribe is definitely demotivating. While I was playing through this chapter, I was thinking "Wow this is really good! I bet my brothers would like to play this... oh wait. Never mind :(" For a game like this to stay online (having the only Star Wars license for ANY MMO has got to cost something) it is important to bring in NEW PLAYERS and telling prospective new players that they aren't allowed in one of the chapters EVEN IF they pay for it is a very nice little step towards ensuring that the the game will eventually get retired just like Star Wars Galaxies. Then NO ONE will be able to play this chapter. Will that make you happy?

One of the most important features to get right in a crafting system is to make sure that it feels rewarding. If you want to get through the game without crafting anything (which is what I do in a lot of games) good for you but if someone invests time and effort into crafting, they should feel like crafting is a useful and practical way of getting gear which is at least adequate for their level. For the most part, SWTOR gets this right... until you hit level 60 After level 60, the crafting sytem, send companions on missions to gather materials, use materials to build things, reverse engineer to learn how to build better things, works fine. After level 60 however, it becomes impractical to use crafting as a way of getting gear since anything you craft is going to require some exotic material which you can't get by sending companions on missions. Yes you could get these by doing tons of flashpoints etc. but if you are doing that, why would you even bother crafting? Why not just use the gear you will inevitably get in command crates? Honestly, the fact that crafting is kind of pointless after level 60 makes it little more than a hobby for the rest of the game before that. When people play a game like this, they always have the endgame in mind. Knowing that all the time you spent mastering a crafting profession is going to be basically useless at the end of the game utterly devalues the crafting system. If SWTOR wants people to actually care about crafting, it should ensure that the basic method for crafting gear (buy new schematics from trainer, craft items, reverse engineer items to learn to make better ones AND send companions on missions to collect materials) remains intact all the way through level 70. It may be that SWOTR was afraid that if people weren't forced into flashpoints by the need to get crafting materials, there would be no reason to do them but honestly, even using the standard crafting system, you will still need CREDITS to send people out on the missions to get materials so of course people who want to craft will continue to play the game. On a related not, the fact that crafting is basically a time-consuming and expensive hobby rather than a viable way of getting good gear after level 60 also devalues the companions since one of the main reasons to care about having good companions is to uses their crew skills... which since they don't actually allow you to gather all the materials you need for crafting high level gear, become almost completely pointless after level 60.

While I appreciate the effort that Bioware makes in trying to enhance this game, as a long-time subscriber, feel that the effort put into weapon tunings would have been far better spent adding real improvements to the game such as a crafting system which is actually practical and useful beyond level 60 or New Game+ for Character stories. Making the decisions in KOTFE play-throughs actually count in replays so that we could make the decisions we felt like without consulting the strategy guide first would also be a great improvement. Lightning effect added to a weapon if you buy dozens and dozens of crates and are lucky enough to find one? Meh...