I watched the subject of chat bubbles come up in the live stream of the Guild Summit Meeting. The devs were truly embarrassed and apologetic. They admitted that the chat bubbles were causing huge bugs in the game, and that they are having a hard time trying to find ways to fix the bugs. It's not matter of priority in this instance, I think hey just bollixed up their coding pretty bad and are in over their heads on it. Seriously, if you watched the video, all the visual cues of shame and embarrassment are there. They put their hands on the back of their necks, they looked sheepish, one person slightly blushed, they traded glances, the shuffled feet, etc etc. Sometimes, I get the impression these guys really did try to bite more than they could chew in making SWTOR. Do I think they just wasted a huge amount of time on "balancing" classes when they should have done something else? Yeah, I agree with that. The combat in the game is not the focus of the game, they repeatedly said this game was a content story-based game, therefore the "imbalance" in PvP should have been put on a back-burner, not be their main priority. I agree with the main point, they are shafting social and RP players with their attention, and they directly lied to us telling us it would be a social game, then ignored social and casual players in favor or the power-gamers (loyalty, anyone?) but in the case of the chat bubbles, that's not quite the issue here.

It's been explained at the Guild Summit that the same-gender companion romance content was not finished in time to make it to the game launch and that it will become available in the future. It's my opinion they didn't intend to insult people, it's just another section of the game they simply could not finish and have bug-free fast enough for the launch of the game. I thought about it and realized they can't really put it in only in pieces, like just one class at a time or just half of the romance at a time because people would be even more angry and frustrated about it being incomplete rather than missing entirely. So, I'm sad that it's not here for the people who desire it, and having it later sort of invalidates a lot of stuff you already RP'd or played through if you have to start relationships all over again at level 50 or something, but at least I feel comforted knowing it's coming. People who are unhappy with the game have some fair logic in grumbling about content/features which were promised but are not available. This has become the rule rather than the exception for every MMO I've been involved with. And for the record, as an Ethics philosopher, just because "all the other guys are doing it" that doesn't mean it's OK.

OP, your post comes across as if it's nothing more than a selfish rant based on what you want specifically. I feel your pain, and understand the anger, but spewing it like cosmic space monkey poo at random passersby in a forum isn't really helping your case Let's try to paraphrase what you're trying to get across: I feel the Legacy System relationships are too limited. There are only 5 options, and many of them are too strict in definition to be suitable for the many many other types of relationships I could have. I'd like to see an ability to custom-name the types of relationships my character has within those 5 options. For instance, re-name a 'spouse' option to be 'mistress' or rename an 'ally' option to be 'student'. If we had this ability, it woudl help us to have a much broader scope of relationships in our Role Play. In addition I will add my own comment about the Legacy system: I am having a hard time connecting my characters together, because it seems like it limits how many of each type of relationship I can have? For instance, I have a main character with 2 siblings. I wanted to add some allies and enemies to that main character, but those slots are now grayed out and I'm only allowed to add a child or an adopted child. I can't even add a spouse now that I have two siblings. I'm concerned that the system actually is telling me I can only be related to three other characters at a time. this doesn't make a lot of sense to me, there's tons of people out there in the real world with more than 2 siblings, so I would like to see if they can expand the actual relationship mechanics to allow more connections to a single character without the limitations and graying out on how many I'm "allowed".

I am not, and didn't think I ever said anything to give the impression that I was one of those people. I'm sorry if you misunderstood me. I have 1 main character who is level 33. I have a heavy personal schedule, and consider myself to be a casual social player. Insofar as RP goes, I count myself a "medium" rper. I do not generally RP in character while questing in the game, but I do stop to RP for random encounters met in the field. I also am an event RPer, outside of the usual Cantina lounging, I like to participate in known events when my schedule permits me to attend. I am actively RPing as I level, and since my highest level is 33 I don't think anyone could doubt that I have spent more time in social engagements in game than in leveling up. This is exactly what I was trying to say in my example of why I RP a sound engineer. I certainly don't ignore all background aspects of the story and game. I RP the major stories of the planets which affect all players, while ignoring the 'heroic' elements. Anyone could have helped limit the rakghoul population but really, I doubt Skavik stole hundreds of other Smuggler ships. When I play the game OOC, I'm the hero of the game. When I RP with other people, I take out that 'special snowflake' element because any person who insisted their character was the only savior of a world would possess a huge ego to pull that off; and I'm not that person. \ I really like what you said here, and I think that pretty much describes me too. I RP that my character's job is a sound engineer, but she definitely has smuggling elements, for instance she blockade runs planets in order to do a radio show to boost troop morale. I RP my character's level appropriately. I know she's not all-powerful and she displays that correctly by not picking fights with people when she has no idea what weapons or power they may have. If a conflict occurs, I always use duel as first choice option. I feel people who leveled and geared their characters deserve to RP their power appropriately, as their effort is worth acknowledgment and honor. I RP the clothes I wear. If I'm forced by game mechanics to have mismatched messy clothes, I RP those clothes and have reasons and background why I wear them. I RP my craft choices. She does cybertech because she herself is a cyborg with a particular fondness for droids. When she sees other people's droids and pets she tries to offer them cybertech enhancement "treats". So I'm right there with you, I'm more 100% lightly in character at all times, rather than hard core strict canon 10% of the time. That's a really lovely way to look at it, by the way. I appreciate you sharing that viewpoint.

I'm going to start by saying I despise BioWare for two reasons: they have very poor communication skills and rapport with their customers, and they play PR marketing games rather than being honest and open with their clients. That being said, I am not a fanboi type, and I see many flaws and issues with SWTOR, but let's be honest, that's not what this post is about. This post is about people who only play the game one way who are angry and intolerant of a game that does not cater to their play-style: competitive end-game raiding and pvping. This game, since years before launch, has been marketed as a casual story-driven game. There's famous quotes all over the forums from devs saying things like: if you only want to pvp you're not going to like our game, and that's tough because that's not what we're here for. SWTOR was purposely set up to appeal to a casual player who takes their time leveling up, exploring the worlds around them to find lore and hidden or hard to get items, and people who want to fully enjoy all the content in a game. And by "content" I don't mean that you finished all the end game ops and "violated" all your opponents on a PvP war-zone. People who are "the best" players in a game don't enjoy the story. They power-leveled their way through this game, space-barred through a huge amount of it, because they wanted to "beat" the game. They rushed through zones and didn't discover codex entries or items on their own, and why bother looking since they can just look it up on a guide later anyway rather than play the game as intended without outside guides and tutorials to skip through the real issue of playing the game: achieving something yourself, not just following a play-guide. I'm not sorry to see this guild go. I'm not sorry about ANY PvP/End Game competitive jerk who has literally made my play time in this game miserable. They complain, they whine, they snivel, they harass other players. I have had other players follow me around in the PVE environment as I tootled along taking my time and actually harass me telling me how much I was a terrible loser person because I wasn't level 50 and I was too slow and they were better than me. We weren't grouped or anything, they simply had nothing better to do with their time because those poor widdle babies were bored. Tough bantha poodoo. They can get the heck outta Dodge as far as I'm concerned. Their aggressive nasty attitudes were nothing but negativity and annoyance and they surely won't be missed by a casual player like me. Well congratulations, they beat the game. Please DO let the door smack them on the behinds nice and hard on way out. I surely don't want them here.

I wrote this for my guild last week, and will share it here. I noticed 2 new graphics controls. Character Texture Atlasing = "Adjust the texture atlasing of your characteryour character model. Reducing this will increase your performance." Visible Character Limit = "Controls how many characters are rendered in the vicinity of the player." I have them both set to high or Very High. I noticed no noticable changes in appearance quality except for slightly less blurring and better skin detail on the PTS. As you can see by the Fraps FPS indicator in the lower left corner, my FPS drops from the Live server at an average of 80FPS down by about 15 frames per second to an average of 55 FPS on the Public Test Server. The population on both servers when I took these shots were close to the same, less than 10 people logged in. I would say the FPS drop was completely due to the second setting, Visible Character Limit, not so much the first one. Here are some comparison shots. LIVE Long Distance View PTS Long Distance View LIVE Character Bust PTS Character Bust

I love those! It's great for ice-breaking and meeting new people who also RP.

No, I think if everyone RP'd only their class that means there would be a pretty boring conversation when every Jedi tries to out-Jedi each other on Jedi-ness. My main is a Smuggler and she RP's a sound engineer who got shoved on stage to be a performer despite her insanely shy and private personality. My alt is a Sage who up til now has been an accident insurance broker who is totally against being trained in the force, hates it, and has a horrible superstitious fear of accidents and health issues so she goes around warning people to cover their heads, wear their sweaters and be sure to clean those cuts and walk AROUND the ladder not under it.

Well because there are only 8 classes in the game. That means at every party you're going to meet tons of other people just like you. It's boring. Why ignore the entire range and scope of limitless professions you can incorporate in your role play? Honestly, the most boring RP I am forced to watch are the groups of 10 Jedi arguing over Jedi Code, or the myriads of Smugglers who all try to out-character each other with wink-wink-nudge-nudges. One or two Smugglers in a room is nice. 30 of them gets boring and dull fast. Diversity is important in RP just as it is in the real world. Without individual personalities and characters in our lives, the world is a boring dull pedantic place.

Smuggler Dark Side --- I wanted to try playing a dark side smuggler during one of my many re-plays on that series for beta, and I went all dark for kicks and did the deed and I actually had tears in my eyes afterwards. It was the worst dark side choice I think I'd ever done, it really struck me how horrifyingly mean and nasty my character was being. There are certain things now, that I don't care how many force points it costs me light or dark, I won't do them simply because there has to be some limits darn it! That's one of them. Other stuff so far hasn't bugged me nearly as much as that one.

Many people subscribed to the game with 3-month and 6-month packages. Game Release: 12-21 Earliest 3-month Renewal: April 21st Earliest 6-month Renewal: July 21st Because of this, the first fall-off of the jerks who hate the game will be April 21, and the second fall-off will be July 21st. So really, a lot of the worst jerks who have stopped playing or hate the game and plan to quit, might not be gone yet. These are the ones deliberately trolling and causing issues on the forums, according to my best guess. So I sort of knew coming in, that the forums would not improve until about July. I'm pretty much just hunkering down mostly here and in other side forums until then. I expect it will get a lot better then.

I'm quite happy with any of the available options. When I first started this game I thought 3D space combat would be a killer important issue for me, but it really isn't anymore. It's the one I consider least important to my playstyle. I do all three playstyles, PvP, PvE and RP. There are two choices that I feel would appeal to all types of play styles, and they are the racing/vehicle combat options. 3D space combat and capital ship battles would really only appeal to the end-game achiever type and killer type players and would leave RPers pretty much out in the cold if they are only RPers. However, the speeder races and the vehicle combat would give RPers a chance to use a game mechanic incorporated in their RP events, such as seasonal festivals with races, or duels and territory disputes which involve combat machines. Both of these type vehicles, crafting, repairing, and modifying them would help crafters in the game with new items to make and sell. In addition the PvE ers who can compete against NPC style competition for bragging rights and titles will enjoy both types of activities, and the PvPers could even have entire war zones with either one of those two mechanics, speeders or comab vehicles. This is why I would vote for those two things. It is balanced toward the game play needs of all players rather than only the pvp/end-game players.

I will play the guessing game. This is just a guessing game. Yes, I agree that we won't see significant drop in subscriptions until the end of the 3- and 6-month plans. The last report of 1.7 million was as of which date, does anyone know? This next report will reflect the change between the last one, and March 31st. That's probably about 30-40 days difference, depending what the last report based its dates on. In general, I expect a report at March 31st to show a stable 1.6 to 1.7 million subscribers. I then expect them to drop down a drastic stair-step to a rough equivalent of 1.2 to 1.3 subscribers by June 31st. This report frame would reflect the 3-month subscribers but perhaps not the 6-monthers just yet if you figure the earliest 6-month available was January 21st, 6 months from then would be July 21st and not included in this date frame. Finally, by September 31st, we will have finally caught up with the earliest of the 6-month subscribers and I expect a dramatic drop in subs to about a 800,00 - 1 Million active subscribers. I then expect the game to float around the 1 million mark for several years as people come in to it to try it then leave, or returned 1-month subs of previous customers to review new content then leave if it isn't drastic enough game changing to contain them past that 1-month check-in.

My statement was written in the context of game play style within role play interactions with other players, insofar as how our interactions with each other should be kept fairly divided between healthy psychological boundaries of where you end and I begin. If you wish to complain about the game story content, it has nothing to do with my statement. I stand by what I said, your gaming style within your role play is completely within your control, and healthy people should not be trying to control other's personal spheres of personality and self-expression. You are not being forced to include the companions, class quest, or other game features in your role play. Here is an example: My character is a smuggler but I do not role play that I am a smuggler. I role play that I am a sound engineer who by unhappy coincidence ended up being an entertainer. This has absolutely nothing to do with the game mechanics. Nothing about the class quest prevents me from role playing as a sound engineer forced to perform on a stage when the original performer stomped off and refused to do his show. When I perform the class missions I do them OOCly to level my character and nothing more. One time I did RP through the entire storyline and I simply ignored the script, and made my own excuses for my character's actions. Did Skavik steal my ship? No, I have a roque droid who stole my ship. I can dismiss my companions and completely ignore them in my role play. I am not limited in any way in how I RP my character except by the boundaries of my own sense of good taste and imagination. I completely feel your pain about the linear environment. I agree that this game is horrifyingly oppressive to people with imaginations and creativity. However, your complaint has absolutely no bearing whatsoever with my statements. It's about the game play itself. I agree with you, but again, bringing it up now is nothing more than a straw-man topic. It's not relevant to what I said. I believe I have already, by example of my smuggler character, proven how the linearity of the story line does not have to influence your RP in any way. Therefore, your answer to my statement, while valid for people who wish to RP through the class content is perhaps, another topic to discuss in regards to obstacles BioWare places for role players, I don't believe it is an accurate reply to my assertions, that people should keep their control issues within their own characters and leave other people's characters alone.

Game mechanics handed us a great tool to deal with immersion problems in RP. We have the ability to turn name plates off. I have that power. No one is preventing me from using that power. People are even trying to support a mechanic that turns off name plates by individual basis for people/legacies I put on my ignore list. So I have to ask this: Why are these people blaming others for something that is completely in their power to control? Oh... I get it, because they won't take active responsibility for their own happiness. It's so much easier to blame other people for something than to take care of it yourself. These people don't really want to stop seeing names that offend them, because if they did, they'd turn that feature off. No, what they really want is to boss other people around. Here they are with a perfectly good control to avoid this issue, but they decline to use it. The argument about character names as a reason to support strict RP policies is completely invalid. There's a fix for it, yet complainers refuse to use the tools given to them. They have no one but themselves to blame. It is also hypocrisy to use blatant meta-game techniques of game mechanic statistics for the use of your Role Play. Control your own game environment, not other people.