Please tell me you will be using Justin/Twitch.TV to stream. While Livestream is decent, the quality can be pretty bad. I have seen MLG/ESL (SC2) matches of 30,000 people live on a single stream and the quality was at 720p. Now most of that has to do with your up speed and how good the hardware is. You can also store the streams on your Justin.TV page for future viewing. During E3 last year, the recordings were only up for a limited time, which was annoying for those who did not get to see them or wanted to view them later. You can also store the streams to a site called blip.tv I have seen a lot of webcasts be posted there though you do have your own site to store videos on, so that may be unnecessary.

I heard the experience and offices are pretty cool. You can go back and look at the two fansite summits that BioWare has held before. You get a tour, some play time, interview/Q&A time, and even a night out for dinner/party. I would rather see BioWare pay for at least part of the trip, as people flying in from more remote areas of the US are going to be paying a hefty price. An all expenses paid visit would be great and other companies have done it before, but at least some compensation would be nice. As for the event, I doubt we will see anything come from it. BioWare boasts about their metric system and how much data they can pull from various channels, yet some bugs in raid content continue to exist. BioWare knows the popular features that people want, they know some of the more major bugs and what needs to get prioritized. What can this event really bring in terms of new ideas and feedback that has already not been talked about? EA does not have the funds to cover such an expense. They need to fund other projects and since budgets are so tight, it would break the bank for them....oh wait.

Scumbag BioWare, invites guild leaders to a summit in Austin, does not pay for any of it. BioWare really should take a page from CCP, and invite only a few people but pay for their entire trip to CCP HQ in Iceland.

Should be noted that it sometimes bugs. We did a 5/5 clear on Karaggas and all the loot dropped correctly with nightmare and masterloot on. EV is a different story, we have had times that only a mod and schematic would drop, and that is a bug.

I have also read that keeping loot on need/greed will fix that problem and it only bugs when using master loot.

Well when all your healers area dead...

For Soa, this is apparently working as intended. That is the response we got back from a support ticket as well, if you happen to die or be a in a mind trap, good luck getting loot. There really should be an elevator or stairs to get down to Soa, being killed should not exclude you from loot if you get the boss down.

In most fights, it is 1 tank, 1 healer, 6 DPS. We do bring a BH to off-heal and DPS when he can. On Karagga hard mode, we had to bring 3 healers, but two did damage and healed when needed. We do keep people around who may have tank gear for certain fights, like Jindo in Karaggas for a two tank fight.

Yup. He will only throw and mind trap people once (If working correctly), so if you have no been throw, you could tell the healers to over heal someone who is eating a ball lightning. What the OP explained happened to our group when attempting him on nightmare. The RNG, the biggest boss in TOR at the moment.

You got lucky on hardmode. Hards can drop Columni and Rakata Nightmare strictly drops Rakata (Well should) We have had columni drop from nightmare, we have had non-rakata drop from nightmare, but we have also been lucky and have had some encounters not bug at all. If it is working, you should receive the same amount of loot per-boss in 8 and 16-man, regardless.

Nightmare loot is very bugged, do hard modes instead. You have a chance of getting Rakata gear in hards and the gear will drop. On nightmare it may not work at all or will only drop mods and schematics.

I have found people are not willing to learn any information anymore on their own. They want the anwser to every question to come from the company/developer and do not want to take the time and do research. While the direction does lack, I applaud BioWare at the minimum amount of hand holding they do compared to other MMOs. Information should not spoon fed to you, it should be learned and shared from those in the community.

TOR is not a PvP game at its heart, it is a story and class based PvE game. This means PvP is not the focus of the game and should not dictate how others enjoy the game. The problem with an allegiance lock is that you cannot force people to PvP. Just because the balance on server A may be 3:1 Empire, does not mean that Ilum or Warzones are dead. That just means the Republic does not want to PvP, and unless there is a massive global incentive to do so, a lock would not help at all. If said lock was in place, the ratio could still be 1:1 but that does not mean faster warzone pops or better balancing on Ilum. That just means at the current state, the ratio of Empire to Republic players is the same. The ratio on Ilum or in warzones could still be 3:1 Empire and the problem would not get fixed. For those that want equal footing and a good time in PvP, you need to get others to join you from both sides of the fence. That means bringing Empire and Republic players together, or having a reward that even those that normally do not PvP, would get a piece of the action.

That was the reason it was not added into TOR. BioWare wanted a specific look for each planet, and to achieve this they needed a certain lighting effect. This does not mean it is always sunny, some planets are a lot more dark and even have gloomy areas. BioWare made a design choice not to include a day/night cycle, and they seem to be sticking with that. It is possible that in a expansion or content update, if new planets are added, that a day/night cycle would be implemented. As of right now though, I doubt you would ever see one added to any of the existing planets.

The main reason companions were taken out from being in raids during testing was because of how much the AI would need to "think". Humans can communicate and react faster in the case of an MMO than a scripted AI. Depending on the fight and strategy used, it would be hard to tell a companion to stay out and DPS during the missile salvo of Annihilation Droid. Given that normal mode can be PuGed and is really not that hard, you should be able to find someone to join. While that is not always the case I do not think having an AI in a raid setting is best for the group. DPS is pretty straight forward but tanking and healing would be much harder to code. What player takes priority healing? Does the companion use the AoE splash heal on this target or another target? Do they know not to heal the ranged DPS during a certain phase? The list goes on. This tends to be why you do not see companions or pets in major MMOs taking the roles of a tank or healer. In some cases for instances it can be fine, but generally in a raid setting the complexity of the fight will only hinder the group with AI in it.