Wait, so this whole thread comes down to "QQ, I want more Star Wars lore in my game!"? No matter how much you want something to happen, EA is going to run a focus group on what the consumer wants out of this game, yoke developers into designing it, and then force-feed it to us (regardless of what the community may be actually wanting). If you think that they'll make this game even more about the lore that people won't recognize beyond the movies...

Well, what really got me started thinking on this is that on the page with the F2P info, it says that there will be "no access" to operations for free players. If this isn't the case, cool. However, I keep finding myself more and more unsatisfied with how this game is being handled. It's been my experience that the group finder bugs on the BH comms once every 5th-6th queue for me (which is why I don't use it any more). As well, the server lag is just atrocious, and as a healer it drives me up the wall (plus I hate getting default blames for wipes when it was no fault of my own). Lastly, I've simply run out of things to do in the game-- already raiding HM EC (which only lasts an hour and a half tops), got my WH gear for my concealment operative, and have enough credits to swim around in like Scrooge McDuck. That wouldn't bug me, but it's been like this for a while now and I would rather go deal with the pandas than sit around on my thumbs.

I think you're misunderstanding the tone that I'm using here. I'm not complaining. I'm just speculating a bit over what's happening with the game now. While it is true that we might deal with having a tier for months on end, it comes down to how sustainable any given tier is. Sure, WoW's latest raid is a be... staid by now, but it has a variety of encounters, difficulty levels, and other challenges to keep one's attention. Also, as a matter of fact, I'm letting my sub lapse out because BW apparently has no plans for new content. Maybe I'll go to TSW, maybe I'll head back to Azeroth. Who knows?

It's a knife's edge that BW is walking along. Sincerely, I hope it works out, but they are going to have to step up to the plate content-wise. Then again, I'm also letting my subscription lapse and going back to WoW because BW is seemingly focused on getting F2P up and not getting us anything new to do.

No, I'm not going to complain about the switch to F2P. In all honesty it might be just what this game needs. What I want to hypothesize is that Bioware had better be getting ready with something big for the sheer amount of harassment they're about to receive from raiders once the F2P model goes live. Since only subscribed players will be allowed to raid, Bioware had better have some truly epic encounters ready more-or-less the moment that raiders become the patrician class of TOR. They're not going to tolerate months and months and months of only 4 bosses like we're dealing with in EC right now (much less seeing that content get completely broken by a frankly useless patch). No, they're going to demand that new content be epic and frequent. After all, they're the ones paying for it, right? And the only ones paying, at that. Sure, EC is fun. However, it's not 3+ months of an hour and half's worth of raiding fun. The devs, with their reduced production team, better be ready to batten down the hatches, cause no raider/ patrician is going to put up with such nonsense. Essentially, don't say you're going to have lots of new content. Actually have lots of new content! Disclaimer: if it turns out you can just turn raiding on with a certain number of Cartel Coins, then I guess I'll eat my hat. I seriously doubt that will be the case however. Raiding is the marquee activity of MMO's and BW's going to need something to keep a consistent cashflow coming in to fuel new content (or just swim in like Scrooge McDuck).

No, I'm not going to complain about the switch to F2P. In all honesty it might be just what this game needs. What I want to hypothesize is that Bioware had better be getting ready with something big for the sheer amount of harassment they're about to receive from raiders once the F2P model goes live. Since only subscribed players will be allowed to raid, Bioware had better have some truly epic encounters ready more-or-less the moment that raiders become the patrician class of TOR. They're not going to tolerate months and months and months of only 4 bosses like we're dealing with in EC right now (much less seeing that content get completely broken by a frankly useless patch). No, they're going to demand that new content be epic and frequent. After all, they're the ones paying for it, right? And the only ones paying, at that. Sure, EC is fun. However, it's not 3+ months of an hour and half's worth of raiding fun. The devs, with their reduced production team, better be ready to batten down the hatches, cause no raider/ patrician is going to put up with such nonsense. Essentially, don't say you're going to have lots of new content. Actually have lots of new content! Disclaimer: if it turns out you can just turn raiding on with a certain number of Cartel Coins, then I guess I'll eat my hat. I seriously doubt that will be the case however. Raiding is the marquee activity of MMO's and BW's going to need something to keep a consistent cashflow coming in to fuel new content (or just swim in like Scrooge McDuck).

Exactly. We've got these massive planets that, while epic in scale, feel rather barren. Even on the planets both factions share, you'll be hard up to find an opposing-factioned player. I think this is mostly due to the office-building-esque layout of the game. You've got your conference room level (the fleet) and an elevator (your ship) to take you to whatever bits of business you're handling at the time (the planets). It makes for a very clunky total picture of the game world because there are some levels (planets) that are just completely closed off to you. I think that's part of the overall success of WoW. It's just one massive map that both sides are forced to coexist on. Not, Empire gets Conference Room A and Republic gets Conference Room B.

@ KaiLan: True, I hadn't thought of it that way. I think really though, I'm just trying to find new things to do since Explosive Content HM is old by now and there's no new content on the horizon (especially since BW is proving they'll just push patches through without proper testing first). Recently, Pubs took a few Tattooine questing hubs from the Empire and we absolutely refused to go take them back due to fear of the ban-hammer. It's not that we're expecting too much, it's that BW has sown an atmosphere of fear about going out and making some for real enemies. @ Capt_Beers: Explain to me the real difference between a pvp and pve server. Sure, you level up out in the world, but once you're at end-game, there's absolutely no reason to leave the Fleet. Need to raid? Fleet. Need to pvp? Fleet. Need to run a FP? Fleet (or your base at Ilum). There's no reason to go farm mats; there's no rare drops really worth farming (unless you're dedicated to seeing some specific orange-quality gear). So, I ask you again, what's the real difference between a pvp server and a pve server other than having that frankly ignorable rep of saying, "I play on a pvp server."? It's a sad state of affairs when a game completely bows to the casuals. Sure, WoW's become more accessible over the years (it's pretty much had to to survive), but it still has truly difficult content (Heroic FL's Ragnaros anyone?) and, at least to me, has a good balance of listening to the community and ignoring the crybabies. Maybe BW will grow some teeth and learn not to bend over backwards in the face off a few people afraid of getting ganked. NOTE: I don't use casual to describe someone who can't/ doesn't play often. Casuals represent a mindset of laziness, meticulous non-dedication to improving skill, and willingness to complain at the first sight of adversity. Truly skilled players rise to the occasion; scrubs get to tank the floor beneath us.

No doubt on my end, Acid Blade + Hidden Strike. "Aww look, suddenly you're flat on your face and bleeding. Whoops..."

Looking cool is a privilege, not a right. I spent time cobbling gear together... mostly because pvp concealment operatives have no decent set bonuses on their gear. Point-in-case, I actually had to get 2 pieces of PVE enforcer gear (+15% Crit to Backstab is the sex) and am using some pvp sniper gear to extend the duration of Orbital Strike (which is, admittedly, an ability only to protect objectives for longer).

I think a lot of this will be solved when Season 1 actually starts. Once players can queue solo for RWZ's it'll be a point of rep to have a decent ranking. Now, I remember reading that the queue system works by trying to find you a similar-rated team first, but starts widening the search over time till it finds you a match. So.... when more people have rankings, you'll start getting matched with players of equal rank more often than stomping some pug.

You do understand half the fun in an MMO is saying "my gear is better than yours" then rubbing that other person's face against some bricks, right? It's a pretty basic human instinct to want to be better than others engaged in the same activity you are. Duh.

Don't forget some of the questionable design decisions made as well. Cloister players away in a town that's completely inaccessible to the other faction so that there's no difference between a pvp and a pve server? Claim to have a robust class system but only offer 8 classes trying to make ~24 distinct playstyles work? Cater to the lowest common denominator at every turn of the wheel? Yeah, that's working out real well...

Don't you know? BW doesn't test content anymore. They just let buggy patches that could've been cleaned up with even minimal internal testing go live, even if they make the latest (erm... highest-tiered) content unplayable. >.>

So, this has been bugging me for a while now. First a little back-story, I played WoW for a long time off-and-on on a pve server. However, my guild was pvp/pve (emphasis on pvp, raiding came second). While world pvp was never something encouraged, we never got penalized for doing it. Did we raid Stormwind on the weekends? Yes (we were Horde). Did we kite world bosses into major cities just for lol'z? Yes. Would we take over enemy towns? You better believe it. Would we flag ourselves and camp raid entrances on peak nights. Yes, so many times yes. Even though we were absolutely the villains of the Alliance, Blizzard never suspended our accounts (and I know there were many complaints). So why does Bioware kowtow to the first person who can't turn in their precious quests because some world pvp took over their quest hub? So far, there are two places to pvp in the world (if you so choose), and both are ghost towns. Ilum is used solely for dailies (which is so worth the long load time); Outlaw's Den is consistently glossed over to get 1 quest done. To me, this is detrimental to community. Factional rivalries make the game fun. They give you a palpable enemy to grind an axe about and make you want to get better so you can wipe the floor with your rival du jour. Having a palpable enemy faction creates stronger community among your own faction too; getting a raid together to go take back Crossroads was amazing fun back in the day. Instead... We're segregated from each other. There is no opportunity to even interact with the other faction outside of Warzones. Our Fleets are completely inaccessible to the other side. A Pub out in the wild is rare beyond belief. Even if I flag myself (even on lowbie alts), no one will engage me. No one will accept duel requests (my legacy name can't be that notorious, right?). Every town is guarded by Lv. 50 Champions (making even taking over a small town require a raid, essentially). I'm not saying we need any egregious options for engaging each other. I just think we need to have at least some measure of access to each other. I would love to crawl around the Pub Fleet on my operative, killing vendors and taunting players to come find me. Please, Bioware, don't let a few crybabies have their way. I know some people will say, "Well, go play on a PVP server then." I would, but there's really no difference between a pve and pvp server when your entire end-game is played on the fleet. Either give us a reason to go out into the world (world bosses don't count because there are etiquette rules for those) or let us get into each others fleets somehow. I know the Republic is out there and just want to be able to touch it.