Let me clarify something, I'm no longer a hardcore player, at least in terms of hours. Judging by what other more casual players have posted, I don't really fit in with the stereotypical casual player either due to my background as a hardcore player, despite the fact that my hours might be similar. I do not make mention of Star Wars, PvP, nor the engaging storylines provided for each class because they are not the focus of what I'm trying to say in this post. If I didn't mention the new features arriving in 1.2, well, it's because I figured that it was implied that I know it's on the horizon and that my current expectations for the new Ops to be challenging enough to support the competitive raiding atmosphere I mentioned are not exactly high. If you want to know why I have such an opinion, read this: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=345246&page=27 I think that this game has a lot of potential, it has decent PvP that will obviously improve with RWZs, great questing/storylines/voice acting, and probably other things that I'm not mentioning. I also think that there is a large population of economically undervalued (I explained why in the OP, don't reply to this asking me why) ambitious (I'm not even going to use the word hardcore here) players that, if settled down the way they were in WoW from 2004 to 2008 or so could potentially account for millions of dollars in subscriptions. This is the main point of my first post, and if you're going to reply to this thread, I would appreciate if you would argue why you believe this point to be incorrect.

Yeah, let me reiterate real quick, the main reason people play MMO's is because the social aspect of them is currently unparalleled by any other genre of video game. What I'm trying to shed a little more light on in my original post is that in any social game, competition will always be a driving factor, and that there are a lot of under-valued (at least economically speaking) players who thrive on the very visible streamlined rankings of skill that competitive endgame (in the context of this thread, raiding) can provide through gear and definitive progression rankings (eg. websites like wowprogress.com etc.).

This is long, but bear with me. Something many people don't realize, and by don't realize, I mean don't take the time to think about, is that nobody who plays an MMO plays it because the game itself is so enthralling in its gameplay/story/graphics/whatever, there will always be a single-player game that will outdo the best MMO of every generation in every single one of those categories. People play MMO's because it gives them an opportunity to do something enjoyable with people they like. But, if this is the main reason people play MMO's than why wouldn't they just play sports or some other multiplayer game instead. The reason is because MMO's give players the opportunity to earn respect or fame or whatever from their friends and maybe even more importantly, people they don't know, in a very tangible way in a dynamic and engaging game of skill. Tangible is relative obviously, to some 13 year olds who start playing, one reaching 50 while the other sits at 39 would be huge for the kid at 50, and you can bet the kid at 39 would start busting his *** to try to get ahead of his friend. To some 30-something cubicle buddies, one being decked in purples while the others sitting around in blues would be another example; you can bet the dude in blues is probably going to make some effort to pass up his friend. Finally you'll get people competing for world firsts. They didn't start like that though. Ask them and you'll find that a bunch of them started as those 13 year old kids who could barely tell the difference between one 50 or another, but definitely thought that being 50 was about as sick as it gets. Then they got 50 and realized that their blues looked like **** compared to some other guys purples and so they eventually end up raiding (even casually) to grab those purples. Once they end up decked in the best purples from one patch, another patch comes out and they go after those purples. Eventually they realize that other players on their server are getting the new tier before them, so they start paying attention to who has what first, and by extension, who killed what first. Once again, the player realizes that they can still be better, this time not just aiming for the respect of their friends/whoever thinks their old epics are cool, but for the respect of their entire server as they wield that server first tier 2 lightsaber or whatever. Finally, the player realizes that at the very top, no one really cares who has the first tier 2 whatever, but who's actually the best. Now, the player starts competing for world recognition. Maybe they get it, maybe they don't. Anyways, the point is, every player plays this game to be better than someone else (aka have someone boost their ego, the more people, the better), and every player looks up to someone else/aspires to be on their level. Here is the major significance of the above textwall though: Economically, ambitious/hardcore players are the most dependable and lucrative type of player for an MMO. They play for the longest period of time and often start entire networks of subscriptions. Personal example: from 2004 to 2008 I spent at least $700 on WoW subscription fees alone, brought in at least ten of my RL friends over that period of time, fiveof whom still have paying subscriptions, who in turn brought in a bunch of their friends who probably never would have played (****, my buddy had his entire varsity hockey team paying/playing world of *********** warcraft). Here's another fact: Had raiding and endgame in WoW not been challenging and dynamic enough to support the level of competition that it did I would have quit within a month or two of 60. Not a single one of my friends would have played, certainly none of their friends and so on, in fact, I would have really only spent around $150 (albeit a lot for one video game obvs), instead of bringing in what at this point I can only guess is at least $5k, probably upwards of $10k, worth of subscriptions and purchases by people who otherwise would never have spent a dime on any Blizzard product. Back to your game: I play about 5 hours a week max. JK, I played about 5 hours a week when I was leveling. I hit 50 last week. Since then I've probably spent 6 or 7 hours over the past two weeks snagging epics. Hours since 50 my toon has an average item level somewhere around 130. I don't know what casual is defined as, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that less than 5 hours of played time a week probably fits the description. I'm going to go ahead and say that in another 2 weeks, I will probably be loaded head to toe in 140 gear. Now, I'm a casual remember? Why exactly should I bother paying until the next patch of content hits? I mean my guys about to be fully geared... leveling alts, well, eventually I'd just be at the same spot I am now... I don't really have any interest in trying to advance with a better guild for more recognition/efame because well, 1. I'm a casual and don't have the time, 2. Even if I were hardcore, how do I know that it would even be worth my time? Nobody seemed to care about initial raid progression in this game because the raids were too easy to be deemed worthy of competition, what's to say the next set of raids will change anything? Your decision for the combat log just seems to reinforce my doubts that the development team has the experience to provide adequately competitive content... Look, I'm making an example here and I'm not going to unsubscribe, not because of any faith I hold that this game will improve, but because $15 is pretty negligible to me in exchange for playing games with my old buddies for a few hours a week, but hey, once they're gone, and if prospects look grim post-patch I guarantee they will be, so am I. I will say this though, if they weren't playing and I was rolling solo for the few hours a week that I play, I'd have canceled the second I filled in that last epic, there is not a single redeeming piece of endgame that could possibly make me want to play this game without friends after gearing up. As for joining a guild and making friends, why would I do that when I can PuG every HM on my own terms? I have too many IRL friends I don't see enough already and I definitely don't have time for a guild. Maybe I'm not the norm, and maybe casual players are the economic wave of the future for MMO's, but the way I see it there has been a huge migratory population of hardcore players roaming game-to-game ever since WotLK hit WoW that has been relatively untapped in terms of both economic potential and community development. I can almost guarantee you that if we (DnT) and Nihilum or Ensidia or whatever the **** they call themselves these days had another major content race like we did in the old days of WoW it would 1) Be all over Curse/MMO-Champ/Whatever leading to 2) Hardcore players, their networks, and all their fanboys would jump at the chance for serious competition in the first major MMO other than WoW in nearly 8 years (I heard RIFT was kind of good/competitive, so maybe I'm wrong about that, but whatever, the point stands) None of this will happen if the content cannot support the challenge though. So, my final words of advice are this: Find a *********** balance. Ignoring the hardcore player, although very plainly not as economically detrimental as ignoring the casual, has been a serious mistake that MMO's have been making recently in their herculean efforts to make up for more or less completely ignoring the casual until say... 2007. Interested in hardcore players and what they can bring to your game? Then hire one (or maybe even more than one, bum nerds work cheap, especially getting paid to do something they like/more or less do anyways). I don't know who's in charge of your raid content design right now, but if you're letting the same guy who thinks that an out-of-game combat log is the way of the future design your Nightmare Raids than I'm betting you won't see too many of the hardcores, friends, and fanboys showing up next patch. Like I said, want a good content designer for the hardcore, hire one straight from the ranks, at $20k-$30k a year they will probably make you at least 10 times that. My own advice for content design: Make nightmare hard. *********** hard. Don't just boost the numbers, completely change the fight mechanics. You want to finally settle the migratory hardcores, then make nightmare modes challenging enough, aka add enough dynamic and interesting fight mechanics, that no guild should be able to clear a raid on nightmare without spending at least 100-200 hours (sounds like a lot, right? wrong. most hardcore guilds raid 40+ hours a week) learning the fights. And use numbers to balance your fights, figure out what an ops group in 140 gear can do in terms of healing and damage, set the actual requirements for both on the lower end of whatever optimal HPS and DPS should be and focus the learning curve for your fights around mechanics that have nothing to do with either. also, you dont need to make the nightmare gear much better than the hard gear at all really, but what you should do is make it look different/cooler in a noticeable way, like i said, hardcore players play for recognition, and that's what nightmare should offer good luck bioware, im rooting you guys will actually pull off something good

okay, tired of sifting through posts trying to argue with the OP about why damage meters shouldn't be in the game, that literally could not be less relevant to what he's trying to say gonna go ahead and try to restate the main argument here because i will no doubt come back to this thread in the future and be pissed if i see more **** that's irrelevant to what i was trying to read about in the first place Foundation, this is not what is being argued, it is a fact deducible from statements made by BioWare development The OP is saying that if combat logs, and by extension damage meters, are only made available for viewing/analysis outside of the game, what's going to happen is that every guild, every player who has ever wanted to better themselves even, that wants to address performance deficiencies* outside of the very obvious (standing in fires etc.), is going to have to jump through about 5-15 minutes (this estimate is assuming that this new combat log is as easily analyzable and up-loadable as those in other MMO's) worth of extra loops, (in comparison to other MMO's where Damage/Healing meters are streaming or readily accessible) to find out that Sorceror A actually outhealed Sorceror B by around 15% every single attempt. Beginning of Argument: This is the least speculative set of assumptions Personally, I don't how many guilds will actually force most or all of their players to upload their parses, but I would bet that around a third of this game's guilds aiming for world top 100 kills or better will very grudgingly be uploading their combat data come 1.2 and that upon finishing the content and beginning recruitment for the next push, every single guild in the world top 100, and at least 80% of the players in the top 1000 guilds will evaluate themselves at least once either by being forced to by a raid leader, or even more likely, out of personal curiosity and desire for self-improvement. If these figures are accurate, or even close to accurate (which I expect them to be if competitive raiding in TOR develops in any way similar to competitive raiding in nearly every MMO to come before it), we are looking at somewhere around 10,000 players who will, either by necessity or choice, upload a combat log by the end of 1.2. I know this may seem like a relatively small amount of players forced to deal with a relatively minor inconvenience, but what it portends is actually far more significant... bringing us to the main argument of the OP. The Main Argument The fact that no one at BioWare seems to be able to recognize that they are going to cause 10,000 players * 20-30 minutes of unnecessary inconvenience is frightening to the 5,000+ raiders who no doubt almost-immediately realized the implications of development's decision on the combat log: 1. If they want to improve themselves to stay competitive with their guildmates and other guilds, they will be spending a lot more time doing so than they did in the last MMO they played. 2. If I and everyone else in my server 1, 2 or whatever guild are able to quickly identify a major and obvious (at least to me and everyone in my guild) flaw in only having an out-of-game combat log, and the BioWare development team is not, then how can I depend on them to relate to my expectations and produce content that I find challenging, worth competing to complete, and most of all, worth playing through at least a couple months of stagnancy to enjoy. This is only exacerbated by the fact that there are two obviously superior alternatives (and doubtlessly even more less obvious ones) to the combat log issue: 1. Give every player a personal, streaming combat log with the option to choose whether or not you want to let other players access your combat data. (Yes, I know that people who turn off their meters or whatever will inevitably be whined at, so although this isn't necessarily the optimal solution, it would probably still cause less minutes/hours of player aggravation/inconvenience than the current proposition) 2. Keep combat data the way it is, i.e. non-existent. It would literally cause less player aggravation to keep the combat log the way it is than to force those who want to utilize it (and by extension, probably force many who probably don't) to go on a *********** odyssey to do so, god I feel bad for the person who will inevitably spend countless hours putting up the inevitable log-to-meters website.

There is a difference between being bugged to 'near impossibility' and being tuned to the point that absolute perfection was a necessity for killing the boss. Pre-nerf/PTR M'uru was tuned to the point that a near flawless performance was required from every player (especially healers) in order to kill the boss (does this: look 'bugged' to you compared to this: ). When I think of "bugged to near impossibility" fights like pre-nerf Vashj (and the fact that nihilum actually banged their heads against the wall long enough to kill her...) and pre-nerf C'thun come to mind. I stopped playing 3 years ago, so I have no idea what the new heroic Rags is/was like, but I (along with almost everyone else I played with in DnT) would say that M'uru was the single hardest, legitimately killable (I don't consider bosses like this: http://www.dtguilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2283 to be legitimately killable) boss released in World of Warcraft until my departure from the game, and judging from what others who have continued playing have said, I tend to doubt that any other encounter released post-TBC has been as demanding of perfection. Anywho, the way I see it discounting Sunwell, especially pre-nerf Sunwell, and especially pre-nerf M'uru, would be akin to discounting vanilla Naxx or the Lich King.

http://www.dtguilds.com/index.php < Main tank

Actually I like this idea a lot. People would probably abuse it (more casual players ticking the hardcore box thinking that it equates to being better or something), but it would probably serve a good purpose well.

What I think a lot of people don't realize is that purely from a developmental standpoint, not having AddOns actually makes the game/new content a lot easier to tune since everyone is on an even playing field. I know that a lot of people who played WoW, myself included, find the lack of AddOns, macros, target-of-target to be an uncomfortable and often-times very frustrating change because it brings your capabilities as a player below the par you've probably set for yourself in other video games, and consequently closer to worse players who either didn't utilize the additional UI features available to them, or didn't utilize them as well as they could have, but a couple certain things should be realized before people unload their frustration: 1) The drop in ability you're experiencing in your play is not unique- it's affected everyone else. If you can't handle the fact that it's bringing your level of performance closer to that of worse players, then you should probably reevaluate how you actually perform in the first place. If you are a legitimately good player (efficient keybindings, solid awareness, in-depth knowledge of role/class, sharp reflexes, intelligent response process to new obstacles), it will still show. Note: I do understand that it is harder to evaluate DPS/Healing performance without meters, but like I said: if you are a legitimately a good player, it will still show, especially if you can do the math/show the math that your 'superior' rotation/specc. are based upon. If you can prove to your guild that you know how to min/max your performance on top of not standing-in-the-fire, it will be noted- if it's not, chances are you either aren't as good as you think you are, or you're not in a guild good/smart enough to recognize your ability and should consider playing with people more to your caliber. 2) With everyone on a level playing field, new content is much easier to tune. This should, I say should because if it doesn't it means that the BioWare dev team is not pulling their weight, make the release of new content a faster and more efficient process, and it should make the balancing of current pvp/content a faster and more efficient process as well. Again on this note, the fact that there is no auto-attack also makes tuning/calculations easier and more efficient. It certainly makes my life easier in terms of doing the math for my class and my raid, and I can only assume that BioWare uses the same calculations to balance their encounters (You do tune your raids/itemization with math first and testing after, don't you!!!). --- Finally, coming from playing WoW at the level I did (if it means anything, believe me, it was at a higher level than whatever anyone else here has come from) I can honestly say that I would prefer if the game stayed where it was in terms of AddOns, macros, etc. Although I would recommend that ToT and some form of Damage/Healing meters be added as I think that without either the game actually becomes less streamlined/simple, and subsequently tuning becomes more difficult.

*The level I raided at. If they don't add healing/dps meters they should at least do something (I saw in one of the other threads someone suggested Flashpoint Reports) to quantify the numbers. At least from a leadership perspective it makes things a lot easier in terms of evaluating where your players should be at. What I would suggest is either adding running meters like in WoW, or final reports at the end of an fp or op, and give players the option to opt out of showing up on the meters. That way, more casual players that don't want the pressure and other players who just don't want to take **** from idiots who think meters are everything don't have to deal with them. For my guild at least, I would want meters to be obligatorily enabled since it makes raid/player evaluation that much easier.

Actually, you can do that, at least in PvP...

What I think a lot of people don't realize is that purely from a developmental standpoint, not having AddOns actually makes the game/new content a lot easier to tune since everyone is on an even playing field. I know that a lot of people who played WoW, myself included, find the lack of AddOns, macros, target-of-target to be an uncomfortable and often-times very frustrating change because it brings your capabilities as a player below the par you've probably set for yourself in other video games, and consequently closer to worse players who either didn't utilize the additional UI features available to them, or didn't utilize them as well as they could have, but a couple certain things should be realized before people unload their frustration: 1) The drop in ability you're experiencing in your play is not unique- it's affected everyone else. If you can't handle the fact that it's bringing your level of performance closer to that of worse players, then you should probably reevaluate how you actually perform in the first place. If you are a legitimately good player (efficient keybindings, solid awareness, in-depth knowledge of role/class, sharp reflexes, intelligent response process to new obstacles), it will still show. Note: I do understand that it is harder to evaluate DPS/Healing performance without meters, but like I said: if you are a legitimately a good player, it will still show, especially if you can do the math/show the math that your 'superior' rotation/specc. are based upon. If you can prove to your guild that you know how to min/max your performance on top of not standing-in-the-fire, it will be noted- if it's not, chances are you either aren't as good as you think you are, or you're not in a guild good/smart enough to recognize your ability and should consider playing with people more to your caliber. 2) With everyone on a level playing field, new content is much easier to tune. This should, I say should because if it doesn't it means that the BioWare dev team is not pulling their weight, make the release of new content a faster and more efficient process, and it should make the balancing of current pvp/content a faster and more efficient process as well. Again on this note, the fact that there is no auto-attack also makes tuning/calculations easier and more efficient. It certainly makes my life easier in terms of doing the math for my class and my raid, and I can only assume that BioWare uses the same calculations to balance their encounters (You do tune your raids/itemization with math first and testing after, don't you!!!). --- Finally, coming from playing WoW at the level I did (if it means anything, believe me, it was at a higher level than whatever anyone else here has come from) I can honestly say that I would prefer if the game stayed where it was in terms of AddOns, macros, etc. Although I would recommend that ToT and some form of Damage/Healing meters be added as I think that without either the game actually becomes less streamlined/simple, and subsequently tuning becomes more difficult.

Moved post.

Is it 1.5 or 2?