Yep. There were a few polls about player age on the beta forums, and in all of them the mid-late 20s bracket seemed to be the most-represented. In live, it seems to be about the same. Most of the players I've talked to are in their mid 20s to mid 30s. I've only come across one under-18 player so far, and the oldest was in their early 50s. It seems to me that this is probably BW's target demographic. There's not much in the game to really attract younger players. There's no cutesy races (like Gnomes or Lalafell or Pandas) or overtly sexualized races (any elf-like race in any MMO ever) or funny pop culture humour.

This. Very well done, BW!

It was 10 minutes: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=246914&page=2 Also, server's back up now. Way to QQ for nothing.

No need to be so negative. They're looking into the problem. It's difficult to give ETAs for stuff like this (as anyone who's ever worked in the mechanical or tech industries could tell you). Just relax. It'll be back up soon enough. Personally, I think it's a good sign that they were very quick to respond that they were aware of the issue in many other threads, and that they made their own dedicated thread to post info during the fixing process.

I've been levelling as Sawbones since my first talent point. I'm currently level 34 and missioning on Balmorra. Here's the highlights from my experiences: 1. Solo missioning was fine up until around 30 or so, but now on pretty much any nontrivial mob/pack all I do is heal Bowdaar. It's somehow both boring and stressful at the same time. I hate it. It takes forever to kill all but the weakest enemies. You'll find yourself doing anything you can to stealth past mobs just so you don't have to fight them. 2. PvP is fantastic. You can really make or break a Warzone, and as long as you don't suck you're almost guaranteed an MVP vote. Definitely the best part of levelling as Sawbones. 3. It's pretty easy to get groups for Flashpoints/Heroics, and unless your group is terrible you should have no trouble in keeping everyone alive. Really though, there's no need to do any of these more than once as you're levelling so you'll quickly find yourself back to the horror that is Sawbones missioning. I'm trying to stick it out, but sooner or later I'll probably cave and cough up the credits for a respec just to make the missioning less painful. Just my opinion, though. Your mileage may vary.

Ugh, you and your ad hominem stuff again. I reposted this simply because the old forums were blanked and nobody (including you) has yet to present an actual counterpoint argument instead of just essentially saying "you're wrong". That's exactly what I was talking about in that section. Did you even read it? "Better" is subjective, and all addons present a different presentation of information already available. That's how they work. It was a GC post sometime during Wrath. I'll see if I can't dig it up. It's pretty common knowledge amongst addon authors, but I'll try to find the specific post when I get time.

I agree with this. It's too hard to track my suffering with that micro-print. YOUR ADVENTURE BEGINS...after those 600 people are done. Or 800. What's that say, again?

Alright, I guess I'll get in on this conversation late. Got nothing else to do while waiting in my queue. First off, let me give you the addon author perspective. I've been an addon author for WoW for almost 5 years now, and while I won't single out what addons I've created/worked on suffice it to say that they have a "healthy user base". It is pretty cool to see things that started off as a simple side-project for my own purposes turn into a part of the game I love, but problems come with it as well. Addons start life as things we share with the community because we enjoy them and think others might as well. Unfortunately, they can grow to become detrimental to the very community they were intended to help in the first place. People become dependent on them, then when there's the tiniest issue with one of them (bug, oversight, API change, simple versioning that makes people think they're no longer functioning, etc.) people get angry. They feel entitled to it. What started off as something just for aesthetic or quality-of-life purposes has become a "necessity". Unfortunately, this "necessity" feel can actually affect the game itself. While no addon is truly "necessary", when allowed access to certain game information they can trivialize the difficulty of the game. A prime example of this was an addon called AVR that was created during Wrath. It could simulate the appearance of drawing things in the game world to show people where to stand during various times in boss encounters. It removed all need for thought from the player in PvE. Blizzard realized this, and promptly broke the API functions required for it to work. It doesn't end there, though. Addon functionality doesn't need to be that drastic or obvious to affect the game itself. Another example is an addon called Power Auras, which allows you to create graphics that pop up on your screen in response to certain conditions you specify (such as PROCs, cooldowns, debuffs, etc). This type of notification became so ubiquitous that Blizzard felt the need to add their own version to the game so that people without the addon wouldn't feel handicapped. Boss mods are an area where addons have actually affected the design of the game. Mods like BigWigs and Deadly Boss Mods simplified encounters and became so popular that Blizzard has started to design boss encounters under the assumption that everyone is using them. This makes them an actual necessity, and this is where having the ability to create addons fails. They no longer become a personal preference. They become required (well, maybe not actually required, but the difference in difficulty between using them and not using them becomes so great that people will always use them). People are like electricity: they choose the path of least resistance. So, the grand question with addons in a game always comes down to one simple thing: Where do you draw the line? What information do you allow addons access to? What functions do you allow addons to manipulate? This may seem like a very simple thing, but it isn't. Part of addon creation is exploring the realm of what is possible with addons, which can lead to people using the existing framework in unintended ways to create unacceptable results (the original Decursive, AVR, etc). Personally, I think that if SW:TOR decides to allow UI modification, it should be carefully designed for aesthetic purposes only. Don't give addons access to things like combat information to create encounter addons. I don't see any harm with changing the look-and-feel of the current information BioWare allows us to have, but I do have a problem with us creating our own information with addons to trivialize the game...and coming from me that's saying a lot, because as an addon author that works on addons that do exactly that I'm essentially shooting myself in the foot.

The problem with LFG systems is that it dehumanizes your companions and removes moral repercussions for a player's actions. Players don't have to work hard to develop a good reputation within their community in order to take part in certain activities, or even socialize with anyone at all. They hit a button, wait around for a bit, and then face-roll their way mindlessly through content. The deepest conversation you have with someone in a randomly-generated cross-server group is usually "BRB" or "GOGOGOGOGO". They might as well be NPCs. In and of itself, that's pretty piss-poor socialization. But then it gets into the meat of the problem - the freedom to be a total d**chebag. It's known as the Greater Internet F**kwad Theory: Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience - Consequencess = Total A**hat This is where the problem lies. There's no incentive for anyone to engage other players in a social context, and in fact the opposite can be true: screwing people over can lead to rewards, and since they'll never see you again there's no consequences to your actions. Is spamming chat channels to get a group together an ideal solution? No. But it's sure as hell better than the alternative. I don't see how anyone can disagree with that, personally. If you're not into socializing with other people and generating a reputation for yourself, why are you playing online games anyway? Single-player games will give you everything you need, without all this "pesky social crap". I look forward to spamming channels, befriending other players, pissing other players off, and generating a reputation on my server based on my social interactions with everyone else on it, so that I am me...Amity, the Scoundrel...and not a mindless NPC wannabe!