And what are roleplayers getting with these updates?

I said that transfers AND lfg solve the population issue.

Which you means you didn't answer the question.

The resistance isn't in the developers adding those features.
The resistance is in prioritization of those features.

When SWG was in its death throws it was primarily the RPers and those wanting a predominantly sandbox experience that remained. And where exactly did that subscription line trickle along at for the last 12 months before the plug got yanked? While the game peaked early on around 300k, in around 3yrs time it was down to just over 100k and by mid '09 down to 50k.
http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png

It's not that the requests of the RPers don't matter or that they should be ignored. They shouldn't. However, as a business BW is going to take swings initially trying to plug the biggest gaps and shore up the weakest points. Server population sits at the forefront of that list. End-game content, extended leveling content/story and PvP aspects (world PvP incentivization, class balancing, etc.) are likely next in-line.

Those are things that are going to speak to larger subsets of the playerbase than adding chat bubbles or being able to sit in any chair you come across.

As I said, it's not that those things should be ignored altogether. They should be addressed. But, as someone else pointed out, having more people to RP with (via server transfers) should likely be higher on your own priority list than being able to sit down and pop a chat bubble up. Afterall, if few to no one is around to see you do it, what's the point?

The population problem is both a concurrent player issue and ease of networking issue.

You might have players interested in running foundry but they are spread across 3 planets and fleet. The players are unable to group easily creating the feeling of being alone.

It is also a problem when the number of concurrent players on your server is low making the instancing of players even more problematic.

By consolidating players with transfers you might still have the first problem. Some instances land in the level range between two planets.

By offering a LFG system without transfers, people on low populated servers will still have issues finding groups even with the LFG system.

By offering them both you solve the server population issue.

All better?

So once again you admit that your answer to the question "How does the LFG tool solve the population problem?" is "It doesn't." Gotcha. It requires another feature altogether (transfers) to be of any use at all. This, by your own admission.

So really, it isn't the LFG tool that will solve the population problem--the issue you brought up as central to this discussion about chat bubbles--but the server transfers, which we can only hope will alleviate the population troubles plaguing this game.

Why does this invalidate the need for chat bubbles? Does it?

I am still waiting to get re-imbursed for my disco ball . 100k and they just took it out of the game . no refund . kinda just sums these muppets up . Its only fluff but still winds me up tbh .

Okay first off, the question I answered, "what have we gotten with updates?" Is a small set of RP additions I listed, on top of the ones we already had. So comparing those things exclusively is misleading. For open world RP utilization we have different things as well. Awesome locations such as the bridge of the ziost shadow, player ships to RP on, cross faction speech, surnames,...

Secondly taking legacy trees out of the equation because you don't like its limitation is nonsense, its only purpose is RP fluff. That's constitutes it being an RP update.

Then what you seem to be forgetting is that the entire leveling experience is completely done by roleplaying. It's the only mmorpg in existance to actually deserve the RPG suffix. Companions, class story, faction story, story story story. How you can possible complain about RP in this mmorpg is mind boggling to me.

Another game has those things (great RP locations like bars and houses, overlooks, and hidden nooks), ships to roleplay on, server-wide communication support, and more than just surnames. How is SWTOR supposed to compete for the attention of roleplayers?
I take it out because it offers no practical gameplay function--as opposed to chat bubbles and interactive chairs. The goal here is to provide tools to roleplayers that all players can garner use out of. I stand by my napkin example.
So are you saying that just because an MMORPG is called an MMORPG, that it automatically makes it a good RPG?

Really?

We're clearly not talking about the same kind of roleplaying at this point. What roleplayers are asking for are features that make interaction with other roleplayers more intuitive (chat bubbles) and provide more options for play (interactive chairs). The key here being that these features are geared toward interactive play, not hiding in an instance behind canned dialogue.

We are getting all sorts of RP hooks and abilities!

Guild Capital Ships
Chat Bubbles
Chairs, yes chairs you can sit in!
Voice over emotes
Mounts that can carry more than one person
A space ship that can carry more than 4 people
Pants for those people who like to play male Sages

All these things are coming, soon.....

I have the feeling that SWTOR is not designed for roleplayers in the traditional sence. Why read text when you can listen to pre determined answers inside a flash point? Why bother creating your own hero when you can have Captain Shepard or Hawk? So much of the game is designed for the hero bioware wanted you to play that I think roleplayers are going to have to wait a long time before they can actual have their own adventures rather than the scripted ones they have been given.