ETA on Advanced Class change?

I've never knowingly necroed the thread beyond a week or two (sometimes I don't have access to the forums for that length of time) or to specifically respond to someone who has quoted me. However over the months there are many people that have bought it back onto the front page.
I've never dismissed the quote, or considered the other quote gospel.
All I've ever tried to do was place them in their chronological sequence and mention the experience of the person associated to the quote.
A few months before launch we had a snippet from a press event where a producer said AC swap was a thing.
About a month after launch we have a quote by the lead writer that said ACs where designed to have their own mechanics.
A year or so after launch and after the upheaval of the transition to the hybrid model (f2p) we have the lead designer responsible saying AC swap may happen in the future.
Since then no mention by the devs.
One proposed change is not contingent on another.
First of all to many roleplayers out there I suspect a cosmetic race change is just as repugnant as the proposed AC swap is to hardcore players. The simple truth is MMOs cater to a wide spectrum of gamers and they all have opinions.
Secondly I have no idea what the devs are thinking, but they have made it clear that they do not intend to speculate on features only to state what is coming to the game. Many of the changes the devs have made since 3.0 actually make the AC swap easier to implement. However, with the inclusion of a paid-level60 I don't think the devs are overly concerned about the skill levels of those players entering into end game content.

Not overly fond of your attempted Ad Hominem attack or your disparaging tone towards those that may have a different opinion to yours. Please be respectful and discuss the matter as it would apply to game balance and potential impact.

Vhaegrant you can necro this thread until hades freezes over, but they have stated numerous occasions it is not happening. Beg, plead, justify all you want, but it wont happen. You would think people would figure this out after no response, hint or any other type of message from BW insinuating that they are changing their mind has never arrived on a thread over 4 years old.

Final Fantasy XIV: a realm reborn allows you to change your Class. They make it as simple as changing the weapon you have equipped.
Yes each Class is levelled separately, this would be similar to the AC swap option proposed on LordArtemis' list of having to unlock the AC(or mirror) you want to switch to first.

This isnt Final Fantasy.

You're fanatically wrapped up in semantics. "Class" is not the same thing in every game. And.besides, devs in this game have not been consistent when defining them here.

Again, I've never directly necroed this thread. or any other.
I do however to respond to those that quote me or have taken the time to necro.
Also, I'm not sure why there should be any concern about this thread and those that psot on it as long as they are respectful and largely stick to the matter at hand.

I really like discussing game mechanics and the reason for them. I don't really care if the devs decide to illuminate the matter further or not.

Personally I think SWTOR was marketed to the wrong audience.
It seemed to launch to MMO gamers that happen to like Star Wars. many of the processes were time consuming (travel time being a good example, something that has been reduced at every major patch/ expansion) and there were limited options that you made in the early stages of a character you'd be expected to play for days.

I think the larger audience was always going to be Star Wars fans that like a variety of games. And many Star Wars fans are of an older generation with some disposable income. I suspect that's why the direction has gone to a more casual style with better trade offs for time/cash investment.
I still think they could do more to provide some challenge for a solo player that reflects the role of the character.
But opening up AC selection is just an option. Nothing more, nothing less.

A fair enough point.
It also isn't WoW , and yet many use that games definition of Class to be the definition SWTOR should abide by.

SWTOR should be its own game.

And, from a pure mechanics point of balance AC swap makes no difference. Let that be a unique selling point for SWTOR.

I do not think the origin of the restriction had anything to do with mechanics but instead marketing.
Bearing in mind the total development time of SWTOR here's a link from SDCC 2011 as to where the devs stood on ac change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO46vqhxjUU&t=7m38s
I think it's interesting that something happened between May and December that made the devs make an about turn.
Maybe the scenario was this...
Marketing: 'How many Classes do we have?'
Developer: 'Eight'
Marketing: 'How many Classes does World Of Warcraft have?'
Developer: 'Ten'
Marketing: 'Hmmmm, people won't play SWTOR if it has less classes than WoW, I know let's restrict access to Advanced Classes and think of them as classes for all purposes. Then we have sixteen '
Developer: 'Sigh'

What are you even talking about? Players have options available to them from the time they decide to roll up. What you meant to say was "players should be able to waffle out of any decision they make simply because they want to". The class structure is laid out fairly well, and it's not rocket science, so everyone has a good chance of figuring it out.

What's the point in spending dev time on something that isn't needed? There is no case where it would be easier to change advance class than it is to roll a 60, or to roll back to 50 on a new toon. The problem with your hyperbole here is that I don't care if you roll up at 1 or 60. I just don't see the point in wasting dev time in making it so you can bounce around to whatever just because you want to, which means that they not only have to write the code to support that "I can't make up my mind" syndrome, they also have to go back and change all the warnings in game that state that you can't change your mind once you choose, which is, by the way, a fairly compelling reason to leave it in. You made an informed decision, and now think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. So roll another toon, at 60 if you like, on that side of the fence. The mechanics to enable you to do that are already in game, knock yourself out.

I would totally dig this. The reason I went Marauder is because they could wear lighter looking armour since that's not an issue anymore I'd love to try out Juggernaut for a while without losing my progress.

No, what I meant to say was exactly what I said.
At no point in the recent discussion have we been talking about associated cost of the AC swap. I don't think it should be free. There was a list going around with proposed options but the two main ones were a one use token purchased from the cc, or the need to unlock the AC (or its mirror) first so you could then purchase a swap option (similar to field recpec).
The trouble is, especially if you are a new player to MMOs you only get to figure out how a role plays in end game content when you are in end game content. That's a long way to go for most to see if that option made was the right one.
I actually liked the sound of how the devs intended AC swap to work. It cost a little more each time you used it. It was in 6 months before launch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO46vqhxjUU&t=7m38s

The devs obviously thought it was an important enough option that it was the intended position throughout most of the development. I suspect a few things occurred during this last phase:
As the game rolled out into Beta the noise hardcore players made about class/role structure started to drown out those that were happy with it.
Knowing that it was only a beta and there would be a rollback people weren't as invested in their character and so the thought of AC swapping was less of an issue.
There were some technical/ balance issues to overcome with regards to tracking ability progression and training costs if you flip flopped between ACs while levelling (this is a moot point now as training is free and there are no discipline trees).