Star Wars: The Old Republic – State of the Game

As an APAC player, I am disgusted by your lazy "wait and see" approach. We have been suffering for months now. I'd love to see you try and level a character on our server, where the planets after the capital worlds hardly ever goes in to double digits. Or maybe on a fleet where the average number of players on is 50.

It is this kind of customer disservice that is driving people away from your game in droves.

Omg, *you*!?

I played DAoC and I saw it got wrecked into something that was sooo un- DAOC, as it could be.

I rejoiced when I saw that Warhammer Online was announced, but I got to play something that killed everything that the HUGE lore, afterall, could and should be able to create.
I was left with a mockery of what Warhammer Online should have been.

And now *you* are left with SWTOR!??

You ruined DAoC and with your own words, Warhammer Online!

I have only one thing to write:

ABANDON SHIP!!!!! NO RE-SUBS!!

true true

Hi and thanks for the information Jeff.

many people like the game because of starwars it self so we expect to see everything according to lore and movie and that brings me to my questions.

1.Are you going to change the eye color for dark side users to the yellow as in movies and lore?
2. are we going to see a real Space combat as in movies?

Give the Oceanic players the option of transfer to a server of there choice if they want to move again after that charge them. I am sick of waiting hours an hours for a HM to pop.

Waiting for F2P isn't going to help anyone due to all new players are not end game ready.

The sub price wasnt what drove your customers away it was the lack of communication and updates on the game itself. If you all had properly planned this game from the start you wouldnt need a F2P model because the subs would have stayed. I was a beta tester and still a sub'd memeber but alas as of Nov 12 i will not be because of the formentioned problems. My guild was into HM Ops days after they were released because they were a joke. the leveling is old and tiring and not fun. I had high hopes for this game but Bioware went to bed with EA and as soon as i saw that i knew the game was screwed.

Delete the post but sooner or later the BS always floats to the top.....

This, please mention something, anything about what is in the works for PvP. And thank you very much for making an effort to communicate with the community, I and many others sincerely appreciate this.

One thing I have yet to hear is when will PVP be fixed and when can we have open world with rewards like illum back? a lot of time and effort is going in this game to the PVE and RP people but feels like the PVP players are pushed aside like other MMO's.

suggestion would be get rid of cc or have a longer time limit on it for PVP use. another that might fix illum is put up doors on bases, must be out of combat to enter your base to prevent ganking into instant kill points.

The state of your game, currently is that it is only good for RPers (barely) and for some casual raiding. So let's talk about some things:

PvP

PvP has been taking a swirling nosedive. Barrier of entry is too high and the "war" of Star Wars feels very distant.

Point One: Incentivized open world is needed.

Have a planet, Empire versus Republic with a third party involved too. Yeah, it's PvPvE but you need it to balance your numbers. Let people capture bases. If they capture them, they get schematics to really cool orange gear that is bound to the person only. Capture enough bases or kill enough enemies and you get titles. The zone doesn't need to be excessively large but bigger than Ilum.

What's that? Engine troubles, you say? Well then you build a limit on players in one instance of the planet such that it is not only permissible to the engine but balanced, as much as such a thing can be, by the relative populations of each faction. Have them "sign" into the zone at some sort of checkpoint. Combine the mechanic with some story. That's what you love to do after all.

Point Two: Disparity is still too high.

Entry 50 bracket with MK2 needs to be it's own thing. BM and WH? Golden. Keep them together.

And while we are talking gear: slow down. Because if your solution is to keep making old gear obsolete, relatively, by continually releasing something closer to the next tier is not only foolish but it makes gearing redundant. Why even do the grind, what am I building towards? If you keep releasing a new tier and then making another obsolete with more Recruit MK X gear, what does that say about people's work? I farmed Champion bags. Battlemaster bags.

Now. The upwards mobility is much better but the initial entry into the 50 bracket is an issue because it affects player rentention and interest in the activity post 50. Now, hardcores will tough it out. But I know that my queue pops are getting lower and even with a player influx from FTP, your limitations on those players will not help much in this regard. So where does that leave us?

Here's what you do: people under a certain baseline of expertise have their own tier post 50. Let's make that baseline ~1000 (Battlemaster chest and legs with MK2 gives an expertise rating of 1001 and stacking smaller upgrade brings you close to the edge anyway). It might limit queue popping but you know what? It's worth it to retain player interest in one facet of your game.

After WH, you add the "final" tier of gear in terms of expertise. It caps out. That's the max. Then after this, you keep releasing well designed and interesting gear with high levels of custom-ability. A way to really choose specific stats. Keep comms relevant by making this process spend them as well as by releasing other nicknacks. But at some point, you need to hit a cap. After that, you just have access to really amazing gear. Heck, make it determined by VALOR, which is criminally underused in your game.

Point Three: Ranked Warzones

We're still in the "preseason"? Really? That was a while ago, gang Um...step it up. I don't know many people who even play Ranked outside of one night where there's some organization with premades and some PUGs. If the idea was that having ranked WZs would affect parity in the normal post 50s, you failed spectacularly.

Give more incentive for teams to really play these. More cosmetics, titles, and all that. Gear with unique looks. Let them show their rank and how tough they are for all the world to see. Are you the number one player on the server? You can let people see that until someone takes the crown from you. Find ways to generate interest in this already. Have tournaments, let people buy in for a big credit pot and comms. Just...do something.

The Game World

Your game world is static, your events team needs to do things even if they are minuscule. Content turnover is up and that's huge.

But even something as little as having a few odd NPCs show up on Nar Shaddaa for a week could be huige. Bay, you place Exchange arms dealers around the world that spawn semi rarely and have a higher chance for good loot. A few weeks later, maybe there's spies on faction capital worlds. They are the same as some random NPCs but if you scan them, you find them. Players unmask enough of them in time? They prevent a riot. They don't, their capital city is full of rioters. Low level, sure. But it makes things feel alive.

But those things take time. You know what moment actually sticks out to me? I arrived on Tatooine and a guard shot a "shady dealer". Suddenly the NPCs were not entirely stagnant. Just add even some things like that and it will make things seem less cold.

Here's a big hint: Add activities in the world. Mini games. SOMETHING!

These are my two major complaints but I can think of many more. The bottom line is that these are some of your game's largest weak spots and they need to be addressed.

One of the reasons that I do not play the game much anymore is because of the lack of RP. Many of my RP friends agree that there is not enough out there for us. No night/day cycle, no weather, and a huge one..no chat bubbles. I thought I heard those were figured out six months ago at the guild summit, RP panel? I love Starwars, and I love the game, and I really enjoy RP. But most of the RP (that I can find) out there is either Tython classes or cantina-rp. I would love stuff more adventurous and fun! I'm sure you've heard all of this before, but might there be any large update on the Role Playing side of the game in the future?