ETA on Advanced Class change?

When the EA money barrel gets low, they will bring it to the Cartel Market.

Um, you guys see this as a bad thing?

In WoW, most classes change drastically when they switch their specs.

Take Paladins for example.
You're Holy (Healer). You use intellect gear. You use an intellect one-hander and an offhand.
You want to switch to DPS.
You change your gear to strength gear. You change your weapon to a two-hander.
Or you change to Tank.
You change your gear to defensive strength gear. You change your weapon to a defensive one-hander and a shield.

Nothing horrible happens during that process of changing specs. You just need to gear up for them.

Why would this be detrimental to TOR?

Yea, comparisons to WoW can be made in some ways, but respecs bring gear and weapon changes, as well as different abilities.

That is, of course, due to how specs are designed in the game. As far as I am aware WoW does not have advanced specializations of class.

Which is irrelevant.. Sorry.. WOW does not need an AC to be a valid comparison.. Advanced is just a word.. We all know that we are talking about a players class..

At least some of us do..

Possibly different and definitely different playstyle. Healing/DPS is pretty much the same. You are ranged and either healing from range and probably dps too or you are DPS from range and possibly tossing the same off heals too. Switch AC... you are now a tank with completely different gear and playstyle or dps with completely different playstyle.

To use your example.. A paladin is a paladin.. They all have the same mechanics.. They all DPS the same way.. All that changes are the important stats.. For tanks you need mitigation stats.. For DPS you need DPS stats.. For heals you need DPS stats and a few others to help with cast speed and mana regen.. All paladins are mele when it comes to DPS..

They all wear the same gear type.. Heavy armor.. They all use a sword.. They all hold a shield.. Unless you are Ret and then you can hold a 2handed sword.. Ret can also hold a sword and shield..

Pretty much all of the AC's are fundamentally different.. Whether it be gear type, weapon type or anything else.. The stradegy used to play each AC is very different.. How you play a Sentinel will not work for a Guardian..

Paladins, only really differ in that one is harder to kill, the tank.. One can heal itself, the holy paly.. And one does insane damage if played right.. Retadin.. If you have played one paly then you have for the most part played them all, except for a few minor differences..

A shadow can stealth and is a mele character.. A sage does not stealth and is ranged.. Exact opposites in many respects..

My WOW druid says let AC swapping happen if your argument for it "not happening" is gear and different play style (especially if were using a WOW comparison)

That's a stupid example.
Druids can be stealth melee dps, ranged caster dps, melee tank or healers ...
The problem about this change is that you would effectively have 4 different classes with 6skilltrees, which really is not enough.

Therefore by your reasoning, switching from DPS spec to tank spec is a switch to a completely different play style.

Second sentence, fine. First sentence, hyperbole.

Maybe not to you, but it is to me. MMOs are fluid and I can understand players disliking massive changes to their class (like in 2.0). If switching ACs kept someone playing longer, how can you possibly be against it? It's a boon to the economy as well as players are forced to buy new equipment.

And the "compelling" reason you'd like is - it's none of your flipping business! Unless YOU wanna pay their subscription, you have absolutely no say in what someone should be. If they would like to switch to enjoy the game, mind your own business...you aren't impacted and you have absolutely NO valid reasons behind your insane desire to punish people for wanting to try another AC.

I've never seen so many people with control issues...geezus...it's just a game.

And a Trooper is a Trooper - all base skills identical. Your point is moot. And please, stick to SWTOR, this has nothing to do with W0W. Players will adjust and you're free to stay true to your beliefs. Play your toons, I'll play mine (mind your own business).