It's incredibly clear that you seem to be suffering from rose tinted glasses. This game is cartoonish. the colour pallete, the character models, the character details. Cartoonish. Is it bad? No, it was done to reduce texture and model loads while maintaining a decent aesthetic, but to deny its cartoonish? You don't seem to see reality. http://i.imgur.com/d5bsN.jpg <--- cartoonish. Less cartoonish --> http://i.imgur.com/YNOHP9d.jpg It's not hard. Chat bubbles make this game more cartoonish? Don't think so. Comic bookie? Maybe, but comics are a wide genre of things, depending on how a feature is implemented affects how something looks or feels. How the characters were implemented in this game, makes them feel C A R T O O N I S H. I responded to someone saying "chat bubbles make games childish and cartoony" And if they want to say something as arbitrary as chat bubbles make something childish and cartoony, they need not look further than the presentation of the games already cartoon like nature.

You seem to have cartoon/fantasy mixed up. Not the same thing. My character and everyone elses characters in SWTOR look like they were made for a cartoon show. They are cartoons. Not on the same level of ridiculous that WoW and Wildstar are, but they are cartoonish still.

You didn't read what I said did you? Today I learned "I'm not saying your opinions are invalid" means "Your opinion's are invalid." Is it opposite day? Aion's 2012 housing trailer In comparison to SWTOR, yes the visuals of this game are cartoonish.

I also love how everyone is taking my inquiry as "No chat bubbles? I HATE YOU SWTOR." You guys that hard up for an argument? I already play other MMO's I came back to SWTOR because a friend wanted to play and I wanted to show him around to help him out. I had EXTREME DIFFICULTY communicating with him because he did not notice my attempts at communicating with him. I had to call him on the phone and tell him to look at the chat box. He doesn't play MMO's like I do and it frustrated him. He hasn't played since. This spurred forth my question, as I find it easier to communicate and see text when people have chat bubbles within my proximity, as I attempted to talk to someone earlier today and it took them 35 minutes (and 4 deaths, theirs not mine) to notice I was trying to talk to them.

Please quote me where I said chat bubbles should be done asap and above all issues. Also please tell me how it's my fault that the company chose an engine they couldn't program correctly to handle a CHAT FEATURE, let alone half of the features they wanted to actually put into the game.

Plenty of games do it already. PSO2 , Lineage II, Aion for just a few examples of this system working not only perfectly but fittingly for the atmosphere. Okay. Irrelevant. You don't need to be a game designer or a programmer to know how things should perform. I.E. You or anyone else playing the game. Edit: People saying that "It's not needed." that's the exact same argument as me saying "It's needed." You provide no greater evidence other than "It caused lag." Okay, so make it stop causing lag. "Well I don't like it, looks stupid" Well I like it, I CAN TELL WHOSE talking and makes more sense visually, and it doesn't look stupid. At no point in time did I say your opinions are invalid, but it seems you are all jumping down my throat trying to say mine are with no other validation other than mob mentality. Get a hold of yourselves. Sorry, this game is already Childish and cartoon like. Chat bubbles wouldn't do much to change that.

Sorry but "lag" isn't a legitimate downside as the game should have been programmed to not get lag (from something that is so minute). There are virtually no downsides to any other game that uses chat bubbles effectively for communication, and all of which can be alleviated by options to use them or not. ON/OFF switch. quality of life is an important aspect of game design too. It makes or breaks immersion and not having specific settings and options for some people feels like they are having appendages removed for virtually no reason.

is ESO fully released yet? But I also don't see stylistically speaking chat bubbles being the best method of communication. But it would still help.

So basically.. every other MMO I've ever played can handle chat bubbles, except SWTOR, a relatively new MMO. Well thanks for the replies guys, have fun playing.

I've been gone for a really long time (cause Bounty hunter with no jetpacks? nonsense), but this game still has no chat bubbles. It's honestly atrociously bad for communication, as you have to be STARING at your chat box to tell if someone is speaking. and that isn't something I like to do. I don't consider myself as playing a text adventure game, I don't see why I have to stare at the chat box. Was it a style choice by the dev's to have the game feel like a land of ghosts staring each other down? TL : DR Does anyone know why there is no chat bubbles (I.E. Dev commentary etc) Or is it just one of those things no one has brought up?

HEyyyy Im an arsenal merc -- Give me the ball, I cant run, jump, leap, or suddenly take 0 damage. I constantly get pushed off of the ledge and then how od i get back up!? i run back to the middle that's how. No jet pack for me. You get a whole lot more mobility options in huttball than I do... the "mobile weapons platform"

for me, It's Aion, hands down Aion! Hands down, feet down head down everything down Aion. I played the game for so long, And not only at every turn are you basically FORCED to die. the class balance is so ridiculously atrocious, and every patch makes you sick to your stomach, because in some way ALL classes get buffed in some sort of exponential manner, which COMPOUNDS THE CLASS IMBALANCE. I had the severe unfortunate drive to be a gladiator! a class which Cannot tank worth crap, cannot do more damage than any other DPS class. Cannot run faster than any other class. Has a shield that is 1/30th as effective as a sorcerer class And probably 1/50th as effective as a tank class(NO Exaggeration, it took me 5-10 HARD HITTING attacks to break through the shield, and then... by the time i break it, they recast it. It was so stupid that I once re-subbed, and canceled within the same Hour. Sorceror can literally 1 shot you. (Note i am Max level) and a same max level enemy sorceror (not equal gear) can flat out 100% 1 hit kill you (With an AOE SKILL, so if there are 10 of you, thats 10 of you dead). so the people complaining about sw:tor really... please just stop it. --ALSO I hate macro's anyone that talks about macros being a Plus in an MMO needs to get their head examined. Macro's means that the games design is overly convoluted and basic human dexterity is not enough to control and execute what you want to do in the game. this semi Automated execution of skills not only puts a strong RIFT between players who want to use their own skill instead of some hybrid mechanization to play a game, It also put's the wrong focus from developers on how the game mechanics are executed and future skills are developed.

the fact it count's as healing is probably worst actually lol. then they don't even need to really worry about healing to get the healing medals and then they can get the DPS medals to. where as the tanks have a high chance of not getting a protection medal and not getting higher dps medals and sure as hell not getting healing medals AND not getting objective medals. yeah so i agree with protection needing to be raised... also i think the 5k damage should be lowered to 4k >_> the only DPS classes that can easily pop 5k are smugglers and operatives, or am i wrong?

rock throw > tracer tracer is pretty much our only move(required to stack defense and debuffs on the enemy, or our other skills flop), yet you wanna nerf it? even though it does the same amount of damage as some other classes SPAMMABLE skills (cough cough-smuggler) I personally just haven't fought enough of them to understand what is going on when they attack me, swear their rock throw repetitively interrupts my skills over and over.

What i find SO far the cent/champ gear don't seem to favour crit very much, The SET gear for the damage dealing merc seems to be power based. The crit based gear is for the healing merc... which is annoying. If someone can Prove me wrong that's great but that is what i've seen so far, unless my eyes are totally blind. (I still went with the crit gun though But i will prolly get a power one if i get any duplicates and test the two)