What SWTOR has done to me is show me how you can have "too much" of something and it can have a negative impact on it. In this case, too much emphasis on being forced to spam the spacebar or sit through the endless sea of voice over dialogue and dialogue options has discouraged me from leveling alts to max. I just can't sit through that much waffle anymore. Come back text based mission objectives, all is forgiven.

Which is why both are extremes on the same scale, and why many devs and players alike believe that the "sweet spot" is to be found somewhere in the middle. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Damion Schubert posted a blog about this prior to launch (original source no longer available): Unfortunately, in my opinion, it would seem that SWTOR has yet to actually hit that "sweet spot".

Eve is what it is. A full on sandbox. It may be a "snoozefest" for some, but for others its great. Just like we don't all have to be astrophysicists in order to appreciate the beauty of the heavens, so we don't have to be a "fan" of a style of development, or "get it", in order to appreciate how it IS a success in one form or another. One just accepts it for what it does best, whilst being mindful that it isn't the pinnacle in being a "one design suits all". Personally, although I like SOME general sandbox elements found in the game, I'm not a huge fan of Eve in its entirety. I'd like to see SWTOR have a themepark "core", but gain outer layers of "sandboxyness". In short: Eve IS a success story. But not one that fits all situations (i.e. a role model for the entirety of the MMO industry). Just like how WoW, whilst being a success story, doesn't fit all situations either.

My guess is that some at Bioware DID know full well. But by then it was too late to do anything about it. Hence Daniels "mini-rant" about how wonderful the "tunnel shooter" concept is ( , see 4:00 mark ), to now suddenly changing his tune to finding the concept of expanding on the concept of space activities to be the most "exciting" thing for him at the moment ( source ).

...which is the first of many incorrect assumptions you made. I do believe that I never stated such a thing. In actual fact, I was showing how PR can affect a persons decision as to whether or not they continue to subscribe. I make no assumption about that persons level of intelligence. Proving that here, yet again, you are jumping to wild conclusions and putting words in other people's mouths. Interesting considering said poster never actually made any indication of being sarcastic. You only assume he was. But of course, that didn't stop you from continuing to jump to conclusions about my posts.... ROFL. See above. You are using a typical combination of "strawman" arguments and leading the discussion off on tangents, resulting in reaching some wild conclusions in order to chastise someone. I really think you need to read the original post you responded to again. Oh, does that mean we won't be illuminated with such inspirational words of wisdom from someone who infers that he messes with coding a bit? Oh, how ever will we mere mortals cope? Bloggers.....Full of their self inflated and exaggerated sense of importance since the late 90's. TLDR: I'd suggest you focus more on messing with your keyboard macros, and less on attacking people you don't know with wildly inaccurate assumptions. And perhaps in doing so, this thread can get BACK onto the actual subject for discussion (i.e. James Ohlen's request), and not have it derailed by people who just want to argue for the sake of it.

Firstly, I would like to apologise for not quoting parts of your post that weren't relevant to my post that you originally responded to. It was done for clarity. Secondly, I did wonder when the obligatory shift in discussion would occur, that is often seen on these forums. By this I am obviously referring to going from discussing the ACTUAL details of a post, to clinging to inaccurate assumptions, going off on wild tangents, passing judgement on whether someones expectations are realistic to ultimately inferring that perhaps a person shouldn't subscribe purely because you disagree with them. But, thank you for your post. After all, no one else has been playing MMO's for nearly as long as you have. And therefore, we have all benefited from such a unique insight. TLDR: If you don't agree with a persons assessment of a situation, just say so and move on. Giving them your life story doesn't make your opinion any more valid than anyone else's.

Right now, the way how I see it is that SWTOR is like a long road lined with concrete walls, with a couple of side roads that branch off for not very far and then connect back to the same main road. There's no chance of getting off that road permanently. No chance of changing your vehicle. No chance of changing what travels with you. People can jump into your vehicle but they cannot participate in the ride very much. What I would like to see is additional branches from this main road that even have exits to the wilderness that surrounds the main road but cannot be accessed at the moment.

ROFL. Please do continue to make gross assumptions about people you don't actually know. After all, if you think they are making grossly inaccurate assumptions about the company or other players, or perhaps being sarcastic, then they MUST be doing so, right? And please, do continue to state facts that are obvious. Because how else would people know? After all, this product and how the company conducts itself is a shining example of how an MMO development company should conduct itself, isn't it? P.S. Just so you don't make the same mistake twice and jump to wild conclusions AGAIN: I'm being sarcastic. TLDR: You know what they say about assumptions don't you?

d) None of the above. Check the response from the poster above my post which you are responding to. You will note that because of the possibility of a certain type of content, that poster is fully willing to consider subscribing for longer. Regardless of the fact that, in all probability, said content won't be ready for launch for some time yet. Such a reaction is nothing new. I doubt said poster won't be the only one willing to continuing to subscribe for that reason. Which goes to prove just how incomprehensive that little "conclusions" list of yours actually is. I'll give you 5/10 for trying to justify a PR stunt that in actual fact is superfluous, just because I'm in a good mood. Nice try at the passive aggressive thing though.

ROFL. I'm sorry Bioware, but did you REALLY need a poll for this? Seriously, this is just another one of your PR stunts to try to get people to continue subscribing for months in the hope of seeing something worthwhile. It doesn't exactly take a genius to guess what the outcome of the poll was going to be. But I suppose when you've been essentially ignoring the countless posts prior to launch then I guess you need a poll to remind you of what people think. Btw Daniel, gotta give you full marks on going from: "Remember that time in the movies when Han and Chewie just dicked around in space??" ( paraphrased from 4:00 mark) to "....the next iteration of space is the single thing I’m most excited about in the entire future plan." ( source ) I guess there's more to space than just "dicking around" after all, eh Dan?

Someone posted this on the "In support of Full 3D space combat in SWTOR" Facebook page: http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1333873/swtor_lead_dev_most_excited_by_incoming_space_features.html It makes me chuckle that only NOW Daniel gets excited about the prospect. But one thing to bear in mind of course is, whilst it's admirable to ask for feedback from the forums on the subject ( source ), that certainly doesn't mean that they've already got something in the pipeline. In short, it could take months (or perhaps a year or two) before we see any fruits of their labour.

Likewise. I know we've had our difference of opinions, but I'd like to think that we still had some level of mutual respect.

No matter the "time of day" in a game, rendering shadows is usually a big fps killer. And those can already be turned off in the game because they are already a consideration. I agree with you in regards to the cycle times. They should be relatively short, and don't have to be "real time" (like they are in WoW). The largest cycles could be approximately 3 hours long (90 mins for each half).

I do believe that what you are referring to was nothing more than mere speculation by forum posters. Having followed this game for quite some years, I never saw any dev try to cite the difference in planet times as being the primary reason for not including day/night cycles. The difference in cycle times may be largely irrelevant given that apparently the version of the HeroEngine that is being supplied by the manufacturers of that engine (Idea Fabrik, originally was Simultronics) is more than capable of allowing for unique environment settings (including day/night cycles) on a "per zone" basis. Each planet being a cluster of "zones". Now, assuming that the version of the HeroEngine being used in SWTOR contains the same "day/night cycle" features as the one supplied by Idea Fabrik, this possibly means that as each "cluster" of zones can either have the same environmental effects, such as day/night cycles, weather effects, etc (thus creating the illusion of a planet with widespread effects), or on the other hand, they can each have uniquely tailored settings (such as instances set at night, whilst the "exterior" planet is still proceeding through daytime). See above for an example of how the HeroEngine is quite capable of handling day/night cycles. In fact, other MMO's being developed using the HeroEngine are already including "built in" features which SWTOR doesn't have such as swimming in deep water, better weather effects and day/night cycles.

When one considers the fact that the version of the HeroEngine that is being supplied by the manufacturers of that engine has built-in capabilities to handle dynamic day/night cycles, one realises that perhaps it's more reasonable than people may think. Here's an example of day/night cycles using the HeroEngine: