[Draxal]

I think ranked pvp would be good now. I think their needs to be some segmentation in 50 pvp, as the gear differential is way too large now, and the population would be able to support it.

[Alur]

Got a black purple hawkeye (power) crystal drop in Hard EC tonight, here was Alur's reaction:

LOL Trevin. Last night, after you told me about the crystal and we played that rematch in Novare Coast against you and Yooni, I was telling Hurriquake and Homicidium about your crystal. Needless to say...so jelly.

[Kem0sabe]

So, any word on when they will implement mod support?

[CzarTim]

So, any word on when they will implement mod support?

God I hope they are strict with what they allow. WoW is a messed.

[Giolon]

Slightly off-topic, but

OMFG Kotobukiya just posted shots of Jaina Solo!


More

She's perfect. I will absolutely have. MUST have.

[BattleMonkey]

Nice, they should do a Mara Jade

[Heysoos]

Man, this sounds dumb, but I have no idea which War Hero implants to pick up. The stats are so weird on them.

[mainframe]

Looks like I'm sticking with Guardian.. love jumping in and smashing droid faces!!

[Anoregon]

I guess I don't understand the appeal of "generic anime female 9,844,493,395 in star wars gear"

[aett]

I guess I don't understand the appeal of "generic anime female 9,844,493,395 in star wars gear"

I'm with you. I don't have a problem with anime designs on their own, but I don't need it in my Star Wars. (Plus, I couldn't care less about the post-movie EU.)

[Alur]

Man, this sounds dumb, but I have no idea which War Hero implants to pick up. The stats are so weird on them.

LOL, the stats are so varied on ours that I actually got one of each (dps and heals) because I was already surge capped on Qruul. In other news, all I need is my main hand and then time to level a pub or a new imp.

[Mr. Luchador]

-Eurogamer on EA's shares, slightly credited to KoToR.

:\

Firstly, there's Star Wars: The Old Republic. EA's stock price went into decline after The Old Republic's launch, and hasn't recovered yet - and that timing is unlikely to be a coincidence. Expectations among investors for SWTOR were extremely high, given the game's much-publicised high development costs (which probably make it the most expensive game project ever), the strength of the Star Wars license, the track record of developer Bioware and, crucially, the tantalising possibility of building an ongoing MMO revenue stream for EA which would match the one enjoyed by rival Activision Blizzard from World of Warcraft. While it would be unfair to characterise SWTOR as a complete failure, it has certainly not been a success on the level which EA or its investors would have wanted. The game has lost 400,000 subscribers since February, and it seems inevitable that the company will be forced into an embarrassing (but probably commercially sensible) transition to a free-to-play model sooner rather than later. For many investors, the disappointing performance of SWTOR is almost certainly seen as the "final straw" in terms of the second factor in this decline - John Riccitiello's leadership of EA. Riccitiello has been CEO since 2007, and arrived to the job promising to turn the company around - outlining a transformation plan which would see EA focusing on quality, controlling costs, embracing digital business models and improving the company's tarnished reputation. In some respects, his successes are undeniable. EA's digital business is booming compared to most of its commercial rivals, and while the company still attracts brickbats from vocal fans on the internet on a regular basis, titles like Mass Effect, Dead Space and Battlefield have also earned it a reputation for creating high-quality "core" titles. In other respects, however, Riccitiello's transformation of EA is clearly struggling - not least in terms of timescales. When he arrived in 2007, it was anticipated that the process he wanted to bring the company through would take three years. In mid-2012, there's still no end in sight. It's unsurprising that the stock market would be extremely wary of a business which, to quote another industry watcher, is presently in year five of a three-year transformation project that's actually going to take seven years. SWTOR was almost certainly being used by many investors as a test of Riccitiello's strategy. It's a hugely expensive title, created by a studio with a reputation for quality (which Riccitiello himself added to the EA group as one of his first actions on becoming CEO), and focused strongly on digital business objectives, not least of which was being the flagship title for Origin, EA's Steam competitor. For SWTOR to fail makes Riccitiello's entire strategy look dodgy to investors who were already deeply concerned by the slow pace of progress.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...european-daily

[Alur]

F2P talk again? It may "inevitably" happen, but they will "inevitably" have to lose quite a bit more subscribers for it to make any sense financially...with the consolidation of these servers, plus 1.3 bring ranked warzones finally, I think the massive exodus from SWTOR will be slowed considerably. I already see a bunch of folks back playing who quit after 1.2 and the rakghoul plague.

[BattleMonkey]

F2P talk again? It may "inevitably" happen, but they will "inevitably" have to lose quite a bit more subscribers for it to make any sense financially...with the consolidation of these servers, plus 1.3 bring ranked warzones finally, I think the massive exodus from SWTOR will be slowed considerably. I already see a bunch of folks back playing who quit after 1.2 and the rakghoul plague.

I think alot of the current playerbase are the fans who will stick with it, I'm sure they will lose more but as usual an update will bring in more players. The server transfers actually seems to have caused several guild members to resub. Though I bet with how some people are, that the transfers will cause some to quit as well, there is alot of butt hurt for losing a characters name or people refusing to leave it seems.

I think the sub base will stick around a certain point but don't see it getting any big boosts or major drops until something like maybe a big release such as GW2. F2P transition no matter what is going to take time and probably wouldn't happen till next year

[bloodforge]

They've never made Warhammer Online fully f2p, I don't expect SWTOR to go full f2p either.

[Heysoos]

LOL, the stats are so varied on ours that I actually got one of each (dps and heals) because I was already surge capped on Qruul. In other news, all I need is my main hand and then time to level a pub or a new imp.

How much surge are you stacking?

[HarryDemeanor]

They've never made Warhammer Online fully f2p, I don't expect SWTOR to go full f2p either.

Eh, that's more due to Games Workshop than it is EA.

[BattleMonkey]

Eh, that's more due to Games Workshop than it is EA.

That is not known really, proof of that has never been released. GW likely would have no issue with F2P, especially since they have put out a F2P Warhammer MP game recently using assets from Warhammer Online even.

I think the most likely reason is because majority of the development team for WAR was fired and many were moved to work on SWTOR. The support for WAR is minimal, and they probably don't have the staff to do a F2P conversion. EA most likely simply didn't want to invest or bother with wasting anymore time with WAR when at the time their focus was shifting all their people to SWTOR. If WAR went F2P they would need to invest a bunch of resources into in including building up a new dev team to support the game afterwards.

WAR's downfall also came before the western boom of F2P conversions, at the time when WAR died, it was still not something common. DDO and LOTRO were the first big MMO's to transition to it that showed it can work, and that was after WAR was already mostly dead and it's dev team cannibalised.

EA has also recently been on a big F2P kick and how it's the future. EA and the TOR devs would not be mentioning F2P if it wasn't something possible due to licensing and such. There's already a star wars f2p mmo for kids, I'm sure LA is not going to have any issue with TOR going the same route as long as they get their cut

[HarryDemeanor]

That is not known really, proof of that has never been released. GW likely would have no issue with F2P, especially since they have put out a F2P Warhammer MP game recently using assets from Warhammer Online even. I think the most likely reason is because majority of the development team for WAR was fired and many were moved to work on SWTOR. The support for WAR is minimal, and they probably don't have the staff to do a F2P conversion. EA most likely simply didn't want to invest or bother with wasting anymore time with WAR when at the time their focus was shifting all their people to SWTOR. If WAR went F2P they would need to invest a bunch of resources into in including building up a new dev team to support the game afterwards. WAR's downfall also came before the western boom of F2P conversions, at the time when WAR died, it was still not something common. DDO and LOTRO were the first big MMO's to transition to it that showed it can work, and that was after WAR was already mostly dead and it's dev team cannibalised.

Oh I wasn't aware that Warhammer game came out already. Never heard anything about it since it was announced.

Yeah it's probably more due to the skeleton dev team they have working on the game now. I just thought it was probably something in the deal between EA and GW that kept it from being transitioned into a F2P MMORPG.

[BattleMonkey]

Oh I wasn't aware that Warhammer game came out already. Never heard anything about it since it was announced. Yeah it's probably more due to the skeleton dev team they have working on the game now. I just thought it was probably something in the deal between EA and GW that kept it from being transitioned into a F2P MMORPG.

Yea it's been available for a while though it still notes it as open beta in some spots: http://wrathofheroes.warhammeronline.com/

I wouldn't be surprised if the contract with GW did play a part in it though, as most likely the licensing agreement would have to be renegotiated and in such a case GW might require more money or extention of said contract with a whole new one. But no one has ever talked about it really, the game was mostly forgotten and left to rot with only two actual content updates in all it's years in operation.

[Draxal]

If f2p means they release pve content alot faster i'm all for it.

[kyo_daikun]

If f2p means they release pve content alot faster i'm all for it.

For sure, new content seems to have dropped off a cliff recently, even 1.3 hasn't got anything new to do in it other than maybe a new world event.

[Trouble]

If f2p means they release pve content alot faster i'm all for it.

More likely slower. No sub fees means less money for content development.

[BattleMonkey]

More content will come out faster if it's f2p for sure, but it will just be fluff crap. New hat!

More likely slower. No sub fees means less money for content development.

Don't know if they can go any slower

[Milly79]

For sure, new content seems to have dropped off a cliff recently, even 1.3 hasn't got anything new to do in it other than maybe a new world event.

;_;

[Alur]

How much surge are you stacking?

My surge is past the soft cap, it's sitting at 315 if I remember correctly. Pretty sure the rumored soft cap was 300, so I figured I'd diverge.

I really really wish I had the time to invest in PVP to build a complete alacrity set, just to see how quick I could make my dark infusion. The DR on Alacrity is so bad though...but it'd be fun to toy with. I miss my quick cast DI.

[HarryDemeanor]

More content will come out faster if it's f2p for sure, but it will just be fluff crap. New hat!

I'd take several different colors of Karagga's hat.

[kyo_daikun]

I'd take several different colors of Karagga's hat.

No doubt.

Can't you get different colors of it by matching to chest? Or does it always stay gold?

[Draxal]

More likely slower. No sub fees means less money for content development.

F2p doesn't mean they won't have sub fees, I'm pretty sure DDO and Lotro still have monthly sub fees for vip access, they're just not necessary to play the game. And I'm just taking a wild guess here, that a decent chunk of players still playing are hardcore fans of the ip, and will pay more then the current monthly fee if there was more content.

[BattleMonkey]

No doubt. Can't you get different colors of it by matching to chest? Or does it always stay gold?

No it doesn't match

[kyo_daikun]

I was seriously expecting the other flashpoints like Hammer station and Red reaper etc to be bumped up to hard mode by now, if they just added one every fortnight up to now at least people would have something new to try and do.

[Milly79]

I was seriously expecting the other flashpoints like Hammer station and Red reaper etc to be bumped up to hard mode by now, if they just added one every fortnight up to now at least people would have something new to try and do.

But they already have all the columi pieces on the last bosses of the current FPs.'

Also: http://www.swtor.com/blog/crew-skill...ame-update-1.3

What do I need to add an augment slot? How much does it cost? Credits: A flat credit cost to add or upgrade an augment. Credit costs are still being tuned, but it will be less than 50k for the highest augment slot.

Good job, Azura. It's gonna be more than 25k per now!

[kyo_daikun]

But they already have all the columi pieces on the last bosses of the current FPs.' Also: http://www.swtor.com/blog/crew-skill...ame-update-1.3 Good job, Azura. It's gonna be more than 25k per now!

Do the other flashpoints and make them tier 2 like lost island and have them drop rakata?

The aug kits and slots were way too cheap for what they were, even then its only 700k pretty much to get all the aug slots you need for a character, less if you crit craft some gear and use that, much less than the 2 million people are charging for augmented Ear pieces and implants that people are selling on the GTN at the moment.

[Milly79]

Do the other flashpoints and make them tier 2 like lost island and have them drop rakata? The aug kits and slots were way too cheap for what they were, even then its only 700k pretty much to get all the aug slots you need for a character, less if you crit craft some gear and use that, much less than the 2 million people are charging for augmented Ear pieces and implants that people are selling on the GTN at the moment.

It would be a nice supplement if people can't raid for whatever reasons, but it would then make it way too easy to get Rakata and it's easy enough as it is.

[Infinity]

I really like this game, but man the travel times are slow. There's so much back-and-forth and flight points that you think should connect but don't.

Going through the Sith Assassin story, and I'm really digging it. But I think I'd enjoy it a lot more if there was a little bit less of the above.

[Alur]

With Qruul rapidly approaching being fully WH'd out, what healer to play next? I'm torn between Scoundrel/Operative and Commando/Merc.

I love the insane survivability of a merc/commando healer. On KV and now Jedi Covenant, they are still the kings in PVP due to the uninterruptable shield. They never outheal me, but they are always in the ballpark and usually average 3 to 4 less deaths per game (and that's with me ALWAYS having guard). On the other hand, it's not like the operative is a slouch in this regard...plus the stealth would be insanely useful in PVP and eventually rated when I get that far. I ultimately want one of these two classes to replace Qruul as needed.

Both survive better than my sorcerer healer. The shitty thing (if it's anything like sorcerer/sage) is that I probably have to get to level 30ish before I can even tell if I like the healing mechanics and resource. But hey, operative DPS is fun as hell...even if it has been nerfed 101 times.

[HarryDemeanor]

I really like this game, but man the travel times are slow. There's so much back-and-forth and flight points that you think should connect but don't. Going through the Sith Assassin story, and I'm really digging it. But I think I'd enjoy it a lot more if there was a little bit less of the above.

Yeah they could really benefit from going back and ironing out the travel times.

Did they ever connect all of the Dromund Kaas FPs together? It was always a hassle to have to run inside the city to get to the rest of the areas.

[Heysoos]

With Qruul rapidly approaching being fully WH'd out, what healer to play next? I'm torn between Scoundrel/Operative and Commando/Merc. I love the insane survivability of a merc/commando healer. On KV and now Jedi Covenant, they are still the kings in PVP due to the uninterruptable shield. They never outheal me, but they are always in the ballpark and usually average 3 to 4 less deaths per game (and that's with me ALWAYS having guard). On the other hand, it's not like the operative is a slouch in this regard...plus the stealth would be insanely useful in PVP and eventually rated when I get that far. I ultimately want one of these two classes to replace Qruul as needed. Both survive better than my sorcerer healer. The shitty thing (if it's anything like sorcerer/sage) is that I probably have to get to level 30ish before I can even tell if I like the healing mechanics and resource. But hey, operative DPS is fun as hell...even if it has been nerfed 101 times.

Scoundrel healer. :-)


Speaking of, currently leveling my scoundrel. Anyone know/have a good hybrid spec to play? Want to heal with him in lowbie PVP, but I also don't really want to level up through the story as a healer.

[BattleMonkey]

It would be a nice supplement if people can't raid for whatever reasons, but it would then make it way too easy to get Rakata and it's easy enough as it is.

Eh, for the hardcore guilds perhaps. It's much easier to get Blackhole Gear and just skip Rakata at this point, especially with 1.3

[CzarTim]

Scoundrel healer. :-) Speaking of, currently leveling my scoundrel. Anyone know/have a good hybrid spec to play? Want to heal with him in lowbie PVP, but I also don't really want to level up through the story as a healer.

Prob. going to level a Scoundrel after 1.3. Don't really like sage heals.

[kyo_daikun]

Prob. going to level a Scoundrel after 1.3. Don't really like sage heals.

Im levelling an Op healer as I want to try it out and see how it compares to sorc healing.

[Draxal]

Eh, for the hardcore guilds perhaps. It's much easier to get Blackhole Gear and just skip Rakata at this point, especially with 1.3

I honestly think this is a problem with the game as it just makes sense to get Tionese/Columi and just use the Black Hole armorings instead. It ends better then Campaign gear, due to the set bonuses being linked to the tionese/columi shells as Campaign gear isn't truly optimized.

[Milly79]

Cystm! You troll!

[Cystm]

Cystm! You troll!

you guys destroyed my JK though. <3

Being a fresh 50 in recruit gear is kinda lulzy. We need to get a GAF v EE premade going at some point.... in the distant future when I have more than 13k HP :(

[Last Hearth]

Only pre-1.2 tear had set bonuses tied to the shells, post 1.2 the set bonuses are tied to the armoring.

[Draxal]

Only pre-1.2 tear had set bonuses tied to the shells, post 1.2 the set bonuses are tied to the armoring.

Right which ends up tionese/columi/rakata with black hole armoring to being superior than campaign armor, as some of the campaign armor's has weird optimization (less primary stats/more endurance). It's only going to be an issue with 1.3 as the rate of black hole commendation growth is going to skyrocket.

[HBroward]

you guys destroyed my JK though. <3 Being a fresh 50 in recruit gear is kinda lulzy. We need to get a GAF v EE premade going at some point.... in the distant future when I have more than 13k HP :(

You got to see most of Team Agent: Yooni, Trevail, and Adam-Baldwin. 2 snipers and a dps op, and we even had a healing op with us earlier. Fun times. 2 marksman snipers have incredible burst when stacking on people, it's really ridiculous. Yooni and I have had a great time blowing people up now that I have successfully ensnared him in the pvp arena.

[Milly79]

Oh, Trevin. You will never have me ensnared!

Plus, we wouldn't even be able to field a EE pre-made... Okay, I guess we could. :\

[Alur]

Oh, Trevin. You will never have me ensnared! Plus, we wouldn't even be able to field a EE pre-made... Okay, I guess we could. :\

How about instead of a GAF vs EE premade, Cystm, you meet us on the field of battle in rated when we break back out "The Artists Formerly Known As The GAF Empire" Rated WZ team we've been talking about?

[kyo_daikun]

Right which ends up tionese/columi/rakata with black hole armoring to being superior than campaign armor, as some of the campaign armor's has weird optimization (less primary stats/more endurance). It's only going to be an issue with 1.3 as the rate of black hole commendation growth is going to skyrocket.

Yes, the whole point of the campaign gear is you remove the armoring and put it into a an augmented piece of orange armor for example, then put whatever mod and enhancement you want in there, your not meant to just use them as is, you customise them to suit your stat needs.