Darth Hater

Welcome back Sado!! A much better job this week guys. There was still some issues with the game but your demeanor was much better. Still talked about the issues, but more upbeat and not so beaten down about it.

As far as everything discussed this week, I'd agree. Servers are jumping, there are people to play with and more people are experiencing content which is a good thing. PvP is happening and for the first time ever, we are even getting some open world pvp happening on Belsavis and Corellia in the daily zones.

1.3 will really boost the game up some and I'm seeing alot threads on the official forums about people returning to the game. Even the official forums haven't been such a breeding ground lately. All in all, I think we are about to see things start to turn around.

/here's to hoping that Bioware can keep the momentum up!!

All you need to do is leave someone in the old guild on the origin server as GM and put a MOTD saying "When you transfer to Destination Server, contact XXXXX to rejoin the guild."

I have been asking around on origin servers, and you'd be surprised how many people still don't know exactly what's going on with the transfers.

The tricky part is this: For all the drama and fanfare over character transfer, and as smoothly as it went in practice, it hasn't added a single player to the game.  The modest bump of inactive returnees during transfer week seems to have peaked already,   The curve is very hard to move, and the numbers do not sustain the staffing even post-layoff.  Something has going to give.  Maybe F2P will be the answer, we'll see.

it added atleast 5 player which had unsubscribed a month ago... 

Quote from Siros »

it added atleast 5 player which had unsubscribed a month ago... 

That would be more impressive if MMO players didn't unsubscribe and re-subscribe like rabid pandas in a revolving door.  Transfer sure didn't sell any more boxes and it hasn't substantially raised overall player pops.  It has just taken whoever's left and squeezed them into a smaller space.

the good: i was impressed with the speed of the character transfer

the bad: totally unimpressed with the laissez faire approach to handling guild transfers

BW continues to prove they have the worst customer service/support in the business.  after my AoC experience, i honestly didn't think anyone could be worse than Funcom, congrats BW!

no discussion of class changes in 1.3?

deleting guild on origin server

creating guild on target server

all player move their toon but the gm which creates ticket

all player meet in some cantina (if we talk about stoneage RP'ler which don't have ts/ ventrilo or... chatchannels..)

wait few days until your guildbank is reactivated

keep playing. 

I think people do make it too difficult for themselves. Could Bioware have handled it better? Probably. Could people stop being lazy and start using their brain? Definately. 

Regarding HK-51, my theory on needing both factions is that you to visit both instances of Balmorra.  Remember it has the droid factory on it.

Okay, while I do feel a little like an ass for calling you out on a bad week, I truly appreciate that you guys took the comments seriously. I understand how life can just mess ya up.

Regarding the podcast, I really enjoyed most of the podcast! Your discussion regarding F2P and Server Xfers actually had me write down notes of stuff I wanted to comment on. (Yes I am that guy).

Bullet Notes of Questions/Comments/Musings

1. Mega Server - I think I took this idea differently, I didn't envision what we have now but with much more massive pops, I personally pictured One Server per region, with a massive level of instancing. Basically all US-PVE plays together, all EU-PVE, all US-RPPVP etc etc.  So when you log in, you have maybe 10-12 instances of the fleet. Whether this is a good idea or bad, we have to see how the server merges...i mean transfers play out on a community level.

2. Server Transfers - I found the process easy as hell, minus the guild/ guild bank caveat. I came from Rift though, where server transfer was easy, especially transferring as a guild, so I am used to easy transfers. (In Rift, at least late last year, when the GM of a guild transferred, and took the guild with him, guild members got a prompt when they logged in if they wanted to transfer to the guild's new server.) Despite the easy process, I was sorta bummed about how this was handled. I felt as if these transfers are de facto server merges. Vornskr was not a high pop but not that low i thought. We were maybe 80 at peak, can break 100 on weekends. Before I finally realized if I wanted an semblance of an MMO and transferred, we were 4 on the imp fleet at peak. I think if they had just said, we're gonna merge the servers, I would have been able to deal better on a psychological angle. Server transfers made me hope I could stay on my server with my name, with my guild and avoid the hassle if I wanted to, but when they went live, I had to choose between those things, or a playing by myself and 4 other people.

3. HK-51 - Do you think they are going to require either Hardmodes FP or even Storymode Ops? If not, should they? I agree that it should be something that requires an investment of time, 10hours of playtime seems reasonable. (I don't know if anyone did the mount quests on Vanguard but that is an example of time invested.) I just fear that they are gonna put a community barrier (i.e. # of people needed like ops or even world bosses) that prevents individuals like myself, casual players with a small group of friends from even having a chance at him.

And because I am gonna be THAT guy, my criticism on your podcast this week will be:

Your Darth Hater.com recap. I don't begrudge you pimping the features on your website, actually I would be shocked if you didn't. I just dislike the almost monotonous list reading at the end of the interesting part of your podcast. I kinda tune out, just listening if something maybe strikes up a discussion as opposed to what sounds like a weekly table of contents.

In all honestly, great podcast this week. You could have easily ignored my post, but not only did you obviously read it, you actually addressed it on the podcast, and I'm grateful and thankful. And hey, I think the fact that I didn't get banned speaks volumes!

In response to bullet point 3. I honestly am hoping it's also a pretty big time investment but it's not something that requires operation's and the like to do. I think it would be kind of counter productive to require everyone to run operation's and the like to get the new teammate, Especially since most people playing swtor have played KoTOR and the like and already understand who HK is. Meaning most people will be default want him (assumption based on personal preference). I always hate when im forced to do things I don't want to do, such as operations and what not, to get something that isn't useful FOR that specific thing. You know? Things like speeders and exclusive things that require operations are fine, But not something like a companion. I feel it would be counterproductive to say "oh hey! you like solo? we don't care go run some operation's otherwise you cant have the new teem mate!". I honestly expect they'll allow even casuals to do it, maybe what they'll do is you can get it solo if you want, but you can also do it in a party and get it done faster maybe? 

Something that just occured to me, Are they going to be raising the cap of how many companions you can send out at once? How will that be handled exactly? because having extra companion's is nice for story and all but after that it would be a completely useless investment if you can't use them ALL at any given time. As it stands now, you have one with you and send out the rest. after this, if they DONT increase the cap. you'd have one with you, and then all but one out and about doing stuff. Maybe they could increase the number out IF you have hk? 

Maybe the release of HK is tied to the level cap increase. Maybe even require the new planet Makeb set to release this year as well. They could let us send one more person out as we level to whatever the new cap is.

Sorry to hear personal life messed things up for you Sado. And just to make it up for you, you and the other guys felt a lot more interested this time. Of course the news were also a lot better than last week. :)

Interesting talks on F2P. Don't know what to feel about that yet though.