Darth Hater

Actually Pete, those are precisely my thoughts on the matter. It basically comes down to two factors - the first being what you essentially described; driving home the emphasis on "story" ...and the second being the oft heard refrain of "we're only talking about things which have been finalized."

Having participated personally in 3 major Beta Tests (back when that was actually more about "testing" instead of an advanced demo it is these days) I can say emphatically that game mechanics (and especially character skills) are tweaked and refined right up to the week before they send out the gold for pressing. Sometimes those changes can be quite dramatic - I've seen skills dropped alltogether from a class from beta to release.

So, I've resigned myself to receiving only "general overview" type information on game systems and mechanics until we the players actually get our hands on the "finished" product - at which point it is going to be dissected like it was on the table of the vivasectionist from Hell... hopefully, it will have a high enough quality to stand up to the scrutiny... one unintended consequence of withholding information while building hype at the same time is that when you do finally let the light of day in - it could be so intense it burns. /fingerscrossed

Arch, if we see any more eye to eye I'm going to kick myself in the face.

I only slightly worry about the "finished product" seeing the "light of day". All reasons above I totally agree with, but I think Bioware has reassured me (and gone out of their way to do so) that this game will be reviewed thoroughly and polished by release. Whether it be from them mentioning how they hire testers internally through Bioware to scrutinize the game... or how talk about working with game mechanics over and over. I feel some sense of comfort that the game will very playable and very awesome at launch.

Yes... Bioware comfort... not Bioware brainwash... right? : D

We won't know much about game mechanics until after the NDA is removed and open beta is announced. I'm thinking at, or shortly after PAX East.

definitely not brainwash... I've played, and re-played, so many BioWare titles in no small part because of the quality and polish you mentioned Pete... it is "comfort" that comes from a long, and pleasant relationship... yet still... /fingerscrossed

I hope it's a Fan Friday!

Why? If it isnt, we'll both have this + fan friday = more info about Tor

I'm being a nerd

roughly when will the news come out? later tonight? tomorrow? next week?

I'm exhausted but I think I can muster up the energy to wait for the announcement!!!

Exciting! TOR news has been on the decline, hoping this brings back the hype!

Not really.

why do you say that? aren't you excited about the game?

Could be Euro Beta invites... Euro server company (pls not GOA PLS!) but failing that i'll take a content update :)

Hopefully the fact WAR Europe was taken from GOA back into Mythic's hands means they've learned that lesson.

Truth is if any such deal with GOA were announced, it would have been signed already.

Betting it all on crafting announcement.