Darth Hater

It seems like a little thing but this is why I use the Torhead DB instead of the DarthHater one:

Run a search, say for items that drop in Athiss. (http://db.darthhater.com/search.aspx?search_text=athiss)

Now, ctrl+click on a few item names to open them up in new tabs so you can flick through the comments and find out where each item drops...

Somewhere in your scripting you have an event handler that catches the click on the table row and navigates away from the list to the item you clicked on. What you end up with is two tabs, both with the same item in.

What you would like to end up with is a new tab with the item you ctrl+clicked and the original tab still on the search results.

It's a little usability thing, I hope you can fix it.

Haha, it doesn't matter if it's account wide.  I've just seen the screenshots of this and they'd have to pay me to ride it.

This is the lamest holiday "event" I've ever seen.

The Czerka LD-1 Celebrator, an adaptive speeder, combines the convenience of travel with the joy of the Life Day celebration! Cost: 1800 Cartel Coins.

$18 for a speeder? That better be account wide for that price.

Just as a note re: the security key (about 23mins in) see Nathan Emmott's updated comment here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5324114

Update: We've been getting some questions about security keys and how they will work. For starters, Free-to-Play and Preferred players cannot use NEW digital security keys. However, if you had one on your account and you decided to go to Preferred Player Status, then you can still use your digital security key. Free-to-Play players may purchase a physical security key, which will give them Preferred Player Status and the ability to use the physical security key.

Personally I think it's crazy, they should be begging everyone to have security keys, virtual or physical, because it lowers their support costs when people are logging fewer "my account got hacked" tickets.

I think the sub value primarily lies in the end-game, PvP, Ops, etc.  If you assume the 500cc stipend a subscriber gets is equivalent to $5, which would be on a par with other hybrid model games, then the weekly passes for the gated content come to about $40 a month if you don't subscribe.

Even if you hate space missions and ignore flashpoints, the weekly passes for PvP and Ops totals about $20 a month, still more than the cost of a sub.

On top of that, there are all the locks that you don't have to deal with, cargo holds, guild banks, inventory slots, all of which you can buy with in-game credits rather than real money.

All in all, the sub is good value if you want to play this game to it's fullest,  they shouldn't need to cripple the game for free players, they just need to show the added value a sub brings.

Those are all awesome ideas and exactly the sort of stuff players would throw money at in bucket loads.  EA unfortunately have taken the least imaginative approach they thought they could get away with.  :(

The best post I've seen on this was on the Massively forums (of all the unlikely places for an intelligent comment) from a chap called the.viking.gamer  (http://fyre.it/1xXU)

I agree with his point so I'll steal it an repost it here:

An EA executive asked, 'How many people, who don't pay me, do you think I should buy bandwidth for?' The answer: 'As many as you can get!'

It is an MMO if you don't have people in it you have failed. An MMO is a community and not everybody needs to pay to add value to that community. People are content. You don't need everybody to pay, you just need enough to pay. But if you don't have enough people playing then your Paying players will get bored and leave.

And you are way underestimating how much people will spend on stupid worthless things. It might sound foreign to you and me but believe me. People will drop a ridiculous amount of money to make their favorite character look cool or sexy.

But you don't convince people to try your game by making it suck. And adding restrictions makes it suck. You have to make it fun in the first place to get them to play. Then you sell them extras. They were already charging for a game that was moderately fun and not making enough money. now they want to give you a game that sucks and pay even more to simply bring it up to the point of moderately fun and they expect that to work better? No! Give them fun for free then charge for extras. That is why it is called free to play. Your game, the part you play, is no longer the product, it is the advertising that gets you in the door.

There are a lot of people looking at this issue from the point of view that the F2P option should be so punitive that people capitulate and subscribe.  That F2P model should have died 5 years ago.  Modern F2P models are about offering bonuses on top of the free game, not beating someone with restrictions until they give in or go home.

A single example is the quick slots.  Rather than letting everyone play with 4 bars and saying "Hey, if you subscribe you get these two extra bars (or you can unlock them in the shop)" they've decided to make the game difficult by removing two bars and hoping people would pay to make the experience less painful.  That sort of attitude does not make for happy players, it simply builds resentment.

Seriously, that's the best fanboi comeback you can come up with?

None of my names were crappy ripoffs, all were pretty reasonable fictional names, not taken from anywhere, but there are only so many combinations of letters that don't look like you just facerolled on the keyboard.  And, no, I'm not going down the stupid "just put an umlaut in there" route.  It's just not worth it.

At this point in time, SWTOR needs to be giving players a reason to stay, not another reason to leave.  My guild is down to less than 25% of those that started, and those of us still playing are down to 1 or 2 nights per week as everyone we know is in GW2 (which I'm enjoying also).  So to give me yet another reason why I shouldn't bother logging in any more is not conducive to keeping my sub money coming in is it?

I know, I know, don't feed the trolls.  Some days I just can't help it...

So I lost 4 out of 8 names when we got punted onto Nightmare Lands in the original move.  If I lose them again being merged into Red Eclipse I think I'll be leaving.

I'm already down to a couple of nights a week thanks to GW2 but I was keeping my sub open until I see what F2P does to SWTOR.  It might no longer be worth it to me.