Xyuleos

I'll concede - there is a certain amount of skill in having the
patience and determination to stay up for three days.

What bothers me, about things like this, is the bragging and how that
is often the reason people bother to go after these 'firsts'.

I'm sorry but just because you did something first it doesn't make
you a better player. Patience and determination aside; it requires an
equal amount of skill to reach a level cap regardless of whether it
takes 3 months or 3 days.

So people stay up for three days out of pure choice in the pursuit of an achievement that means nothing, and thats impressive? No. I call that insane.

Don't get me wrong... people are free to do whatever they want, but saying someone staying up for three days in a pointless rush to the level cap (some might say thereby ruining the actual intended experience) is 'impressive' and 'makes you wonder about our ability to play these games'? That's just plain silly. Such behaviour proves nothing except that these people have a lot of free time. It doesn't imply any kind of skill whatsoever.

I agree with your sentiment. In my opinion forum/community anger usually falls somewhere between two things; a developer or publisher doing something that is obviously motivated by greed, or making a design decision that people didn't expect, or are poorly informed on.

About greed; you can't blame them in the sense that business is basically motivated by greed. Its the system that needs changing to prevent that. We might have the most free societies here in the western world, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for one hell of an improvement.

As for design decisions, I think a lot of anger is often born out of ignorance. Especially when people haven't played through the issue or change to see if they like it.

But you know what? Overall I think forums and games communities are just a microcosm for all the people in the world. Theres nothing new to be learned here - its just easier to identify the factors.

Personally what I find frustrating is that people don't listen to each other, in general. It causes the same topics to come up again and again, even when answers have already been given. Call it lack of intelligence, call it ignorance, lack of communication skills, or plain illiteracy, whatever - its definitely prevalent in the world of forums.

Its looking great! The stylised realism might be an aquired taste for some, but I think its the best decision the could've made. It means that people with a broad variety of computers can play it, it looks way better than that 'other mmo', and its something that will stick in people's minds as an individual look.

Aside from the looks, the game looks great fun to play. I can't wait.

I agree with all your predictions except Wookies and Droids.

Voice-acting wouldn't work for Wookies and theres no way they can have Wookies speaking basic. I'm very doubtful about the translator idea. When has that ever happened in Star Wars? I don't think it would feel right at all.

Droids aren't sentient beings. Not having free-will excludes them in my opinion. Also, I don't think playing one would be very heroic.

I think both Wookies and Droids will definitely be companion characters, though.

As for my own addition. Togruta (Shaak Ti & Ashoka Tano are both this species) seems highly likely. They've appeared in gameplay videos and are pictured as the feature Jedi on the official site's Game Info page.

I meant to say it should be finished in 2010, not 2008.

Hope its not much later than that. The forums for TOR have been around since the game was announced in October 2008 and they have been super-active since then. People are going to get very tired of waiting if the game is more than another year away. Logic suggests it will be finished by October 2008, what with the game being in development for several years already (five I think), the size of the team they have, the upcoming gameplay demo (at Gamescon) and the fact that they're using the Hero engine.

Personally I wouldn't want to wait any longer than October 2010 as this is the only MMO in development that I really want to play (and I'm a big fan of the genre, but bored of the current implementations).

Actually I think 2010 is more likely. It seems useless for them to have shown 'the' trailer if the game is more than a year away. They've also hinted that they don't plan to be at next year's E3.

I would also disagree with someone who said full voice over was evolutionary and not revolutionary. Its revolutionary. Not because of the sheer volume of voice-over, but because of the multiplayer dialogue which has never been done before, and the fact that every player character speaks as well as NPCs. Far, far ahead of the first 20 levels of Age of Conan.

Looks wonderful and I can't wait to play.

I'd just like to say that the game will actually have player characters voiced as well as NPCs (it says only NPCs near the beginning of the article).