Ingrod

@Tom in VA

For me the first three books have a clear focus, until now the series is accurate to the first book, how can lose focus?

The 4th book is more disperse because is centered around secondary characters and plots.

How many other shows or novels divergent storylines ending converging in the last chapters, A Song of Ice and Fire is in their 5th chapter. The only thing that we can do is wait.

The SWTOR dev walkthrough video posted in the official site the saturday said more about the current state of the game than the "meh" trailer, I cant undersant why Massively dont posted that video yet.

The animations and graphics now are on par with any modern MMO.

I like the SWTOR graphics style, from the begining they never pretend have high end photorealistic graphics in their game, his objetive was have graphics near to reality but stylised for two reasons: not become obsolete by the release of more advanced graphics technologies and maintain the game graphic requeriments low. But with that ilumination, textures and models are much more advanced and detalid than in WoW or other older MMOs. Graphics dont are realistic, but are good.

And the animations are more better in the current PAX build than in previous builds, how you can see in this video from the current PAX hands-on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qk6O8Qzd0Y

In-game animations are better inclusive than in this trailer, and now can be easily comparable to GW2 or Rift animations.

Today in SWTOR forums:

"You are right, players need a reason to return to social hubs from time to time.

Here are some reasons why 'selling grays' is not that reason in The Old Republic:

- Players have no incentive to interact with other players when selling grays. You're just forcing them to return to a hub. There are better reasons (e.g. trainers, turning in quests, etc.) that reward the player for doing the same thing, which creates a much more positive attitude to begin with.

- It's something you have to do with high frequency and creates implicit dependencies, that we then have to balance. In TOR, whenever you go into combat, you usually fight a substantially larger number of foes than in other MMOs. As a result, your inventory fills up quicker. We obviously can adjust drop rates down to change that, but that also means that if we address drop rates for any other reason, we implicitly change the frequency at which you have to return to town.

- Frankly - nobody has ever told me "Man, I went to town to sell grays, it was soooo awesome!"

To address your concerns, here's a small list of reasons for you to return to a social hub in TOR, and as a bonus, how we view each reason from a player perspective:

* Various vendors. Positive: I get to buy stuff.
* Crafting benches. Positive: I get to make stuff.
* Banking access. Positive: I don't pay bills there?
* Trainers. Positive: I get to learn new stuff.
* Quests / Follow-up quests. Positive: I get rewards.
* Meeting friends (much easier at a known location than randomly in a snowstorm on Hoth). Positive: I meet friends.
* Spaceport access. Neutral.
* Medcenters. Neutral, arguably negative (I failed).
* Speeder Transportation Service. Neutral.
* Your inventory still fills up with items, so it's not like you never have to return to town. Probably Neutral: since I get a lot of credits for the non gray stuff."

@Anticrawl

Really he dont say that, this excerpt is very clear in that for me:

"You are merely making a choice to be someone who was born on that side of the fence. Or, in the case of the Bounty Hunter, someone who tends to work in that part of space. The light side Sith who works tirelessly to make his Empire a better place is a deeply compelling character. The pragmatic Agent who wants nothing more than to protect the millions non-Sith citizens from harm is equally interesting. The Bounty Hunter gets to be his own man and spit right in the face of anyone who he doesn't agree with. Being a good man in a bad place is one of the all time great role-playing options."

For us Sith ideology and Empire absolutist rule are unacceptable, but Daniel Erickson has stated many time that Empire citizens, and inclusive the own Siths dont have to be bad for nature. Really I dont see that "Sith Empire = be forced to be evil" thing in his words.

@Daemodand

Star Wars philosophy is a bit more complex that only a "good vs. evil" thing, that is mainly a western point of view, but Lucas was inspired by japan and samurais to modelate Jedi and Sith, and the Star Wars mythos are heavily influenced by eastern phylosophy and religions, how buddhism zen, taoism, and the ying-yang idea, how appear currently in The Clone Wars series. And easterm philosphy is more oriented to balance between opposed concepts that dont have to be inherenty good or bad.

The Sith ideology is evil for us point of view, in many details is very similar to nazi beliefs or any other dictatorial ideology. Sith ideology use of dark side is what makes them very dangerous for the galaxy and Republic. Whe use dark side for their own goals they cause unbalance in the Force. For restore balance in the Force is needed defeat the Sith, but the dark side itself cant be erradicated because is part of the Force.

Based in the ying-yang principles Jedi have some dark side inside them, and Sith have some light side inside them, in Star Wars absolutes are relative.

The same can be aplicated to Empire and Republic, or Jedi and Sith, in SWTOR.

Daniel Erickson has stated many time that Empiere citizens dont are bad for nature, only have born inside the Empire borders. Nothing has changued. In example BH class character are neutral, only work in the Empire part of the galaxy for money.

@KDolo

But you can have fall and ascension inside your own class story, be a Jedi Republican character dont imples obbey always the Jedi and dont attemp to destroy them from inside of the Republic. The Exar Kun struggle over the Jedi and the Republic was for their own, without have to obbley some unknow for him Sith Emperor or be part of his Sith Empire. The main fallen Jedi goal is defeat the order and reach the absolute power over the Republic, not become only pawns of the Emperor or governos of some small Empire system. An dark Jedi can be enemy of the both sides, Jedi and democratic Republic govern and the Empire.

@shatteredsword

Also is a MMOFPS not a MMORPG.

Not all MMO must be RPG.

@AlienFanatic

Really? U see Tatooine or Hoth images? For me are pure Star Wars, the Alderaan builidings were based in some old conceptual desings for the classical films, very similar to Bespin. And Nar Shadaa is a very classic planet too.

"Sending your crew mates to gather materials and then sending them to make stuff takes the fun out of crafting in my opinion".

Not at all. Whats is the difference about give the order to a crafting station to craft something a see the bar progress and give the order to some NPC companions to craft something a see their bars progress? For me, none.

In SWG you have automated factories and mining stations, and droids to extract samples, animal resources from death mobs, and find BH targets.

In EVE you have automated factories where crafting items can take many hours to complete. Also have automated mining station in moons.

In Fallen Earth craft a car need many hours and many subcomponents.

And nobody have a doubt about that these thing are real crafting.

They only remove the boring grind of the formula, but leaving all the fun. Manage resources, search the bazar, cooperate with other players (you only have three Crew Skill slots for you whole crew and only one of then can be a Crafting skill), etc.

Leaving the boring part of crafting to some automated game system how are the companions allow the possibility of add more complexity to craft. They can add more resources, components and subcomponents to every recipe, making the crafting of anything a elaborated and complex process for hardcore crafters. In MMOs with grind based craft that can be a nightmare for the players, but here we have companions to do these things.

Also the gathering missions have a price (same that factories in SWG or EVE), you need to pay your companions, how many different companions missions will be required for complete a high end item recipe? That will be a important game money drain, and boost the in-game economy.

In the other hand Invest in find rare loots and resources to sell can be a good income font to non-crafter players, and with this system they dont need farming to find these resources or treasures.