haagentazz

@Faction 3

Ditto that... I just hope Best Buy gets on board the CE train.

Thanks Elisabeth! Before reading this, I wasn't sure how much each legion differed from the other two. Sounds like Anet has done an awesome job with the story and showing what each of the legions are all about. Now I'm even more curious about how the other character creation choices will affect the story. (Which of the human gods to pick now? ...)

Also, thank you for the Livestream last night! You answered several questions I had and the footage you captured was awesome!

Since I've always been a huge fan of story in a game, I do read game novels, but usually only for the games I'm a "Super Fan" of (Guild Wars & SWTOR).

Any game writer worth their salt will flesh out the story in game so that the fans that didn't read the book(s) will have a complete picture of what's going on in game. Yet for the fans that read the books, they often have a more complete picture of everything else that's being affected/going on during those key junctures in the game based on info from the novel(s).

Personally, the novels helped weave together the events that players were a part of in Guild Wars/Knights of the Old Republic. They help to explain/set up the cultures, politics, people, etc. that we'll be affecting in the soon-to-be-released games. The novels also add depth and humanity to the characters and help to understand what the characters are thinking/what motivates them.

As others have said, EA may have changed the EA/Origin account EULA now, but they're free to change it back any time... which will probably be a few months after SW:TOR's release.

If you go to the SW:TOR Privacy Policy and ToS sites, you're redirected to EA's sites. So, when you sign up for a SW:TOR account, you're signing up for an EA Account. This, according to the EA ToS, is "also known as an Origin Account."

Stephen Reid, SW:TOR community manager, stated on the SW:TOR forums that "You are not required to use the Origin desktop client to download, patch or play the game client for Star Wars: The Old Republic." Clever word usage. However, this doesn't mean that you won't be monitored/spied on just the same. After all, does WoW's "Warden" program run as a separate client or the spyware for RIFT, LOTRO, etc.? How about the "nProtect GameGuard" keylogger that runs in Aion, Lineage II and others? Nope, they're built into the game client.

Most MMOs are using some kind software to spy on what is running, installed, etc on our computers. Yet, when I was examining the EULA for LoTRO, the only difference I saw between the US and UK versions was that the US residents had to agree to let their computers be spied on/monitored. The UK EULA had no such agreement. This makes me believe that the UK & Europe has it right/better when it comes to privacy rules, though they're under siege every day.

Most people will gladly sign over all their rights in order to play a game (or use some cool phone/gadget/website that tracks and monitors what we do). We need to stop this. These companies will only continue to expect us to give more and more -- because we keep obliging them.

I'm waiting a bit longer to see what happens, but I'm rather confident that I'll be cancelling my SW:TOR preorder... and probably avoiding all future EA games.