This was released last week and I haven't seen this discussed here with the one exception of SGR. Please keep the discussion on the blog and leave political and personal views out of it. Thanks.

Topic #1: Elder Game Content – What is our intent for keeping level 50’s occupied? Answer: Introducing new content and activities for the elder game is a top priority in the coming year. We’ve got new Operations, new Flashpoints, new difficulty modes, new PvP areas, and of course, the entire Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel (which is targeted at our high level players). We have a plan mapped out for the upcoming year that will keep the elder game fresh and interesting for players of all types. Overall, we’re aiming to introduce a more diverse array of activities – more stuff to do with your Companion, more challenges to tackle with groups, and more reasons for guilds to recruit. We’ll also be improving our itemization, introducing new incentives to revisit existing areas, and a lot of other exciting things that will be revealed as we move through the upcoming year.

Topic #2: World PvP – What happened to making Ilum better? What is going on with Open World PvP? Answer: We have not forgotten Ilum! I think you will see (fairly soon) the answer to this question in the game itself - something big is coming to the Western Ice Shelf, but it’s quite a departure from what was there before. As for pure Open World PvP…well, that’s a more difficult proposition. We are dedicated to providing excellent PvP experiences to our players, but we intend to focus our energy on PvP Seasons and new Warzones. We will be experimenting with a different approach to Open World PvP, something that encourages organic PvP in contested areas in a new and interesting way, but do not look for massive new Open World PvP this year (outside of what I mentioned above). It is still on our design wall, but is taking a back seat to other forms of PvP.

Topic #3: Character Copy to Public Test Server (PTS) – What is taking so long? Answer: As of the writing of this letter, we are in focused, internal testing on character copies for PTS. You should expect to see this come within the first part of this year. It will provide free character copies to PTS at any time (with possible restrictions dependent upon our testing needs at any given time). This will also lay the foundation for our new live character transfer system that will be coming later this year.

Topic #4: Same Gender Romance: Any news on this front would be great… Answer: First of all, I want to apologize that this is taking so long to get in the game. I realize that we promised SGR to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character. Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realized at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play. As we have said in the past, allowing same gender romance is something we are very supportive of.

Secondly, I want to reveal today that we are adding SGR with some NPCs on Makeb and do intend on pursuing more SGR options in the future. More details to come!

Whew! I think we got through this State of the Game pretty well. The team and I will continue to scan the forums, read the boards, and listen to feedback. We’re dedicated to giving you the game that YOU want to play and are making changes and improvements at a rapid pace to keep up with your desires. Please keep posting and keep talking about The Old Republic. Together we will continue to care for and expand this fantastic game.

Until next time,

-Jeff Hickman

Your a week late it was already posted by suzie ford in the news section and discussed there

http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/26450/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-State-of-the-Game-2-Published.html#comments

So yea, dont know how you missed it.

I read that just yesterday, and basically laughed at how he only brings up 3 very irrelevant aspects of the game.

Nothing about F2P criticism.  Nothing about lessons learned.  Nothing about the most commonly-requested features, like space combat.  Nothing about how they are going to fix the problem with subscribers not benefiting from the existence of free players for things like flashpoints and operations (it's great that total players are up, but it isn't helping the subs at all).

Instead, he mentions crap like test server characters and the fact that same-gender romance is still on hold until after they do more with F2P?  Awesome.

Originally posted by asmkm22

I read that just yesterday, and basically laughed at how he only brings up 3 very irrelevant aspects of the game.

 

Nothing about F2P criticism.  Nothing about lessons learned.  Nothing about the most commonly-requested features, like space combat.  Nothing about how they are going to fix the problem with subscribers not benefiting from the existence of free players for things like flashpoints and operations (it's great that total players are up, but it isn't helping the subs at all).

Instead, he mentions crap like test server characters and the fact that same-gender romance is still on hold until after they do more with F2P?  Awesome.

Originally posted by keithian
These are all good things, but for me personally it doesn't address why GW2 is currently my number #1 game and this is on a wait and see for now. Im dying to see more info about making the game feel more alive, less static, with NPCs that move more, day night cycles, weather effects, cities that feel alive, social hubs in the right place (ummm cantinas lol) and more random activities...either side activities or planet events. Still a good game though.

@asmkm22

he didnt mention anything about changes to space combat because there isnt anything to say about it right now that wasnt said a month ago(same with other features such as mini games).  basically dont expect it anytime soon. and since its listed as state of the game and not whats coming i do agree they should have talked about some of the other things you mentioned but cant say im suprised they didn't.

from Nov. 29th: http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/22517-bioware-livestream-q-a-coverage

@keithian

i wouldnt ever expect day night cycles or changes to weather effects. they stated pre-release they chose the static choices because they were going for specfic feels for each area.  i dont see this being changed. personally i would like to see changes to weather such as blizzards on hoth or sandstorms on tatooine that pop up and are so bad that it is almost impossible to see. personally dont care about day/night cycles unless it somehows effects what mobs are out or how they react.

I think the direction he mentioned for pvp is probably not the direction that a lot of pvpers are asking for.

Seasons and warzone pvp is the reason why the pvpers who don't like WoW/leave WoW and instead of moving aways from it, they are getting more into it and less into open world pvp or open world pvp zones.

Probably not a good direction to go in terms of competing against the latest/upcoming batch of mmo/pvp games.