Originally posted by GMan3

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by GMan3

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Deewe 

Originally posted by Sovrath  

 

Yeah, but he's not wrong. Anyone who creates anyting is going to have supporters and detractors. The more people you try to reach the more supporters and detractors you will get.

That's something you can say to your wife, friends, colleagues but not to a mass media.

I find it refreshing for developers to say what they mean. As I get older I find that I'm starting to bristle over Marketing speak. But it's not he first time someone's created something and noted that there were bound to be critics.

Like when they say they knew people would not like the space sim and they kept working on it?

Or like when they state they are aware the mod system is inferior to appearance tabs, and they keep it?

Or even when they post on the beta forums the beta testers are only here to test bugs and they don't take into account their feedback?

 

Hrmmm not sure. And before you ask, don't trust me? Google is your friend.

    Having a blast with the Space Sim, so I personally am glad they kept it.  I do however hope they add a separate system that has more depth for the people that like it.  There have been hints in this direction already too.

    Personally, I think the mod system is FAR superior to an appearance tab.  Every game I have played to date with an appearance tab felt so stale.  At least now I can work a little to keep the gear I want.

    As for the beta testing comments, that does not surprise me a bit.  Trusting the word of a few thousand people instead of following their vision for the game and interpreting the "metrics" is stupid.  Now that the game is live though, it will be necessary for them to listen to the player base, which we have already seen a couple times now in fixes.

 

    All in all, it is still refreshing to see some honesty coming out of a devs mouth instead of vain glorious marketing bull.

Even James Ohlen Disagress with you:

"Will this system provide you as much options as the appearance tab you are asking for? No it won’t. But it definitely provides a whole lot more visual customization than a purely drop driven MMO as you can modify the equipment you find/buy in the game with any fitting mod you buy/find/craft."

BTW he said that before Blizzard unveiled the transmogrification ;)

 

And for the space sim you know you can play it for free in CWA, right?

    My point with the Mod System, is that you actually have to work for the look you want.  I like that.  It feels a lot better to me than keeping one look even though the gear itself is much different.  Wow and other games with an appearance tab always annoy the crap out of me because I know the look should change and it doesn't.  Personally, I think this system is actually an improvement on the "Appearance Tab".

    As for the Space Sim, like I said, I am happy with it and I am glad it is in the game.  I do hope they add a parallel system that is more in-depth, as they have hinted at, but as it stands right now, I prefer having it to not having it.

Jut wanted to step in to apologize for being a jerk yersterday.

In fact James Ohlen replied to me on the forums about the appearance tabs and while I disliked the content of the answer, it was one of the time I do appreciated his honesty.

That being said, character's look through mods are, atm, seriously limited, especially while levelling characters. For example I have a hard time finding pants that suits my top on my Sith Warrior and now I'm stuck with an orange/brown top and a grey skirt.

For the space sim I'd rather not have anything what they delivered. Even the space map is poorly executed. And why deliver this when players can already play CWA for free?

Originally posted by GMan3

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Deewe 

Originally posted by Sovrath  

 

Yeah, but he's not wrong. Anyone who creates anyting is going to have supporters and detractors. The more people you try to reach the more supporters and detractors you will get.

That's something you can say to your wife, friends, colleagues but not to a mass media.

I find it refreshing for developers to say what they mean. As I get older I find that I'm starting to bristle over Marketing speak. But it's not he first time someone's created something and noted that there were bound to be critics.

Like when they say they knew people would not like the space sim and they kept working on it?

Or like when they state they are aware the mod system is inferior to appearance tabs, and they keep it?

Or even when they post on the beta forums the beta testers are only here to test bugs and they don't take into account their feedback?

 

Hrmmm not sure. And before you ask, don't trust me? Google is your friend.

    Having a blast with the Space Sim, so I personally am glad they kept it.  I do however hope they add a separate system that has more depth for the people that like it.  There have been hints in this direction already too.

    Personally, I think the mod system is FAR superior to an appearance tab.  Every game I have played to date with an appearance tab felt so stale.  At least now I can work a little to keep the gear I want.

    As for the beta testing comments, that does not surprise me a bit.  Trusting the word of a few thousand people instead of following their vision for the game and interpreting the "metrics" is stupid.  Now that the game is live though, it will be necessary for them to listen to the player base, which we have already seen a couple times now in fixes.

 

    All in all, it is still refreshing to see some honesty coming out of a devs mouth instead of vain glorious marketing bull.

Even James Ohlen Disagress with you:

"Will this system provide you as much options as the appearance tab you are asking for? No it won’t. But it definitely provides a whole lot more visual customization than a purely drop driven MMO as you can modify the equipment you find/buy in the game with any fitting mod you buy/find/craft."

BTW he said that before Blizzard unveiled the transmogrification ;)

And for the space sim you know you can play it for free in CWA, right?

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by Sovrath

 

Yeah, but he's not wrong. Anyone who creates anyting is going to have supporters and detractors. The more people you try to reach the more supporters and detractors you will get.

That's something you can say to your wife, friends, colleagues but not to a mass media.

I find it refreshing for developers to say what they mean. As I get older I find that I'm starting to bristle over Marketing speak. But it's not he first time someone's created something and noted that there were bound to be critics.

Like when they say they knew people would not like the space sim and they kept working on it?

Or like when they state they are aware the mod system is inferior to appearance tabs, and they keep it?

Or even when they post on the beta forums the beta testers are only here to test bugs and they don't take into account their feedback?

Hrmmm not sure. And before you ask, don't trust me? Google is your friend.

Originally posted by Drakxii

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Deewe

 

Also I'm not sure I'm supposed to expect great things from a manager stating:

"We knew that there was going to be people who wanted us to fail. But that's just the nature of the game. If you're going to build a huge game and try to go out to a lot of people, you're going to have people who just react poorly."

 

 

Yeah, but he's not wrong. Anyone who creates anyting is going to have supporters and detractors. The more people you try to reach the more supporters and detractors you will get.

That's something you can say to your wife, friends, colleagues but not to a mass media.

Why not?  it's one of more honest things they have said.   Must better then their  "Oh we know what you want just believe in the bioware."  type respones.

Because he looks like he's blaming others for their failure: look they wanted us to fail, they didn't even let us try nor gave us the benefits of the doubt.

Originally posted by Suraknar

**snip**

While I am sure thatthere are many new MMO players that may like it and will play it for a longer span of time, it has failed attracting any Classic MMORPG player.

Reminds me the NGE

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Deewe

 

Also I'm not sure I'm supposed to expect great things from a manager stating:

"We knew that there was going to be people who wanted us to fail. But that's just the nature of the game. If you're going to build a huge game and try to go out to a lot of people, you're going to have people who just react poorly."

 

 

Yeah, but he's not wrong. Anyone who creates anyting is going to have supporters and detractors. The more people you try to reach the more supporters and detractors you will get.

That's something you can say to your wife, friends, colleagues but not to a mass media.

Quite funny and sad at the same time as pointing at real issues and decisions.

Originally posted by Snaylor47

Originally posted by Loekii

Originally posted by Deewe

Let's take a few guesses:

• Basic UI should be smoothed out, at least a bit, pretty soon. Addons for much more later
• Combat delay shall be fixed/tweaked in a 3 months delay, 
• Character customization will get some luvin through let's say orange items and maybe gear dyes if we are lucky.
• Many of the annoying bugs features that are easily tweakable will be fixed.
• Ok, PvP might still sucks for quite a long time, as it needs hours of work. Especiall open world PvP.
• Space sim isn't going to blow our minds before at least 6 months.
• And PvE will stay as THE guy decribes it so well :p"
  • One of the problems of other MMOs combat is that you often have scenarios where you have multiple heroes beating on a single enemy. That just isn't very Heroic" - James Ohlen, Studio Creative, Director and Lead Designer, Bioware."

And in 6 months they can add things they kept from the launch like the already done companions. Personnaly I expect to see them unlocked with the legacy system. We'll see...

 

 

It does sound like a reasonable estimate.

 

However, given BW's propensity to be inflexible, I would not get my hopes up too much, as most of those things, are things they they previous seemed to suggest were not needed -- until they noticed customers started to demand it.   So it would not surprise me to see BW dragging their feet, or putting out the minimum effort for it.

 

Basically, I have not seen BW demonstrate the willingness to break from 'their view', and to adapt to what customers may want.   I am not talking about radical changes to the game, but rather about not putting in basic things like a customizable UI, more diversity, and better focus on the 'non-story' aspects of their game.   In Development it was all 'story, story, story', yet in release we see 'we are addressing non-story deficiencies'.

 

 

 

I disagree, After watching the whole "Things to come" Video I am pretty happy with the development because they seem to be focusing on more non-story based things like Customizable UI and gameplay elements. I also think its a little unfair to judge their flexablility this early in the games lifespan.

Seeing the latest video I would tend towards the same direction. Still in the past, since 2008 they've been pretty much inflexible.

Ex: They knew the space sim blows, still not only they kept wasting $$$ and time on it AND they put quite a big emphasys too.

Also I'm not sure I'm supposed to expect great things from a manager stating:

"We knew that there was going to be people who wanted us to fail. But that's just the nature of the game. If you're going to build a huge game and try to go out to a lot of people, you're going to have people who just react poorly."

Please OP stop making me drooling, I don't want to be over hyped by this game.

Seems mostly each time I read something on this game I have the feeling the devs really knows what makes a FUN mmo.

Originally posted by Pelaaja

I've been playing for a week or so now and I'm making super evil Sith Sorcerer.

When I choose "evil" answers, there's 2 outcomes.

a. I kill or shock everyone. This is ok, it's generally thought to be evil to torment people.

b. I say it's going to cost money, usually the words are "there's better be a lot of money" or "it's going to cost you a lot of money". Begging for money, a great Sith that can take everything he/she needs. I'd understand if I was demanding the abortion of their unborn child or slave them for the rest of their pitiful lives, but no. Cash, plox.

Noticed that too. Felt like the lead writer/editor had an issue with money, And tormenting people would be much more evil as killing people could be very much ligh sided too depending on the situation.

That being said, IMHO being Sith does not means being evil, I would say it's more a matter of power trip. Many Jedi felt to the dark Side to use the force for better and they where slowly but surely drown into the dark side. I do not feel that in TOR at all.

Text ;)

Leakz inside:

When the testing started, an epic post:

And the rumors about the beta spread out the galaxy:

BioWare war room after the E3 multiplayer video reveal, thread: 

Pawn of approval.

Here's a few other older things:

Pics first:

Originally posted by Robsolf

Originally posted by Stormwave1

To people who have pointed out that end game is harsher, I don't feel like I should need to get to the end game before I feel any challenge.

I suppose my personal preference is that games should be games, not click through story books. I'm a huge fan of story based games, don't get me wrong, but there is no sense of accomplishment is what is accomplished takes no effort. Lots of people cheat in games, and enjoy it, because for them winning is the fun part. For me it is not winning but the sense of accomplishment that I find enjoyable.

I'm not asking for EQ style death punishment, the genre is way too far past that now to go back, but even WoW level is reasonable. I bought SWTOR expecting at least that, not even less.

Death penalty has nothing to do with challenge.  And it CERTAINLY has nothing to do with increased effort.

Challenge is:  A boss mob that I just can't spam DPS at to make go down.  One that may even kick my ass a number of times as I analyze what they are doing that's keeping me from defeating them. 

If I have to wait 20 minutes for some "death sickness" BS to wear off, or have to spend 20 minutes running back to the mob, or some other time wasting nonsense that has little to do with me becoming a better player, then I'm just going to wait til' I'm loaded with purple gear and 4 levels higher to where strategy doesn't matter.

At which point, challenge is gone, I'll get bored, and unsub.

Agreed still, having meaningless death penalties removes most of the stress and so the fun from combat.

IMHO SWG had a good concep. Upon death your character would loose a bit of his max health pool. So while you can still play, would you keep dieying you would start being really penalized. And it was nothing that even the rich characters or gld buyers could get rid easily either.

Originally posted by sanosukex

Originally posted by Souldrainer

Originally posted by Metentso

I will just paste this comment:

It takes entire team of almost 500 people to make a game

But It takes a small indie developer to make something like this?

The fuck are these big name? game makers doing?

CakeFullOfLies 2 weeks ago 21

Surely I am not the only one on this forum who far prefers actual SWTOR to what the OP posted ITT.

yea like I said earlier that was a crappy video to post... but even as disconnected as it was jump to light speed did space combat better in SWG.. I still can't believe with how popular x-wing vs tie fighter style was nobody hasn't just borrowed that combat.. I mean most of this game is borrowed ideas why not borrow that one instead of Star Fox 64 just doesn't make sense to me...

Yup a modernised version of x-wing vs tie fighter would have been quite impressive. Much more than JTL which was fair compared to it.

Originally posted by NaughtyP

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by tillamook

It's actually pretty depressing, this game. I was looking forward to it. But as I leveled the game got worse and worse and more buggy. The player story arc was ok, but that's the only redeeming quality about the game. Pretty depressing. Guess I'll wait till they add the stuff people want. I'm not giving up yet, but I'm not gonna pay while I wait for them to add these things.

Yup the game shall get better in the next +/-6 months.

 

-6 months? Like if they went Back to the Future to fix the timeline and make SWTOR a better game?

K I Lol'd.

Let's take a few guesses:

• Basic UI should be smoothed out, at least a bit, pretty soon. Addons for much more later
• Combat delay shall be fixed/tweaked in a 3 months delay, 
• Character customization will get some luvin through let's say orange items and maybe gear dyes if we are lucky.
• Many of the annoying bugs features that are easily tweakable will be fixed.
• Ok, PvP might still sucks for quite a long time, as it needs hours of work. Especiall open world PvP.
• Space sim isn't going to blow our minds before at least 6 months.
• And PvE will stay as THE guy decribes it so well :p"
  • One of the problems of other MMOs combat is that you often have scenarios where you have multiple heroes beating on a single enemy. That just isn't very Heroic" - James Ohlen, Studio Creative, Director and Lead Designer, Bioware."

And in 6 months they can add things they kept from the launch like the already done companions. Personnaly I expect to see them unlocked with the legacy system. We'll see...

Originally posted by Myrdynn

 

Bioware/EA worst company ever

Either you have short memory or you weren't here:

SoE got the palm with:

• Not even trying to balance nor fix the game
• Not listening to the players
• Blatantly lie to the customers multiple times
• Telling Jedi was unlockable at launch when it was developped and rushed out of the door afterwards
• Selling an Xpack 2 weeks before totally revamping the game without notificating the players.
• Implementing real money lotery in game (TCG)

At least BioWare

1. Try to communicate
2. Try to fix bugs

Originally posted by tillamook

It's actually pretty depressing, this game. I was looking forward to it. But as I leveled the game got worse and worse and more buggy. The player story arc was ok, but that's the only redeeming quality about the game. Pretty depressing. Guess I'll wait till they add the stuff people want. I'm not giving up yet, but I'm not gonna pay while I wait for them to add these things.

Yup the game shall get better in the next +/-6 months.

Originally posted by sanosukex

Originally posted by Herodes

 

---

---

This would simply fuck up balance

---

 

Well yes, let's say I'm going to update the OP. I can understand your concern

---

 

You will never have a perfect balance. Hardware? Teamspeak vs written text? Guilds vs random? Connection? Player abilities?

Don´t give up diversity for balance.

seriously we NEED diversity in this game its really for me the main thing it's lacking is diversity in classes. Only way I can see them fixing this in the games current state without redoing the class system is simply redoing the talent system. Add more options more abilities in the actual trees and allow more customization of the classes.. it does make it harder to balance ala Rift but at least makes the classes not remain so stale after playing the same one for week after week. Right now there's so few options you basically are stuck with everyone running the same builds also there are so few actual abilities you get from talents it takes out so much for the talent trees and just makes them so stale... revamping the talent trees would be a HUGE benefit for this game.

Funny thing is I was toying with the classes in my head and I  came down to the exact same thing as both of you.

1. Never give up on diversity
2. Improve the talent system 

Originally posted by Snaylor47

Originally posted by Deewe

UI

3) Addons

From former interviews you clearly know you needed them at launch. Question is when?

3.I hope they only DPS and maybe a few UI changers and threat meters, Addons ruined WoW for me when I had to download 5 or six of them to be competative in PvP and Raidsd 

You do have a valid point. Not looking towards addons changing the gameplay but making it smoother.

PVP

2) We need more open world PvP and even more be able to PvP from level 1 on any planets especially on PvP servers.

Only one open world PvP =/= world PvP.
Check DAO and if not Tarren mill and the Barrens in WoW at launch.
In Wow we were like 1 horde against 2 to 4 alliance player. It had huge players population imbalance and still it was the most fun open world PvP ever.

2.Tarren Mill and the Barrens where only two places that where easy to access in WoW to both H and A. But that was only two places, TWO and those zones where not that large and there were absoluty no objectives other then to kill. Illum is larger and an actual place that I would like to PvP once they Iron out the bugs.

Illum is "just" a big warzone. We need to be able to PvP anywhere. And I did not say gank.

 

CLASSES

1) Dual speccing.

It won't hinder the game and will promote grinding more gear. Rift has 5 specs per characters and it's not doing that bad, is it? And it'll help mitigate the lack of healers.

2) AC respec.

After the 4th alt it's getting really annoying to hear the same shared VO again and again, not to hear the same class V.O. again and space dialog skipping needs to be spammed to skip to the dialog choices.
Allowing us to (legacy?) AC respec will help players, stay subscribed longuer.

3) More difference between opposite faction classes.

Anyway it's impossible to balance an MMO, so at least make it more interesting to switch faction.

 1. Dual Spec is this game is rather usless IMO because unlike WoW pre dual specing, In TOR there isn't really a better DPS spec in pvp vs pve.

Some classes can dual spec Healing or DPS or tank

2.Blame the community once again, and even now I am 90% sure that they are still against it also roll a different class and experiance its story, You ever play a bioware game twice around good and evil

Twice yes but does not work anymore when the majority of the content is shared between classes.

3. This would simply fuck up balance

Well yes, let's say I'm going to update the OP. I can understand your concern

STORY

1) Make dialog choices text fit the spoken lines.

Too often I'm puzzled by my character's lines. It makes it so I'm watching a movie not playing a character I have the control upon.

2) Revamp many of the Sith choice

Why is it almost always about greed? It does not fit any iconic classes but Smuggler and BH.
And letting people live could be much more evil than killing them if you ask.

 1. Yes lets have Bioware spend millions more redubbing everything

Think you missed the point. The idea is to tweak the text displayed for the conversation choices in a way they fit what your character is actually going to say. There's no impact on Voice Over at all

2.You get those types of choices constently.

Still you get light side points for doing so

CRAFTING

4) Separate crafting mats, recipe from main inventory bags
 

4.Pointless with the cargo hold in place,

Not really unless you don't care about messy inventory and cargo hold.

CHARACTER'S CUSTOMIZATION

1) Body

• Better and more face choices
• Add another "in-between" body choice
• Separate make-up from eye brow sliders and so on
• Tattoos dyes
• In game Image Designer/Barber, even for Companions (sic!)

2) Gear

• Either allow all gear to be transmutable in orange gear or add appearance tabs
• Add gear dyes
• Bring back gear textures matching option (on top of gear dyes)
• Hide/show gear slots for boots, gloves, chest, belt and especially the not so epic shoulder flaps!.

2.All the moddles of gear has an orange counter part stop being lazy and go craft it

From my experience not all the meshes have orange counter parts

Bioware is working on gear texture matching (says they are improving it)

Did not read that, do you have a link please? What I read is they are working on tweaking orange gear, mod slots and high end items. What I expect is they are working in the shadows to add gear dyes.

SPACE

1) Add multiplayer game play
2) Add 3D roaming and exploration
3) Let players choose and customize they space ship
4) Smuggling missions & piracy!

 Already said they are adding more to it.

Wait and see. Still what I read is: we're working on adding space missions to the actual system. Why add content to the actual system if you're going to overhaul it with say multiplayer or even better 3D roaming?

 

Got lazy after a while.

Thanks for the feedack

As many other's I've been digging through these (TOR) forums for too long, yet I was experienced enough to know better than eat your (BioWare) buzz words like heroic crafting, massive PvP and epic space battle with closed eyes.

For the reality check, in modern MMO standards you, delivered a FUN single player/co-op game, still a just fair MMO with uneven polishing, quite a few annoying bugs, hindered by a lacking UI and some, not so great, design decisions.

Some would say we, players, have been spoiled by others MMO. Fact is competition is here and they won't play fair. Would we expect customers to switch back to CRT TV when they can have huge 3D flat panels... for the same price?

We are here 6 years after you started developing this game, sitting on the opposite side of the fence. And, as a long time MMO and SW fan, I don't want us to part away with a bitter taste in our mouth.



Before anything else:

COMMUNICATION

 [edit]Well to be honest here, I'll try to rework the wording on the communication part.

After re-reading it I admit it feels like a bit rough. English not being my native language it's sometimes difficult to give the proper mood to the text. So please take this section with a grain of salt. You have been warned [/edit]

1) Please stop the PR bull*.

Players aren't dumb and mindless sheep. When you praise your game for being so awesome, innovative and so on you are just making all of you @BioWare/LA/EA look like fools. It's fine to sell your game, but please be honest towards your present and future customers, well at least if you are trying to build a long term relationship.
And keep in mind we are all parts of more or less large social network.

2) Please tune down the speech tone

Might sound a harsh, still too often some of your people speech felt like spoken down to the masses from a pedestal.
Would you have delivered a truly impressive MMO, you could vent yourselves on how great is your game design. For now the burden of proof is in your camp. People will accept much more easily your youthfulness errors if you are more candid. Pardon me if I'm wrong but it's the feeling you are giving, at least to me.

3) Improve the communication

Step into the pit more frequently, answer to more hot topics, give feedback to the players. Never ever hide behind the see no evil mindset. Too often players will get more frustrated by a lack of answer than a NO can't/won't do.

If you don't know better take Trion World as reference, whether you like or not their game, they have one of the best communication/marketing team MMO wide, especially considering their lower budget. BTW do not look further, you have a great and talented person among your troops, Emmanuel Lusinchi, is the kind of communication medium you need atm*.

Then let's Digg into a few mechanics:

UI

1) Don't half deliver your next core UI improvements.

Moving and scaling features is far from enough. You need target of target, mouse over healing, bubble chats, weapon preview, character doll/closet zoom and more... in the next patch. For example we saw that we'll be able to more the minimap frame, still its actual layout won't look nice at the top of the screen if you don't flip it or clean it ; and players want to scale framesindividually.

2) UI skins

Might be a long time before you deliver UI API, so let players toy with XML files and customize the whole look of the UI. Allow them to make the game UI fit their liking.

3) Addons

From former interviews you clearly know you needed them at launch. Question is when?

We players, use the game UI like 100% of the time during our live sessions. Hope you have a dedicated big budget for UI enhancements.

PVP

1) We need to be able to choose to what battlefront we queue.

BTW Huttball isn't a BattleFront, it's a fun Football game but glowbat sticks are hindering feeling epic waving lightsabers around.

2) We need more open world PvP and even more be able to PvP from level 1 on any planets especially on PvP servers.

Only one open world PvP =/= world PvP.
Check DAO and if not Tarren mill and the Barrens in WoW at launch.
In Wow we were like 1 horde against 2 to 4 alliance player. It had huge players population imbalance and still it was the most fun open world PvP ever.

3) Buying PvP gear is a way too complex and not even a fun process.

PvP is for now your most broken mechanism.
Please don't butcher your game making same faction vs same faction warzones. Aren't we supposed to be united against the other faction? Better make incentives to have players roll on the Republic faction.
You are falling in the same trap as the HuttBall that was supposed to help faction imbalance. It didn't and it hit the epicness quite a lot. Please don't do the same mistake twice.

PVE

After fixing the broken instances improve them so we have less boss kiting and more of the epic battles you mentioned during the game development.

1) Add brains to the dumb mobs

Don't make PvE content harder with more HP and resists but tactics, ambushes, traps, betrayals. Don't have them look at me while I'm kiting their colleagues a few meters from them. You see me you do something... else than standing still!

2) Implement a convenient LFG/LFD system.

Allow us to select all the quest we want to group for, not one but many, all of them if even.
Allow players to browse trough LFG/M and check the matching quests, allow filtering and sorting.
Let players parse quest links in chat with something like [level] [quest name] [planet]

3) Help grouping by facilitating travel to meet group members

CLASSES

1) Dual speccing.

It won't hinder the game and will promote grinding more gear. Rift has 5 specs per characters and it's not doing that bad, is it? And it'll help mitigate the lack of healers.

2) AC respec.

After the 4th alt it's getting really annoying to hear the same shared VO again and again, not to hear the same class V.O. again and space dialog skipping needs to be spammed to skip to the dialog choices.
Allowing us to (legacy?) AC respec will help players, stay subscribed longuer.

3) (edited) More interesting and viable class builds

A revamp of the talent system, could add a much desired class diversity among and between factions.

STORY

1) Make dialog choices text displayed fit the spoken lines.

Too often I'm puzzled by my character's lines. It makes it so I'm watching a movie not playing a character I have the control upon. 

2) Revamp many of the Sith choice

Why is it almost always about greed? It does not fit any iconic classes but Smuggler and BH.
And letting people live could be much more evil than killing them if you ask.

WORLD
The world feels too much static. It lacks little things like

1) Scripted, clickable NPC & Mobs
2) Critters
3) Feeling of passing time brought by day/night cycles and changing weather
4) 3D exploration with force jump, jet packs, grappling hooks, swimming.
5) World events

CRAFTING

1) Make all crafting profession more than time and money sinks
2) Let players craft consumables like ammunition and personal shields
3) Allow players to craft fluffy stuff like social gear
4) Separate crafting mats, recipe from main inventory bags
5) Have gear repaired by players or players made items

CHARACTER'S CUSTOMIZATION

1) Body

• Better and more face choices
• Add another "in-between" body choice
• Separate make-up from eye brow sliders and so on
• Tattoos dyes
• In game Image Designer/Barber, even for Companions (sic!)

2) Gear

• Either allow all gear to be transmutable in orange gear or add appearance tabs
• Add gear dyes
• Bring back gear textures matching option (on top of gear dyes)
• Hide/show gear slots for boots, gloves, chest, belt and especially the not so epic shoulder flaps!

All in all give back the option to customize the character's look in the players hands.

SPACE

1) Add multiplayer game play
2) Add 3D roaming and exploration
3) Let players choose and customize they space ship
4) Smuggling missions & piracy!

FLUFF

1) Mini games Like Pazaak/Sabbac - Pod/Swoop racing
2) Planetary Housing / housing & space ship furnishing
3) Sitting on, more, chairs!
4) Hoods on/off
4) Macros for Role play.

SOCIALIZATION

1) Remove the need to go to mail boxes and GTN it's just a plaster.
2) Add incentives to go to a selected and small number or social hubs like:

multiplayer mini games, ex card games, or watching player PvP arenas, coordinating NPC space/ground battles against the other faction, participating in crafting epic items/monuments/space ships.

As a MMO player I'm used to pay to beta test a game. Still with games like WoW then LotRo and lately Rift, this is becoming a feature of the past. Feature I don't miss at all.

For now I see TOR as a not so bad game that can be improved IF the focus and the game direction is right. I will keep supporting the game with my monthly fees for some time but as mentioned above BioWare/EA/LA still have the burden of the proof.
First improve the communication then show us you learnt from your mistakes.

Finally I look forward playing an enhanced TOR game with why not more fluff, more socializers and a great space sim!