Star Wars: The Old Republic announced

[Exodor]

To be honest, we're really just using it for chat. I don't think any of us has even seen each other in the game world to this point. I won't have a lot of time to play until Thursday night so I'm kinda hoping other folks will catch up to me a bit (L21).

I've bumped into a few while jogging around but I have yet to group with anyone.

I usually just /wave.

[ydejin]

Warning to any Jedi Knight players.  It's possible to get Kira into a bugged state.  The Defector quest discussed gets handed out just as you leave Nar Shadda.

Until we can get the fix up, don't flirt with Kira during The Defector quest! (she will stop giving affection conversations)

The underlying issue has already been fixed internally, and should be showing up on our known issues list in a moment. It will take us a few days to roll out the fix so new players won't encounter the issue. It'll take us a bit longer to get a fix out for characters already experiencing the issue, but don't panic -- you should be able to hit the ground running with Kira as if nothing had ever been wrong (affection accumulated between now and then should not be harmed). Free to continue using Kira if you don't mind cashing in on your investment at a later date, or perhaps you might get to better know your cheeky T-7 droid!

[Blackjack]

don't flirt with Kira during The Defector quest! (she will stop giving affection conversations)

This always happens to me in real life too!    
===========

To give you guys some later-level (L21) insights: My Smuggler is working primarily up the Gunslinger's Sharpshooter tier (left side in that window of 3 tiers). I love the cover-fire mechanic and the tactical-ness of it, so I've found that tier the most useful.

There's one passive that gives you a def. buff for a while after leaving cover. Further up on the level row above it is one that gives you a 50% chance of firing Burst immediately (normally takes a couple seconds or so to fire off).

I enjoy the "ballistic dampener" passive. It kicks in any time you go into cover (whether "hard" cover or portable cover) and absorbs a decent amount of damage the next few incoming attacks. Very cool visual like this animated orange-red techie looking aura around you when you enter cover, and it lights up when it absorbs incoming damage.

I'll probably wanna put more in the right side tier (Damage) eventually, which includes increased damage for grenades, and a shrapnel grade.

Saboteur (middle of the 3 tiers) has all sorts of cool toys, but I really wanted to focus on my cover-fire mechanics and damage for now.

The cover fire stuff has really saved my bacon sometimes in Heroic 4-player stuff if the crap hits the fan, your tank or healer drops etc. I still am stumped sometimes why one item constitutes hard cover and the 3 seemingly not-so-different items near it don't.

[Exodor]

Has anyone tried out the PvP "Battllegrounds"? ( know they call them something else but I'm blanking on the TOR name)

Do you get XP for participating?  I'm reading references elsewhere to levelling up in them.

[Blackjack]

Has anyone tried out the PvP "Battllegrounds"? ( know they call them something else but I'm blanking on the TOR name)

Do you get XP for participating?  I'm reading references elsewhere to levelling up in them.

You get XP for just about everything -- PVE, PVP, Space combat, etc. and you gain exp faster apparently if you either log off in a cantina or hang out in one for a while and then go adventuring.

There was some early rumors about people "power leveling" via PVP, but Bioware seemed to indicate their data didn't support that. People weren't leveling nearly as high as the rumors suggested, they said. If you need a link as proof, I'll hafta get that later.  

*This is someone's cue to jump in and say "WRONG!" 

[The Grue]

I keep waiting for Blackjack to catch up to me in levels, but he never does.

[Razgon]

A quick tip - If you enjoy money, slicing is the way to go craftingwise... Its a bit annoying actually, but people are making money, a LOT of money on that crafting skill, simply be sending out companions on missions, and selling the loot.

My Jedi Guardian is lvl 23 by, and I'm on the EU rp-pvp server, Lord Calypho or somesuch in case any Euroes wanna hook up.
The bonus quests does that I'm horribly overlevelled for Nar Shadan but oh well, I havent any done very much pvp or spacecombat, which I find somewhat fun!

I have a feeling I will be very overlevelled in a short time, the way this is going.

[jersoc]

ugh, found another UI annoyance. you can't set the ship key separately. i use strafe left/right instead of turn. if you unbind left and right turn you can't move your ship. also, W appears to be permanently up and down won't remap to your down key. i don't recall these issues in the beta at all.

A quick tip - If you enjoy money, slicing is the way to go craftingwise... Its a bit annoying actually, but people are making money, a LOT of money on that crafting skill, simply be sending out companions on missions, and selling the loot.

My Jedi Guardian is lvl 23 by, and I'm on the EU rp-pvp server, Lord Calypho or somesuch in case any Euroes wanna hook up.
The bonus quests does that I'm horribly overlevelled for Nar Shadan but oh well, I havent any done very much pvp or spacecombat, which I find somewhat fun!

I have a feeling I will be very overlevelled in a short time, the way this is going.

i dropped a trade skill to get slicing because I was running into money issues and the AH is unusable. That's the downside of slicing and it's fairly big since w/o my other skill i can't craft any synthweaving w/o buying the mats. it's not too big of a deal right now though, i rather have my speeder in about .5 levels, which i will.

[Razgon]

Yeah, thats what I mean - Inflated prices due to huge influx of money in the economy is a bit annoying. I expect a big nerf to slicing though soon.

[Soulchilde]

Yeah, thats what I mean - Inflated prices due to huge influx of money in the economy is a bit annoying. I expect a big nerf to slicing though soon.

They already nerfed it during beta.  Guess it needs to be nerfed again

[Harkonis]

Auction house seems to work fine to me, I've bought and sold several things at reasonable prices. (which struck me as odd since mmo's tend to have crazy prices for everything)

Slicing does seem like a really easy way to make money, I'm torn on whether it's too much or not.  To get it you give up any ability to really craft.  Shouldn't the people crafting things balance this out a bit in the long run simply by their goods costing about what slicing makes? 

[Blackjack]

Somebody's rich. NERF IT!
Somebody's too powerful. NERF IT!
Some class is having too much fun! NERF IT!
Something's become too easy. NERF IT!
Something's doing too much DPS. NERF IT!
Some heal's too powerful. NERF IT!
 

I have no doubt some balancing and tweaks will occur, but I hope they don't take the attitude that everything that "works too well" just needs to be bashed into obliteration.

And I'm biochem, don't really know what I'm doing, am constantly bankrupt in the game. So I don't speak as someone crazy about slicing, cause I haven't even tried it yet.  

I do like the special stims, and people seem to go "oooooh" when I trade them one for free to try to help out during a Flashpoint or Heroic. I'm not really into crafting enough to be a moneymaker right now, but I do enjoy the Happy feeling of making something useful w/o too much fuss. 

[Isgrimnur]

The first one's always free, eh, BJ? 

[Teggy]

I've kind of specifically avoided slicing becuase people said it was a little cheaty. Honestly I don't even know what it is, and I haven't used the auction house at all (I don't even know what icon is for the auction house  )

I've been very happy to just do quests, do flashpoints/heroics and build up my armstech along the way. I've had no problem with equipment between quests, crafting and asking guildies to make me a spare mod. I've been winding up with around 7-10K after training. I guess we'll see what happens when it comes time to buy my speeder (I'm level 20 at the moment). The only time I've been concerned about money is when I see something fun for sale (like a pet robot or something). I also make sure to buy commendation gear before I leave an area for good.

[Blackjack]

The first one's always free, eh, BJ?  

Seriously, if I ever really get going on stims, I plan to dole em out to guildies, friends, PUG group players. I in-game e-mailed some basic ones to a few guild folks the other day and hope to do more of that, maybe as your Xmas presents.  

I'll just have to do my homework on which advanced stim is most useful to a given class (some are useful to everybody, some are a lot more useful to force users or ranged attackers for whom the "Aim" stat is important etc.).

Speaking of which, Aim is apparently next to useless for Smugglers (Cunning is a key stat, dunno what the reasoning is). So I might need to re-work my equipment at some point.

Anyway, I'm more into trying to build positive relations in the game community. Which is why I'll probably always be broke, but I'm OK with that.   That's not to say that making great stuff and selling it at a fair profit isn't also helpful to the community (my L21 Smuggler's using two very nice, crafted pistols from the AH made by the same one guy). I'm just too incompetent at crafting to probably get to that point.  
----------

Oh my Athiss Flashpoint group went through hell last night. We musta wiped a dozen times on the end boss. Why?:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Ridiculous, invincible fire orb "adds" that chased us all over the map, set you on fire   and basically turn the game into a frantic console platformer. And the Sith boss drops giant, HP-sucking brown aura attacks all over the crowded room. And if you take one step out of the room, the boss resets. Ugh!

We wouldn't quit or give up though. When we finally overcame it, the loot rewards from the fallen boss were an amazing modifiable pistol and a similarly modifable medium armor pants. We (2 smugglers) each Greeded, and I lost both rolls. I wish in retrospect I had held off on the second Greed until I saw I'd lost the first roll.  

I understand making Flashpoints too rewarding or giving too much stuff at the end (you get exp for completion and some special commendation stuff, not loot per se, for completion) might be exploitive, but I just don't find the end rewards justfiy some of the misery my teams have experienced on the Hammer and Athiss end bosses. I've heard Mandalore is "even worse."

I like the Flashpoint environments, and Athiss has some awesome NPC "radio" voiceovers during it, and the general concept. I don't so far like that about 95% of the mobs feel like pushover "trash mobs" (sometimes wilting so fast to a group you barely have anything to do), lulling us into a false sense of security when you suddenly get the 1 or 2 bosses that shove your group's face in the dirt if you don't have the perfect team configuration.

Heroic 4's otoh have all felt very fun and very fair so far, and I think I'll be focusing more on those as I progress.

[raydude]

Anyway, I'm more into trying to build positive relations in the game community. Which is why I'll probably always be broke, but I'm OK with that.   That's not to say that making great stuff and selling it at a fair profit isn't also helpful to the community (my L21 Smuggler's using two very nice, crafted pistols from the AH made by the same one guy). I'm just too incompetent at crafting to probably get to that point.  

Sorta like handing out business cards, but in this case you're handing out stims courtesy of GT Heroes? I like that 

So, if I'm not particularly interested in crafting would it make sense for me to just concentrate on crafting/mission skills and send items to crafters in our guild? If so, how do I send them, via in-game email?

[Harkonis]

Anyway, I'm more into trying to build positive relations in the game community. Which is why I'll probably always be broke, but I'm OK with that.   That's not to say that making great stuff and selling it at a fair profit isn't also helpful to the community (my L21 Smuggler's using two very nice, crafted pistols from the AH made by the same one guy). I'm just too incompetent at crafting to probably get to that point.  

Sorta like handing out business cards, but in this case you're handing out stims courtesy of GT Heroes? I like that 

So, if I'm not particularly interested in crafting would it make sense for me to just concentrate on crafting/mission skills and send items to crafters in our guild? If so, how do I send them, via in-game email?

This is how I made tons of money on food and pots in pretty much every game.  Give them away to group members and random people and they find out how useful they are.  Several games had food type items that people just either didn't know about or had ignored.  FFXI was crazy good money once I taught people how nice food was.

[CeeKay]

my guys suck at slicing.  figured I'd give it a shot since my treasure hunting was so low that it wouldn't hurt to drop it temporarily, but so far I'm only 50/50 for mission success, and what I get isn't all that hot.

[ydejin]

\Speaking of which, Aim is apparently next to useless for Smugglers (Cunning is a key stat, dunno what the reasoning is). So I might need to re-work my equipment at some point.

I think the thinking was each class has a different key stat.  Strength => Jedi Knight, Wisdom => Jedi Councilar, Aim => Trooper, Cunning => Smuggler.  While it might have made sense to give Smugglers Aim, it would have made less sense to give Trooper Cunning.

Anyway AIUI it's not that Aim is useless for Smugglers (it still increases ranged weapon damage and critical hit chances) , it's just that Cunning does much more since its the prime stat for Smugglers.  AIUI the classes prime stat gives additional bonuses to some of your other characteristics (not quite sure what all is included) whereas the non-class prime stats just does what you'd expect.  So increasing your Smuggler's cunning not only increase your tech damage it does some other stuff as well, since it's your prime state.

[Teggy]

\Speaking of which, Aim is apparently next to useless for Smugglers (Cunning is a key stat, dunno what the reasoning is). So I might need to re-work my equipment at some point.

I think the thinking was each class has a different key stat.  Strength => Jedi Knight, Wisdom => Jedi Councilar, Aim => Trooper, Cunning => Smuggler.  While it might have made sense to give Smugglers Aim, it would have made less sense to give Trooper Cunning.

Anyway AIUI it's not that Aim is useless for Smugglers (it still increases ranged weapon damage and critical hit chances) , it's just that Cunning does much more since its the prime stat for Smugglers.  AIUI the classes prime stat gives additional bonuses to some of your other characteristics (not quite sure what all is included) whereas the non-class prime stats just does what you'd expect.  So increasing your Smuggler's cunning not only increase your tech damage it does some other stuff as well, since it's your prime state.

Yeah just hover over in your character window and it will show you the exact stat calculations. You of course wouldn't want your trooper to take any strength stuff (or melee character to take aim).

The other layer would be you'll find items with weight toward the primary stat or toward endurance, so if you are a tank, there might be a benefit toward taking the items weighted toward endurance

like aim +10 end + 5 vs. aim +5 end +10

[Blackjack]

I guess my obviously mistaken reasoning was that Trooper's "high tech" armor and weaponry would benefit from cunning rather than the glorified leather we Smugglers tend to use. Other than portable cover, and the AC Dampeners absorption stuff for cover, my Gunslinger has very little I'd consider high-tech.

I just haven't really seen this spelled out in-game. I dunno, maybe a big fast asterisk next to my Smuggler's Cunning stat saying "Hey big dummy Blackjack, you want more of this!" would help?  Maybe I should've extrapolated that from all the Smuggler quest completion rewards that had Cunning in the stats but often you'd get choices of two, one with Cunning and one with Aim or something else.

[ydejin]

I guess my obviously mistaken reasoning was that Trooper's "high tech" armor and weaponry would benefit from cunning rather than the glorified leather we Smugglers tend to use. Other than portable cover, and the AC Dampeners absorption stuff for cover, my Gunslinger has very little I'd consider high-tech.

I just haven't really seen this spelled out in-game. I dunno, maybe a big fast asterisk next to my Smuggler's Cunning stat saying "Hey big dummy Blackjack, you want more of this!" would help?   Maybe I should've extrapolated that from all the Smuggler quest completion rewards that had Cunning in the stats but often you'd get choices of two, one with Cunning and one with Aim or something else.

I'll have to admit I wasn't thinking about it in terms of class abilities and more just a descriptor for what we think of when thinking of a particular class, i.e. "A Smuggler should be a Cunning Rascal."  Of course if that doesn't match with how the class works, I could see how that could be a bit of a problem.

[ydejin]

Blackjack, you're playing a Scoundrel right?  How is it for soloing?  

I've just started up a new Smuggler.  I know my Guild is short on healers.  OTOH I know I'll probably do 95% of my game play solo.  So I guess the questions are (1) do you think the Scoundrel feels appropriately Han Solo'ish (I certainly don't think Han Solo does much healing, so will I be able to do other Han Solo type stuff in addition to healing), (2) if I dump all my points into healing support am I going to be solo play viable and is that play going to feel like fun, (3) if I don't dump all my points into healing support and do some sort of hybrid how much am I going to suck for running Flashpoints.

[Arkon]

Blackjack, In regard to Athiss:

Spoiler for Hiden:

The fire orbs appear when the Sith vanishes.  When he does so, one random group member will have a debuff.  The orbs slowly chase the person with the debuff.  All you need to do is have that one person keep the orbs away from the party and keep from touching them.  When I ran it our group wiped on an earlier pull, but had very few issues with the end boss.  This biggest difficulty was when I, as the main healer, got the debuff and had to heal, keep out of the fire, and keep the fire away from the party.

[Blackjack]

Blackjack, you're playing a Scoundrel right?  How is it for soloing?  

I've just started up a new Smuggler.  I know my Guild is short on healers.  OTOH I know I'll probably do 95% of my game play solo.  So I guess the questions are (1) do you think the Scoundrel feels appropriately Han Solo'ish (I certainly don't think Han Solo does much healing, so will I be able to do other Han Solo type stuff in addition to healing), (2) if I dump all my points into healing support am I going to be solo play viable and is that play going to feel like fun, (3) if I don't dump all my points into healing support and do some sort of hybrid how much am I going to suck for running Flashpoints.

I'm Gunslinger (focusing mainly on Sharpshooter and Damage Adv. Class tiers) all the way.  

So I can't really speak to your Scoundrel questions firsthand. I think any type of smuggler you roll will be solo-viable.

It's maybe more a question of whether you enjoy the cover fire mechanic (Sharpshooter tier) or wanna throw all sorts of detonation charges (Saboteur tier in the Gunslinger tree); or if you'd rather be constantly running around out of cover, shooting enemies in the back (scattergun) and doing melee stuff. You could even be Scoundrel and skip the Sawbones (healing) tier altogether, although that'd probably confuse other players in groups as they'd assume a Scoundrel had healing.  

Don't forget with Scoundrel heals, at least some of them work on you and your companion as well. That could be really useful in solo play as well as groups.

I did try Scoundrel in my first weekend beta test, just a couple levels. While it was fun using that scattergun (the animation is awesome), I enjoy the cover fire mechanic too much to de-emphasize it. I think long term it's something I'd like to try with an alt some day.

As far as feeling Han Solo-ish goes, I think more of that comes through in the class quests and the general dialogue choices, along with the fun idle animations (spinning your pistols when in rest mode etc.).

I mean, while I don't see Han as "healer," I also don't have any visions of Han Solo running around with a portable force field and wielding John Woo-style dual blasters. But it's fun and addictive.  

[The Grue]

I don't have slicing as my gathering profession and I had no problem getting the 40K for the speeder skill.  Slicer might be the best way to make money, but I'm not going to pick a skill just because of that.  I'd rather feed my Armormech skill.

[Razgon]

Somebody's rich. NERF IT!
Somebody's too powerful. NERF IT!
Some class is having too much fun! NERF IT!
Something's become too easy. NERF IT!
Something's doing too much DPS. NERF IT!
Some heal's too powerful. NERF IT!
 

I have no doubt some balancing and tweaks will occur, but I hope they don't take the attitude that everything that "works too well" just needs to be bashed into obliteration.

And I'm biochem, don't really know what I'm doing, am constantly bankrupt in the game. So I don't speak as someone crazy about slicing, cause I haven't even tried it yet.  

I do like the special stims, and people seem to go "oooooh" when I trade them one for free to try to help out during a Flashpoint or Heroic. I'm not really into crafting enough to be a moneymaker right now, but I do enjoy the Happy feeling of making something useful w/o too much fuss. 

Really? You are making rolley-eyes at my comment on slicing?

I have nothing against people making money. What I do mind, is that in a game where trading is a big part of the whole setup, prices get inflated because of one over-the-top thing you can choose to do. Basically, there is no reason to do anything (YET, I don't know about endgame of course) but slicing, since it nets you a lot of money. I have a friend who leveled to lvl 19 now, and has almost 200.000 credits. To compare, my lvl 24 has 23.000 since I try to get my crafting up. He's actually stopped using it, since he doesn't need the money anymore.

The downside to that, is that the economy gets inflated, meaning higher prices on the AH than those who do NOT use slicing can afford.

Remember, that an MMO is not your single player game, where balance doesn't matter. An MMO is where the lowest common denominator is used for fun, meaning that as broad a mass as possible is meant to have fun. Not just you.

[ydejin]

Blackjack, you're playing a Scoundrel right?  How is it for soloing?  

I've just started up a new Smuggler.  I know my Guild is short on healers.  OTOH I know I'll probably do 95% of my game play solo.  So I guess the questions are (1) do you think the Scoundrel feels appropriately Han Solo'ish (I certainly don't think Han Solo does much healing, so will I be able to do other Han Solo type stuff in addition to healing), (2) if I dump all my points into healing support am I going to be solo play viable and is that play going to feel like fun, (3) if I don't dump all my points into healing support and do some sort of hybrid how much am I going to suck for running Flashpoints.

I'm Gunslinger (focusing mainly on Sharpshooter and Damage Adv. Class tiers) all the way.  

So I can't really speak to your Scoundrel questions firsthand. I think any type of smuggler you roll will be solo-viable.

It's maybe more a question of whether you enjoy the cover fire mechanic (Sharpshooter tier) or wanna throw all sorts of detonation charges (Saboteur tier in the Gunslinger tree); or if you'd rather be constantly running around out of cover, shooting enemies in the back (scattergun) and doing melee stuff. You could even be Scoundrel and skip the Sawbones (healing) tier altogether, although that'd probably confuse other players in groups as they'd assume a Scoundrel had healing.  

Don't forget with Scoundrel heals, at least some of them work on you and your companion as well. That could be really useful in solo play as well as groups.

I did try Scoundrel in my first weekend beta test, just a couple levels. While it was fun using that scattergun (the animation is awesome), I enjoy the cover fire mechanic too much to de-emphasize it. I think long term it's something I'd like to try with an alt some day.

As far as feeling Han Solo-ish goes, I think more of that comes through in the class quests and the general dialogue choices, along with the fun idle animations (spinning your pistols when in rest mode etc.).

I mean, while I don't see Han as "healer," I also don't have any visions of Han Solo running around with a portable force field and wielding John Woo-style dual blasters. But it's fun and addictive.  

Thanks for the info Blackjack.  Not quite sure what I'm going to do with this guy.  Maybe I'll make him a Sawbones and then play another Smuggler later as a dark side Gunfighter.

[Laner]

Ugh - this morning it won't let me play without signing up for a subscription past the initial month.  Of course their servers are absolutely hammered at the moment.

[Soulchilde]

You are supposed to get a month free.  Also, what the hell a queue to access the website....

[MythicalMino]

yeah, and I have tried several times over the last few days to set up a subscription...but their system would not let me. Now, I cannot set it up because their site is hammered to the point I am in a line to get onto the website.

[Arclight]

They said prepare for this day by pre-registering. I've done that. I've been playing since the head start began, and I entered the DDE final code for the full game 2 days ago. Still not getting in, been waiting for a while now.

Haha, so I had to wait in line to get onto the official site, to register(again)I got onto the site but now Im in a line for logging in....overdone use of queues = 10 minute major penalty.

[Teggy]

I don't get the need to set up a sub if you bought the game. Of course, I bought a prepaid card because I didn't feel like dealing with auto-renew but it hasn't shipped yet. So now I'll have to put my credit card in anyway.

[Harkonis]

I don't get the need to set up a sub if you bought the game. Of course, I bought a prepaid card because I didn't feel like dealing with auto-renew but it hasn't shipped yet. So now I'll have to put my credit card in anyway.

I'm with you on this one.  I still don't understand any reasons other than greed and keeping spam accounts down that would require a valid CC to use your free time.

Also if they had let us know this before today, I could have already had my sub setup so that I wouldnt' be stuck in queue hell to register now.

[rshetts2]

Yeah this seems a bit messed up.  Ive already paid for my first month by buying the game.  I should be able to set up my extended subscription any time before that original month expires to have uninterrupted play.  Forcing this all at once is pretty poor planning.  Cutting off my game play, when its been paid for and forcing me into a queue to hand them more money, seems to me to be a rather stupid idea.  This stinks of EA.  

ps:  just got in and the subscription link is through EA.com    of course the link is taking forever to activate and if it times out on me and bumps me back in queue, Im gonna be rather pissed.

[Teggy]

The SWTOR website login page is currently offline while we work to resolve key redemption and subscription issues. We're working to resolve this as quickly as possible and appreciate your patience

[Arclight]

Yeah, Im spinning the wheel after getting to the place of choosing my payment option.

update: Timed out....back to the first queue I go...........golf clap.................

[Hotfreak]

The SWTOR website login page is currently offline while we work to resolve key redemption and subscription issues. We're working to resolve this as quickly as possible and appreciate your patience

It would be great if they would let us in while they do this.

As a former developer, I try not to whine too much about launches, but I've been having a hell of a time trying to play this game.  From issues like key redemption, to broken quests, to the necessity of UI resets and many other issues that require relogs, etc.  The biggest issue has been the guild chat bug where I just lost the capability to read and write guild chat for about 3 days -- until I found a really wonky hack fix on the forums.  My party chat goes down all the time, forcing a relog (which doesn't always fix it).  I had a group mate yesterday who kept losing mouse input everytime he zoned to or from the Hammer Station FP.  Etc.

I was actually warming to the game itself -- a Kotor-like rpg on a grand scale (with people!) -- but it has been a struggle.  The struggle is, of course, compounded by my busy schedule and small windows to play.

Oh, well, venting over.  Back to seeing if I can log in for a 30 minute breakfast session.

[Laner]

EA really should have put it in huge bold letters, in every place possible, that you needed to sign up for a sub in order to play your first month.  Huge oversight on their part.

[rshetts2]

Yep the site is fubar.  They need to extend the grace period and let people play.  They also should have allowed subscriptions to be handled during early access instead of forcing it like this.  Thanks EA,  once again you show why you suck so badly.  I understand that there will be issues at launch but this is just a seriously stupid decision by EA.