With all the hype and controversy over Star Wars: The Old Republic, a previous mmo evil has returned to dominate BioWare’s latest soon to be blockbuster.  That’s right. The Dark Lord of speculation with the power to pull facts out of his ass. He has returned to such forums as MMORPG.com, Gamasutra, Massively, and even our beloved SWTOR.com forums.

With so many people knowing EXACTLY how space combat will work, the fact this game will be a direct clone of WoW..in space…with lightsabers.. and the notion that there is ZERO endgame content. That’s right. None. Not one drop. When you hit level 40 (which according to many obvious space-scholars is max level) your toon is deleted, you are forced to roll a new toon, and a man drives up to your house and kills your cat with a currently unknown force power. (I’m betting there is a cat choke tree for inquisitors). There is also the off chance you will proc a “death fee” that forces you to buy 11 xp potions and the “Rifle of Jedi Pwnsauce” from the microtransaction store that appears as a big dollar sign right on your HUD until you spend $413 on game breaking items. Oh. There will be a spectral mou…err…jedi starfighter in there for $100 as well that lasts 3 hours. And makes you glow magenta.

Lets set the record straight. They are all utterly, totally, completely, unequivocally wrong.  Even if the game is exactly like they describe, down to space ironforge and strand of the Tattoine ancients, they are still wrong. Here’s the BW/SWTOR rules to live by…

1. Not confirmed, than it doesn’t exist. Admittedly this requires some bending of time and space, but until confirmed by BioWare, it is pure speculation. At the time these short bus heroes make their statements, they know nothing. Guessing, be it accurate or not, is still a guess.

2. Many of these “speculators” (Latin for idiot I believe)  have the attention spans of a sock. They read something out of context, retweeted by snapperheadMcIdiot and leap across 27 sectors of space to land at some random conclusion that usually makes as much sense as a bag of drunk hamsters. If they cannot spell or speak in complete sentences, odds are they know even less than my semi-retarded 4th cousin Ebert about SWTOR.

3. Most are flat out drama queens posting for negative attention, and sadly, 99.9% of the time, they get it. Feeding trolls is seriouz bidnezz.

In all seriousness the best thing we can do as a community is keep our eye on the ball. A dedicated community of players with no desire for anything beyond a well crafted, engrossing, fun SW gaming experience will never be disappointed. BioWare is and remains one of, if not the best studio in the market for telling compelling stories combined with exciting gameplay. They have enough talent for any 20 of us. I for one wish to support and encourage them in this massive undertaking. We must understand that not everything in SWTOR is going to be perfect for every individual player, but the decision comes down to a very simple ideal: Pick your battles. – We can’t always get what we want, but with a little faith and patience, I think we all will get what we need. And then some.

How does all the negativity and wow hate directed at SWTOR make you feel? Are all these allegations about BioWare being overly ambitious with their budgeting, the focus on story, and the obvious and glaring similarities between SWTOR and WoW making  you nervous?

Make your voice heard, but make it heard with the facts. That is the best any of us can do.

/Flagg. -May the force be with you all.