Why attend a guild summit?

Well, I did apply for the guild summit in Austin, but no place for me - perhaps fortunately as where exactly I would have found the cash or time to go to Texas was something I was blatantly ignoring. I am on the waiting list, along with hundreds of others but the clock is ticking on the duration of that list.

One of the questions that had to be answered on the application form was about what we expected to get from the summit. It's interesting but managing expectations is one area that SWTOR has had an uphill struggle to control. I've attended a few comic conventions back in my distant past, and seen The Guild's depiction of an mmo convention. Am not entirely sure which, if any, of these would have been wise to base expectations upon. And looking at the threads on the main forum and the Q&A posting lines, I'm thinking that a large proportion of time at Austin will be spent dealing with the same sex romance questions. I seriously hope that their communications team and developer team have had a proper conversation and come up with a response; there is a large section of the community seeking some sort of official line and action and yet nothing is being said. Myself, I would have looked to get from the summit inspiration and good ideas - nothing too demanding. I have been generally impressed with how Bioware seem to be responding to player input (while acknowledging some areas of real weakness). The Q&As always make interesting reading; although often because of what has been left out, not said or carefully avoided. But that's true of any big organisation, and I read these statements with an all-too-jaded eye. Perhaps that's the big advantage of a face-to-face summit - corporate control is never quite so complete in a live situation.

Will I watch the live streaming? Probably not. It's only one perspective and if there's anything particularly noteworthy, I'm sure the forums and bloggers will leap to bring it to wider attention.