I can generally go 2-3 hours without an issue. Once I start going 3-4, though, there is a little strain going on for me. Playing in 3D is more of a treat for me. I don't do all the time, every time. Maybe around half the time. Everybody's eyes are different, though. I think my tolerance is better than others. I know people that can't even make it 30-40 minutes.

Figured I'd chime in here, as I've had 3D Vision for some time now but really just gave playing SWTOR with it a go of it this weekend. I think everything went pretty well for the most part. The nameplates are a big issue, and I turned them off, but you cannot turn them off for targets, which became very, very annoying. I would actually be fine with turning off target nameplates completely, as I'm fine with just seeing the target indicator on the mob and looking at the target info on my HUD. The mouse didn't really bother me, as I don't target using the mouse anyway. I also don't choose my conversation responses with the mouse so it didn't bother me much at all. If I could turn off the target nameplates completely, I would be pretty damn happy. After spending a couple hours cruising around in my speeder with the exhaust blowing out towards me, or experiencing my telekinetic throw in my face, it's hard to go back to 2D. But the targeting nameplates are so utterly annoying that it starts to ruin my experience. If anybody knows of a way to turn them off completely, I would be quite appreciative. Thanks.

^^this

Figured I'd weigh in with my thoughts. The first MMO that I started playing was Anarchy Online roughly 10 years ago. It was a Sci-Fi game, which is what drew me in. What made that game, in its peak, was that you HAD to group up and do content together. If you wanted to solo exclusively, you would never reach the level cap. The last level, I recall, took me 14 hours of non-stop group missions to ding. And that's where the MMO paradigm shifted. People complained because they wanted to solo. They didn't want to be FORCED to group up to play the game. Players also complained about "the grind" taking so long. So what happened? They made leveling quicker. You can solo and reach level cap without ever being social and grouping up, and in a comparably short amount of time. And now, doesn't it seem that we, the players, have forced developers to create games that we're now realizing we don't really like? Imagine if BW created SWTOR that you HAD to group up to level. People would have been in an outrage. So what did they do? They create a game where you can do both. The problem is that most people solo. Most people don't do flashpoints except for maybe to grab their daily mission reward for the day. Imagine if BW created a game that took 8 months for a power gamer, let alone a casual gamer, to hit level cap? Major outrage right? So what happened? We're left with a game that a power gamer can hit level cap in a matter of weeks. And now my last example. Anarchy Online, when it came out with it's first, major expansion pack, created an amazing, exciting PVP system where land control brought guild and faction boosts depending on how much land was controlled by whom. This was HUGE in bringing the community together even more. When a fellow-faction's guild territory was attacked, everybody in the faction had incentive to help protect it. People that you wouldn't technically call PVP'ers showed up to mass battle PVP to protect the buffs that they received. Guild members HAD to stop what they were doing to come protect guild land if they wanted to keep the stats required to equip their uber gear. Although I didn't play it, people have told me that DAOC was similar, in that the system sparked fantastic mass pvp battles to take or defend, I think, nodes they were called. All of these things created a wonderful community. Despite thousands of people being on a server, it seemed everybody knew who everybody was. You always found yourself playing with the same people. You would run group missions with the same people all the time. You learned who were the good doctors, who were the good tanks. You got random messages from people saying hey we need a doc, wanna run with us? Group PVE, group PVP, *WAS* the game. If you didn't do it, there was no point in playing. And THAT's where it all went wrong. Everybody complained, so now we have different games that completely removed those aspects. It's pretty sad. I've tried joining numerous guilds in this game and none have been fun while leveling. Even in a decently-sized guild, nobody is running together until they're at level cap. That's not fun for me. The most fun I have is running flashpoints. In fact, I'll run flashpoints over and over until I've leveled 4-5 levels higher than what my class quests require. Then I am forced to go run through my class quests for a planet until I "clean" them up so I can move on to the next planet. When that happens, I literally think "oh man, this sucks. I have to go do quests solo." So the question is, which do you want? People complained when it was the old way. People are complaining at how the games are structured now. And say whatever you want about WOW. I tried that game and found it no different than this one. No reason to group, no community. We did this to ourselves. We made the bed. And now we are forced to lie down in it. Simple enough. So complaining that BW sucks, or Blizzard sucks is useless. Blame yourselves. All of us. We did it.

This is the single best way to make credits, by far. I started sell certain items that I would acquire, and because of this, learned the market for such items. When I would go to list things, I would look up what was already up for sale. I started to see crazy low prices for things, so I would just buy them and immediately throw them out for the market price. I made a ton of credits in a short amount of time. And we're talking affordable, low-level items that a low-level can exploit. But you have to learn the particular market you're dealing in, and that takes a bit of time, which most people don't want to do.

This. The purple missions are the payday. I guess it depends on what the economy is like on your server. I'm always running missions while I'm playing. If I can nab 2-3 purple missions during a session, it's a big score for doing absolutely nothing.

Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense. And I see what you're saying about more DPS. I'm quite amazed at how much punch we pack, while adding utility to boot. But ya know, when it comes to DPS, you always want more.

I just came across this thread, as I recently rolled a Sage. I've planned a hybrid build and have started going up the Balance tree first. To the OP, why Telekinetics first? Is Mental Longevity and Inner Strength THAT important? I just do Project > TK > Disturbance, rinse repeat, as my rotation and I never come close to running out of force. And at these low levels, I'm barely healing myself or my companion. Am I missing something? Seems like leveraging more dps early on makes more sense, to me anyway. I'm just wondering if there is something that you guys are doing, that I'm not, that I should be. Thanks in advance.

BW is working on server transfers. Once this is completed, everybody can go where they want and the "dead" servers will remain there to bask in their deadness. The test server thread says that they do not have automatic transfers working yet, but manual transfers are implemented. So read into it: THEY.....ARE.....WORKING.....ON.....IT! I love how people think developers can just snap their fingers and implement something so huge as server transfers as if it's like only changing 2 lines of code. Not only that, but they're pushing out this HUGE 1.2 patch, which supposedly is what they wanted the game to be at release but had to rush due to EA on their behinds. So stop your whining about how they're not doing anything about it. THEY ARE. You're just too stupid and impatient to wait for it. Do the community a favor. Now, if fixes are implemented and they suck, then QQ like crazy. Until then, however, wait like everybody else has to.

The funny thing is that so many people keep blowing this off, saying it's not that big of a deal bla bla bla. I rolled a BH a couple of days ago just so I could compare them. I was blown away at how much better ALL the channeled abilities are. I actually contemplated sticking with the BH, because it was so much more enjoyable to play since everything worked. But then I thought, I don't WANT to be a BH. In the end, I convinced myself that BW will fix this eventually, and that I will be patient. But seriously... maybe there would be more republic players if the mechanics actually worked. I decided to stick with my trooper because I like the aesthetics more. I like being a good guy, I like my big flipping gun, etc. But I wonder how many people went BH just because of this/these bugs. Sucks.

I cannot argue that with you. That wasn't the point of my post. My point is that you cannot categorize this game as a "failure" because of the server population status. My point is that I EXPECTED that to happen, so I prepared for it by what I described. No, I don't think somebody should have to wait on a dead server for 12 months. That's crazy. I honestly think the solution is probably letting people do toon transfers to other servers and/or merging the servers somehow. But you can't expect them to just up and do this right away. That's not how software development works. This is an MMO. Most of the complainers have played numerous ones in the past, probably even at launch. I mean cmon. You guys didn't see this coming? You thought there would be 15 minute queues to get into servers forever? You all whined about the queue times and demanded more servers. Then when people left after their 30 days, which you HAD TO KNOW would happen, you complain that the server is dead. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's just how it is. The development cycle is long. It always has been. Everybody is obviously whining because they actually LIKE the game and they want to keep playing it. Assuming that's the case, you really don't have many choices. You can stick it out and see it through, quit for good, or quit until this issue gets resolved.

No. You integrate raiding WITH crafting. People raid for pieces they need, but in order to finish whatever item it is they're working on, they need to combine it with a high-end crafted item. Something like that. Make the crafter a required part of the process. I dunno, or make a consumable item, created by crafters, required to pull the mods out of the raid gear. You get my point, though. The possibilities are endless here. It really isn't rocket science.

The AOC launch was completely horrible, no doubt. AO was a nightmare. The problem, with AOC, however, is that AO recovered, rebuilt, and then turned into one helluva game. AOC never recovered, and ended up completely failing. I was banking on AOC recovering as AO did, but that didn't happen. Now, like you guys, I'm not touching FC with a 20 foot pole until it proves TSW is a winner. That's assuming, of course, that I'm still not loving this game, which I most definitely am. Assuming that's the case, I plan, right now at least, on staying here.

The trolls saying the game is dying, bla bla bla, is really stupid. OF COURSE the population is going to drop once the 30 day period is over. No game on the planet is going to retain everybody who initially purchased. That's life. The key factor is how the game moves on over the next 6-12 month period. An MMO is a macro thing, not micro. Too many servers to cut down the queues in the first 30 days was to be expected. I spent the first 30 days trying different classes, different content, etc. After that, I gave it a week or two, found out which server(s) are rocking, then rolled a toon with the class that I decided would be my main. Now I log in every night to 200+ people rolling around fleet. I have no problems finding PUGs for flashpoints, there is plenty of merchandise on the market terminals, and life is good. Bottom line is, anybody who believes a population drop after the initial launch period indicates failure of an MMO is nuts. We have a LOT of time left before anybody can even begin to start talking about whether or not it has failed. Now, somebody may not like the game for personal reasons, which may mean the game is a fail FOR THEM, but failure, on a whole? Let's see what it all looks like in 12 months. Until then, I expect the server I'm on to continue to thrive, as I believe my patience and selection was the right way to go about it.

I run an i5 2500k, no overclock, 8gigs of ram, 2 solid state drives in Raid0, with a Nvidia 560ti overclocked to 1ghz. The game runs with everything maxed out, like a charm. The only slow down is when you first enter fleet. It can take a few seconds to get itself situated. I think that's more of bandwidth thing, though. Anyway, from there, smooth sailing. No slowdowns, stutters, hiccups, nothing.