Yep, as I posted above, shimmering is a possibility, which is why AF exists instead. From nHancer.com: "One problem with rendering 3d scenes is the interference of the texture-pixels (also called texels) with the screen resolution. Since the textures have to be shrinked and warped, depending on the distance and angle, this interference will cause heavy shimmering of the textures if the viewer is moving. To avoid this shimmering, which is almost unbearable, so called mip maps are used. Mip maps are variations of the same textures with lower resolutions. The farther away a texture is to be rendered or the more acute the angle of the textured surface is, the lower is the resolution of the used mip map. This effectively eliminates the texture shimmering. Usually mip maps are used together with a trilinear filter to avoid visible lines at the junctions of two mip map levels. For a trilinear filter, 8 texel samples have to be taken for each rendered pixel. The problem with mip maps is that the result is a washed out look of the textures, especially if the textured surfaces have an acute angle (like right and left walls in a hallway or the floor). Anisotropic Filtering solves that problem by increasing the perceived resolution for those textures without reintroducing the shimmering. To achieve this, even more texels have to be sampled for each pixel. The more samples are used, the better the quality of the rendered picture is." Goes on to say that AF imposes a much higher performance hit than mip maps.

I get what you are saying here, but if we're not seeing shimmer, LOD seems like a workable option for folks with loss than optimal game rigs. AF can impose a substantial hit, whereas -LOD not so much. Isn't it pretty much that negative LOD is the texture you are supposed to be seeing in the first place, but because of speed and angle, you get shimmer and hence the texture resolution has to be lowered on the fly at distance? And AF came into existence because of that limitation? I'm just a layman who is curious about these things.

Are you perhaps confusing casual-friendliness with functionality features? Because I too dislike "handholding" in MMOS. In fact, I disagree with you twice: I think this game is overly casual-friendly and maybe even too accessible, and that Bioware has intentionally designed it that way to succeed in today's market. I'm not asking for anything of the sort in the only area it should matter (gameplay). I don't find the ability to sell back something "handholding" at all. In fact, that feature already exists in the game...just not for commendation items. I don't find punishing honest mistakes adds anything to the gameplay. Although I do see a fair number of folks that seem to enjoy it, whom I can only assume are milidy sadistic, elitist or what have you. There is a huge difference between, say, allowing you to easily reset a boss and something like the "buyback" tab on the vendors. In particular, one has an effect on the actual gameplay of the entire playerbase, and one does not.

OP, please DO look into the injector. Those of us who've run one for games such as RIFT understand the impressive results something like FXAA can produce with very little performance impact. Thanks for the tip as well. Also: LOL right back at the uninformed masses looking down on CRT. Going 100% off subjective experience and accepted wisdom in the hallmark of ignorance. It's called science, do some research. Or just go talk to your closest ISF calibrator, genuine AV expert, etc. It's not that all X> all Y but, just please apply some science before running thy mouth.

In regards to gameplay, Bioware has done a good job of making SWTOR accessible. But in terms of the UI and usability in general, there is an awful lot left to be desired. My GF, who is not quite a veteran MMO player, is discovering that the 14 commendations she spent on the awesome new lightsaber have been wasted. Turns out there's small-font in the tooltip that says "offhand", and she's a Juggernaut. She farmed for days and was so happy to finally get that item. Now I have to explain to her that no, she cannot sell it back to the vendor, not even at a loss. No, she cannot trade it to me, or sell it to any other player. And to top it all off, she had just removed all the mods (at great cost) from her old saber in preparation for equipping this one. It's not that hard to implement a buyback for commendations. It's not that hard to put in a vendor's confirmation prompt for BOP gear that is not equippable by your character. You know how I know? Because things like this are common in other MMOs. This game is not even close to baked. I'm real sorry, but I don't buy the whole "pay for a public beta" philosophy, because UI/functionality features are not bug fixes. They were easy to put in before release if anyone had just sat down and thought out a few basic features. They are easy to put in now, but of course now there are tons of higher priorities. This particular issue is trivial, absolutely minuscule in the scheme of things, and it's just got me heated because it's so cool that my GF tried an MMO, and then so lame she gets crushed by a half-baked UI. But there are SO many missing pieces to this thing. I've heard many fan types say that this is par for the course in a new MMO, but I'm a serious veteran, and that's not my (subjective) experience. Sure, there are tons of BUGS in a new MMO, but hundreds of functionality omissions is over the top. I can't recall seeing such a limited UI in a new game before this one. For example, the lack of the ability to move any window except chat? I'm not even sure UO was missing that. I know DAoC had it. You know, in the early 2000's? Put some more money and resources into this thing. There's no excuse.

Careful with the petition thing...too many /signed gets the thread locked sometimes. Forum rules are overly strict IMO. Having said that, I wholeheartedly concur. It is a little hard to get my head around the reality that this was actually left out. Instead of /signed I'll put /boggle

Trooper-only guild, that's a pretty cool idea from an RP perspective.

One of the paradoxes of all MMOs is it's common knowledge that the fondest memories come from earlier levels, but we still rush to 50. Even hardcore power gamers will catch themselves admitting it. I've been pretty hardcore in my time, and even though I know that the journey is the best part, I can't help myself. The nature of MMOs is to push forward. Anyway, my point is, especially at launch, try to resist the urge to blast forward. Even more so in SWTOR, which is very much about story. It's a Bioware game after all. Even though I fully understand the leveling imperative, it's still strange that we rush to 50 in a game that's fully voice-acted, has elaborate cutscenes, etc. Basically you aren't getting your money's worth if you're full-speed ahead. I have mostly solved the problem by rolling 4 separate characters. Just hours upon hours of entertainment in this game. By the time I have multiple toons to 50 I'm confident the endgame will have been enriched.

Yeah, having the "evil" side be the majority is a first in my experience. I was Alb in DAoC and you had to consciously avoid accumulating a zerg and keep it to 8-man. In vanilla WoW my server was easily 3:1 Alliance to Horde, but ultimately Alliance would complain that the Horde players had a better community. I think the "underdog" side tends to end up with the stronger, more tight-knit feel, especially on pvp servers where you are forced to cooperate to survive. Being under fire all the time has it's own advantages, and often the less populated side has the most skilled players. I'm considering switching to Republic myself, it's just that my GF and RL friends are all Empire. We all rolled Empire thinking that Republic would be by far the majority on release. Usually folks gravitate to the "good guys". Perhaps it's a sign of the times that the opposite seems to be true...

I wish I hadn't seen this thread, because I love this game. It will be a tough choice (and some confirmation research) whether to continue in light of the SOPA support.

Tested for 1 hour, skill at mid-120s. Character level 15 (if that's relevant). Companion missions only, no gathering. Chose higher-yield missions for the most part, but mixed in augment missions when no lockbox skillups were available. Net Loss of almost exactly 2000 credits. Net Gain of two level 19 augments, neither of which I can use. Approximate auction house value of 100 credits each (real world is lower, by a bit). Total Net Loss: 1800 credits Average lockbox contents at this level in open world is about 35 credits, if I can find an uncontested node. The above is real-world testing. I can't see how Bioware could have tested the nerf prior to implementation, based on A.) my results B.) the lack of tester feedback and C.) time to implementation of the nerf. Maybe it gets better at higher levels? Or, if having a craft that returns raw credits has been found to be unbalancing, will there be some kind of reason to have it? I didn't get a schematic or mission in the hour I tested, so unless you really need a lot of augments, I cannot see a reason to keep it.

This was the first thing my GF, who is a relative MMO newcomer but loves her first MMO (Rift), noticed. She immediately went back to Rift, complaining that she "couldn't quite put her finger on it, except it feels 'clunky'". I had the same feeling, and now you've articulated it. I hope this does get fixed, but I fear something like this is in the core coding.

10k in five mins? That sounds like balogna, but if true then it must be a titanic leap from my level (15) to yours. The last lockbox I picked up had 21 credits in it. So now apparently there's a garden of lockboxes somewhere, that nobody competes for, with hundreds of credits in each? I'm not calling you a liar, in fact I hope you are right, but you have to admit it seems like an exaggeration, to say the least. ...or did I just get trolled?

When a new MMO is launched, a key indicator of whether the game will be managed properly is reaction to balance issues. Will there be thoughtful, considered changes, based on metrics and objective criteria? Or will there be radical nerfs and buffs, knee-jerk reactions, excessive sensitivity to community reaction, etc? I've had experience with both, in two major mmos: WoW and Rift. I only played WoW for vanilla, but in general, sources such as the forums weren't a strong driver for change. If there was a playerbase complaint, petition or what have you, it was very carefully considered by the monolithic Blizzard, and rarely put into play. This is just my perception of course, and disagreeing won't affect my point. Rift, on the other hand, is run by Trion who handle things very differently: they make radical balance changes, implement a tremendous number of changes in one patch. react rapidly and excessively to forum complaints, etc. Both have their pros and cons, but in the end I very much prefer the measured, thoughtful approach. Trion is a new player on the MMO scene, and the immaturity shows. For example, Rogues, who had been suffering from poor DPS, were given a huge, unbalancing buff overnight. Suddenly they were laying waste to everything in the raid. Rogues were everywhere, all playing the overpowered Marksman spec. Another two weeks passed, at which point they were nerfed so badly that they were weaker then they had been in the first place. Rogue population was cut in half (from peak) and remained so last time I checked. Radical changes ultimately harm the game. At first players enjoy the responsiveness, but ultimately everyone feels the pain of flip-flopping. Bioware is a very mature company but they are babies in the MMO world. I urge the decision makers to stick with small, incremental changes. Changes carefully thought out, measured and tested. It is good to be responsive, but ultimately players will lose faith if they feel you are being governed by forum whining, fear, or subjective perception. Even if a particular change benefits you, you should be wary. The next pendulum swing may hit you in the face. TLDR: Consider all balance changes very carefully, and make them infrequent and incremental. Use objective decision criteria such as metrics, and test before implementing.