Well now, geriatric may be a little too far, but I am a 44 (45 in 4 months, do I still apply?) year old male who is a professional SYSadmin for 13 years now. I have played (and I am still playing) WoW and now, SWTOR. Yes, I was there when the first movie came out in 1977. Went to see it at the theater when it came out. I do know that many younger folk are playing and that is good, they can learn from us sometimes. Some will scorn and sneer at our comments and suggestions and that is fine too. We could not teach them anything if we tried. in real life or virtually and they are the ones who will suffer in the long run. "Those who know not history are condemned to repeat it"

Hmmm... Sounds like you guys (or gals) are surprised that most of the munchkins out there play Empire. Should not be surprised... In WoW it was all horde. I never liked PvP, not to my tastes, but to each his own, I say. However... and this may have been said before, I would say it sound and looks pretty much like Wintergrasp was at the beginning... the later fixes... did not change much.

Indeed, same as for WoW. Many preferred horde. Why? I guess the grittiness of it was more appealing. For some strange, warped reason, people like to play morally bankrupt, socially inept, lash-out-in-rage characters and the Empire gives you the chance to do that. This does not mean that dark jedi Knights will not exist, not at all! Many act this way in a game because doing this in real life would get them either ostracization from society or, simply, jail time. The "I can do anything and you cannot stop me" aspect of the internet.

Basic graphic modification... but in no way this would be easy. In reality, they could have made some part of clothing not available to certain races. But that would be limiting the person who chose that race. Having a twilek myself, I do find it... sad, yes, sad that the headband I now wear goes over the headband I chose when I created my character and when I got the robes with a hood, the racial band disappeared but the head band I equipped earlier is still there. So the hood is another slot than the gear head band but the same as the racial headband. Changing this would require much more than a "simple modification" it would require to add a new slot to all characters or, at the very least, only to twilek characters. And all in all, though a slight graphic annoyance, it does not break the game.

Quotes are fine. After all, for many different situations, the wisdom of others (like Sun Tzu) are often used. I see no problem with that. Seeking to create a smuggler called Han'Solo is somewhat lacking. This is an epic story in which your character is the main hero!! do you want to use another character's name for that? Ridiculous...

Not really, no. I have a Q6600, quad core processor at 2.4 Ghz using 4 GB RAM with a GeForce 550TI using 3GB VRAM. Depending on your PC, the bottleneck is not necessarily the processor. I use a RAID 5 with 3 hard drives as a game disk and my OS is on a RAID 0 made with 2 raptors 10000 RPM 74 GB. The combination of all these makes the game more than playable. If I did not have the RAID arrays, maybe it would be slower.

Well, new features like what? Compared to WoW, you have the immersive experience of the class line of quests and the fact that all quests (save a few) have complete voice acting to further get the feel of the game. The graphic are very good, the game play fun and the basic mechanics enjoyable. If I use your comparison, a car 10 years ago did not have a plug for iPods or, for that matter, an audio jack for an MP3 player. But guess what? A car ten years ago had a steering wheel, a gas pedal, a brake pedal, a hand brake, gauges on the dashboard (either digital or analog, but then the dash was there too!), and etc... Some things will remain the same. Graphics could be even better, but they are aiming for the maximum of people that can play the game with their existing hardware, on with a minor (100$ to 200$) upgrade. As an aside, I am not a big endgame player. I am playing this game to get the KoTOR fun I had with version 1 and 2. A rumor for a KoTOR 3 came out years ago and it turns out that... this is it. Once I have played the classes to level 50 to get the stories, I may then quit the game. And if they add something in the future and my account was not deleted (as Blizzard does for WoW), I may come back, do the additional levels and stop once there. I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

Probably none... but that is precisely why it should have been there. It was almost a given that this would be necessary as every other MMO (or close to that) has it now. WoW has a free server transfer if you transfer to a server that has a lower population. That is what should have been there at launch. I do not relish starting new characters all over again on another server because the one I chose (and it is impossible to know if one server will have a larger population than another) is now full and the queue is 40 minutes long. They activated new servers at launch. In the evening, a few east servers are lightly loaded. Those are the new ones. I have 3 level 10 characters on 2 servers that are always full... I do not like having to restart those characters from level 1!! I do not have hours everyday to play, I must plan my playing time around my other activities. And having to wait "till character transfer exists" is ridiculous! So, me, a now PAYING customer, must stop playing for, oh..., 3 months so that the transfer system in implemented and THEN i can transfer my characters to another less full server? There is no guarantee that even those servers will not fill out in 1 month and by then, perhaps the load will have balanced itself on all servers, which is what I think will happen.

True... but in a game this size, they have to make choices. And though homosexual relationships exists, they are not as abundant as heterosexual relationships. So if you have to choose... the choice is obvious. And they did say they could add this in the future. But I thinkl it will be 6 months at the very least before that makes it into the game. They have a lot of work ahead of them from launch to 97.6% stability for all.

I expect (hope, really) that we get the chance to move some characters from one server to another, lower population server and that this will be free to start with, to lighten some server population and then, they could make it chargeable. But of course, with all the other things to think about on launch, this may not be very high on their list of priorities...

Patience my young padawan...

If you know all that and are ready to accept it... why tell us? Bioware will not change it and we in the forum cannot as well...

Because of that, yes...

Unfortunate, true, but you will be able to play on the 20th as it is the official release date. Getting in early is not a given but a bonus. I played yesterday, I was lucky, I pre-ordered in July, but I cannot play tonight, I am not sure for Friday and I will not be able to on Saturday during the day and same thing Sunday. Them's the breaks...

Ahhhh... sweet words of wisdom this... Time heals all wounds, it is said...

Precisely. Like any and all tests, start slow, with low pressure and let it run for a while. After 24 hours, slowly increase the pressure and let it run again. If it fails, you will see where and why. Going maximum power immediately is looking for trouble. On a different note, curiously, everyone who has not yet received early access are the ones complaining... Funny thing that.

Yes, but considering the entire customer base, we have heard, so far, only from the whiners and very little positive feedback from the satisfied customers (probably busy playing, i guess) Taking all into account, if the whiners come up to 15%... well... they are wrong. Basically a form of democracy. And!! and... they saying should be modified to say; "The PAYING customer has a right to be heard and understood. We will evaluate his request and see what can be done then" Since, technically, you are not paying now, as it is a free, pre-ordered, full featured BETA at the moment, They have no real reason to tally anything.

Of course they know how many have pre-ordered. They have the stats with them, with a + or - 5%. The problem is, the first 2, maybe 3, weeks will have a LOT more activity than the weeks following them. Why? Because some people have said they have take a week off work to play the game from the 20th. This is abnormal behavior for a normal player who needs to work, make supper for the kids / family, take care of stuff at home and then, take an hour or 90 minutes to play before going to bed. Many will do the same thing. The servers will be stressed a lot worse during those days than after. So a slow stepping up to maximum speed is preferable. This prevents catastrophic failures during "paid" game play. Remember this; if the servers go down during this pre-game, full features BETA test, you have no legal recourse of anything because... you are not paying yet. But on the 20th, when you are paying, if a few servers crash? Then there will be hell to pay. Better do it slow first.

As it was said... Consider the 13th to the 19th as a pre-game, fully functional Beta. A test of the systems under load if you will and, as stated, a way to properly distribute the population to servers in a ordered fashion. So you have 2 solutions; - Bring Bioware to court (you will lose, their stading is well documented and if you clicked "I agree" at the bottom without reading it, you are... stuck, to be polite) - Quit the game, delete the account, burn the DVD and go back to whatever you were doing before this all started. Being a sysadmin, if any of the sysadmins at Bioware are reading your posts, they are laughing right now, reading what many wrote about the situation of the early gaming access. I know I would! In fact, I am!

I got lucky, I pre-ordered the game in july, on the 22nd, I think. What has playing the very first day given me? More credits? More drops? Not at all, just some queuing at some quests because of all the people doing the same as me. Did that give me a sense of privilege? Not really. Like you all, I was eagerly waiting for the 20th to come by, then it was the 15th, then it was the 13th. Server history is being made? Yes, in a sense. But you will be a part of it! In 2018, you will say " I was there in the very first days of SWTOR!!" Would the comment "I was there in the very first minutes!" be better? Do not think so. I read someone has already reached max level! Did he play or run through the game? Will he remember these first days fondly? I do not think so. Being a sysadmin myself, you need to realize that this stepping up of traffic is a good way to give a smooth start to all. And, if you pre-ordered really, really early? Well, you get e fez more days of basically live, fully fonctional BETA testing. Because, let us remember, you have not been charged with anything yet. I started playing WoW in 2008... 4 years after it started. Did that ruin the experience? Of course not. Taking your comment to extremes, this means that if you are not the first in line to get a pint of milk, you will not buy any under the principle that it will not taste as good...