I have two 50's, and I leveled them a bit differently. The first one was broke most of the way up, and it was due to the GTN. Before 50 your gear is not all that important, and the stuff you acquire along the way is plenty good. My second char I stayed clear of the GTN and had loads of credits! It doesn't take long at all, finish a planet without hitting up the GTN and you will see what I mean.

Maybe there is another thread for this but for me personally, 1.2 offers little excitement. I think this patch is being blown WAY out of proportion. I always have been, and still am a supporter of this game, but 1.2 will do little, if anything to save those that are on the fence about leaving. What does it really offer that you can sink your teeth into?? Not much i'm afraid, and the hardcore crowd will be bored with it in 5 minutes... just my 2 creds.

Not sure when you bought yours, but that card originally came out in 2006, what happened might be a blessing in disguise, I think it's time for an upgrade...

Everyone is free to spend as much money as they want, for features they want, but I want to stress you take a good look at that keyboard and really think it over before purchasing. If you are not left handed it might be a bit strange having the macro keys on the right hand side... I see it as an ergonomic nightmare, but I could be wrong. For me price is also a factor. For much less you could acquire a mechanical keyboard that is FAR superior build wise and performance wise. Just a few examples: Razer Black Widow / Black widow ultimate = $90 / $139 Corsair K90 = $139 Steel Series G7 = $149 All of the above are mechanical, 2 of them have LED back lit keys and macro keys. They do not have the custom macro keys for TOR, nor the strange pad I have not quite figured out, but most folks that have gone mechanical never go back. Just my two credits

I was excited to hear about this keyboard when i first heard about it as I was in the market for a new one. I saw the price and was a little surprised, but knew I would have to pay extra for something that has Star Wars written all over it. The FIRST problem I had with it immediately, was the fact that it was NOT mechanical! For that price, forget it. Never mind the other issues with placement of key features. Once you have owned a mechanical keyboard you will NEVER go back to a membrane style, especially when you can have your choice of mechanical models starting at $50 less or more. I ended up with a Corsair K90. Chassis is made out of brushed aluminum with cherry MX red switches and reeks of heavy duty quality. Could not have been happier for the $129 price tag. If you are thinking about this TOR keyboard do yourself a favor and at least go look at a mechanical. The Razer Black Widow Ultimate is also a good option if you are a razer fanboy. If you don't care much about LED's the Steel Series 7G is top notch as well. Just my two cents...

Haha, my old 8800 finally burned up recently in my old rig... Never tried it with TOR though.

OP is right, this has been bothering me since beta, lol.

I know exactly what your are feeling OP. I have mentioned this in previous threads... from my perspective, being an "older" gamer (approaching 40) I started my online experience with the ORIGINAL Everquest. I have played many MMO's since then and have sadly watched the community transform into something very different. I don't really know how to explain it, but I have a theory. My theory is based loosely on the age demographic. Mind you, I have no facts to back this up, hence "my theory". Watching my 15 year old son play the game with his friends is much different than how it started for me. My son and his friends: "Haha, we just ninja'd that guys chest!" Back in my day we went out of our way to help people and try and make the game more inviting... it's just not like that anymore. Just like society in general, things have changed. Unfortunately for me it's getting more and more difficult to enjoy myself like I once did. I don't really want to spend time in a hobby shaking my head and getting angry with people. Although there are jerks in all age groups, with more and more kids having their own PC's and the invention of x-box live, it has turned into a young players hobby I fear. I could be way off, just the way I perceive it. /Rant off

I think a large percentage yes, but for a larger percentage, i think it was their first MMO...

3 generations here... I myself am 38, my son who is 15 plays, and my dad who is 62 recently subbed.

As an "old guy" myself, i can sorta relate to the OP in some ways. I am enjoying TOR to a point, but there is something lacking. I was talking about this to a guildy of mine that goes back some 10 years. We actually mentioned SWG and the one thing they did right. The one thing that really surpassed all games that came before and after was the sense of community. That game had LOTS of problems and was far from perfect, but something about it made me want to play more and more. My guild list in TOR is roughly 100 members, maybe 25 of those are alts. I can honestly say I have seen maybe a dozen of them in game (physically) standing next to me since launch. What I mean is, although we chat within guild chat we rarely actually cross paths in the game. Most have their own groups of friends that they do FP's with and that's that. Back in my SWG guild we would all hang out in the cantina's together planning our next adventure, or hang out in our player made city doing some planning and renovations to make it a better place to live. We even had an enemy city a few miles away up over a few hills that we might invade or defend against now and then. I enjoy TOR for what it is, but i still say it's lacking the social aspect. For me it's more of an RPG. I've done 85% of the game solo....

THIS^^ It's really not that difficult to understand...

The time spent reading these forums during the downtime is more entertaining than the game itself, LOL!

If you do that AND WZ's with all the flashpoints once or twice each, you will be way over level with the last few planets... On my alt I skipped a lot of side quests, missed about half the FP's, and hit 50 while on Voss

Lulz

Yep, got 3 warnings here too...

Once you get a good pattern down on BP you can make that run in 20 minutes. Lots of chests and usually 4-6 orange pieces to sell at the end will get you 40k-60k. It's actually fairly easy since if you are careful, you will only have to fight the first room and 3 bosses.

I think TOR has lots of life left. In game you hear very little negativity, it is only here on the forums where you hear the majority of it. For the most part the general population is having fun. I myself am not a huge fan of linear games which is why I liked SWG and Eve online so much. Even I however, have to admit that TOR has potential, and the franchise is more than enough to keep a decent population for quite sometime. The one thing that makes me chuckle about that article is the comment about Guild Wars 2 looking like WoW. You can spend 2 minutes researching GW2 and find out that it is COMPLETELY different from a standard linear "WoW like" MMO. I'm not promoting GW2 cause I plan on playing TOR for a while, but still have to admit I am intrigued. I believe out of any upcoming MMO releases, GW2 is the biggest threat to the TOR population.

You are correct in the fact that there are more than 2 choices aside from "like" or 'dislike" I suppose there are those that are sorta "Meh" about the game and play it simply to pass the time. My point however is that it seems the stance most people take in the forums IS in fact 1 of 2 choices. You do not see many posts from those that are in a grey area. Although there may be a few, those that like it or dislike it greatly outnumber the small percentage that can't decide. In reality, it is probably fairly even across the board, however the forums do not reflect that.

I actually agree with you. Just to be clear, I was not presenting this is the "EUREKA" answer to my curiosity, merely an observation recently made, and a loose theory.

Not really sure where to start with this, but as a 37 year old, middle class guy, with 3 teenage boys that all like to game, i stumbled across an interesting discovery. I am by my definition a casual gamer. Been playing MMO's mostly since EQ1. I have at least dabbled in 25 (give or take a few) have enjoyed some and hated others. Being unemployed at the moment I have a bit of free time. I tend to play approximately 3-6 hours per day maybe 4 or 5 days per week. On the days I don't play I might browse the forums to try and gather new info and or ideas. Not being new to MMO's I know how the forums typically look, but it has always been very curious to me as to why they look the way they do... Just last week while running a FP with my guild I noticed my oldest son (who is 15) spamming in guild chat as to how the game "sucks". I did not say anything immediately since i was a little tied up, but I was genuinely curious cause I always assumed he really liked the game since he could easily play more than I allow him too. AND the fact that i pay for his montly subscription! It was not long after that when my nephew (same age) joined in with the same tone about the game. A little later I asked him what it was all about, his response was "I dunno" with a shrug. I asked him more clearly "Do you like the game or not?" His response "yeah, i guess" I told him that it should not be all that difficult to determine, some folks like it and others do not. His response to that was "well, everyone else says it sucks" I found this quite interesting since it seemed to be a fairly universal belief with him and most of his friends around his age. It should also be noted that WoW was his first MMO, and 100% of his friends also came from WoW. It occurred to me that perhaps this was a classic case of conformity among his peers. From a basic definition of Conformity and why people conform: What are the possible reasons for conformity? There may be a number of reasons for why we may conform. First, we may conform because we wish to feel part of a group. Second, we may wish to gain social approval and acceptance from members of a group. Third, we may wish to avoid being criticized. Fourth, we may wish to avoid being ignored. Fifth, we may wish to behave in a manner that is perceived to be right or correct. Sixth, we may wish to avoid feeling inferior to others. Now I am sure this is only a portion of the reason we see the posts we do on the forums, but I am fairly certain it plays a part in all of it. I do know for a fact that my son and many of his friends spend A LOT of time on the boards. When I asked him If I should just go ahead and cancel his subscription he immediately begged me not too. This i think explains at least a portion of why those that dislike the game tend to hang around. I am sure many are just waiting for their subs to run out, but it still sorta makes me wonder. Another thing I have noticed is some of my former guild mates from past MMO's that I have asked to join, have had all sorts of reasons not to join, due to unfounded facts about that game that hey simply "heard somewhere" I am not going to get into specifics, but some of the stuff I heard made me LOL pretty hard. I myself have made a judgement about a game and refused to play it without ever even giving it a try. Only later to end up trying it and loving it. Not only that but i realized most of my reasons for not playing it were completely false and simply made up by people trying to hurt the game in some way. This is similar to a method we use when we jump to conclusions called Hueristics: Its a built in survival mechanism we all have. Eons ago, when we were living in the wilds, our ancestors had to make quick judgements about our surroundings: is this a friend or an enemy? Our mind can make a judgement about something without knowing all the facts. Since it is a trait that helped us survive in the wild, we carry that trait today and use it to make up our minds about topics we may not know the whole story about. This post was not meant as an attack on those who happen to dislike the game or have any other reservations about it. To be quite honest I could really care less about what other people think about it, since I happen to be enjoying it at the moment. When I get bored with it I will move on. I guess aside from the wall of text, my point was that I think there is an interesting demographic of those that claim to dislike that game but genuinely enjoy it. (My son and his friends case in point) I just get a chuckle out of it and wonder if anyone else has come to the same conclusion. in closing I will say that I am not a fainboy, although I enjoy the game it is not my favorite to date, and I will still be searching and looking forward to playing other titles as they release. For now however I plan to sit back and enjoy it.

I would lean towards the desktop for sure. More capable, upgradable, and the reasons go on and on. "Alienware" and "cheap" don't really go together, IBP might be a better choice, but if you can find a way to build it yourself you can get MUCH more for your money.

So it's only logical that you continue playing the game you hate and posting here as well... yeah i totally get it now!

Why can't I have that Ferarri like that guy down the street! I bought my car and got a Subaru instead... if Ferarri's are available I am entitled to one! It is a necessity for travel

Just remember, all the haters are still subbed and playing