Did it really run "solid" when there were more than 8-10 players around, or just "solid" when you were questing solo and doing flashpoints? I think it's completely fair game for them to not allow settings that no hardware can reasonably pull off in all areas of gameplay, but if the main problem is performance when there's a large number of players around letting us always have "ultra" textures on ourselves and our companions (because let's be honest, nobody really gives a **** about how good the whomp rats we're killing look) would be a decent middle ground.

Twi'lek girl and her droid friend never used the brainwashing to my recollection, so I let them live. Despite my dude being LS Chance was a hypocritical little **** and letting him die was one of my favorite parts of the whole IA storyline. I honestly have less respect for him than Kothe (whose attitude was more "I don't like doing this, but I'd be stupid not to given the circumstances"- I told him to surrender and got the awesome death scene) and Hunter (who's at least up front about the fact that he's a douchebag- doesn't mean I'm not going to **** him and his fellow puppet masters over as hard as the game will allow when I get the chance, though.)

Alacrity does not lower the GCD, and thus is worthless for instants.

Hey now, elevator deathtraps are a long-standing MMO tradition!

User "reviews" anywhere on the internet are a cesspool of trolling and fanboyism and should under no circumstances be taken seriously. Mainstream reviewer praises game I like: "See, [reviewer] thinks it's good, that means it's good and if you think it's bad then you're wrong!" Mainstream reviewer praises game I hate: "Clearly they were bribed into giving this a good score as that's the only reason why anyone would say something nice about it!" Mainstream reviewer bashes game I like: "Well I suppose [publisher] actually had some integrity and the reviewer got pissed that he wasn't bribed enough to give it a good score." Mainstream reviewer bashes game I hate: "See, even [reviewer] thinks it's ****, that means it's **** and you're **** for liking it!" The truth: Yes, some mainstream outlets certainly are bribed (directly or indirectly) into giving games good scores. But more often than not if a game gets a higher score than you think it deserves it's because the reviewer genuinely liked the game more than you because his/her standards of what's good and what's a gamebreaking flaw is different than yours.

While most of what OP says is true in the literal sense, in a lot of cases he's trying to make things looks worse than they are by acting as if we were promised more than was delivered. I don't think anybody expected spaceships to be more than glorified flight paths, or for a planet's zone to feel big enough to be an actual planet. From there he proceeds to pile on every major criticism/feature request and act as if each and every one of them is game-breakingly inexcusable, and finishes it off with a light topping of opinions. The only objectively incorrect statements are the "no option to skip conversations" thing (space bar) and the "no gear appearance customization" thing (orange gear.)

Spare us the tinfoil hat conspiracy theories, I highly doubt Blizzard feels threatened enough by TOR to engage in any manner of underhanded misinformation campaign against it. They could lose a million subscribers a year and still have more money than they know what to do with for a very long time.

Half the reason why the WoW dungeon finder drastically increased the ease of getting dungeon groups while leveling is that you were teleported to the dungeon and thus didn't have to drop whatever you were doing while questing to try and pull together a group. This is a completely moot point in TOR, as the entrance to every single flashpoint is in the main hub city. If anything a dungeon finder would increase the exploration or whatever because you'd be able to leave the fleet more. The death of Barrens Chat had absolutely nothing to do with the dungeon finder. It was partially due to them introducing a significantly more efficient and rewarding way to get through that level range (Ghostlands) but mostly due to the fact that by the time LK rolled around WoW's initial growth spurt had long since ended and the vast majority of the playerbase was done leveling characters. Level-up zones becoming ghost towns is a thing that will inevitably happen to any MMO. The lack of socialization in LFG dungeons, on the other hand, is more due to the fact that outside of early Cata heroics have been so facerollingly easy that there's no need for it. Had the system been introduced in BC you still would have seen plenty of talking. Regardless, I do agree that if a dungeon finder happens at all it shouldn't be cross-server. A server-wide LFG channel like WoW had for a while would also be pretty cool.

So basically missions are barely profitable on "normal" hits and decently profitable on "crits," as opposed to decently profitable normally and absurdly profitable on "crits." That sounds about right. Also keep in mind that "critical" chance (and thus profitability) goes up as you get more affection with the companions you send out.

I don't understand how you could not think that Kaliyo is the best character with all the hilarious comments she makes.

The damage ranges on both the vibroknife and blaster rifle are relevant to your interest, neither should be considered a stat stick for DPS. Think of it like a dual-wielding class where you have a "main hand" weapon that's important to all of your core abilities and an "off hand" weapon that contributes to your less important damage sources. For concealment your vibroknife is your MH and your rifle is your OH, for lethality it's reversed and your rifle is your MH while your knife is your OH.

Carbine Burst's visual effect will frequently lag by several seconds, but the attack itself still happens "on time," if you pay attention to the health bars of the mobs in front of you.

Something to keep in mind with the knife attacks is that for all intents and purposes they actually happen the second you hit the button (barring lag shenanigans, of course,) you just don't see the damage numbers or death animation (if applicable) until the animation completes. It's really easy to see this if you use a knife attack to kill a quest mob, as the objective updates and the mob's health bar disappears immediately when you hit the button, then you see the damage number come out and the mob die when the animation actually connects. The long animations also aren't delaying the time until your next attack at all, since the global cooldown starts when you hit the button, not when the attack animation finishes.

That would be a hell of a way to skip a boss' trash, assuming the boss in question didn't leash.

Metacritic user reviews are a cesspool of trolls and fanboys. Under no circumstances should you take them seriously, good or bad, ESPECIALLY for games that get a lot of attention and hype.