If you find a social vendor they sell gizmos that you can put on your quickslots that add a target marker. I can't for the life of me remember what they are called though...

Also slide the grass and trees settings down to 0%. These really seem to give my GPU a headache. (And its an NVIDIA 5500 GTX Tdi..)

Hang on ... was that your doorbell?? heh heh... Seriously the best thing you can do is /ignore him and don't accept his party invites. You have certianly shown alot of restraint so far. If he insists on following you around then I guess you have a free little helper to take care of those pesky `gold star` mobs... Oh what server are you on btw?

I was asked for an idea re my abilities and where I place them. so heres a link to my set up as it is now. http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t312/monkey1969_photo/demoscreen.jpg

Well 94 people have read this and apparently NO-ONE has anything to say. Hmm... Well I have all this stuff sitting there in my head so here it is. So in no particular order a few tips with the disclaimer of `You probably or possibly already know this` ENEMY GO `BOOM` HUH HUH.. In the grand tradition of games since time immemorial (or something) the enemies in this game show an almost incredible amount of tactical awareness. Fresh from Sith/Republic intelligence training some have decided on a plan of action bordering on genius. It is known as the `hey lads lets all hang around this highly volatile container` method. Should you happen to see one of these (they look like chemical containers and have a nifty pulsing red X to identify them) feel free to Right Click it. This can be done by ranged OR melee characters from a distance. Now sit back and chuckle quietly to yourself as they all burst into flames/get flash frozen in (Carbonite?) or choke on posionous chemicals. Fun for all the Family COMBAT ETIQUETTE When grouping there are two styles I have seen (both equally valid I guess) of taking down the mobs. 1. Charge into the middle of a big group of enemies and hope that your `mad gaming skillz/The Force/My Aw3som3 armor` will protect you and not really pay attention to what the rest of the team are doing/the state of their health. 2. When you form a team decide who is going to be the `puller`. That person then RIGHT clicks his potential victim and marks him with one of the nifty targeting icons. This is usually best done by a ranged character who can soften them up with a nice grenade type AOE attack. I personally mouse click the victim so I am sure of my target as `TAB` can sometimes be a bit unpredictable. When they are all dead have a quick breather, use your self heal and rinse and repeat. Oh and loot their still cooling corpses of course This of course is up to individual choice. But honestly I am prone to quit a group if some mad man is charging round at 25% helath aggroing all and sundry and I am then calmly informed by the game `that I can't use that ability (self heal) in combat...` EXPLORE,EXPLORE,EXPLORE... One thing about SW:TOR is the the planets are kind of BIG and realistic. This means that just because you can see the quest marker you can't always just walk to it in a straight line. Odds are a great big mountain/1000 ft drop may be in your way. The best thing to do if you want to get there is follow the yellow paths on the map. With a bit of backtracking thrown in you will usually get there. On the flip side there are lots of little nooks and crannys and you never know what you may find if you go off the beaten track. I am a great one for seeing a sheer drop down a cliff and merrily jumping down it in the hopes I will get down in one peice. Take your time on the planets. Theres really no burning hurry to get to the next one cos guess what? It's another planet and more than likely bigger than this one. If you look around there are lots of lovely `Gold Star` Elite type enemies/Named Enemies just begging to be releived of that lovely Blue or Purple item. CRATFY LITTLE DEVIL Now I am not ashamed to say that I didn't know this to start with. I thought on my first toon what a horrid lot of recipes I knew and wondered when I would learn more... Eventually I found out that if you go to the fleet then you can learn improved and new recipes from your trainer. This seems to be as your skill improves by mulitiples of 20-50 points. (Open the crew skills window and check the little numbers on the bar next to it). This only applies to the actual CRAFTING skill such as Artifice and not the mission skills such as Underworld trading or Treasure Hunting. Those will only give you better rewards as you send your companions on the missions. Its worth noting that once you level these the default level will change and give you access to grade 2 rewards etc. You can always use the drop down menu and change it back to the lower levels if you still need grade 1 materials for your crafting. REVERSE ENGINEER FTW Going with the crafting theme still: When you learn a recipe it is normally a GREEN recipe. When you make the item it is a good idea to make as many copies as possible (you can stack up to 5 work orders in the window at a time) When they are complete go to your inventory and click the `reverse engineer` text in the top right of the window. Anything that you CAN'T reverse engineer will be grayed out in your inventory. Now point the little `wand` (soldering iron??) at the item you want and RIGHT click it. To start with you will disassemble the item and probably get some crafting materials back. Eventually though you should learn a BLUE version of the same recipe. This will have a slight stat increase over the previous version. Now start making these and reverse engineering them and eventually you will learn a PURPLE version of that recipe which will be significantly better again. I honestly cannot say what the numbers are on upgrading your recipes. Some seem to happen really fast for me. On my Imperial agent I tried for AGES to get a purple version (um sorry PURPLE version) of a particualr stim until I finally learnt it. MONEY SAVING TIPS When you get quest rewards ALWAYS choose `planet X` commendations. The ONLY exception is if the reward is a MODIFIABLE peice of armour or weapon that can replace your vanilla equipment. The `commendation reward` vendors offer significantly better equipment than the cash vendors. You will be astonished how fast these build up. Quite a few enemies drop commendations (even faster when you are grouping). As it stands I am roughly 1/3 of the way through Dromund Kaas on my level 15. I have so far been able to buy a modifiable light saber for me and two VERY powerful modifiable blasters for my companion. This has cost me 42 commendations so far. DO NOT buy armor or weapons from vendors. You will kick yourself if you do..trust me. Again the exception being if its MODIFIABLE and replaces a vanilla item. There are plenty of enemies who drop MUCH better stuff than you can buy. At lower levels you will need EVERY credit to upgrade your powers and expand your inventory space. There is nothing worse than levelling up and then going `D'oh I cant afford `awesome new power x` LEAVING FOR PASTURES NEW? On the subject of commendations: Before you jump on that shuttle check you don't have any spare. If you do you can buy lockboxes for a minimum of 2 commendations that hold a random peice of equipment. Sometimes these are no use but you can always sell them. I have occasionally got a VERY nice peice of armor that is much better than what I have. WHY HELLO, NICE TO MEET YOU As I said above I have 42 commendations so far. This is mainly due to partying with people ALL day long. Heroic 2 and 4 missions give you 3 commendations as rewards. The others came purley as normal drops. The rate of Blue item and commendation drops seems to be significantly higher when you are in a party. Sometimes I wasn't even nessecarily on the missons or eligible for them (ie Heroics I had already done that day). But you know what ? Just being backup is a blast and I got lots of lovely loot as well. Well I think thats about it. Again I hope someone finds this helpful... (pretty please someone SAY something about this post....)

Server:Goluud Corridoor Psylar Imperial Agent level 26 Psyclaspe Sith Marauder Level 15 Psiax Level 26 Jedi Shadow Always willing to help anyone. Got a Heroic 2 or Flashpoint you need help with? I am always happy to help even if I'm not eligible for the mission. Feel free to ask

Hello all I have decided after (umm however many days since launch) to write a brief guide that I hope will help people enjoy the game more. So with out further ado... SETTINGS (I am aware some of these MAY be on as default so bear with me) Hit ESC>Options>Preferences to access these. Under CONTROLS>GENERAL tick the following []Auto-Loot on Right-Click [] Enable area Loot [] Auto Target closest enemy []Use quickslot on keypress Then DISABLE `request companion to gather`. My reasoning for this is sometimes a resource is half way up an incline or under a bridge etc. In these cases I have found Kaliyo cant get to the node and I just end up standing there twiddling my fingers. It's much easier if you just gather them yourself. With regards to the looting you will save yourself alot of clicking. Its always best to gather everything you can at low levels. Just sell all the vendor junk every now and then or send your companion to sell them if you are feeling lazy and are in a safe spot. At low levels every credit counts. SOUND Now I may get some haters on this BUT after a while the stirring BGM gets a tiny bit old. May I respectfully suggest setting BGM to 0%. Before you log in next time might I suggest: http://www.gaydarradio.com/onair/howToListen http://www.dimensionalradio.net/games.shtml I listen to either of these when playing and they both have some SERIOUS tunes to improve your gaming pleasure. You have not lived unless you have engaged in a full blown lightsaber battle in a Heroic 4 with some serious Dance Music reverberating around your skull USER INTERFACE Again as above tick the following: [] Display player information []Display target information These options add x/x hitpoints and a percentage counter to the health bars. Haven't you always needed the perfect excuse as to why the Gold starred enemy beat you? Now you can say with full authority `ah well I got him down to 5% of his health before he/she/it killed me so I was technically 95% victorious`? QUICKBARS Now this is probably blindingly obvious to any veterans but it's not immediately obvious unless you go looking for it. Tick all the following: Enable Bottom Center,left and right quickslots. Now you can put your offensive abilities on the top center bar, your Debuffs on the bottom center bar, your buffs on the left bar and your medpacs/stims on the right bar. (Well it works for me but each to their own) When you are happy with the set up LOCK the quickslots. You have not learnt the meaning of the word `frustration` until you have accidentally dragged your best AOE attack OFF the quickbar mid fight with a Boss. Oh and for all you ranged types (ie smuggler/agent) I would tick the [] Enable cover bar. CONVERSATION Tick [] Show conversation alignment gain. Any KOTOR or Jade Empire veterans will be familiar with this system of becoming progressively more Saintly/Evil. For those of you new to this idea basically certain moral choices you make in conversations will push you further towards one side of the Force. There are some peices of equipment such as Light Sabers that require you to be of a certain Light or Dark rank in order to use them. TOOLTIP Basically tick all the options here. You can see a detailed view of the item you are highlighting (especially useful when viewing a modifiable weapon etc). Most importantly you can see what effect it will have on your companions stats. Remember to equip them with the best you can get cos they have feelings too. MAP [] Enable magnifying glass on world map. []Map fades while moving Super useful if you are an old fart like me with dodgy vision and no sense of direction GRAPHICS Now I have seen a few posts about graphics performance. Personally I think the Hero Engine was designed by sadists and then tweaked by Lucifer. I have a decentish setup (AMD Athlon 64x2 4000+, 3GB memory and a spanky new NVIDIA 5500 GTX Tdi card). And yes graphic snobs I `can run Crysis in ooooh pretty mode` The settings I would suggest if you are having trouble and would like to play in `Non-jerky O-Vision` Resolution 1152x864 Enable conversation depth of field. (Nice FX and only takes place when static). Set Textures,Shaders and Antialias to LOW. Charatcter detail to High then Texture anisotropy an Shadow quality to LOW. Lastly (as these seem to be the GPU killers) slide Grass and trees to 0%. Since launch the 0% option on grass seems to have gone from `muddy pixellated` to SOME detail so I am guessing they have optimised the Engine somewhat. Now this may not look super sparkly but it is acceptable, doesn't look horribly ugly and allows me to run round with smooth performance to my hearts content. True I do lag a little on the Fleet or in heavily populated cities but its PLAYABLE 99% of the time. SOCIAL Tick: []Show Sith Corruption []Allow access to same class story area Now these two boxes are obviously only important if: A) You are being a mean spirited nasty ol` Sith and are going for the `Full Palpatine` look on your character. B) You actually WANT to group with another {insert character class} and have co-operative conversations with NPC`s. Remember Kids SW:TOR is an MMO and it's fun to share heroics and missions. Plus you get spanky social points and better loot drops. Lastly (for now) go to KEYBINDS and look for `Target nearest enemy` now set this as TAB. For some bizarre reason this is bound to `Target next enemy` as default. Because I REALLY want to target that enemy 20 ft away mid fight and not the Rebel Slave attempting to bash my head in with a shovel... Now as I woke up a t 4.30 am my brain has turned to mush. I do intend to expand upon this with some general gameplay tips. Hope at least one person finds this useful.

Its $15 dollars a month because its NOT $14 dollars a month. (disengage sarcasm mode) If you think the asking price is too high then DONT pay it. Please just go away quietly and stop telling all an flippin sundry how sad/ripped off/outraged you feel at having to pay the asking price for a SUBSCRIPTION MMO. Grr:mad:

Despite the OP's lack of paragraphs I think I get where they are coming from. I truly don't understand the surge of hatred and or disappointment aimed towards Bioware lately. They have been responsible for some of my favourite games over the years. I think that all the complainers truly don't understand the mind bending scale of having a FULLY voiced MMO. Sure some of the vendors re-use voices but they aren't vitally important to the sense of immersion in the same way the quest dialogue is. The only complaint I have with SW:TOR? I NEED a filter for my companions `witty` comments that they utter approximately every 5 seconds mid fight. I don't understand the 30 second cooldown on Medpacs (which is worse than useless in combat). Also not being allowed to revive a fallen party member or companion mid-combat is a bit of a strange choice. That aside reading these Forums along with those for Mass Effect 3 you'd be forgiven for thinking that Bioware were practicing some kind of Devil worship and not busting their arses making two pretty amazing games. I was truly shocked at the `OH god the ending of ME 3 sux` posts which were up like 2 days after launch. I got my copy at launch and I`m about half way through. What is this obsession with rushing to the end of a game nowadays? Just to illustrate how quickly people forget how things were pre-SWTOR.. I was talking to a fellow guild member about Vindictus which has got an EU launch fairly recently I think. It's a fun little game (all instanced quests) and not bad for a blast through now and then. I asked him if he liked it and his reply was `Well it's ok but i had to READ all the quest text` ... Nuff said really. Lastly I just don't get why if people hate Bioware or SWTOR (although the two seem to be interchangable) why do they feel the need to let all and sundry know it? Don't like a game? Fine because its a free country and each to their own etc. But for gods sake I wish they would just STOP playing it and go away quietly. I mean if I have a meal I don't like I dont feel the urge to let the whole counrty know I wont be eating that again.... Anyhoo that's my take on things. Be seeing you in game for a long time to come. Psiax/Psylar/Psyclapse/Chasidah - If you see me always happy to help

Loved KOTOR. But boy did my character run in a funny way I liked KOTOR 2 but I couldn't make heads or tails of the story line. I felt like Square Enix had taken over writing duties half way through. Loving SWTOR so far. Took me a second to go `oooohhhh Darth Revan.. righttt` on Dromund Kaas. The only thing (and no spoilers if this does happen) is I would love if there was swoop racing in the game. Now that would be awesome..

Well obviously I dont just say "Hi" ! I do try and ask people how they are, tell jokes, ask if anyone need help etc ...

Have you got a deviantART account? if not you really should.. Here is my non Star wars effort http://monkey1969.deviantart.com/#/d3f5jm9 and heres the homepage http://www.deviantart.com/ Give it a look, its a brilliant site.

Bye then ...

I have had SWTOR since it launched and currently have 3 characters. Two of them are level 26 and one is level 12. Back when I first stated playing I remember seeing roughly 100 plus playerss on each planet. The General chat used to be full of people nattering away to each other,offering advice and just generally shooting the breeze. I have noticed recently however that when I come online and say `Hi` to everyone I am usually met with stony silence. There just doesn't seem to be the same level of general friendliness as before. Luckily I am in a Guild with 300+ members and we have an interguild channel that lets me talk across guilds too. Now maybe everyone is in guild chat all the time and they dont even have general chat showing up any more. Am I just unlucky to be on a low population server or are other people seeing the same decline in general chat as me? Just as a comparsion when I play Champions Online there is always plenty of lively chat about the game,LFG requests and people just talking about life etc. I would appreciate it if you could let me know if I'm just simply unlucky with general chat or if this is the sign of gradual decline in community spirit.

Righty ho then. Thanks for sharing your well thought out intelligent reasoning of why I`m annoying (and felt it nessecary to tell the world). Glad you bought it up. I shall now retire with Grace from the internet and possibly SWTOR all together as I wouldn't want to upset youre delicate and sensitive nature. May I suggest a course of Anger Management if you so easily offended by other people? Obviously the internet is WAYYYY to small a space to accomodate both of us. Note: Please dont stick up for me anyone or he may Hyperventilate or summit..

He was instrumental in the Rebels fight against the Empire. He defeated Darth Vader and ultimately helped redeem the essence of Anakin Skywalker. He was trained by a Jedi Master (the most powerful of Jedi Knight's) who are miracle workers of extreme power and ability. Yoda was only one of three Jedi Masters who survived the fall of the Old Republic (Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader being the other two). Yoda`s two greatest students were Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker. Five years after the Battle of Endor Luke became a roving ambassador at large for the New Republic. He trained Leia in the ways of the Force during this time. He stopped Grand Admiral Thrawn's campaign to destroy the New Republic by using cloned warriors with the help of the Mad Jedi Joruus C`baoth. During this period he saw off the threat of Mara Jade (Who once served as the Emperors Hand-basically his eyes and ears throughout the galaxy) and conviced her to Join the New Republic. A year later he became the reborn Emperors protoge and eventually fought a young clone of Palpatine. He lost the Lightsaber battle but with Leia`s aid and the power of the luminous beings unleashed the Force on Palpatines dark nexus and conquered his Dark side with Jedi Fire. He then became instrumental in helping the Jedi Order to rise again. Not bad for a farm boy from Tatooine. On the flip side however Palpatine created Darth Vader through his dark will, destroyed the Jedi Knights, swept away the Old Republic, forged the Empire and assembled the greatest military force ever seen upon the Galaxy....

Nooooooooooooooo.. Okay I have reached my limit at Nar Shadaa. I mean that BGM would fit PERFECTLY into some dodgy 70s `special interest ` movie possibly about a plumber with a huge `tache who `services` his female clients `plumbing` (FNARR). No more I say ! I have just remembered Dimensional Radio. http://www.dimensionalradio.net/games.shtml Turn down the BGM, point your interweb `browser interface device` at the URL and rock out. Seriously its AWESOME.

1. Random well thought out intelligent response to do with the role of men and women in society,gender stereotyping and getting in touch with my female side. Also an in depth look at how female gaming characters are just cooler than male ones. Lara-cool,Samus-kick ***,Kasumi-way better than Ryu, er that Ninja sneaky wotsit game on the PS2 umm oooh you know.. anyway the girl was way better than the guy with her twin daggers and had a WAY better stealth takedown. ALL the Tekken and Soul Calibur girls = much more fun than the broody anime `femme boys` with pale and interesting looks and floppy hair. 2.Cos I do so nyah. 3.Always play as girls in MMOs ever since PSO on the Dreamcast (aahh a small tear fills my eye....) with my character `42`. 4. Because all my toons are Psiax,Psylarr or Psyclapse by name and they are stupid names for guys.

Han Solo once went by the nickname `Slick`. It was given to him by his friend and former instructor, Badure. Droids produce sounds through devices called vocabulaters (or sometimes vocoders). Usually visible as a grill or orifice, a vocabulater allows a Droid to produce speech. The most sophisticated vocabulaters can be found within protocol droids. These sensitive devices are capable of producing sounds necessary to converse in millions of different languages.

Yes very good All though game wise STO sucks Bantha doo doo.

Any chance I could borrow your time machine? I could really do with winning the lottery next week. Cheers

Finally a positive thread I love all the spoken dialogue, medical droid revive is very handy,liking all the quests so far. Been in plenty of groups and I am having a blast. I have never felt as If I am grinding which is definitely a first for me in an MMO. As for the haters - shan't miss them and baffled as to why they are still playing tbh.

I just wanted to complain to Bioware that SW isn't like WOW. I feel that I have been sold a product under false advertising. I am certain that the front of the box depicted various Elves,Humans,Orcs and Fairys all fighting in a woodland setting. Imagine my disgust when I arrived on Tython - not a wolf to be seen !! I searched in vain for plants to harvest and was even more diturbed that I could not skin animals after they died !!! Even worse the back of the box clearly said `this is WOW in SPACE`n`stuff !! - Be the hero of your own WOW space based adventure!` Well that's all lies for starters. Just look at my starting weapon - pfft its some sort of electronic sword ! where the heck is my `Bastard Sword of Elf twatting +2` ? As I continued my quest I found out I was some sort of Space `Knight` based on some airy fairy religion with some sort of twaddle about `The Force` Two days in now and I have yet to be sent on a meaningful and deeply spiritual quest to `Kill 5 wolves and bring the skins back to Granny Smith` - there is obviously no hope for this game. THATS IT - I QUIT - I miss the screech of `ye olde Gold Sellers` in general chat (mutter mutter MMO's were not like this in my day, grumble grumble.....) (IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF KRYTEN - DISENGAGING SARCASM MODE)

As I understand it Vista wont recognise more than 4GB ram ? or am I misinformed on this?

Help with upgrading my system. Any tech heads out there? I would appreciate some thoughts on my planned upgrade. At the moment I have a Packard Bell Istart with an AMD Athlon 64x2 4000+ with 3 GB Ram and an Nvidia 8400 GS 256MB. I can just about get away with running the game in 800x600 on low. I want to upgrade my PC and got quite a bit of money for Xmas. I`m planning on getting an AMD Athlon II x4 645 Processor 3.1 GHZ (2MB Cahce) or an AMD Phenom x6 1055T 2.8 GHZ (6 GB cache) depending on which (if any) will fit on my motherboard. I`ve done a bit of research on Graphics Card and the Nvidia Geforce GT520 1GB scores quite well on reviews and there are 2 models one by PNY (which is the make of my current card) and one by EVGA with a £10 price difference. Including fitting at PC world this is just under my budget of £180. The main reason for upgrading is the somewhat limited graphics along with the lovely disclaimer on the back of the box that `you may have to upgrade your system/replace your system in due course.` Any thoughts would be appreciated as all these different clock speeds/bus widths/cachesizes gets a bit confusing at times. I mean i assume the phenom is faster than the athlon just because it has more cores even though the clock speed is a bit slower. cheers