SWTOR is hugely CPU intensive. The absolute best you can do is get a i5/i7 K series CPU and overclock it as much as possible. If you are gaming on a budget the Pentium G3258 Anniversary edition overclocked will do. I have a G3258 overclocked at 4.5 Ghz. Warzones/Fleet/Ops will cause CPU usage to reach 100% on both cores. Thats two modern Haswell cores, taxed to the limit. FPS drops to 20-30. My GTX 770 tends to sit around 50-80% utilisation. The game is horribly optimised, but its much worse than that. It runs two processes to get around memory limits and loads FX on the fly, causing FPS drops when new stuff loads. I doubt there is much wiggle room for any meaningful optimisation. A new engine is required IMHO.

No. As soon as BW decide to release a 'subscriber reward' as a cash purchase, it sets a precedent. People will then not bother with subbing for any future reward period, why bother when you could just buy the reward at a later date?

Yeah this won't work. 1. There is ZERO matchmaking in Warzones. Sometimes your team makeup is poor. A couple of people dropping allows others to join, possibly the classes the team requires. I've seen games where people leaving and people joining changes the match for the better. 2. People will just AFK in a warzone instead of leaving. How is this better? 3. There is no Warzone area selection. If someone doesnt like Arena maps, but loves objective PvP, what do they do when arena pops, or vice versa. It can be frustrating. But until BW implements Warzone/Arena selection, giving people a leaver penalty will just serve to either reduce the number of people playing PvP or increase the number of people AFK'ing through a match. Either than or they will leave, log an alt, ad nauseam.

It could work but there are several caveats: 1. Make the token a 'cash sale only' from the website. No CC option. Needs to be priced at 1.5-2x monthly sub. The token can then be sold on the GTN. Perhaps limit the amount of tokens an account can buy per month. 2. No CC stipend from monthly tokens. 3. In game credit exploits would need to be closed down sooner than previously. 4. Would this impact on credit sellers? Would their price per mil be cheaper than subscribing? Leading to a situation where you buy from a credit seller and buy a token in game which is CHEAPER than subbing or the token from cash purchase.

If you don't subscribe for the allotted time, you don't get the subscriber reward. Its not difficult to comprehend. If you *really* wanted the subscriber reward, you would have subbed AND made sure of the sub. I expect to see many more threads like this....

Great thread and information, thanks for your hard work. You'ed be surprised how many people don't believe you when you tell them that a weapon barrel/hilt on a companion affects their DPS. One tip for the eternal championship. The breaktown brawler fight has a mechanic where ranged attacks are reflected, worth switching to a melee version of whatever you prefer (DPS or heals) for this fight, if you normally run a ranged companion.

Let me stop you right there chuckles. Not everyone agrees. I don't agree and neither do many people who the RNG gods were kind to. They gave out items that are only normally available when *someone* spends real life currency. For a little invested game time, you got a shot at some decent items, plus some nice XP boosting gear.

Merc/Mando needs a 'reset' ability. Sorc has bubble AND phase walk Jugg has Heal2Full Operative, roll and stealth Maurader, stealth etc etc.. Something is required that either reduces incoming damage significantly, or provides brief immunity. Something to make the attacker think about switching targets. Nothing the Merc/Mando has can do that. Instead we have to LoS or hammer our piss-poor heals, which means we can't DPS and ultimately die. I wouldn't mind a casted ability.

Being a Merc/Mando is basically playing hard mode at this point. Maybe make Kolto Overload, actually useful... Please?

Still broken as of 08/01/2016

There have been some improvements over the last year. However all of these should have been introduced at release, not a year down the line. The game is just as bad as you remember, think long and hard about returning.

So you don't play PvP for fun then, for the challenge? You are whats wrong with PvP.

Premades need to be stopped from joining normal WZ's. The only reason it is done is to roflstomp the other team and get quick wins. Limit the premade group size to 4, at least the other team may have a chance. Force the full premades to fight other premades, if you think you are that good you should prove it. Stomping on recruit geared players isnt fun for anyone. Well maybe it is for you, if you feel your e-peen isnt big enough. Compensating much?

I really don't mind the trolling, as long as people take an objective view of what they are paying for. I post in hope of my comments reaching at least the forum droids and maybe a little higher. I didn't get mad at the security key debacle, it actually saddened me a little. The final realization that the game I hoped to be great was ultimately a third rate WoW clone with more bugs than one star hotel bed. Maybe people will read this and realize too, who knows, stranger things have happened. Like BW patches without bugs... oh wait..

I think you've slightly missed the point.. The security key debacle was simply the tipping point, an error which could have been simply resolved turned into everyone having to ring customer services, suffering the international cost if they lived outside the UK. The other reasons I listed in my original post are also reasons I left, plus more I haven't listed. The game as it stands is worthless to play as a F2P'er and not worth the cost as a subscriber. But like I said, BW doesn't really give a damn.

It was the recent mobile security key problem for me. Having to ring up customer support, then wait in a queue so I could get my security key removed, just to be able to play, was the last straw. Poor performance, bugs still in game from launch, bugs introduced with patches that never get fixed, re-skinned armor that gets introduced instead of content, I could go on. I've unsubbed. Not to make a point, but I cant justify spending money on bug ridden tripe. BioWare won't listen, they are making too much money from the Cartel Market to care. I'll pop my head in as a F2P'er, if only to see how much content we don't get in 2.0.

Well I've squirrelled enough credits away to now buy one of these vehicles but I'm really stuck on which one. Took me a couple of weeks to grind the credits, so it wouldn't be a huge problem to get more. But I'm not really a natural credit maker, I have to set my mind to do it. Command Throne Pros: Nicely textured and animated Cons: Its a floating chair zipping around various planet surfaces, breaks my immersion completely Tirsa Prime Pros: Exactly what you expect a SW large speeder to look like Cons: Not sure if this is a con or not, I assume it has a larger 'hit box' and therefore doesn't fit in some gaps smaller vehicles would. Thoughts or Experiences?

The CPU tweak in MSCONFIG is fools gold for most users. There is only a strange situation where you have limited the number of cores before then upgraded to a new multi-core CPU with more cores and not changed it back. Here is Microsoft's explanation: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/howto-get-windows-7-to-detect-your-new-multi-core/71519d51-f6cb-47df-b3ff-66c2928d6de4 If you don't want the in-depth knowledge, as long as task manager shows you the right number of cores, then changing the option in MSCONFIG will change nothing, or actually make things worse. There are however several good points in your post, some of them people should be doing anyway (Defrag, removing crap from start-up etc) SWTOR is a resource hog. A SSD can be a huge improvement, Throwing more CPU/GPU power at it never hurts either. FWIW, Upgrading from a Pentium Dual-Core @3ghz to a Core 2 Quad @ 2.4ghz yielded a noticeable improvement for me. Clock speed isn't everything.

Ok, you get your animal mounts. I therefore require and demand the following. 1. Deathstar, built or nearly finished I don't mind. 2. AT-AT, with fluffy dice. 3. One throne carried by several ewoks who will play drums on severed trooper heads on command. Thanks

God no. A thousand times no. At least not on the fleet. We have enough to deal with without animal dung everywhere. In my opinion it just doesn't fit the game. You can have your animal mounts, as long as you can only use them on 'natural' planets (ie Hoth Belsavis yes, NS no) In fact keep all speeders off the fleet, buy rocket boots.

Gaining XP is a cornerstone of any MMO, turning it off is counter to the game design. I have no problem with people playing the game the way they want too, but it should not be to the detriment of others gaming. Make it a one time only deal, till your 50. Selecting an advanced class is a one time only deal, so I dont see why it should be such a problem.

No, it reduces the 'perceived' value of the items. However I could see a situation where an option for 'send to all legacy characters' would be available for a higher price. Besides its all fluff...

There is a simple answer to this. If you want to disable XP so you can enjoy the leveling content, just disable all access to warzones. If you care that much about the PvE content you should feel no need to go anywhere near PvP until level 50.

I hope you are not being serious here. If you are being serious, please disclose your source of information.

Just to add my 2p We got maintenance, a patch with a bundle of fixes and apart from one server (which always seems to have issues) everything seemed to go very smoothly. Unify colours got fixed for companions, this made my day as I missed it in the patch notes and didn't notice until I was messing around with some gear. Character slots that people were complaining about got changed as promised. More shiny things were added to the CM to part fools, ahem 'customers' from their money, which means more money to the server pot. Well done Bioware, another step in the right direction.