Girlfriend, not sure where you've been for the past 20 years or so, but YES, GIRLS DO GAME. Been doing it myself, and having a hella time doing it. We just get kinda tired of the BS associated with identifying ourselves to the virginal fan boy crowd, so we mostly go silent. Y'know, we just keep it "Underground." Easier that way. Rock on.

Over the years I've seen more than one marriage end in divorce just because of online "egotude" by both partners. It really isn't funny, at all. The guy and his gal play online, the guy pays a bit more attention to someone other than his RL girl, and suddenly the egos come into play. The girl says "Hey, pay attention to me", the guy has to, for some foul reason I've never figured out, seems to think that his online persona or presence, matters more than his RL relationship. He rebuffs or ignores his partner. The gal says "gee this online BS matters more to him than I do." That, IMO, is the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life.

I skimmed the thread. Being female, het, and married to the same guy for over 27 years who has dealt with my gaming for 20 years or so, I see a major theme or two not bein' addresssed here. The new morality that's been bubbling just under the surface and maybe addressed once or twice on Maury or Jerry Springer. If your partner, male or female, doesn't matter the gender, feels left out and ignored, you're showing too much emotional commitment to a game. It's not a female thing. I've dealt with the same thing from my husband. Jealousy from a perceived rival or threat. You're spending too much time with a "toy" and not enough time with your sig other. Your partner perceives that you have a Lot more fun TWOH (that's "Typing with One Hand" for you newbies ) than you do with him or her. It's not insanity, it's not that your partner is crazy. He or she just sees you spending more time with a "toy" than with him or her. I handle it this way. I make sure my hubby is asleep, 'cause he is sated, either physically or emotionally, Before I go play those emo RP things. It's really kinda simple. Take care of RL first. I know I sound preachy, can't help it. I'm the "Big Sister" in my family and sorta used to being preachy.

I'm 53, I mainly wonder why in the heck well-adjusted, successful people care one whit about what other people think of them if they play computer games. I was told, when I was unsuccessfully shipping my resume' around once again after being laid off from IT programming and Network Administration for the second time, that saying that you play computer games as a hobby as opposed to, knitting (bleh!) or stamp collecting, could actually make you seem sharper and more of a first-adapter for new technology. If you think about it a bit, as I have, learning about hardware and software innovations are an integral part of computer gaming. It is a multi-million dollar industry after all. Just sayin'

I just celebrated my 53rd birthday this week. I've played computer games for over 20 years. These days, I play when I can. Sometimes that means 2 or 3 hours 2 or three times a week. I've already experienced that "you play computer games too much!" from my husband, and also gone through that "YOU'RE NOT RP'ING WITH THESE GUYS THEY'RE TRYING TO TAKE YOU AWAY FROM ME!!!" stuff. Marriage counseling helps for those people who can't seperate RP from reality. Reality always trumps RP. After 27 years of marriage, with all those bumps along the way, he's allowing me my gaming time, and I let him buy toys. His current "toy craze" is handguns. He does quite well at the range and is working on his "Conceal and Carry" handgun license. The point is, if you have a partner you care about, you always kiss them and tell them you love them BEFORE you head off to game. And you always come back to them, and learn when it's time to turn the computer OFF and pay attention to the real people in your life.

I don't play WoW, I don't get the comparison. SWTOR is Star Wars, WoW is.. what? Some dipstuff game. Kinda like comparing a mishmash of every other fantasy game out there versus Star Wars. There's a very clear and definite line betwixt fantasy and science fiction. So, I won't compare. SWTOR is sci-fi based, WoW is fantasy-based. IMHO, as always.

I'm like "Yikes!" yet again another forum subheading to navigate through. I've been somewhat computer-savvy and a forum/chat server/boards admin for oh, 15 years or so, and I gotta say, the SWTOR forums suck for newbie navigation. Y'all could really help your paying customers by adding a search function in the forums. It's kinda sad that SWTOR has so many in it's user community, but I feel that y'all are losing more revenue than you're keeping, with this overly-simplistic format y'all have going now. Having a Gaming User Guide in a web format with no hyperlinks to sub-topics, is pretty useless. Having a Gaming Forum with no Search function, is pretty fruitless. Having no Glossary or Dictionary of basic MMORPG phraseology, drives much of your newbie customer base away from the game. *jumping off my soapbox now*

I remember my hubby thinking that the Vic20 and the Com64 were "IT" back then. He got such a kick outta coding basic Frogger and Asteroid games and running them off of a tape drive. ooh! I couldn't get interested in gaming back then. Was too busy running scripts off of IBM XT/ATs for small business apps and drooling over the graphics capabilities of the Macintosh at work, back then. I gotta admit that the Vics and Coms were cute. I didn't really get into computer gaming until 1993 when X-wing came out for the 386/486 Win95 platform.

I had to get out my lighted magnifying glass and reread the minimum computer specs on the back of the game package, but I think your sempron processor isn't going to deliver as much as the athlon 64 processor they recommend on the minimum system requirements. Here's a link I found discussing sempron versus athlon processors: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/127 The rest of your system specs are at minimum as far as I can tell. I'm sorry I don't have better news for you. Perhaps someone more familiar with HP systems can help you overclock your CPUs and eke out some more performance. Seajay

Thanks for the welcome happysister. I'll just haveta create a website or something along those lines for the "visually challenged" like myself and create my own documentation that doesn't require a microscope to read. Hmm.. scan and expand that dratted Keyboard Command chart, first thing on my to-do list. Oh, for the good old days when we used to get game packaging that included *gasp* how-to books with legible print, instead of this "must fit inside a dvd package" thing nowadays. I miss X-wing, TIE Fighter, XvT, XWA, Jedi Knight, and Dark Forces. I hope this game is worth the learning curve and the extra effort. Seajay

To be Sith is to be part of a culture, not a species, or a religion. There are Kesh and Human Sith in the "Fate of the Jedi" book series. Kinda nitpicky on my part, I know.

Hi guys and gals. I'm a long-time fan of SW and somewhat up to speed on MMORPG stuff. From skimming the forums I realize I've a long learning curve to surmount. I've tinkered briefly with SWTOR on an RP server for the last week or so. Love the game so far, still figguring out things, though. I'm over 50. Eyesight ain't so good these days. This eensy weensy Key Commands Legend sheet I acquired when I bought the standard version of the game is, well, it's pretty frickin' unreadable to me. Even with my super-duper 2.50 magnitude old-lady reading glasses. Does anybody have a blown-up jpg or bmp of the key commands legend? That'd be really helpful. Seajay