Honestly I have nothing to add to the topic of your OP, but I did find this thread helpful in getting windows to run the game smoother until I upgraded my computer. Maybe this will help. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7237

Did you even read the first review? There was very little praise in the first review aside from sound and class stories, and they even pointed out potential problems that would (and have) plague SWTOR if they weren't fixed. Some of the highlights of the original review include boring side (planetary) quests that made you want to wear out your spacebar, questionable/boring quest dialog, the grind from 1-15 being borderline suicidal to the game, almost no PVP implementation (world PVP as well as a lack of choices in warzones), Space combat being "throwaway" and only being single player, no PVP level caps (all players play together at level 49 stats or level 50), no individual warzone queues (you can only queue for a random - you can't choose which you want to play), Light/Dark side choices being pretty much an afterthought and those choices not really impacting anything endgame except the reward for reaching full Light or Dark V, the implementation of social points as a way to get players to actually play together, the implementation of companions, the tunneling nature of planets like Nar Shaada, large planets with little to no content, questions about whether or not BioWare can flesh out endgame content fast enough, etc... Honestly with this review, I find it odd that it still got an 8/10, and looking back on this review I have to give the reviewer credit for pointing out the issues that people still cry about today.

So if I come back, I basically can look forward to 1 new raid? By the time I left we had been farming HM EC for about 6 weeks, and since campaign gear was the same level as rakata gear with BH mods, this was without getting any substantial gear upgrades except implants that weren't available on the GTN, and hilts. Have they added anything besides TFB than? Maybe some new FP's or warzones? Have they finally implemented world PVP hubs? Did they ever release ranked pvp?

Well, to be honest the in game customer support for this game has always been a joke, so not giving F2P'ers access to that is more of a blessing for them. I would rather post on the forums and get a reply within 1 business day then wait for 5 days for them to answer a ticket about my toon being stuck and unable to move/use QT/Fleet Pass. At least with the forum support only option you get tips and tricks from other people who actually play the game, and know work-arounds for the bugs. Still curious on what they have added for previous subscribers who want to come back as F2P as far as end-game content goes though.

Well my main concern is, I want to come back, I really do. I enjoyed the game immensely. The problem is, I have 3 toons, all at max level. So, I have a few questions, and this seems like the appropriate thread to ask them in. Have they added any substantial content? HK companion doesn't count. I am talking things like Chapter 4 in the Story lines. When I left a couple months ago, there were 3 endgame raids. EV/KP/Denova. Have they added any more? If so how many bosses and is the content difficult or pretty much face roll like the rest of the raids? They had plans to do a new Hutt raid, and a raid about the dread guard as well. Any word on these raids? *Edit* The reason I ask is that as a former subscriber, I've pretty much done it all. What incentives do I have to come back and buy an operations pass or a PVP pass?

But you seem to be missing the simplest of points of this (the person you quoted) and many others like him/her and the OP. Regardless of the engine differences, entry level gamers are not going to stick with a game that sucks the life out of their system when there are other alternatives that run on their systems like a peach out of the box. You can blame the PSU's, the SSD's, the single threaded nature of the games engine, but when it comes down to it, if I can spend $60 on a game and run it maxed out without tweaking my system, I am going to play that rather then a game that I have to spend $60 on, run on low settings until I can get decent upgrades. I still have FPS issues on my newly built system I spent over $1000 on with max settings. So to sum up - Noone cares about engines, noone cares about PSU's, noone cares about single threads. The issue isn't whether my computer is optimized for this game, the issue is whether or not this game is optimized at all. Processor: Intel 3770k quad core (3.8GHz - 3.9GHz turbo) (not OC'd) Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard Case: Antec Nine Hundred, SSD: Samsung 830 128gb SSD - game and windows 7 installed on this. Memory: Corsair 16gb DDR3 12800 Memory 750w Power Supply Video Card :Asus GTX 560 (not OC'd) Windows 7 64bit experience index = 7.7/7.9

Well once you hit 50 QT isn't even an issue. Most of your time you will spend on fleet unless you are lucky enough to queue up for a FP that happens to be on ilum. Even then you have a fleet pass (or passes if you have a security key). I wouldn't be against them lowering the cool down to 15 minutes, but to say that it is too difficult to meet up with someone is stretching it a bit far. Unless you are a level 50 on a mission to spend your entire day helping out guildies/friends/random strangers on low level missions I really don't see the current cool down being excessive.

Um - wait til you get into HM EC and the healer has to run around on Stormcaller/Firebrand dropping bubbles. Or how about the minefield where the healers are the only players left to CC the assault droids so they don't blow the raid up. How about when a raid member dies on a boss fight and needs to be revived? Personally if a healer cant do more then heal, then that healer is a waste of space. I do agree there are some fights where it makes more sense for a DPS to interrupt and the healer to focus on healing. But I disagree that the healers only job is to keep everyone alive. You don't know how many times I have seen healers die to mobs because they couldn't be bothered to use their knock back and stun/CC, then blame the tank for their own failures. "Well I had to keep the tank alive, if I would have stopped healing to CC we would have wiped" "But you were the only one that died..." "That's because I healed before I died!" "But you were dead for like a minute....Your CC is only a 2 second cast?" "You guys are bad, I'm going to go find a group with a tank that can actually hold aggro!"

Threads like this make me laugh. Now let me let you in on a little secret of mine so you can laugh with me. Assume that in this example you are a DPS class in DPS spec doing a new level 50 daily on Hoth. Assume as well this daily is completely instanced and the only help you are going to get is from your party members. Lets say you are on Hoth, Level 50 in Columi gear or better, and run across 3 normal, and 1 strong level 50 mobs blocking your path to a button that lowers a bridge to a cage currently holding your summoned companion. Going around them is out of the question. You are cold, alone, and the only thing stopping you from completing this daily are those 4 level 50 mobs. Do you: A.) Spam general chat for another DPS, tank and a healer so you can clear these 4 Level 50 mobs. B.) Clear these 4 level 50 mobs and turn in your daily. Ok now to the secret. The premise of this thread is that if DPS run ahead of the tank and clear normal mobs, they are being jerks with control issues. I think the real problem are the tanks who believe that their role is so important to the success of the group that everyone should follow them for every single mob in the instance and that they are the only ones capable of handling the damage these mobs dish out. So who has the control issues? The tank who is demanding that the campaign geared DPS allow them to be the ones who pull every single mob in the instance even though that DPS can likely 1-2 shot every normal mob they come across, or the campaign geared DPS who would rather not wait 60 seconds after every single pull for the tanks to figure out how to handle the 4 normal mobs standing in their way? Before you answer - keep in mind that a few months back (before there was group finder when Rakata was still the gear to get), quite a few people were running HM FP's without tanks, using 3 dps and a healer, 3 dps and a tank, or 2 dps and 2 healers.

If you actually read his post, he starts out by saying that he has been trying to pug this for a few weeks now and has had no luck, for the following reasons: The guild he runs with believes it is too hard for melee, and since he is melee they will not take him. The pugs he gets put into bail on him because he is melee. Many of his friends and guildies experience the same bias because they are melee. Are you seeing the pattern here? That is the bulk of his complaint. He has no basis to say whether or not LI is too hard because he cannot get into a group because he is melee. See my previous posts if you want further explanation on what the problem he is suggesting needs fixing.

Once again - he isn't saying that it is "too hard", nor is he asking for a "nerf" to the boss. He is asking for a mechanics change so that when people see him join the party - they don't bail on him. While I agree that this is not a hard fight, even with melee in the group, it is laughably easy with 2 ranged and a healer. People are no longer interested in the gear that drops from LI when they pug this, they are interested in getting it done as quickly and as painlessly as possible so they can complete their weekly and get their Black Hole Comms. This poses a huge problem for melee who don't have a steady group to run with because having a melee complicates the fight exponentially.

Informing them of the tactics to do this with melee doesn't make much sense in this case. The issue is not the fact that melee "can't" complete this, because they can. The issue is the fact that because of the fight mechanics people would much rather not do it with a melee in the group because it complicates the tactic (the tank has to kite), so when this player uses the group finder to find a group and the group members realize they got "stuck" with a melee, they bail.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=437780 Completely agree.

I agree it is a good idea. But that has nothing to do with the fact that no one has made a suggestion about this in the suggestion box where devs actually go for suggestions.

12 pages of support - and yet noone has posted this in the Suggestion Box Forum (or a mod never moved it to the suggestion box forum) where the Dev's actually look for suggestions like this. Amazing.

I'd just like to point out the OP's forum handle is "doctor_atomic".

What kind of Hard Drive are you running SWTOR from? I noticed a huge difference when I swapped from my HDD to a SSD. Some people have even installed their game onto a flash drive and that showed improvement.

Your toon doesn't dematerialize. The cool thing about those speeders is that the speeder and the user dematerialize so that they do not collide with anything but the floor, ceiling and the walls.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=5031887&postcount=9 Again, as I posted in your other thread - you are skimping out on some important upgrades. A Solid State Drive will be better at improving your performance, especially in MMO's, then buying a 1tb HDD. If you change anything, change this. As I said in my other post, you can move your current HDD into the new system and use that for storage. MicroATX motherboards are bad for a couple of reasons. Imagine this - you are trying to put the huge video card you chose in your system, only to find out that the video card wont fit because the analog audio ports are blocking the video card's cooling system. If you listen to anything I have to say - heed these words and measure the clearance you are going to need to fit that 9.25" x 4.37" x 1.5" video card onto that MicroATX motherboard (or any other motherboard you are going to use). The other reason is MicroATX motherboards leave little to no room for future expansions. The CPU you chose should be fine - as this game really isn't all that CPU intensive (I ran this game just fine using medium settings using a 1.8 GHz AMD Phenom Quad Core). Video card - For AMD Video cards, you want to pay attention to 2 things and ignore the rest. 7970 is currently the best video card on the market - only issue is, it costs $1000 IF you can find it. So you have to ask yourself why the 7770 after rebate is only $119, and why the 6870 is $60 more but rated higher. AMD's number scheme works like this (quoted from wikipedia): With that said, buy the 6870 (if you are going AMD) or the 560 (If you choose Nvidia). Yeah you will spend $60 more - but you will thank yourself. The Power Supply you chose again is of too low wattage for serious gaming. If you are on a budget, go with a 600W - that should be plenty until you bump up to a quad core. However I recommend at least a 750W power supply. As for water cooling, unless you plan on overclocking your system - it is an unnecessary expense. You should only grab a water cooler if you plan on overclocking your CPU. Additionally it would help to know what kind of system you are currently using. You may not need a full computer overhaul. You may just need 1 or 2 of the items you linked in your OP.

http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/thread-528.html Instead of acting like I know the answer - Ill just post a link to people who do.

To answer your first question, yes and no. Let me explain the yes first. I have a level 50 sorcerer. I have been 50 for about 4 months. It took about 2 months at level 50 to find a good guild to run with. Once I did, we started doing hard mode ops (around April time frame). Took about 2 months to get fully Rakata geared. Since then just farming KP Nightmare and EC Story I am in almost full campaign level gear. The only 2 pieces I need are the Hilt from the campaign weapon, and the MK-2 Earpiece - we started HM EC this week, and we just got Zorn and Toth down. I didn't need on anything that dropped because they would have been downgrades. This brings up the No. There needs to be more incentive to do HM Ops. When you can get the majority of campaign level gear just by doing dailies, there is an issue. The Game That Won't Be Mentioned By Name figured this out with Wrath of the Lich King. Their end game content for that patch was gated. It took almost 8 weeks for the LK raid to even fully open up. Then you had to beat the LK to get into heroic mode, which dropped a new tier of gear only obtainable from doing that raid. SWTOR had it right when they did the whole Rakata drops only from HM Ops. They screwed the pooch though when they made Campaign gear the same thing as Rakata gear with Black Hole level mods/armoring/enhancements in them. Want Campaign gear? Farm for BH Comms and throw your BH mods/armoring/enhancements in your Rakata gear. It really cheapens the experience if you think about it.

Just like a normal tank, you (your pet) first needs a shield generator to utilize any shield or absorb rating. You (your pet) also needs to be in a tanking stance for the shield generator to be active.

Micro ATX motherboards leave very little room for expansion. If you don't plan on expanding - the one you chose is fine, otherwise get a normal ATX motherboard. I am an AMD Fanboy, but the Intel is going to be the better choice. The motherboard you chose supports up to 16GB's of memory, and Windows 7 Home Premium supports up to 16gb of memory - Memory is not something you want to skimp out on for gaming, get 16gb (2x8gb or 4x4gb if you get a bigger mobo). If you already have a large hard drive ( > 500gb) skip buying this unless you are in desperate need of storage space. You are better off buying a small SSD (128gb) and reformatting your old hard drive for storage purposes. I'm guessing your old computer already has a similar DVD drive - if so rip it out and throw it in your new case. If you still have your old windows install disk and its Vista/Win7 64bit, stick with that for another 2 months (install it on your new system) until Windows 8 comes out. They are giving upgrades to pretty much everyone to windows 8 for $39. Another piece you shouldn't skimp out on. For gaming graphics/computing you want at least a 750w Power supply. The only real issues I see is with the choice of motherboard (too small and no room for expansion), choice of memory, and choice of power supply. Lets face it, as a gamer you are going to be constantly be looking for ways to improve your performance - if not for this game, then for a game you plan on playing in the future. If you were to be patient and save up another $400 for real upgrades instead of side-grades you could build a PC like mine for just over $1000. Processor: Intel 3770k quad core (3.8GHz - 3.9GHz turbo) $340 Motherboard: $135 Case: Antec Nine Hundred, great for cooling $99 SSD: Samsung 830 128gb SSD $120 - This is to install your windows and games on too - everything else can be stored on a normal hard drive SSD Mounting Kit - either industrial strength velcro for $1.37, or 3.5" to 2.5" drive bay converter for $4.99. (Trust me the velcro holds just fine). Memory: Corsair 16gb DDR3 12800 Memory $90 750w Power Supply - Dealers choice, $80-150. Keep in mind if you plan on doing Crossfire/SLI in the near future grab one that is made for that purpose. Video Card:Asus GTX 560 $180 - Better or equivalent benchmark scores then the 6870 on most games, and for an extra $40 that really isn't a bad deal even on a budget. Total cost: $1089. Windows 7 64bit experience index = 7.7/7.9 Keep in mind I ripped my old hard drive and DVD drive out of my old computer and threw it into this one, and I already had a copy of windows 7 64 bit I could install, so I saved a few bucks there. But this computer will last me for at least another 4 years. Here is what I upgraded from, this lasted me 4 years: HP Pavilion a6763w

I have been looking for weeks to find a spreadsheet that would simply give me actual in game values for defense/shield/absorb%. Every sheet I looked at gave me different values then what appeared in my character tab in game. So what I attempted to do was use the formulas from mmo-mechanics.com and plug those in using my in game stats. I had to tweak the formulas a bit, but I think I did it. I need some help testing this from classes other then assassins which is why I am here. I am asking people to take the values from their in game stats, and plug them into this spreadsheet and let me know if the values match what shows up on their character tab. Please make a copy of the sheet before you plug your values in though. I have the spreadsheet backed up, however I would like to get an actual test on this spreadsheet without someone screwing up the formulas. Here is a link to the spreadsheet, the instructions are very basic, so if you run into any problems please post here so I can fix them or clarify what value is needed in each field. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApnGXQncQ8TAdElLNDNKazJnd2ZGWTFPSERuV2lPb0E#gid=0

I understand your frustration, however there is something you need to realize as well. Those bonus bosses you desperately need gear from are rarely ever done. When they are done, you have about a 50/50 chance of wiping on that boss because of the fact that so many people have gotten used to skipping them that they don't know the fights. Another thing you should realize is that some bonus bosses (check HM BT) are a pain in the backside for a new tank to try out. Add to that the fact that what they drop isn't usually worth the hassle and you will see what I mean. As for the other bosses that are skippable, just don't skip em. While the dps is busy fighting the mob before the boss, run ahead and pull it (just make sure your healer knows what you are planning). Just make sure you know how the fight mechanics work if you plan on pulling a boss you haven't tanked yet. As far as people running ahead and letting you die, there is an easy way to handle that. Let them go ahead of you. Don't fret if they call you a bad tank, because lets face it - comparatively you ARE a bad tank (keep reading, that isn't meant as an insult). Its not that you don't know what buttons to press, but your gear level is so much lower then theirs trying to hold aggro off of them on trash is going to be next to impossible until you improve your gear. Don't base your tanking skill on trash pulls - base it on boss fights. If those same people are pulling aggro from you during a boss fight, and you have them guarded, then you are likely doing something wrong. Some bosses have aggro drops (first boss in BP, Last boss in Foundry) but as long as you are holding aggro the majority of the time and not having to spam taunt on CD and not getting tore up like a clothie you really have nothing to worry about. If a campaign geared DPS thinks its cool to call a tank in tionese or less gear a bad tank then that person is no better then a senior in HS bullying on a freshman.