Read carefully. I said the opposite. A tiny ultra-portable laptop ran the game better than machines with videocards that were "meant for gaming". But that's another story - I'm just mentioning my past frustrations and I know many people are experiencing similar difficulties. And this is not an advise "Go and buy an Air cause it can run SWTOR!". It's just a reference for those who are wondering if that model can run the game. Those who plan to build a new machine for playing SWTOR might decide to try (at least initially) skipping the purchase of an expensive videocard. Getting an IvyBridge CPU for desktops could prove to be enough for players who don't want to spend much. The HD 4000 is built into the CPU.

So I grew tired of the poor game engine performance and gave up 2 weeks ago, but got a new MacBook Air, decided to test the game on it, and here's a short feedback for those interested... It runs quite well. Absolutely playable and enjoyable in single player (medium settings with turned off bloom). Somewhat playable in warzones. I only tried HutBall and Alderaan, and it ran 25-40 fps on average most of the time. Unstable and inconsistent performance, but due to the fact it rarely dropped below 20 fps, it wasn't that bad. Technical details: MacBook Air 13'' (the base model with i5 1.8 IvyBridge, 4GB RAM, Intel HD 4000). Windows 7 64bit Home Premium (via BootCamp) with Service Pack 1 (but without the updates from the last year - I was in a hurry to test...). Native 1440x900 resolution, low-medium graphic settings. Drivers - those provided by Apple BootCamp. Haven't updated anything on my own. The Intel HD 4000 seems to be surprisingly capable - the ingame fps meter was green most of the time (meaning the game was CPU bound on the Air). You can play the singleplayer part of the game on Medium without much slowdowns. No graphic glitches or bugs. I also cleaned up Windows from unnecessary processes, Aero effects and everything else as outlined in one of the threads around. Hope this would help some more of you guys enjoy the game till BioWare decide to improve the engine.

I agree with this analysis. With the little note that I like factions in MMO's and the setting of a global conflict. The 'WoW recipe' has failed (more or less) for all that tried it. Except for Blizzard, of course. Trying to beat the champion at his own game is a solid premise for a failure. Just like in real life. Even if you pretend that you are not competing with him, you are put next to him, compared to him. If you are fat, slow, unfit guy, you don't go on the ring versus Vladimir Klitschko (just a random example). You don't even try to pose next to him. Of course, you are equally as awesome as he is, but in A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE. Ignore this common sense, and you will end up beaten, humiliated, laughed at.

What you and the other folks are describing is single-player RPG experience. SWTOR is sold as a MMORPG. With monthly fees.

I'm a rather new (1.5 month) player and I initially wanted to play on a RP-PvP server. But Lord Calypho didn't look a stable 'investment' at the time. I think they should allow transfer TO Lord Calypho, instead of trying to kill it. Removing the only RP-PVP EU server doesn't make any sense, really. I'm still willing to roll on it in hope to find a better environment for my gaming needs. PS: BioWare doesn't know the audience of their game. PS2: Sorry, but this is a marketing fail.

Ok, let me add my voice to the topic: My server (The Red Eclipse - EU) is seriously overloaded! I need to wait in queues in the evenings, and I 'enjoy' 10-20 FPS since the invasion... pardon, transfer. It was so bad, I rolled an alt on The Progenitor (another EU server) for a relief. Was considerably better. Today I got back and tried a warzone.... Holy ****! I can barely rotate the camera/look around. And I wait 1.5-2 seconds to see the effect of the keys I press. Please make it playable.

Female. I just find male models somewhat dumb-looking in this game.

It is supposed to be hard. Otherwise everyone would have 4 War Hero characters. War heroes would make 2/3 of the server population. Where's the point? It should take time and efforts to develop a character. If you are mainly after competitive PvP, you'd be better playing BattleField 3 or CoD. RPG's are about character development. PS: I'm not a SWTOR advocate, you can see me around bashing it quite often. PS2: The Secret World? I'm not buying a Funcom game, sorry.

Surprisingly, it bumped up my settings to Medium. And I was on a low-end, 4-year old machine - Core2Duo + 9600GT. Even more surprisingly, I didn't gain any FPS when I toned the settings back down. I get slightly more FPS on fleet now. Warzone performance is the same, and maybe even slightly worse. The most important part of this update for me was the noted 'performance optimization', especially in PvP. I understand I'm using a relatively old CPU, but still it's dual-core and 3.2 GHz (overclocked). I am supposed to get something more that 20 FPS while PvP-ing....

First, your videocard is somewhat sufficient and you can postpone upgrading it. I have 9600GT and I'm playing on Medium with FPS above 30-40 everywhere except in warzones and fleet. You need to add at least 2 GB of RAM more. And a new processor, together with a new motherboard I guess. This game is extremely CPU-intensive and I'm sure your processor is the main reason for these FPS issues. For comparison - I'm using an oldish 2.4 Ghz Core2Duo. It's somewhat playable, but in warzones it drops to 10-15 fps. Then I overclocked that same CPU to 3.2+ GHZ and got ~10 more fps in warzones, while making the open world experience even more fluid.

I doubt it would go up. There isn't much of the 'second chance' factor, especially when a monthly fee is involved. The game has some fundamental game design and technical issues, that are bottleneck-ing its potential. I expect it would become just a niche MMO, played by a couple of hundreds of thousands die-hard SW fans. Pretty much similar to LOTRO, or (most probably) bit worse. I'd love to see the game overcoming its major problems and expanding. I really like some aspects of it. But I'll probably leave as soon as I spot a real MMO alternative. You know, stuff like open world without too much instancing, world PvP, exploration, faction-based drama, less e-peen-controlled immature brains, ....

Assassins have much.. MUCH cooler armor. And effects.

We are discussing value here, not if it's expensive or not. Technically SWTOR is a dumbed down over-linear RPG with some emulated MMO elements. If the initial $60 price is reasonable for an above-average single-player RPG (which SWTOR is not), the $15/month isn't exactly justified. The monthly fee is supposed to ensure access to a unique and huge game world, plus unlimited and complex interaction with other players. And constant flow of new game content. But we don't have a huge, open, or worthy to explore world here. The game engine can barely support 15-20 players at once. The new game content is scarce and 'more of the same' type. SWTOR is a decent game for a month or two. But spending money for it on a monthly basis brings some heavy 'diminishing returns'.

This is an awesome initiative. I've noticed the Republic players play PvP fanatically, 'with heart'. At least this is the case on my server. It's not important to be good at PvP. The only 'requirement's is to actually enjoy it. SWTOR needs new players, not some elite-pro-imba-sauce WoW Arena stars.

I rolled a Marauder a week ago, mainly to check what's so awesome about them. Now she's in her 20's and the warzone experience so far has been a blast. In short: it's a killing machine. As it was a new char, I was playing quite clumsy the first 7-10 warzones. I was finding it hard to chase the target, react to everything he does to get rid of me, observe my rage pool, and do a decent dps 'rotation'. At some point I realized I was just staring at my target and frenetically pressing nearly all attack keys in more or less RANDOM sequence... And guess what - it proved to be OK. I was still murdering people and had the feeling I'm a competitive PvP player. Things I didn't like - almost zero CC, you are forced into tunnel-vision mode. But aside from that, whatever stays in your melee range for more than ~10 secs, is basically dead. With the exception of tanks using their defensive CD's and some healers, of course. And I have a Sorcerer alt around the same lvl. I can't win 1x1 against a Marauder/Sentinel. I can piss them off and delay the inevitable, but if I don't get help, I'm toast. Still, I do at least equal contribution to my team's efforts, if not even more. The challenge is to stay alive. These are early-mid lvl impressions, of course. Things look kinda balanced warzone-wide. And totally unbalanced 1 vs 1.

Would you provide a link? Can't find such thing.

Macros should improve "quality of life". That's all. There are quite a few keys that need pressing during pvp - even more than what we had to deal with in WoW. Having options is nice and the need of taking fast decisions would eventually separate good from bad players, but this isn't the point. It's called 'Weakly Designed Interface'. I'm playing a game, not writing programming code. It adds an additional layer of 'gear dependence'. Whoever has more buttons on his mouse, wins.

Don't try to bite off more than you can swallow, boy. Anyone can do in the game whatever he wants. He is paying to play the game. Who are you to classify people and tell them what to do?

I don't find the Republic cool enough. Simple as that. Initially my plan was to play on the Republic side, because I don't like to follow crowds. But I couldn't force myself....

I expect that even some cosmetic-only improvements would have great effect. Here are just two areas that simply aren't on par with their Imperial analogs: Gear Skins. Class Ships (the Defender looks bland, the rest are actually ok). I see your designers have been having great fun creating the Imperial side, but the Republic deserves some love too . Reason: I am an Imperial player. I don't like fighting fellow Imperials in warzones - it ruins my immersion. I want to interact with the Republic more. Make it more appealing, please. As I said - cosmetic improvements should be enough. Kids like cool stuff. Me too.

This. Plus I enjoy meeting the same opponents. Competition, hatred, and drama is built this way. Which results in a better community. PvP should bring satisfaction beyond the simple joy of killing other players.

I like Void Star . I think it's my favorite warzone. It's original, the environment is awesome, the fights are wonderfully chaotic, you can kick people off bridges, ...

I sign under this. Just look at their abilities list. Tons of defensive options. They don't need a tanking tree - they are 'born' tanks. I'm wondering why the developers didn't give them healing skills as well...

What 50% damage reduction? Care to get informed before throwing cents around?

If I was born after, say 1987, I'd think Star Wars is some kind of a lol-fail-sci-fi-with-lame-looking-aliens franchise. Because the last 3 films were... hmmm.. unimpressive. And the magic of the original ones is hard to appreciate fully after 30+ years. So the average gamer under 25 doesn't give a **** about Star Wars. He just logs, "ZOMG WoW with pew pew lazors and enchanted swords! Teh win!".... A month later, he starts to scratch his head and ask "Where are teh raidz? And the epix lewt?!? And why no Arenas? This game sux, there are no pandas, /ragequit". Plus, for most adults above 25, paying $15/month is not as big deal as it is for a student. Even if it's for a single-player RPG with some MMO elements...