Security keys are sold for less than the cost to produce and ship. Even getting the free one on android still requires them paying for a license through the company that developed the feature and to some of the app stores (apple is $100/year, not expensive for a big company but still makes each key app cost more than you paid for it). What BW gets for people buying/dling security keys is less overhead paying to investigate and fix "hacked"accounts and taking the CS people away from other issues. It also means they can spend more money on enhancement than fixing stuff because some idiot clicked a link he/she wasn't supposed to and got their account jacked. You should be rewarded for being smart with your account and a cheap 1 hour cooldown fleet pass is a great one. Keep it on the security vendors and keep it away from the people too lazy to enter an 8 digit key when logging in.

While true an SSD will make load times a bit faster I dont think the price is worth the increase. You'll be paying at minimum $120 for a decent drive that has just enough space (60 gigs) to fit TOR only with a few other things thrown in. For that same amount you can get a 1TB platter drive and store all kinds of stuff. I have a basic platter drive and my worst loading times are still under 1 minute. Yes if you planet hop a lot this can get annoying but if you do minor loading (warzones and/or following regular quest progression) it should be plenty quick. Double check your hard drive speed too, if you have a "green" those typically run around 5400 RPM, slower drives like laptop drives run around 4800RPM. Get a 7200+ RPM drive with a decent interface (SATA3G/s or SATA6G/s) and all should be well.

The only thing that should be added is a personal combat log to see what damage you did and what you did to others with very few extra info (near by deaths would be nice as well).

My comp cost less than $600 in parts (I saved by having a case and power supply) and I run warzones over 60fps with no spikes so people seem to be having isolated issues. I've even seen complaints of people using near identical hardware as mine having issues while mine doesn't have any. That seems to debunk the myth that BW is 100% responsible for the terrible performance some are having. On another note I've also seen people with poor system specs not having any issues as well so again...it seems to be caused by other factors.

My shadows look like a shadow should. They look like a projected silhouette on the ground and look great. Double check your settings or maybe your hardware doesn't support them as well as newer hardware.

When I read that I see two completely different questions. I can't tell if you're asking if people have issues with others using some sort of external voice chat, or, If you're asking if people are having technical issues with their voice chat of choice. As for the first interpretation, its 2012, it is also much more convenient and fun to actually talk to people than type. As for the second interpretation, I've heard of issues using the PTT keys if you're not on an admin account else you should run the program as an admin to bypass this. I've also had some slight interferences with using it tho I wouldn't really call them issues. The mouse button I use tends to register in the game as a click so I have to watch where my cursor is when I use it else I could click and drag something, change targets, or if I hit it too many times accidentally buy something. Also, that pesky UI locking bug I think is caused by clicking and dragging certain things because it seems to happen significantly more often when I'm chatting in vent/ts vs when I'm not.

I'm all for having your own meters, but, when they're used by others to define you as a player exclusively by the number on it, then it is stupid. There are many other metrics for a good player besides how much dps they can do, most of which could be determined with a combat log (which I also support to an extent). If a group wide meter were available people couldn't ignore it if they wanted to as there would be no way to opt out. Even if there were a "don't share my dps" option you'd be left out just for using it. People DO and WILL brand you with a dps number if allowed and it does lead to extensive unnecessary persecution of players. As I stated before, you don't need to be at max dps to be able to effectively (and in many cases easily) conquer an encounter. People argue that a person is responsible for being elitist. Maybe so but many people don't act that way because they don't have a reason they can use. If you allow meters you give them a reason albeit a false one to judge because they don't look at the bigger picture.

Meters help you steamroll content. Rarely do you need absolute max DPS to complete content. If you want ezboringmode then here: U-U-D-D-L-R-L-R-B-A. If you want to enjoy yourself and have people that play how they want instead of what squeezes every drop of damage from their player, then bring players based on their actual skill not a number in a box.

People should be judged by how good they are. High DPS does not mean you're good. I've made this point in a bunch of similar threads that a person taking massive unnecessary damage standing in AOEs to boost his DPS is worse for the group than one with less DPS and pays attention and does things correctly. Also, a boss that requires an average of 10k DPS per person shouldn't mean you leave everyone out except those pulling 20k dps. The only argument I've seen for them is so they can determine a persons worth via a number on a meter which is exactly the elitist attitude those against are talking about. Measure a player by their overall contribution to the fight. Spec, gear, and output are only relevant to a point so stop treating them like that is the only thing that matters. If you see someone being bad or cant keep up, get rid of them, you don't need a meter to tell you that. only carry so much weight. No person against (well very few) will reject the idea of personal logs or even meters for your own fine tuning. But using it to unfairly judge people is ridiculous.

Actually kind sir (or ma'am) I do understand what I'm talking about very well as I am a programmer by trade so I have to understand things in detail like this. Just because you are having issues doesn't mean the game is broken. I'm glad you've narrowed down that yours isn't due to network related issues. That doesn't mean that others' experience won't be the same (it won't). My system is reasonably comparable to yours and as I stated I have 0 issues. Sometimes you have other external issues that affect things as well. For example: I remember back when playing wow and running multiple clients at once. There was an odd frame rate drop when I minimized one client and had another in focus. When I had one behind another (both maximized) the frame rate would jump back up. As you can tell it doesn't make much sense that merely minimizing one of the clients lead to a significant drop in FPS is kind of odd. As another example closer to yours, I remember playing age of conan where dropping everything to low was actually worse for performance than having them high. As a matter of fact even the best machines got the best FPS out of maxing everything and turning shadows off. Another odd occurrence.

I have a mid-high spec computer (intel i5 2500k, AMD HD6870, 8 gigs ram) and I average around 100fps.I do drop noticeably in the fleet but even then it is still not an annoying drop. People need to understand that in games like this there are 2 types of video lag. You have the normal type where your video card has process a lot and cant keep up with the demand. There is also network video lag. This is caused when you move your character and new models come into view, or their presence noted to your character (even if you can see them or not). This causes the game to have to go fetch and render all the armor pieces for the new models. Once they're loaded and cached on your end, if you see them again in the near future you wont experience the lag caused by it. Because this type relies on getting the model information sent to you from the server, this is a case where a slow and/or high latency internet connection can actually affect your FPS. I remember using the second type of lag as an advantage in DAoC. When you were running around when you felt a little jerk you could tell by the magnitude of the "chug" how big a group you were about to encounter.

My first major multi year subbed MMO was Dark Age of Camelot. It still remains my favorite gaming experience after not having played in many years. In it you had 8 man groups, that was it. Some buffs had 10 minute durations, others were permanent such that you or the buffer didn't die and the buffer could only cast so many of a certain power before he wasn't allowed to cast anymore. There were very very few end game pve encounters and each took a multitude of groups to take down with no "raid group" ability. Loot dropped and was lootable by the last group that had aggro before it died. Did I mention there was no real taunt so it took skill for all to play (tank to keep aggro, dps/heals not to pull)? You found places by looking at a plain non interactive map and using a compass (yep a compass). You ran everywhere or took a horse (taxi). End game was 99.9% pvp with 3 factions trying to control the frontier by taking keeps and relics(gave bonuses to the faction that controlled it). Some battles involved an epic 3 way, 1000 player (not a typo) brawls that would go on for long periods of time with people being rezzed and/or running back into the carnage. Venturing out alone was almost a guarantee death sentence. EA has a lot of old Mythic members in its staff and even working on this game, I hope they take some of that and fold it into this game. People played UO, EQ, and DAoC because they were a lot of fun and a challenge. People played wow because everyone else was playing wow and had a little bit of fun.

You're right you do have a right to criticism. Except for the fact that criticism is an opinion. Saying something "IS" is not criticism. Saying you THINK something IS is criticism. Ex: Not Criticism: "The game is bad" Criticism: "I think the game is bad" or "I don't like the game" Unless you stat it as an opinion then you are stating it as fact when it is not a fact. Al Franken said it best: "You're entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts"

I have seen some bugs. Some have even been annoying. Despite all this I am having some of the most fun I've ever had playing an MMO and plan to keep playing. I love the mechanics, the stories, the resource systems (BH ftw), the worlds, the people (so far in an awesome guild), etc. To answer the question, the people who say it's bad are generally impatient, uptight, and bad themselves. That or they left wow to play some more wow with lightsabers and found out this isn't it so try and get everyone to think the game is terrible because they have issues with it.

It's tomorrow. I can has response now?