Every time you level up, most of your main attributes increase a little on their own and this has nothing to do with gear. Even if your character or companion is naked, most of your main attributes will increase a little every time you level up. This is just one way your stats increase. The other way is through gear. Understand that gear is the predominant way to raise your stats in this game. Even though most of your attributes automatically increase a little every time you level up, by itself it's not enough to keep your characters and companions competitive. You still must fully equip your characters and companions with armor and weaponry, and you must upgrade their gear and modifications on a continual basis.

I would like to suggest an option for us to disable the forum private messenger in order to prevent receiving private messages from general forum members. This option should not work against the forum moderators and admins, of course.

In case you inadvertently disabled sound, execute CTRL+S to enable sound in the game.

Wait a minute. Disabling your firewall, even temporarily, is not a good idea at all for internet security. I recommend you review the directions below, re-enable your firewall, then open the ports listed in your router firewall and your software firewall. Source: http://www.swtor.com/support/helpcenter/2010

Pause the download, wait 30 to 60 seconds, then resume it. This may or may not work for you.

So I take it you have a laptop with NVIDIA graphics. The NVIDIA Optimus feature switches between integrated and dedicated. First, make sure you have the latest Nvidia graphics driver installed. Then go into the NVIDIA control panel, manage 3D settings, and set swtor.exe to "High-performance NVIDIA processor" or something like that.

That blaster is fully modifiable, even though it's not orange. Unless you really would rather part with it, you could modify it forever. You could also give it to one of your companions who could use it, or you could just get rid of it. Your decision.

As a start, I recommend the forum sticky Flashpoints - A Guide for New Players. I noticed a couple paragraphs that cover being an aggro magnet.

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=35

Are your drivers all up to date, especially your video driver? Have you tried restarting the game client? Have you tried rebooting your computer? Does your computer truly meet or exceed the game's system requirements?

I regret that I don't have a good answer for you. Hopefully, someone else will.

Interesting. Come to think of it, there were multiple beta groups on multiple servers, and the groups had their own separate beta forums.

It was 2 for 1 in beta.

At the bare minimum, all you need is a broadband connection. Any internet service that is faster than dial-up is considered broadband. Cable, DSL, and satellite are all broadband internet services. Even the lowest speed tier of DSL should be enough. If you are experiencing latency issues, I suggest that you report this to your internet service provider and find out what they can do for you. On the other hand, lag is more likely attributed to running the game on an older computer that doesn't meet or exceed the game's system requirements.

I added the following question and answer to the OP: