Subject line says it. I played last night with no issue. I've tried closing & reopening the launcher. I've tried letting it be for 90 minutes to see if it would get past whatever it was stuck on. I've rebooted by PC a couple times. I've redownloaded/reinstalled the launcher. All to no avail.

Selected Marauder and got package with offhand weapon but, cannot equip it. I've leveled past 10, trained Mara skills, etc. but, cannot equip the weapon. Says "Slot full". Please fix!

What's the budget? A laptop you consider for any type of even moderately serious gaming, even if only occasionally, needs to have a discrete graphics card. That alone tends to take you from the sub $600 side of the market and push you to the $850 or more level in most cases. Despite what some naysayers will allege, things like "Laptops are meant for gaming", generally the only trade off between a gaming laptop and a gaming PC is price and screen size. And the latter is a non-issue if you have a monitor to plug it into. While not exactly precise, expect to pay roughly 1/2 again as much for an equivalent laptop. That gap narrows a bit at the lower end and jumps a bit at the higher end. My favorite brand for my last two laptops that I can game on is Sager. They're not the cheapest but, also not overpriced like Alienware tends to be. My current one is a little over two years old and still does decent with most games though it's starting to show it's age a bit if I try to play the very latest titles. Current Sager at a decent price (imo) for $960: http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_customed&model_name=NP6652 2gb nVidia 750m graphics card 8gb ram 4th gen Intel Core i5 750gb hdd Full HD display Full keyboard with true number pad on right side (many 15" laptops skimp on this) You'll find similar pricing at sites like cyberpowerpc.com and ibuypower.com. You could also look to a local store like a Best Buy as they do carry some as well. Again, similar pricing: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/15-6-laptop-8gb-memory-750gb-memory/1709307.p?id=1219060817495&skuId=1709307&st=pcmcat287600050003_categoryid$abcat0502000&cp=1&lp=6 Now, you can probably play SW:TOR on an integrated graphics chipset laptop but, you would want to be sure it's the latest generation AND be sure of how much of the system memory you can allocate to it and make sure there's enough. On my 2+yo laptop (nVidia GTX 460m with 1.5gb of it's own memory) I can get 30+fps on medium settings in all but the highest congested areas. And here's a link to a site that's compiled a lot of benchmark results for mobile graphics cards and chipsets. The individual card descriptions at the bottom of them have listings of games with FPS at different settings. The list of games is not the same for each card BUT, should give you an idea of a particular card or chipsets capabilities. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.130.0.html Some games they approximate based on cards with similar stats and/or where other games measure up roughly the same. Such is the case with their listing of SW:TOR for the Intel HD 4400 integrated chipset. They approximate you might be able to get 30 at low settings with it. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4400.91979.0.html Good luck and happy shopping!

Considering Blizzard boasted around 12m subs for WoW at one point, to slide to 7.6m is roughly a 37% slippage. In April-June of 2013 they lost 600,000 subs. http://www.maximumpc.com/world_warcraft_subscribers_plummet_77_million_players_2013 If TOR lost that amount in three months it most likely would be closed. Your post seems to be targeted at the "haters" ie. not game industry analysts, not former developers or project leads, not insiders in the industry, just the common folk whose opinions vary as greatly as the types of fish in the ocean. Reading someone posting, "This game sucks and will die in 6 months" or "This is expansion is stupid and will kill this game in 3 months" yada yada yada is akin to reading a movie review in your local rag paper claiming, usually in overly pretentious tones, that the film is a waste of time while seemingly strangely enough, you go and have a wonderful time watching it. Or in short, the only thing your post amounts to is an "I told you" statement. So umm, you feeling better now that you got it out of your system?

I would counter by saying that unless they're trying to show a loss for some other obscure reason, these large publishers aren't going out of there way to drive a game into the dirt as they would rather keep squeezing out profits from something that is developed rather than invest in new development and risk people not jumping on board. However, you are correct that to a company like EA, it is most certainly about profits. Then again, unless your a charitable organization, you are in business to make a profit. They care about you only so far as they hope you keep paying into their bottom line. And aside from data mining the demographics to see where their current market is as well as what markets may be opportunities for growth, they don't care whether you're male or female, college educated or a high school drop out, making $100,000/yr or $10,000/yr, if you're physically or mentally handicapped in some fashion or otherwise healthy, married or single, etc etc etc. Again, they only care so far as what your contributing data point depicts on existing and future sales. And you may think it's cold, uncaring, or whatever other adjective you like but, they're in the business of publishing games and making money from that. Period. End of list. I would wager it won't be the exact moment there's a negative but, a relatively short term of losing funds. Patching an MMO with some new content or features is still cheaper than developing a new game from scratch. So I would expect a relatively short term of 3-6mo of desperation attempts when the crap really hits the fan to see if they can turn it around. But, if they can't then yes, the plug will get pulled. As it should. They're not the government. And as entitled as you may want to think you are, you're not deserving of any handouts from them. So many good games? Hmmm, let's get back to you on that in the next 1-2 years. The crowd funding phenomenon is fairly short lived so far. Granted there are several good ideas that are seeing substantial funding and moving forward with development whether it's a MMO like Star Citizen or other type of game like Carmageddon: Reincarnation. But to say these are "good" games before they launch is like saying Age of Conan is going to be a great game 3 months before it launched. Yeah ... ummm ... not so much. So a few good games that were crowd sourced may have come out but, any game developed is going to be subject to the same rule that always has existed for games ... does the product live up to the hype enough to make it a popular title, or will it tank because of it.

While one could debate how niche a market flight sims are in regards to all entertainment titles sold on the PC, they are still a genre that's been around for quite sometime a routinely see new titles released. And pretty much every single one of them, if they wish to be treated as a serious entry in that genre, allow at least use of a joystick if not outright additional flight controllers (ie. separate throttle, pedals, etc.) And they're usually not cheap, at least many of the well regarded ones. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=899675&is=REG&A=details&Q=

Umm, why does/should EVERY other single player have to play by YOUR definition of fair loot rules. Regardless of what I, you or anyone else on these forums or in-game feels about what is fair for rolling on loot, YOU do not get to make the law for every other person playing this game. Seriously, just get over yourself (or yourselves for anyone agreeing with that stance.) People, it's really simple. Somewhere in your UI is a thing called a chat window. In that window you can, oh I don't know ... that thing that people do while swerving all over the road ... oh yeah, type text to one another. You know ... C O M M U N I C A T E. At the beginning of the run, if nobody in the group asks or states what the intended loot rules are then it is on YOU for assuming everyone else is in agreement with your definition of fair. And if that proves false then when you want to start pointing that finger of blame, start by looking in the mirror. You had the opportunity to raise the question or make the assertion that XYZ is how the group should roll on loot. If everyone is in agreement and somebody makes a mistake warn them. If it appears blatant, kick them or drop group and move on. There is no 100% agreement on what is fair with regards to rolling Need or Greed. If you honestly think there is then you haven't read enough loot threads across the multitudes of MMOs. This discussion is nothing new and has been going on for a decade or more. SSDG (Same **** Different Game) And somebody rolling Need throughout an entire run is no more breaking the rules of the game, as defined by the developers and software, than it is to roll Greed or Pass the whole way through a run. Anything beyond what the developers have designed via the software is your own arbitrary set of rules. And if you're unwilling to communicate them to those you are grouped with then when you throw yourself that pity party because someone rolled need and won for their companion on something that you could have equipped yourself, realize the only one who gives a dang about it is you.

Depends on the design of the game. But, you're right to a point in that in SW:TOR, your ship is essentially your "house". I'm not a fan of developers putting in housing to simply way "we have player housing!". But, if they give it a bit more meaning then a way to play SIMs in whatever IP the MMO is based on, then I'm good with it. It was one of the few things (IMO) that SOE got right with SWG. The things you could decorate your home with were mostly craftable so it helped drive the player economy. It also provided means for increased storage for players. You also could train in Merchant skill which in turn would allow you to setup a vendor droid in your house turning it into your "shop" which you didn't have to personally man. The player cities also provided convenience of amenities. So there was a fair amount of design choices that made it something quite a bit more than an instanced apartment that nobody else would see. The current planet design in SW:TOR really doesn't cater to that idea unless they were simply going to add housing zones outside of the quest areas. So that leaves the far more likely idea of instanced apartments in major cities like Coruscant, Nar Shadda, etc. Not sure what purposes beyond what you can currently do within your ship they will provide though. *shrug*

Not really. Do what Blizzard did AND take it the step further of closing off combat data from access in the API provided for the modders to use. It seems a great many people have the misconception that a game allowing for addons means EVERYTHING will be allowed. With the right implementation that simply isn't the case. As I previously posted, Blizzard got the concept right. Whether you're a fan or a hater of what is capable with their addons has only to do with what Blizzard continually chooses to expose as available data, and not how their addon system itself works.

Value is in the mind of the player. Personally, subbing is far more a convenient model for me and I judge the value of it against the time spent in game a month. Even if I only averaged a half-hour a day it would come down to a dollar an hour ... not a lot cheaper entertainment out there than that. And I tend to play more along the lines of 15hrs/week rather than 15 in an entire month. As for getting anything decent ... I've unlocked extra char slots, a yellow endurance crystal, 2nd cargo hold, extra inventory row, and the mailbox and vendor on my ship, account wide. Aside from maybe getting the GTN kiosk on my ship, that's largely the extent of what I'll be getting off from the Cartel Market. Because to me, all the fluff items, armor, speeders/mounts, etc. don't do anything for my gaming experience. I understand for some that the vanity items are things they crave. To each their own. But to say there's nothing decent unless you save up months of coins is pure opinion on your behalf.

Yes and no. Blizzard has the right concept but far from a perfect implementation, at least in my opinion. By concept I mean the idea that what the creators of the addons have access to is essentially an API that Blizzard strictly controls what data elements are usable. This is what enables Blizzard to "break" addons by making slight tweaks to the API if they determine any addon goes beyond the scope of what they intended. Where they screwed up, again in my opinion, is making so much combat data accessible. Again, keep in mind that they control what data points are accessible. So all those boss timers, damage meters, healbots, etc. are all doable because Blizzard chooses to allow it to be. So, if Bioware were to take the same conceptual idea and severely limit, or outright omit, access to combat data, what would be left would be data elements usable for QoL addons. That scenario, to me, would be a good thing. That would allow more rapid additions of things the players would find useful while at the same time, eliminate all the "if you want to raid with us then you need to have X,Y & Z installed" BS. Personally I would LOVE to see a SW:TOR version of the addon, Altoholic. Being able to see with a couple clicks what any of your other characters have equipped, in their inventory, bank, guild bank, skills, quest log, crafting recipes/schematics, etc etc. is quite useful ... if you're an altoholic. The one feature I would add to it, that would be specific to SW:TOR, would be to allow us to send other alts' companions out on their crafting missions.

Wildstar, TESO and Star Citizen. And I typically am a 1 MMO at a time player so hopefully the release dates for those three are staggered at least 6mo apart. I'm also not a "roots" person in so much that I don't feel so embedded in any one MMO that I can't simply pick up and move on to another. Some people look at the hundreds of hours they have invested in a character or characters in one MMO and can't themselves walking away to start new in a different game. Me, I simply view those hours through the perspective of if I had fun while doing it then the time wasn't wasted, regardless if the game closes down or I voluntarily move on to something new. The biggest thing I like about SW:TOR is the character and companion story lines coupled with the questing. And so when i do go off to play something else, should I see notices that Bioware has expanded on the stories, I may come back to check them out.

They will because ... ??? That's a rather large sense of puffed up self importance you have going on there. You really think your words carry that much weight around here? Please refer to my previous statement then. Why would he directly respond to you? You, that has shown no sense of understanding what goes on under the hood of these games and to believe it is fact that a group of interns could easily port this game to a new engine. Your a single person among 10s of thousands who recently has done more simply to attack EA then to offer any amount of true constructive criticism. That's pretty funny. You provide these target-rich posts/rants and then expect people not to call you on it? Especially when your posts overflow with self serving arrogance? Interesting choice of words. Does the buck stopping actually mean you're dumping your sub or dumping the EA stock you own? You've shown a strong lack of conviction and willpower in previous threads with regards to doing that. Given the nature of your previous threads and how much you rail against Bioware/EA were I them, I send that letter out to be tested prior to opening it. So your mind is limited BECAUSE of the names people on these forums have called you? That's pretty much an admission to being weak minded. As for your resolve, that's highly suspect given how contradictory you are between railing so hard against the company while at the same time funding them and/or owning their stock. But, I'm sure your final letter will be an interesting read filled with all sorts of facts (ie. your personal opinions), baseless allegations and presumptions of how easy/simple some things are to do.

I'm mostly just checking out class/companion stories now. I played TOR since beta for almost a year then took a break from any MMOs for a bit. Played through some single player stuff that had been collecting virtual dust in my Steam library and now I'm back as a subscriber to finish story lines I didn't complete while I wait for three games to come out, Elder Scrolls: Online, Wildstar and Star Citizen. Will be waiting several months for any of the three so I'll have time to wrap some stories up and play around with the space stuff when it drops.

Everyone eh? Doubtful unless there's an actual game play need to do so. Plenty of people who play mmorpgs have zero desire to play games like SIMs or Second Life. So unless the housing is well integrated into other game mechanics, it would not get used by everyone.