It's almost a shame you cannot use whatever lightsaber you want to use regardless of class, to be honest, that's one of the things I kinda do have a complaint about. In Star Wars Galaxies, a double bladed lightsaber was great for pvp, and was considered to be the best choice for most people. Whereas, I prefered the 2 hand single hilt saber, it was slower but hit harder. Wish they'd added some of those dynamics here, it can get relatively stale watching the same old lightsaber animations with no ability to change them up by using a different hilt or two sabers.

Without more information it's really hard to nail down what you can do individually to increase the performance in this game, granted, this thread blew up pretty fast, so if you posted your system specs already, I apologize. As a retired computer consultant I've seen all forms of performance issues, it can be as suggested in the vanilla responses of a scripted technical service represenative, "outdated drivers" or it could be as complex as improper power supply ratings for the video card you are running. So, that being said, the first thing I'd suggest is: - Check the minimum requirements to run the game. - Compare your system specs with the game specs. If you can barely run it, chances are that's your issue. - Check to make sure all your drivers are up to date as well as .NET framework and MS Visual C. - Check to make sure you don't have an abundance of background processes going. Things like Antivirus, etc. If none of these give away what the issue is, I'd start looking at the hardware. As a general rule, I have always suggested that you first go through your system, know what you have in it as it will help you understand later how to optimize the machine for better gameplay. Here's a quick check list: 1. What type of graphics card do you have? Is it supported by SWTOR? Have you run a dxdiag? 2. What wattage is your Power Supply? Is the graphics card you are running getting what it needs? 3. How much system RAM do you have? In general, most of the time when a client comes to me with a system, they are trying to run something with out of date drivers, low system ram, or in some cases the do-it-yourself will throw in a video card that requires alot more power than the previous one and the system bogs down and doesn't perform because of it. If you cannot figure it out based on what I've written here, I'd hit up the Customer Service area in the forums and see what they have to say, but chances are I've already covered it here. They do have some useful information on how to troubleshoot performance issues over there though, so it's worth the time to read. Good Luck **Edit** I almost forgot to mention, it could be due to how you have Windows handling memory, I recently helped someone else out who discovered that his machine was using a custom memory size in his paging file, you can try increasing the size, or you can check the box that indicates that windows will handle the memory allocation. When he let Windows handle it, the game ran smooth as silk and he's having no issues with stuttering.

Thank you for the replies and advice, I actually found out through a bit of digging on google, that you can switch from BitRaider to Secured Server Network (Swtor) and it will update much faster. However, the downfall is, you have to redownload the entire game again which I'm not gonna do if I can help it. Just gonna be patient and wait for the Bitrader stream to finish up and see where I'm at this time when I click play. The whole situation that led up to this was, I got on this morning thinking I'd play a little, only to click "play" and discover another missing .dat file. So, I removed the Bitrader folder as previously instructed via Customer Service, and re-verified, and am now downloading more content. It appears the Streaming is either very very slow, or isn't doing it's job at all. I've been playing for countless hours over the last 3 days and it still hasn't gotten up to speed? What's odd to me is, I already was on the planet it says I'm missing textures for, that makes absolutely no sense, since I was questing on that planet when I logged off. Seems like a bad design flaw to me, but who knows. In any case, 80% the way there until I can click play again, hopefully I won't be disappointed.. Again. I'm not sure what I did with my retail CD, I think I may have lost it during a move at some point, but oh well. Worse case, I'm sure I can find an .iso file to burn to disc to speed up the process if it comes down to that.

Alright, so if I want to switch from Streaming updates, to full blown patch, no streaming involved, how would one go about it?

Ok, true story, I played in the Beta, gave it a month or two, but I left because of the technical issues that were causing my machines to crash. So, I just came back a few days ago and lo' and behold, there's been an expansion. I called Customer Support and asked, "Is Rise of the Hutt Cartel free to those who are subscribed?" His answer, "Yes, but you cannot access the RotHC content until you hit 55." I ask, "So that means, I can keep leveling unti I hit 55 then I should be able to access the expansion right?" His answer, "No, you must be 55." Now, I'm thinking what the heck? So, ultimately I have to level to 55 to be able to level up passed 50? *facepalm* So, I decide to let that one go, as it's becoming sorely obvious that this guy is reading a script, flipping through a manual or doing something ****-robotic. So, I go on with my next question, "Is there a compressed and complete version of this game for download?" I then explain, the streaming on my high speed connection takes forever and a day, and I'm currently having to wait on it after the infamous and more than familiar error that pops up saying an area doesn't exist on launch, which coincidentally existed last night while I was actually questing in the area.. Go figure, I guess my computer has a gremlin or something and it stole my area .dat file. His response was to direct me to http://www.swtor.com/download which was infuriating. I then say, "Look, that's the launcher, it's not the game, it's not the game files, it's a front end application that basically verifies data being streamed to the computer by a server. The GAME content is the data it's streaming. I don't need a new launcher, I want access to the GAME content. His response was, "go into launcher settings and fiddle with some thingamabob, do this, tweak that, blah." (I didn't listen as it didn't answer what I asked.) So, I simply nodded my head, smiled, and said "Ok great, that's all I needed! Bye!" So, Here are the questions for you fine folks: 1. I'm currently subscribed, will I be allowed to level up to 55? 2. If my subscription runs out before I hit 55, will I have to resub before I can progress to 55? 3. Is there an alternative place to download the GAME content, not the launcher, to quickly get what is needed?

The first mistake most people make is they go out and they buy a huge graphics card and don't take into account that your power supply has to be able to provide for that extra hardware. Without seeing what exactly you have in your case however, it's a stab in the dark. I run a 2.2ghz dual core m2n-SLI Deluxe with 8gb Ram on an XP operating system with a 1000w power supply and I have an Nvidia 8800 GTS, I can run the game on full, and this machine was built over 4 years ago. When I first built the system however, I had a smaller power supply like a 450w or something, and I lagged horribly in all games, but man when I put the new one in, it was smooth as silk and fast as a viper. Love this machine hehe.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot once I can afford to send 'em out to gather and build. hehe.

#1: Looking for group tool. (I'm not able to sit around for 3 hours looking for a group to do a heroic on a daily basis.) #2: Skill prices are really high.. Those are pretty much the only two things I'm even remotely tempted to complain about. Fact is, I play a lot on Rubat Crystal, it's a nice server, pretty decent population, but getting a group for the heroics can be a real problem, so much so, that I've actually had better luck logging off, waiting a few hours, and logging back on and trying again. As for the skill prices, good lord, I'm looting everything that isn't nailed down, and even some that are, and I'm barely squeaking by, anyone got a tip on where to farm for decent cash so I don't have to call "mum" for some gas money to get my ship to the next planet? lol.

I'm going to have to agree, the security key is a worthwhile investment IF you want to protect your account from possibly being hacked and all your work being systematically picked apart and sold off on vendors. I've been hacked on WoW, turned out I had a keylogger on my system from visiting a WoW fan site we thought was safe. After getting rid of keylogger, goi through a 2 week wait on a frozen account status, 3 hours of restoring my gear and gold, and a world of frustration, I opted to get the security key. I wasn't aware however, that the security key gave you access to special vendors in the game... where are they at and what kind of stuff do they have?

See, that's part of the industry's problem right now, I mean to some degree your right, learning from another's examples and building on it does help. However, just how many different ways can you make a popular feature unique to one game title before it just starts to look and feel ridiculous? I've seen dozens of skill systems, talent trees, mail systems, crafting systems, but at the end of the day, they are either too complex, not complex enough, or just simply exist with little to no real entertainment value whatsoever. Truth be told, if this game was to start feeling like WoW in space, I'd probably leave myself. I left World of Warcraft for a reason, don't bring that nonsense over here. That doesn't mean you can't put in a few features that resemble stuff WoW has, quite a bit of what they have came from other MMOs anyways. Just make sure you implement it cleanly and without the WoW feel to it.. heh..

LOL! Blizzard or their employees wouldn't dignify a response on these forums nor would they bother to post something so ridiculous. Funny tho, I'll give you that.

I don't think he's slagging colleagues, he's offering his opinion, far as I can tell he's not directing it at anyone maliciously. Unless of course your referring to something I may have said, if you somehow took what I said the wrong way, I humbly apologize. I do try to remain constructive in my posts rather than destructive, but there is a communication barrier here that can sometimes complicate things.

Regardless of his credentials or if they are real, he raises a valid point, the game lacks quite a bit of polishing, but didn't we agree to that when we signed up? I mean let's be real here. Try to imagine a hotel being built from the bottom up, they get the foundation in, get the supports all right, and begin slowly ascending as each section is completed. Right now we're in the basement, but given enough time and patience we'll be in the penthouse. Fact is, no there isn't a lot in the ways of features and sure, there are issues like the FPS bugs, chat bubbles, a minimal amount of emotes, and other things that are annoying but not necessarily game breaking. We signed up for this, this is what was to be expected on a fresh MMO hitting the market. If you bought this game with any other expectations, you are either brand new to MMO gaming or your looking at the world through rose colored glasses. Patience, features will come, the game will get better, just let Bioware and EA get their ducks in a row, things will work themselves out.

I see where you are leading me on this but I'll bite. What I'm saying is, space is a major staple in the Star Wars franchise, epic battles with thousands of ships, tactics, coordinating with other teams, all this stuff is severely limited by the design of the current space and space combat system. The space system in SWTOR is an arcade shooter, sure you can update your ship, but at the end of the day it's an arcade shooter. I don't need to subscribe to an MMO to play an arcade shooter, I have an Xbox 360 6' from where I'm sitting I could boot up and play stuff like that. Space and space combat needs to be open world, it needs to be something immense, something open and full of potential. Don't get me wrong, I'm expressing my own opinion on space, and I'm sure like you said, there's those out there who are big fans of the space combat and system. I just feel as though they are severely limiting the potential of this particular aspect of the game, space could be so much more, yet we're stuck with an arcade shooter.

Actually, I didn't know that Jump to Lightspeed was outsourced, so thank you for the tidbit on that. As for the NGE, or even the CU, I absolutely despised them both. From a consumer point of view, I felt cheated and lied to, I paid them for a game that offered 32 professions and a feature list that made the game what it was. Sure, I got to play them for the majority of the game's life and when the Combat Upgrade hit, I accepted it simply because some changes were acceptable, after all it's an MMO.. When the NGE hit, it clearly broke the EULA in my opinion and violated the law in many regards. We originally bought one type of game (an MMO) and ultimately were baited and switched to a lousy attempt at a first person shooter with lightsabers. It was insulting and infuriating. If anything, the only thing I want gleaned from the "New Game Enhancements" that SWG went through would be the lesson that the industry had to learn regarding the radical changes and how they affect their player communities. SoE and Lucasarts had to learn a hard lesson on that one, so hopefully Bioware will take that into account when they start making big decisions.