Thank you for your answers. I'm using a laptop PC a "Razer" gaming machine--not ideal, but the graphics are okay. I also have a Logitech G700 wireless gaming mouse attached. Plenty of RAM and disk space. In terms of experience, I'm not a beginner, but am not seasoned either. I've taken a dozen characters up to 60 in SWTOR, played Dragon Age, WoW, Age of Conan, Elder Scrolls, and Secret World, among others. I have an Alienware rig as well.
Current issues are that the keyboard does not seem to take all commands. I found "F" for take, but the fact is, it doesn't work. I remapped WASD to the arrow keys to allow me a better way to move, but just in case that was causing me problems I reset to the defaults. I found a (several) list of keyboard commands, but guess what? Doesn't even mention "F" and I suspect other basic moves aren't on the list either. Right now the game is effectiively unplayable.