OMG, that sounds so rubbish man, that just defeats the whole object of being an mmo, surely...I played wow for 4 years and loved seeing all the other people in the major cities and also when out questing.
I think what you guys have just spoke about is the first bad thing I've heard about SWTOR, if they put that in the game that is a major blow...I really dont understand why they would do this? to reduce lag? but other mmo's have been able to have hundreds of people in one zone at a time with no lag so I dont see why SWTOR cant do the same.
Sweet jesus, I'm really worried for this game now.
EDIT: Also another good reason to have loads of people in one zone is sometimes I'd be in ogrimmar, major horde city in wow and alience would come raid us for pvp and we'd have huge epic battles...and sometimes on my warlock I'd like to kill myself with my own spells and everyone would heal me and try keep me alive...and also just the feel of seeing a city full of people and not feeling alone, feeling like you were part of something, people inspecting you and say "wow you look amazing...and you have amazing equipment!"....felt good!
EDIT2: And if you got loads of people in one zone you got more people to help you do group quest and find people for crafting and instances...theres probably a huge list of reasons why having more people is so good and beneficial.
just to add at present there isnt really a social hub in game. But what there talking about on the forums so if there was to be one there would be diffrent version so say your friend could be in a diffrent one but stood at the same bar.
Im hoping this is just for beta.
heres a link to it on the forums, that someone posted. Now all the fan boys will have there fan boys googles on and keep saying bioware said this and that.
but at the moment its not like that in game.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=366328