It's exactly the opposite. I spent the coins I got from playing since beta on making my F2P experience pretty much exactly what I want (all the action bar stuff, titles, color match, etc... I already have). I now only subscribe once every year or so to get more content to mess with (much cheaper than buying it piece-meal). They need a more effective model to get money for my experience, because right now subbing once a year gets me all the content I would want, and I have a feeling they'd like to get more than $15 a year out of me. The thing about a micro-transaction system is: Any company that successfully implements it will tell you most of their money comes from 10% of their player base. Removing the credit cap and ensuring that content unlocks can be sold on the GTN means that the 10% can continue to spend as they so choose because they can always sell the items to others for credits (meaning they'll constantly have a reason to keep spending). It also reduces the available market for credit sellers, since it effectively leverages the F2P market as credit sellers but the money goes to BioWare instead. Even now, I'm willing to bet a vast majority of the coins spent on the market are those who are also subscribed buying packs and that the content passes are anything but flying off the shelves. Not only does this hurt queue times for subscribers (because your average preferred player would fill the spots if they could get the weekly pass from someone who's willing to foot the bill for their credits) but it would also increase BioWare's income which means more content they can sell. It has the added side effect of increasing the market for other expensive items on the GTN for subscribers.

I think there's a huge untapped potential for BioWare to make money on players like me. First, the story in this game is a highlight for a lot of players. Considering it's broken into chapters, it seems like a huge opportunity to gate the story behind some payments. This actually prevented me from spending much once the game went F2P. One of my big goals was to finish the class stories. I could do it completely free (albeit, I spent my coins for subbing since launch to get action bars and stuff). After seeing Chapter 1, I wouldn't have been shocked to be charged before starting Chapter 2. I was glad to see this expansion released in chapters, because the way I'd been doing things is to sub one month every expansion to unlock it and then going back to F2P. That brings me to my second observation. If I hadn't gotten all those coins for being subbed before it went F2P I would have walked. This game has way too many abilities to restrict action bars. I'm fine with the companion bonus of 2 more for subbing, but preventing players from queuing up more than one crafting item? All around, these nickle and dime things just make me feel like the game is essentially "broken" until I spend money on it. A broken experience is not a good sales pitch. Third, preventing players from getting rewards for content they've completed unless they're subscribed reduces the pull of the content (which is, of course, why many MMO players do content in the first place). Titles, gear, and even quest rewards being "sub only" just gives less people a reason to play unless they're already subbed. The weekly passes could be worth a lot, if only players actually used them. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I feel like the sales of those items should be reviewed, because it can't be a huge market right now. Finally, and I think this is the most important step toward really making cash on F2P players, remove the credit cap for preferred players. I won't pay real money for a pass to do operations for a week but if I've got a mountain of credits laying around I might just drop a bunch of them to get the pass. There are also players out there who would be willing to part with the money in order to get a hold on that many credits. They pay BioWare for a pass, I pay them (in credits) for the pass, everyone gets something they want, and the rate of sales on content unlocks like this go up significantly. If you don't think that makes a big difference, look into how many game tokens WoW is moving. I played for over a year just buying time with gold, but you know what? Blizzard made MORE for each month I played than they would have if I just subscribed (the tokens cost $20) and someone bought their gold from me instead of some gold spammer.

Lack of funding. By 1.2 they were still releasing updates and fixes much faster than most MMOs but people were still bailing so quickly they were giving away free game time just to bring people back. After that things sort of died down with the reorganization and probably the footwork for eventually going F2P beginning all at the same time and with much fewer resources. Partially because EA pulled away pretty quick on funding, and partially because the community refuses to fund anything that isn't either incredibly niche or World of Warcraft.

At the risk of sounding like a downer (I'm really not, I love this game): I believe introducing a little more whimsy in certain areas would keep players excited about the "little things" for much longer. Pets ------- I was talking to my wife about why she never bothered to try to get the extra pets from the guide on a fan site (she was a HUGE pet collecter years ago when we played WoW) and she said they weren't interesting enough. There are plenty of pets in WoW that are creatures you find larger versions of in game, and even a few that are just reskins of another pet already in game, but most of them have unique character. They really went the extra mile by giving some of them additional animations now too. One thing that I'd like to see a lot more of with pets in TOR is making sure they are meaningful based on where they come from. A mouse droid that comes from a security vendor makes sense, but a mini-sandcrawler that comes from a light side vendor? When I think of light side pets I don't think of Jawa vehicles, I think of soft, fluffy things. For the dark side there are a TON of evil creatures like the Hssiss that are actual representations of the dark side in critter. Another thing is that they need to quit offering reskins of the same pets all the time. It makes people who have one less likely to go for another, so why waste time implimenting dramatic ways to attain these pets and then offer a reskinned version of it in the mail just because people have an active account? Gear ------- Gear suffers a similar affliction to pets in TOR. They do a pretty good job offering the "traditional look" for most classes as moddable gear, but there's not a lot of gear themed after where it comes from. Additionally, with the expense of swapping mods it gets really annoying if you want to preserve a look but also earn upgrades even somewhat regularly. I posted a possible solution to that here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=526217 In addition to the theme being off, there's the problem of nothing being unique. If you want moddable gear shells to be something players will jump through hoops for you need to make trooper gear designs that vary from "stormtrooper gear of some color, possibly with spikes or missiles on it". Throw in some Eshkaa looking battle armor. Let people choose if their character looks like a trooper "should" or if they want to stand out and look like some road warrior from Mad Max. It's evident people want to break the mold by the fact you see plenty of Jedi players who have spent the cash to use a moddable vibroblade instead of the traditional lightsaber. While they're at it, put in some gear that doesn't change when different factions wear it. I understand most people think of black with red accents when they think of the Empire, but there are plenty of Imperial citizens who dress differently. I have seen a LOT of posts where people are complaining about all the brown and white on the Republic fleet. Personally, I like the traditional look, but seeing a wider variety of colors on the fleet would do wonders to keep it from feeling drab. Content --------- Everything you do in this game is significant. You can't go 5 meters on a planet without someone coming to you all emotional or with deep political import over what they want you to do. In a way that sets a perfect mood. My character felt meaningful from level 1 all the way through the end game content. I was glad I never had to gather meat for someone who was hungry, but still too lazy to get up and get it themselves (aside from the baby fleshraider, why couldn't that thing just get off it's butt and find a job?!) I think of this problem every time I hear someone complaining that the world of TOR doesn't feel alive. It is alive. There are NPCs living out their lives that aren't there for any mission giving or vending reasons. There are enemy factions duking it out on most planets. Companions have personal comments about just about everything. These are things I rarely saw in other games (though it's becoming more common now). Instead, for me, the problem is that the galaxy lacks contrast and that makes this "life" feel artificial. There are plenty of celebrations in the Star Wars universe. Pretty much any time something great happens in the movies there's a huge, city-wide party afterward. The books have those as well, but also have moments where even the most extreme of heroes/villians just kicked back and enjoyed things like pet expos with the family, ballroom dance parties with senators, a night on the town with their spouse, etc... I'm not talking about after they'd hung up their capes and retired to a life of relaxation. They just took some personal time in the middle of everything because that is part of life. That's what TOR is lacking. The only time something rare happens in TOR is when it's another dire, galaxy shattering event introducing some new operation content. The worst part about this design is that the content really can't be repeated. Who wouldn't think it's weird if the Gree fleet showed up again next year and we had to collect the same items for the criminal organization again? On the other hand, if there was a ballroom dance in the senate tower and you could go and drink the punch, perhaps have a mini-game where you have to click correctly to complete a dance with a senator who gives you a reward, but could also participate in finding Imperial bugs for rewards it wouldn't be so strange if you saw this happen again in a few months to a year. It also wouldn't be unusual for planet specific holidays to happen yearly. There's a whole list of them http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Holiday that would make people go to various planets they otherwise haven't visited since they leveled past it, and participate in some frivallous, silly event that they could re-run every year without sigificant increases in development time. Enemies --------- With all the dangerious creatures in the Star Wars universe why do we spend almost all our time fighting humaniods and droids? I realize there are exceptions, but I'd like to see a more healthy mix. Alderaan is a fairly natural environment, but I still only killed maybe 5 things that weren't sentient or made by sentients. I'm guessing he reason for this is that it's hard to have a reason to kill mindless creatures that doesn't end up being just "save this village from attacks" or "we need to collect something from them" and that's a legitimate concern (it gets even more old than killing droids over and over). What I propose is that these creatures drop farmable rare items. Things like pets and moddable gear with unique looks. People who want to can slaughter endlessly, but it's not the game's "fault" if they get bored of killing Ack Dog #5,000 because it's not necessary or even prudent for the sake of progression. Sorry for the huge wall of text. Hopefully this Summary makes up for it. Summary --------- Overall, a bit more time designing models for various things and a touch of creativity and whimsy could add a lot of interest for players where they were previously settled into a rut of *always* saving the galaxy. It's important for our characters to feel like heroes and TOR does that better than any other game I've ever played. However, it's important that they feel like people as well. Add some content that isn't about saving the world so people can experience the personal, cultural, and eccentric side of Star Wars along with the heroic, political, and dangerous side.

Here's my suggestion on social gear and mod swapping: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=526217

I think there are some great sandbox type features. Something players won't ever really "beat" so they have something to mess around with when they're not pushing the latest content. Systems that would get people interacting in ways that don't involve the same character combat you do all the time. Things like playing cards in a cantina against other players for a predetermined bet. There are also the features that just get players to interact more deeply with the game world. Encouraging people to mess around a planet hunting for various random fluff rewards, non-character combat mechanics (like controlling turrets), puzzles, etc... I personally don't like the ones that create persistent, potentially annoying changes in a game where you know there are plenty of people who just spend all day looking for a way to ruin another player's day. Being able to build things that impede other player's movements, etc... While it does make the world feel more player controlled, I'd rather the control of the game's content be left mostly in the hands of the people we're paying for the content.

Now that set bonuses come on the armoring instead of the armor "shell" with new tiers of content, it would be nice for the commendation vendors that sell the gear to carry both the gear as it currently is AND a bag containing just the mods that are in that piece (at the same cost). This seems like a good way to handle this community complaint of mod costs for many reasons: 1. It uses mechanics already in game so it should be quick and easy to implement. 2. People who want to save their old mods instead of overwriting them still pay as usual (the penalty for preserving old, powerful mods is still in place). 3. Those who want to use a social set don't get robbed every time they earn a new upgrade and have to pull out all the mods on the gear they just got in order to keep their social gear appearance. If it's intentional that people who stick with a specific look are hit hard in the credits while those that prefer getting the "higher tier gear" look aren't taxed at all than I suppose this wouldn't work. I hope that's not the case, and that this provides a solution to the problem so many players have of losing control of their character's appearance (in a game where we actually care about our character's personality) just because it costs too much.

There are people who will disagree with everything, but the resolve system has worked out to be much more entertaining to me than how other games handle CC. Also, I like PvPing at lower levels without having to wait forever. Now that they've separated 50s from the rest it will also be nicer than other games where PvP typically means one person who's insane because they have a high level character feeding them incredibly expensive and difficult to obtain items for that level trouncing everyone until the round is over. MMO forums are always like this though. Every decision made makes someone happy and someone else angry. There are also issues that don't really do any good for anyone, but that's why they're prioritized higher and fixed quickly.

This needs to happen. Any valor earned today (or if possible only that earned in Ilum) needs to go. Don't award valor at all for killing the turrets, because if PvP isn't happening no rewards should be given (outside of perhaps the actual objectives). Then, since Ilum is a PvP reward place, it needs to be made competitive. That means it needs to be more controlled than world PvP typically is. Unless someone can come up with a better way to ensure faction balance (not just reward that because it gets out of hand) they should probably put brackets on group size allowed to land on the planet and put the rest in a queue. For instance, if there's only 4 rep players there can only be 4 imps. When a 5th comes in there can be up to 8 imps. There would still be some disparity, but at least in a zone this size a difference of 3 would be a lot better than one side having magnitudes larger numbers than the other.

What I was saying is that removing PvP stats doesn't fix that. You'd still have people at max level grinding out stronger gear as long as gear is a factor at all and gear is treated as a primary progression at max level. Personally, I'd love to see all players of a class brought to the same stat levels for competitive PvP (warzones). However, PvP stats aren't the problem.

People would find any way, while sitting around at max level in a game with gear scaling beyond fresh level 50 characters, to dramatically outstat people who's only stats come from a static system intended to bolster them to fresh level 50 characters. You know... by doing pretty much anything at max level... There are two ways to fix issues. One is to create a 50's backet. The other would have been to bracket all players out based on successes/loses and try to group people with similar rankings (and pit them against other teams with similar rankings).

But a majority of the pansies are Imperial side for the free PvP ride.

And are already listed on the same board in threads more focused on the issues and less on complaining.

This is the PvP forums... This is *at best* a general discussion topic. Honestly, if you want to discuss issues than do so in a constructive manor. The issues you addressed are already addressed elsewhere on these boards. The thing about "fanboi" posts is that they're typically most common on "whiner" threads.

Can I have your gear? Oh, you didn't get any.