That 1050 is referring to the 1050 mentioned in the sentence directly preceding it, which is for people who just bought RotHC in the last 30 days.

Is that when the site went up to create forum accounts? Can't believe I had this account for that long.

If you switched today you would still have access to all 6 but could not create any new ones and also if you deleted any of them would not be able to create a new one unless you deleted enough to be down to 1 or 0. At a future date they will enforce the limit for past subscribers at which point you will need to choose which two you want to be able to access.

As it has pretty much been said, there are only 8 stories in this game, and all of them are faction affiliated because they still want to make the game feel as though there is a war with two sides. That means both sides are equal (same classes, mechanically) and all classes are equal (single faction story). Just because there are only 8 stories that the player can choose that doesn't mean the entire TOR universe is bound by those stories, just us.

Typically new races for MMOs have been part of expansions. Typically expansions for MMOs need to be purchased by subscribers. So is the problem that EA/BW said at some point they wanted to give this 'expansion' for free? Well things change when you lose half your subscribers. Not even WoW gives out expansions for free and look at how much $15 a month they are rolling in.

I've always done as many side quests and bonus series as I can remember to do otherwise I'll fall behind on not only XP, but credits and gear. Not only is making sure my gear is up to par, which I guess Flashpoints will cover, but also my companions gear. If I was to do more PvP and FPs (as well as Space) will I have to worry about keeping my companion geared when I run the class missions?

There was always the likelihood that Cathar could have been something delivered as part of an expansion, as new races often are. With the Cartel Market, it let's them make it a separate purchase instead. Doesn't mean they didn't always intend to charge for it in some way (e.g. the expansion).

I'm curious what you think the value should be? 500 cr? 50000 cr? 1 cr? I'm guessing if they put one on at all it would have to be low so BW isn't setting a market minimum for them (that is, something with a vendor value of 50K wouldn't sell that low on the GTN).

Experts in the space say the reason Star Wars struggles while other online games are killing it isn’t because of the money I'm not sure what other games they are refering to that are comparable to SWTOR. They mention Minecraft, but I didn't know it was an MMORPG with a monthly sub. Although I do agree with the point of the article that themepark MMOs are not cost effective anymore. Look at the typical high quality console game. The single player game might last 8 hours. Some games can pad that out by adding free roaming, but that is something that is seen as 'grinding' and 'bad' now in MMORPGs when it used to be the whole point of them. The $15 is a problem though, because to have the millions of subscribers everyone expects SWTOR to have you need to tap into a larger audience who is not convinced of the value of giving $15 a month to company every month even if they don't end up playing the game that much that month (or, more importantly, don't know if they will).

My sub renewed (i.e. I was billed) on the 16th and today (the 19th) got my 500 Complimentary Cartel Coins.

I am not saying they could not improve it, but there are warnings in multiple places and the tutorial for the market explains where these warnings are. If people don't notice/read that then I don't know how much more they could do. Well, they could disable the purchase of the stuff but people want to be able to buy and trade/sell/gift the stuff.

From my experience on the PTS I found it strange to have it presented so negatively. Instead of saying Subscribers get a bonus after level 10, they say you lose XP as a non-subscriber. I can't remember what the reduction was though. However, if you do all the quests including the bonus series, don't bypass all the mobs in the area and do a few space missions and FPs along the way you should be fine. If you are wanting to blow through to 50 as fast as you can you will need XP boosts, but otherwise I've found my characters to always be overleveled if I wasn't skipping stuff.

Keep in mind that no one has to buy the game anymore. New players just create an account. If you are a returning player, spend the $5 to unlock another tool bar, it is still cheaper than a sub. (That said, I think it will turn off some legitimate new players)

This is not new. MMOs have sold this kind of content in pieces like this but usually as part of an expansion. Some of the old ways were probably more due to the limits of technology at the time and the marketing. Shelf presence is not the sole way for MMOs to gain attention or sell. It is now just a different way of getting subscribers to pay additional money.

It is a psychological barrier. Some people don't like the commitment, paying up front and not sure if they will use the service. Some people don't like that when they stop paying they lose all access to a game they bought or have invested in. Keep in mind that the typical game is purchased and owned. (I just wrote a wall of text I will instead try to get the point of across in this example) I bought this game and played it heavily for the first month. I got to 50 and thought, for $15 a month, this is a pretty fun game with an interesting story, I could play through the other seven classes and get my money's worth. Well, 8 months later I finally started to work on my second class story but I paid a sub that whole time, always thinking I'd get back in to the game. There were times I'd feel like I was, but then would lapse into long periods of inactivity. While for me, having that $15 charged to my credit card each month was not that big of a deal, there are plenty of people who just don't want to be in that situation where they are paying for something they don't end up using. Similarly, there are a lot of people who might only really play once or twice a month, so $15 is not 50 cents a day, but as F2P can be persuaded to spend some cash on things they feel they get to keep or enhance that time played.