One of two things will happen: 1) The increased revenue will be pumped back into the game, fixing the numerous performance issues and finally adding some new and UNIQUE content (space please!). 2) They are cashing in with F2P, and have no intention of investing in this game anymore. They will milk this model for as long as they can, leaving the game to wither and die. Given the recent announcement of Episode VII and Disney's plans to release a new Star Wars film every two or three years for the foreseeable future, I think they would be idiots not to go with option 1) and evolve this into a legitimately great game.

Yeah, the marketing for F2P has been atrocious. It's marketing school 101 - you should frame being a subscriber as a benefit, NOT being a free player as a restriction. Yet all of their marketing has been "these are the restrictions for F2P players." Frickin' amateur hour over at this studio. They can't even grasp basic business psychology and advertising. As for the experience - don't worry about it. I skipped numerous quests in my leveling experience, mainly the heroic missions requiring a party to complete, and skipped all of the Flashpoints except the first one, and I still found myself 3-4 levels higher than the majority of enemies I fought. You won't have any issues keeping up

So I got a holo of Satele Shan in a Cartel Coin pack today! She teaches me skills! I wanted to know if she could teach other players skills too, or if it was limited to me, so I set her up outside the temple on Tython. Numerous people approached her, stood there for a while, and then moved on. I asked these people repeatedly if they were able to learn skills from her and... None of them had a clue I was talking to them. Nothing popped up over my head on the screen they were looking at. It would have appeared right in the corner of their screen, in exactly the same colour as the text from the General chat channel that was full of conversations. I was talking to them, right in front of them, and the chat went completely unnoticed and was quickly filtered out by the General channel. We really, really need chat bubbles. How can this ESSENTIAL social feature STILL not be in the game almost a year after launch, when there's a thread almost 100 pages long begging for it!?

I think the only fix for ability delay, micro stutter, and camera issues, is to rebuild the game using anything but the Hero Engine. Maybe give Bethesda a call and see if their version of GameBryo is available. After a year with these same issues I fear anything would be an improvement.

I did something similar - bought one of the 5500 packs, added it to my 1750, and spent it all on the 360 Packs. One thing I got that I haven't seen mentioned yet is a holo of Satele Shan, who acts as a Class Trainer for all allies. So I now have a portable Class Trainer that anyone can use, and a direct comm link to the leader of the Jedi Order I also got lucky in that I got a double bladed lightsaber and a pink Endurance crystal for my female Shadow Consular. The lightsaber even has a pink crystal in the middle of the hilt, so the colours match really well! But the rest of it was, indeed, junk. Even the three mounts I got all look worse than the STAP from the CE/Digital Deluxe. No mask of Nihilus, no thrones, no meditation chairs, and no white crystals. Now, for the £20+ I spent on those 5500 coins, I don't think the rewards match up, and the fact that someone could get unlucky and receive a cluster**** of rubbish is actually quite worrying. I had no idea I would receive so many duplicate items. Where real world money is concerned, I think this is a bad direction to take. At least Mass Effect 3's gambling boxes can be bought with in-game cash - but this is just... wrong, in my opinion. I am happy enough because that £20 is going to help put this game back on its feet. But I think this system needs to change, and I certainly won't be buying any more gambling packs until they either allow them to be purchased with in-game credits, or ensure that at least one item from each pack will be a new item you don't already have, and is usable by the character you open it with. For real world currency, it's going to be infuriating to spend on something that turns out to be completely useless. And the chances of a pack being useless to you get higher with each subsequent purchase (already got this, already got that, already got TEN of those).

Some great suggestions, and good work keeping them so clear and defined! This will make it easy for devs and community coordinators to scan the pages while still seeing exactly what every one of you wants

Yeah, you're right that it's got quite a formulaic structure, but you can't deny that it's oozing () personality.

1) Selonian 2) Shistavanen 3) Togruta The animal races just look so awesome. And I would adore a Selonian Jedi

Great tips, but I can't help but wonder if part of the issue is the Fleet itself. It's just so... soulless. One giant dull circle, with neatly laid out quadrants for your needs. Crafters in this corner, PVP in that corner, GTN over there... Compare it to WoW - which had cities with character and soul. Stormwind wasn't divided into four bland districts, each catering to a different need. Armour shops could be found in all sections, taverns in every section, and each section had its own personality. Players grew attached to different sections, and felt at home there. Then broaden that scope out further, and you realize it isn't just one city you're restricted to. There's Darnassus, Ironforge, Orgrimmar, Undercity, and my favourite: Thunder Bluff. Each with its own flavour, and each made to feel like a city with unique elements within. I feel it's a lot easier to get bored during downtime when all you have is a giant metal circle with zero personality, with red flags for Imperials, and blue flags for Republic. It's essentially a 3D menu, with your character as the cursor, and it takes you a good 30 seconds to move your cursor from Class Trainers to GTN. Make use of some real capital cities, please! Coruscant could really do with being fleshed out some more, and would serve as a great location for players to call home. Add more character to cantinas, let us sit in chairs, throw in some minigames like Pazaak, and create cities that feel believable and lived in for us to spend our downtime, instead of soulless metal husks. There is absolutely nothing aesthetically pleasing about the Fleet.

Hehe. Other than the part I quoted, I completely agree. There's a reason Soon (™) has become such a popular phrase But I agree that the game is a fantastic foundation, and I truly believe that the F2P model and the upcoming Episode VII will do wonders for the game! Keep plugging away at all the leaks and holes in this game, and I'll keep subbing! Just please actually plug them now that your revenue will increase, and provide the updates we're after, instead of saying "soon"

Amen. Eliminate micro-stutter, fix the camera, work on the ability delay some more. More optimization and bug fixes before any drastic changes please. Once the base is finally working, then we can move it forward. Hopefully into space

I completely agree with this part. And I really hope it works out for them. F2P has a lot of potential that I feel some players are too keen to dismiss. But as for the rest of your post, there's two things you may have missed: 1) "For a new player, TOR is by far the more enjoyable experience to get to endgame." - Like you said, Cataclysm overhauled 1-60 and modernized it. It's an incredibly fun and easy-going leveling experience. For new players, experiencing the game for the first time, I'm sure WoW is just as much fun as SWTOR. I agree BC, and even Northrend to an extent, need overhauling as well, but for a player to get that far they will usually see things through to 80 where the content picks up again. And MoP's content looks amazing from what I've seen of it. 2) Regarding empty zones - I'm guessing you aren't aware of the zone merge technology Blizzard introduced a few months back. It isn't working in all the zones yet, but certainly is in most of them - especially the starter zones. Players are merged into zones regardless of server (so long as they are the same type of server: PVP, PVE, etc) so that empty areas are rarely an issue these days. It doesn't solve all of the low-pop server issues, but it's a great way of repopulating the zones. I used to meet a lot of players leveling while I was performing Archeology with my main.

Trust me, that's not even close to true I have two close female friends who play MMOs, one being my girlfriend, and they are both obsessed with being the best. And I still think the biggest issue with SWTOR is in how similar to WoW it is, so it doesn't feel like a new game or evolution for MMO players. Nothing to do with "experts" at all, since we all know each WoW expansion resets the leaderboards, as it were. You trade all your epics for greens.

Bull. I run on a high quality 240GB SSD, with an i7 @3.4ghz, 16GB RAM, and two 2GB GTX560 Ti's in SLI. The loading times are atrocious for that setup. It doesn't bother me much, since loading times aren't all that common in this game, but it is without a doubt atrociously slow.

I hear they are overhauling the UI for their next big update? I've played twice, for one week bursts each time, and it was always the UI that held me back from really enjoying it. I do love games with heavy player involvement and politics though. I played Lineage 2 for over a year and adored the shifting alliances and how you could kill anyone, anywhere.

I haven't noticed a leak, but I have 16GB of RAM. I don't doubt that it exists though, since this game has numerous little performance issues that never seem to be addressed other than with the obligatory "soon". It's the micro-stutter that annoys me. I play on a SSD and I still get it. And sometimes, it's not me that stutters, but the world around me. You know how some players will run past you in a busy area, and ALL of them aren't smoothly moving from location to the next, but kinda jittering along, starting and stop, blipping forwards and backwards slightly. It's not huge, but it's definitely noticeable. Even the cars on Coruscant do it. Take a look at the traffic, and you can see it stuttering along instead of flowing smoothly. I'm guessing it's an engine issue, and will never be fixed Definitely not an issue on my end, as in WoW I can stand in the AH and watch hundreds of players around me coming and going without any stuttering. It's not frame-rate issues, but micro-stutter. Very different.

I would love a RP-PVP server! I'm not a big fan of RP myself, but I love seeing a world populated by RPers. They bring life to a game that NPCs can never match. And if there's RP PVP going down (like a blockade, as mentioned above) I'll certainly join in with that

Yeah, more or less, though WoW isn't any harder to get into than SWTOR (it's pretty much the same mechanics)! I'm not saying SWTOR is going to fail. My post on the last page was almost entirely about the potential F2P holds for the game, and how bright the future is! The poster above just decided to quote me on calling the "WoW has a seven year advantage" argument rubbish. Which I still firmly believe is rubbish, because that's not how competition works. Consumers will, usually, pay for whatever gives them the most for their money. For some, the Star Wars universe or the voice acting is enough to make SWTOR stand out as the best. But for most, it isn't. As for your claim that few people are starting WoW these days, my girlfriend started WoW when Cataclysm launched and still plays Mists of Pandaria today. I haven't played MoP myself, but the game looks incredibly polished for an MMO. Sadly, you're right, and most ex-WoW players want something now. We don't want to go back to the same game we've been playing for so long. And that is exactly why I want EA to reinvest in SWTOR, and for Bioware to implement some drastic new content with something unique. Because SWTOR is just too damn similar to WoW. Especially when you compare some of its mechanics like each class having dozens of skills and items filling up three or four hotbars; mobs that "tag" to each player; quest items that aren't unique to players, leading to competition for items and theft (when you're killing a group of mobs guarding a quest item, and another player waltzes in and steals the quest item while you're in combat); standard linear quest mechanics without any real decisions (though Flashpoints have some great decisions sometimes - why isn't that approach used in single player quests?); Warzones being exactly the same as Battlegrounds; etc. Those mechanics have all been revolutionized by GW2 to create a far more entertaining play experience, that encourages players to work together and help each other without any drawbacks. In SWTOR I see other players from my faction as competition - vying for the same mobs and quest items as I am. In GW2 I see them as allies. If I see someone fighting a group of mobs in SWTOR or WoW I think "better not interfere, I don't want to leech", whereas in GW2 I think "better help him out!" Playing GW2 makes you realize how dated and senseless some of these common mechanics are. I love SWTOR for its strengths, since the storylines are fantastic. And I really do want F2P to work out. But for the exact reasons you pointed out that WoW isn't getting many new players, SWTOR faces the same issues. It's too much of the same, with absolutely nothing unique past the voice acting. And even that is being done in other MMOs now. I really hope Bioware cleans the game up, solves the remaining performance issues, overhauls the core mechanics regarding mob tagging and quest items, and implements some decent content that is genuinely unique (like open space, so far only EVE does it, and that's not a game for a casual crowd).

Hehe. Well that's all down to personal opinion, but if that was the popular opinion then SWTOR wouldn't be struggling to even maintain half a million subs. It's a game with some fantastic potential, but come on man, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how unpolished the game is compared to its more popular competitors. Micro-stutter, camera issues, ability delay, etc, all contribute to give the game a "feel" of being average in quality. Try switching between WoW, GW2, and SWTOR, and you'll notice these little performance issues. And before you say it's my PC, I run on a SSD with an i7, 16GB RAM, and two GTX 560 Ti's in SLI, and although the framerate stays at 60fps almost constantly, I still get regular micro-stutter. The camera issues affect everyone regardless of hardware. And as to saying the "WoW has been out 7 years so isn't a fair comparison" argument is perfectly valid, you're missing the point completely. It's a stupid argument, because consumers don't think that way. The consumer will think "Where will I get the most for my money? Should I spend my subscription on WoW with all of its content, polish, and regular updates? Or should I spend it on SWTOR which has less content, slower updates, and performance issues?" If you're going to release ANY product that is competing with others, you can't get away with making it inferior and expecting a free pass just because your product is newer. If anything, people expect newer products to be better.

Star Citizen is looking pretty damn awesome, and is shaping up to be incredibly popular too. If SWTOR wants to attract a decent sized playerbase, then it NEEDS something unique about it beyond voice acting in quests. Fully realized space flight mechanics should be a no-brainer for the franchise. Let smugglers run blockades! Give us access to Guild Ships that we can show off on cruises! Let me team up with dozens of fighter pilots to take down Guild Ships from the opposing faction! Create Flashpoints and Battlegrounds around space combat! I know it's a lot of work, but you won't hit a stable couple of million + subs without something this big and unique. Star Wars without space is like Game of Thrones without female characters.

Load Times - I agree they are long, but there aren't too many so I don't mind them. It's the micro stutter when there are more than a dozen characters on screen that annoys me. And I play on a high quality SSD, so why it happens baffles me. Both in WoW and GW2 I get zero stuttering when my screen fills with players. I get frame rate drops in Guild Wars 2 during sieges, but it remains consistent. In SWTOR around the GTN, I get an insane amount of stutter. Not cool. Ambience - I agree. Probably because I'm a graphics whore. But this game has some gorgeous flora tech, especially the grasses. Dromuund Kaas is beautiful, and I'm a big fan of Tython. But what the hell did they do with the waterfalls!? That would be my biggest request for graphical improvements. Genuinely the ugliest waterfalls I've seen since the PS2 era. And even some of those games had better waterfalls than SWTOR. Ugh. Talk about clashing graphics. Combat - Agree 100%. There are far too many skills in SWTOR. GW2, TERA, and TESO recognized that the way forward was fewer skills, that are more interesting and impactful, easy to learn and hard to master. SWTOR thought the way forward was MOAR SKILLS, and overloaded my hotbars with them. So many skills, some doing almost identical things, the majority of which could easily be condensed down for a more enjoyable experience. I literally have the number keys 1 through to = hotkeyed for one bar, F1 through to F12 for the second, Ctrl+1 through to Ctrl+= for the 12 buttons on my Razer Naga mouse for the third bar, and the keys Q, E, G, and T hotkeyed on my fourth bar. What. The. Hell? There were two reasons I left the game back in January - Open World PVP was broken, and showed no signs of improvement. And the skills were horrendously overdone. I'm now back to experience the game for what it is (a single player MMO with some great class stories) and hoping that the transition to F2P turns its fortunes around and allows the devs time to improve the game and finally introduce some meaty new content. But seriously, please trim the skills. It's going to be a huge barrier to entry for the casual market. Fewer skills doesn't mean an easier game - it means an easier game to get into.

It would certainly be easier if they applied changes to questing inspired by Guild Wars 2 - Quest items and resource nodes unique to each player, no mob tagging and full exp and loot for each contributing player instead - in other words, make me see other players from my faction as allies instead of rivals. And when I see another player fighting a group of mobs, make me think "I should help him out!" instead of "Better not interfere in case he thinks I'm leeching or stealing his mobs..." But otherwise I think F2P will be a good thing, and I'm looking forward to it. More revenue means more investment from EA - especially with Episode VII on the horizon. And more investment means more time invested to improving existing features and adding new content.

Yep. It's a perfectly good game, but it's not great. It's not even close to great. The voiced storylines are fantastic, but it's been almost a year now without any update to them. Everything else is taken from WoW and implemented with less polish. Even little quality-of-life things like the camera and micro-stutter need more work. And don't give me "WoW has been out for 7 years" nonsense. Why don't you go release a brand new phone on the market with features equivalent to a phone from 2005 and see if the "Apple has had products on the market for longer" argument flies. People pay for a service, and they will want to pay for the best one. Compete properly, or don't compete at all. BUT F2P is about to go into effect, and we all know how LOTRO famously tripled its revenue when it introduced the F2P model. And to add to that, Episode VII has been announced. Holy hell people. The folks at EA probably screamed so loudly in excitement at that announcement that every window in their central office shattered. F2P should increase revenue, and EA should invest more cash into this game in preparation for the huge influx of players in a year's time when hype for the next film starts to really build. If they can iron out all these creases, implement some unique new content (please do something with space!) and transform the game into something truly great instead of merely 'good', then we have nothing to worry about. So yes, you've got to be in denial if you think this game has done particularly well over the last year. But you've also got to be in denial if you think the future doesn't look a heck of a lot brighter for SWTOR.

Hehe. Clearly you didn't play in the first month then. I was stuck in a server queue every single day, with my longest wait literally being over 4 hours once. The queues were horrendous, and Scan has a pretty good point: If the servers are back to being clogged because everyone wants to play on a high-pop server (which if last year's lessons have taught us anything, is EXACTLY what will happen) then subscribers are facing a situation where they are sitting in a queue while F2P gamers are having fun at no cost.

Because of the skills, imo. The hundreds and thousands of skills that each character class has by level 30, overflowing their quickbars and flooding every inch of screen space. WoW managed how many skills each class had pretty well, for its time. And while games like TERA, Guild Wars 2, and the upcoming TESO realized the best way to make a game easy to pick up but hard to master was to lessen the amount of skills a player needs to manage, SWToR thought it would be better to go the other way and overload players. It's not cool for players who can only spare several hours a week at most, to have to memorize the layout and function of dozens of different skills. Far too many skills, which do far too many similar things, and should be condensed down to maintain that casual market. I'm not saying simplify the game - I'm saying streamline it. Less skills does not equal an easier game. It equals a game that is easier to get into. And they want to limit free players to a mere two quickbars? This won't end well...