to a degree. your character is not voiced and not every quest offers you options, but there are quite a few who allow you do decide how to progress your quest. there are no morality points, just options on whether you let someone live, or die, arrest them or cover up for them, help, or intimidate them into helping you, etc. returning characters remember you when you do quests in later zones and run into them again (there are quite a few recurring characters) while your personal story is basically the same for every character, there are 3 distinct alliance stories. think planetary stories. I will never claim that someone trying it - would like it, guaranteed. absolutely not. its not a game for everyone anymore than SWTOR is. combat is very different from swtor, setting and tone is also very different. but... it IS a very story and character rich game. and if you are into strongholds - housing is pretty amazing. expensive (mostly in game gold - at say about.. 90% of it, though there is an option to pay real life money and some things are real life money exclusive), but a lot more flexible then swtor's strongholds. no hooks. you can build your own buildings or giant statues, combine items etc. I find it to be a great fun, personaly. and honestly, I have found story arcs to be equal to those of original swtor stories, and unlike swtors expansion where quality of storytelling just kept going downhill (and if we are going to talk about cheese, don't even get me started on alliance version of MAKEB, among other things) - ESO stories, IMO are getting better with each new addition.

you may notice a large break in my posting history. that would be becasue I did in fact stop doing business with this company, at least when it comes to this specific game. 7 day referral passes ARE a thing that exists and I wanted to see if anything has changed for the better enough to stay longer then that. why do that at all? for the same reason one might visit a restaurant they used to love, but stopped patronizing for a time becasue the quality started to slip. to see if they have fixed the problems or continued to slide downward. it is your opinion that they got the model about right and you are entitled to it. my opinion is different. (although its kinda funny that you claim that its about right, while in the same breath basically saying that they need to adjust it fairly significantly by adding passes and more unlocks) especially having played other competitive MMO's in a meantime. "its the only star wars mmo available" will only get you so far. and from a business perspective, it honestly feels a lot like the way they treated Warhammer 40, when it didn't do as well as they wanted it to. and yes treatment of non subscriber population is part of that. reminder. this game originally went f2p becasue it could not maintain the player base it needed with a subscription only model. to be fair. all of the above is a small part of the issue. but it IS still part of it. ah well. edited. P.S. I'm perfectly willing to pay when content is worth paying for. and even though I have all the possible unlocks on my account - got them for credits, back when this game didn't have severe inflation it has right now, I actualy ended up either staying subscribed, or just not playing at all. that said... and therein lays an irony. if I wanted to play solo portions of this game? I don't need a subscription. at this point I don't need it for the story, OR housing. there is nothing here to incentivize someone like me to subscribe. THAT is as much of a problem as the fact that subscription mainly exists as means to remove restrictions rather then a genuine premium service that comes with cool extra perks.

1. I have never complained about f2p players sucking, THAT usualy comes from anti f2p contingent of these forums 2. I didn't say free acess to everything either, however at the minimum, preferred accounts that unlocked max level? should have acess to max level multiplayer content. 3. given bioware's and EA's choices lately - not just for swtor either? forgive me for doubting their ability to make good decisions for properties they are mismanaging. you are correct that especially given my previous sentence, this conversation is unlikely to result in any actual changes to the game, but on an off chance that it might - it needs to be had.

and they only had to merge the heck out of servers to accomplish that. honestly, my theory is that you all anti f2p realize that the game doesn't offer enough value to justify subscription on its own, so the only way you can justify it to yourself is by this misplaced superiority and derision directed at those that do not subscribe. a pity.

right. because who needs shorter wait times for anything or larger more thriving multiplayer community, amiright? lets not remember why swtor went f2p in a first place.

people like you don't get it. the primary issue with f2p model in this game other then how absolutely obnoxious it is is that f2p players? do get everything best that is solo about this game. so... they exist in a state that does NOTHING to help subscribers. it should be the exact opposite.

yes. a friend of mine had Umbara redded out for him and couldn't do random flashpoint achiev on that character. which is a hell of an oversight, since quite a few people would have their characters at lvl 70 but not necessarily done the story on all of those 70ties. daily reward should be enabled when you have all the flashpoints you are eligible for selected.

and now I'm curious which names O_O

I very much get where you are coming from, Mith. I grabbed a 7 day referral for the Darth Hexid event /merges (just in case - and good thing I did for merges) and the moment I was done with my 3 groupfinder activities I had zero desire to log back in. honestly the most enjoyment, almost the only enjoyment I derived from this game lately was watching someone new to it, discover the class stories and companions. reminded me of the joy I felt when I first started playing this game. pretty much all of your points I agree with, to varying degrees. and thank you so much, Jenny for breaking it up into readable paragraphs. I keep hoping that maybe sometime soon, in the future, some day.. I'll have fun with this game again. here's to hoping that maybe you will as well, Mith

yes, but it not going to collections means you have to keep it in your storage, taking up space. although apparently, according to dulfy comments - it does unlock in collections. haven't myself checked yet. http://dulfy.net/2017/11/10/swtor-free-battlefront-ii-promotion-special-forces-armor/

this. also, the 4 characters to 300 bonus only works on characters that are under 300 cxp. at 300 cxp - no more bonus. its alt catch up mechanic, nothing more.

some of how the names got lost seems.. odd. personaly though I just added ' to a name in a spot where it looked like it belonged. its not an ideal solution, but its something.

aside from logging into every single character prior to the merge and being a subscriber at the time of it.. I'm not entirely sure what else any of us could have done at this point. unless your idea of planning involves reserving the same names on every single server years ago, which is... honestly kinda unreasonable to expect from a person. IMO. edited one of my lost characters, while not at max level, was not a lowbie either. he was lvl 62 and while not my main healer, was still used quite a bit. he was the character that contributed towards legendary status on my main server, the first bounty hunter I've ever leveled and one of the small number of characters that still has those original merge rewards (tauntaun pet). that i managed to keep a name of a lvl 2 alt that I created for future reference about a year ago yet never played... but not one of my original 16 that were created at or around launch, is almost amusing.

they are just bitterly trolling and trying to drive role players away from "their" server due to some insane idea that role players are inferior players or some such. pay them no mind. though honestly, i would say there IS no official RP server. that aside, from my experience as well, Harb had community so toxic, it rivaled that of WoW, so I'm very VERY sorry about those people who were merged with them.

now I'd be curiously how badly it turned out for people are are preferred at the moment (and also makes me glad I used referral link before the merges not after) also kinda amused almost at the fact that i did NOT lose Ororo, my sentinel who has like.. half the played time maybe even less than the character whose name i did have to change. luckily a single apostrophe did the trick. whew. also... my sincere sympathies for those of you that lost treasured names

so... how many character names did you all lose? I lost 2 of my older ones, ironically. characters that existed for years one of whom I actualy did ops on somewhat extensively so he has a fair amount of play time as well :/ while a few of my more recent lower level characters are doing just fine O_O at least my main and Chiss family got to keep all their original names. how did you all come out of this merge? better? worse? well.. technically I lost 3 characters, but third one is a mostly abandoned experimental alt, so.. /shrug. the other 2 hurt though :/

the price is higher due to xp packs, mount and outfit. both mount and outfit are cartel market direct purchase items originally (personaly i bought the hood down version back when they first came out) I think that tauntaun was something like 1500 cartel coins? maybe? i don't remember, but basicaly the savings is that you get those cheaper than if you bougth them separately. the question is... can they be resold on GTN, or are they bound to your account? cause if they can be resold? could be worth it. if they cannot be resold? unless you really really want them? meh.

we are NOT asking to delete parts of the game ffs. we are ASKING for the gimmicks to be OPTIONAL rather then a barrier to continuing MAIN STORY. holocron jumping puzzles are different content done RIGHT.

only reason he is alive is becasue I wanted Senya back. he is pretty much yet another character in a long archetype of characters that fandom tends to get attached to over other characters because... honestly, all of the reasons I can provide are not very polite. he is just another Draco Malfoy.

sigh. I was actualy looking forward to uncharted style Amy Henning helmed star wars game. getting really really tired of open world single player games, since usually what that means is lots and lots and lots of busywork padding, while the story takes a back seat. tired of multiplayer being shoved into everything whether it fits or not. guess more time for me to make a dent in my backlog and/or replay old faves. P.S. people who claim that Nathan Drake (not to mention the rest of the cast) didn't experience any growth across the first 3 games, must not have been paying attention. but /shrug... kinda used to it at this point. i mean its enough to look at the forums here and see all the character hate.

oh.. the mouse droid section. even if the story was better then it is, I still would not repeat it, becasue of that bloody section. not only stealth is fiddly as hell, but having to restart from the start if noticed? no checkpoints, go back to the beginning - ugg. jumping puzzles are bad enough, but at least nowadays, you do them once per legacy and you NEVER have to do them again. not only that, but they are fairly optional buffs. nice to have, but not an obstacle to actualy progressing through content. and THAT is the problem with all the gimmicky stuff bioware has been adding lately. adding variety of gameplay is nice and all AS LONG AS IT REMAINS OPTIONAL. gimmicky stealth section without checkpoints is NOT optional, not if you want to continue the story. you know, story that is THE selling point of the game, its bread and butter, its main attraction? ah well.

dude.. you are tempting me to give Path of fire another go with these pics. I do have an adorable asura engineer, I just got used to different kinds of action combat I suppose is the best way of putting it, and didn't at all enjoy myself during open acess weekends (though the game looks better then ever). but... the lightsaber! I may need to give it another go (I mostly just play a tourist in GW2 nowadays - its an incredibly visually and audio pleasing game to me) edited to add, mostly been playing ESO lately. I love it. I get that its not for everyone, but I love it. that would be the game that got me used to slightly different feeling action combat (to be honest, after ESO, GW2 felt... clunky. even though there are a LOT of similarities, from limited number of active abilities, to aiming to dodge rolling to weapon swapping)

pfttt, some of the best times I had playing with my husband was when we pvped together. our tastes in game don't always run to the same stuff, so pvping together was one of the few things that genuinely meshed. its why both of us keep trying different MMO's in hopes of finding one we can enjoy together again. going up together against the world, so to speak, can actualy strengthen your communication and relationship in general.

yeah, the store is very optional. I actualy have those never ending harvesting tools and even when I was playing more, I barely used them, becasue I got so many scaling tools from just participating on holiday events that I literally couldn't run through them before next event would start. granted, I was always very casual, but the point is - its very much convenience and vanity sort of thing. P.S. living world chapters are sold for people who weren't playing at the time they were originally released. all the future chapters, as long as you log in at some point while they are current - you get to keep forever, at no extra charge. last but not least - there is a gold to gems trading system in a game, so if you are good at gold making you can get pretty much everything from the cash shop without spending any money. on a flip side, if you would rather not farm gold and have disposable cash galore in RL - you can just buy gold with gems. similar to cartel market items selling on GTN, except the trading goes both ways and rather then trade items, you trade currency directly via portion of market interface.

uh.. did he now? becasue I'm pretty sure HK 55 is ALSO a subscription bonus reward. you cannot get him if you weren't a player or subscriber at the time when he was offered as a bonus. I'm having a Nico Okar dejavu here with people insisting that everyone could get him, when it was patently false. edited.. and the reply above me confirms it.