The only f2p game I play other then this is World of Tanks (because mechwarrior online isn't even close to what they promised before they went open beta and started taking people's money). It has some small options on the top right, you see premium tanks on the tank lists, and you can buy shells for gold you get from cash, but it's all REALLY subtle compared to the way this is set up.. There you see it and know it's there but it sort of blends in.. Here it's like everyplace you see it it's a big flashing neon XXX LIVE GIRLS sign.

You know it seems like you lose the coins once you unsub. I had 100 the day before I subbed again, almost 2k today.... Makes me wonder if unlocks you purchase with the "free" coins stay unlocked.

I just came back after a few months and trying f2p (for about 5 minutes, before it annoyed me enough I had to debate subbing again for 2 or 3 weeks before actually doing it just to try the game out again). The whole cartel thing has it's good and bad points. My main problem with it is it's very intrusive on EVERYTHING. You have the symbol lurking like a death star top center on the screen, as well as EVERY menu has some sort of cartel coin option on it.. Can't it just have it's own little icon like all the others on the top bar, where you can open it for all the options, instead of having the cartel stuff rammed down your throat everywhere you look? And by that I DON'T mean a cartel coin paid option to make the coin system less intrusive! You're here to make money, we get it already....

I was wondering the same thing in a way. Was wondering if you keep those things you bought with the coins, also was wondering if f2p people keep the stuff they pay for for good or if it expires after a certain amount of time, or if they decide to sub etc.

While these are positive changes, what about the persistent low fps and other core issues keeping people from playing entirely?

There needs to be more communication on not just plodding to free to play, but the most important communications. What EXACTLY is being done to further improve the frame rate and latency issues people are experiencing? You guys are being too reactive and not proactive enough to sit and say ok, we need to slow our pace on new things (while still making progress) and improve the basics. Free to play doesn't mean a thing when people still can't enjoy playing the game with fps and lag issues. Even loading to the login screen is slow... When a majority of the people are complaining not about progress of the development but playability, you can have all the features in the world and still end up with no players.

I think it's how instanced everything is makes it feel that way. You go to most planets and never or rarely see the opposing faction because the zones are instanced differently based on what faction you are. If you're republic the same area on say belsavis is totally different from what it is for the empire. It being so instanced makes it feel like fewer people overall are playing. That feel, even with it being not seeing the opposing faction's players makes it feel like you're playing solo.

I've had this happen once. Personally, I don't care how many votes it needs. I see someone vote to kick me from a group i just leave the group, their loss. I don't want to be in a group with people that don't want me in it. I just wish there was a mode where you could watch them play the rest of the instance just so you can laugh when the group's performance is the same or worse then when you were in it. Maybe video capture it and put it on youtube... That would be great.

You have to build rage with the attacks you have that generate it.

I just unsubbed myself. Not because I don't like the game or because enough people are playing... This last patch destroyed my framerate, and it was tolerable before, just not now.

Want to know what this game needs? They need to optimize performance on what exists or do a complete reboot with an engine that can handle players and graphics. 10 FPS when there's more then 4 or 5 people around is not acceptable for an MMO. Then Bioware needs to convince EA to take Earth and Beyond out of the closet, dust it off and look at it really closely, and redevelop the basics of that for the space side of this game. That would add what equates to a second game worth of content to what exists now.

I pulled every trick in the book on my framerate and got it to like 14 fps on fleet... Average everywhere else is like 24-34. This is the only game I have problems with. What frustrates me is my system isn't even being taxed running the game and most of the fps tricks I have tried don't do anything. GW2 isn't even officially open yet and it seems like people on fleet is halved what it was 24 hours ago. The review from a friend of mine was "this craps on Wow, eq,eq2,AO,guildwars1"..... etc etc... This is a multiplayer game where you can't find a group to do anything. It's getting really discouraging for me. I like the game but it performs poorly and even with the server tweaks they're doing, all it seems to be doing is isolating players more and more.

Because companies get away with false and misleading advertising all the time these days.

The only reason the 40% are turned off by monthly subs is because they didn't introduce anything but fluff as new content since launch. A lot of the end game players don't want to pay for little to do. Personally I think the free to level 15 should be upped to 25 or 30 (with the restrictions they want for f2p), and just introduce some new zones/flashpoints/warzones etc over the next year that are quality, show the player base they haven't given up on the game yet and keep moving foward. Free to play at this point is just going to lose them more customers, because we're all thinking in the back of our minds that it's a slap in the face to the players who've been with it since the beginning.

The transfers have been put off for way too long is the problem. Too many impatient people wanting to get the mmo they paid for. They SHOULD have merged servers months ago.

When are you going to consolidate servers, or allow people to migrate to more populated servers (hopefully without paying for it)?

You people are making my brain hurt. What I want to know about blasters etc in Star Wars is why you NEVER see someone shoot, it goes through the hull and people get sucked out, or even decompression?

You've never played a MMO with the EA logo on the box before have you? Their CS is notoriously non-existent (if you have to actually call or on line chat with someone anyway).

Personally I like the game, but it does have it's issues. The only issue I am looking at right now is (aside from 2 or 3 servers) server populations are very poor in general. My thought is enough players have played an EA mmo before, and know their track record. I'm hoping 1.2 is enough to bring some people back or attract some more people. What's killing it for me is the lack of players to interact with. Other then that I really don't have too many complaints that would keep me from playing.

Not to be lazy (but I am gonna be), but wouldn't it be easier instead of individually sending invites for the free trial to be able to post a trial invite to friends on facebook or twitter? You'd probably get more people that way then with the 25 max, and also make it easy enough that the lazy like me will bother to do it.

They're definitely waiting too long to merge servers or let people transfer. The max I have seen is 1 or 2 full servers, a handful of heavy, like 5 or less, and a lot of light servers. I'm personally (being on a role play server makes it especially hard) on a rp server and considering quitting JUST because there's nobody to role play with, much less do heroics etc. The first problem was opening too many servers at launch, the second was keeping them open this long after the lookie seers left... It's not a sign of weakness that so many people checked it out and went on their merry way, it IS a sign of weakness that they're permitting server populations to be so low the multiplayer aspect is almost gone on a lot of servers after those people left. Combining that with insanely long loading times and other issues they don't address while fixing other problems.... It's a recipe for disaster. Personally if I was leading the development team (which would never happen, because on the technical side I have no idea, my experience is leading a team to work effectively in a non tech field) I wouldn't have released the game till 1.2 was out, and the initial load screen and lag issues were addressed. Or at least would have been in open beta till that was addressed. That might have lessened the player drop off. Limited end game content was a mistake to release with too, unless they were able to keep pace with players.