Why should I stay subscribed to a f2p game? Why should I pay for freeloaders like the OP?

They blame the players? And they made it more like Kotor? What does Kotor bring to the table? You can build your character according to a D20 ruleset (a mix of levels and skills, but the bioware version had some limited options). To those that don't know D20. It has some similarities to D&D 3.5 edition rules. DDO and NWN show how much character customization is posssible with such rulesets. In Kotor you couldn't have only conversations with quest givers but also with lots of other NPCs (e.g. merchants). Kotor offered more than just 3 dialog options on conversations, despite having voice acting as well. Kotor allowed you to train your party members ("companions") as well. If that was too cumbersome for you the system could handle that for you. The hacking profession offered more interesting options (e.g. using surveillance cameras to look beyond closed doors, activate a facility's defenses on successful hacks, etc.). Despite the limited crafting options Kotor's crafting felt like it involved the player more (at least Kotor2 had more options than Kotor1). Go to a workbench, dissassemble some stuff, reassamble some stuff, etc.). In SWTOR you just send your companions on a mission and that's it. You had more combat options with a party of 3 (yourself and two "companions") in regards to strategy and tactics. In SWTOR you just have to hope that your only companion doesn't mess up too much. That's only a few things that come to mind. If Bioware would some day release a Kotor3 I might still be tempted to buy it.

I played SWTOR for quite some time. I played some other MMORPGs before as well. The voiceovers for talking with questgivers are fine, although the lack of dialog options moots the experience a little. Occasionally overhearing NPCs while they have a conversations is one of the fluff elements which turn the NPCs into more than "pieces of furniture". What happened to NPCs which can be talked to for rumors/advice/pieces of lore? If such NPCs exist then I apologize for wasting time. If not then the question remains to be answered. OK. One can click on various items in-game to get pieces of lore which are unlocked in the journal. But this leads to simply walking from Quest NPC to Quest NPC to collect quests. In between you click on lore items. It's no wonder the game world feels empty. You walk from A to B. From B to C. Even if you stop in a cantina there is not much to do besides parking your toons for the rested bonus. What happened to all those fluff RP elements? I understand that sandbox games can live without because the players themselves are supposed to breath life into the game. But what about themepark games? On an RP server you at least have a chance to stumble into player organized events. And if you are on a server with low population? Then the game really lacks even in comparison to a good single player CRPG.

Why would you play a f2p game? The cheapskates can go play f2p games, but I don't have the desire to pay for their free game time.

I wanted to get rid of all those gift fragments by selling them. But then I noticed they were bound... So I threw them away. They take away precious inventory and vault slots. Slots which are occupied by crafting materials and equipment.

I use my class buff. Yes. But to be honest do you really need them for ordinary questing? In the low and mid levels the 5% buff won't make such a difference. Take the trooper/ bounty hunter buff for example. How much bonus health does it grant on level 15 with only quest reward gear? How much does it grant at level 50 with a decently geared toon? During "normal" play the buffs didn't make the difference. It was rather figuring out target priorities and which targets required CC. How to start a battle and have the companion focus the right targets. The latter is still a bit tricky if you want to avoid having the companion break CCs.

Regarding the european servers and server transfers there: Bioware squeezed the majority of players on just 11 servers. The remaining servers are practically dead. I transfered from RP-PVP to a PVP server there. Unluckily that's a server where you have queues at prime time (evening times) of 30mins/1h and sometimes even more. If you are on fleet the game is lagging a lot. If Bioware plans to improve server capacities then kudos to them. Hopefully they don't wait too long with that step. With so many dead servers they surely got enough spare hardware.

I've played some other MMO with Micro transactions. Personally I spent 0.00 $ on cosmetic items in game. Why was that? The game had a crafting system where you could take almost any armor/equipment you found in game and place custom enchantments on it. Yes, the company offered armor appearance kits. But that development time was totally wasted in combination with the implemented crafting system. With the customizable gear hat SWTOR already offers where is the need for armor appearance kits? And you can only change your hairstyle / haircolour so often. And buying pets ... Yeah great. I dunno. People want online games and forget what comes with it (maintaining infrastructure / continuous improvement / etc.). Even with a subscription these games are by far very cheap. But then a part of MMOers tend to be cheapskates.

Protokollierung bis zum Sankt Nimmerleinstag gibt es nicht. Da fliegt dir die Datenbak um die Ohren, die das alles verwalten soll. Im übertragenen Sinn. Vor allem wenn der OP kürzlich den freien Charactertransfer in Anspruch genommen haben sollte, wird es wahrscheinlich schwieriger. Im übrigen halte ich es wie einige andere Poster auch hier. Was weg ist ist weg. Es gibt so schon viele Item zu sammeln in dem Spiel. Und seien wir mal ehrlich, mit Level 50 werden sich die meisten Spieler eh die 0815 Sets besorgen (vor allem wegen der Setboni usw.)

I rolled my first toons on a european PVE server (republic side). It was populated in December last year but then with time the population has shrunk there. After a little break of two month I rerolled on a european RP-PVP server (imperial side). Things were OK. Found some new guild and stuff (republic side). Now with the transfers the whole guild moved to "Tomb of Freedon Nadd" (PVP). It's nice to be on a populated server, But... But that server is now really overcrowded. When I want to play in the evenings there is most of the times a queue of 1 hour and more. I'm not in the mood to reroll yet another time. Especially I'm not in the mood to wait that long in a queue. Playing on the RP-PVP server is possible, provided you like soloing much. SWTOR is an OKish game. But... Fool me once blame on you. Fool me twice blame on me. Fool me thrice... ....

The actual question is: What is an appropriate challenge for players? Sadly there is not a single answer to this since players are different, like different things, have a different backgrounds, have different skills/knowledge. A company doesn't want to frustrate some players and replaces skill with time spent. A positive side effect for the company is that it allows them to lead players through the game with a relatively small potential for frustration. Another thing is that MMOs are so combat centered that players seem to expect if they fight a monster of their own level they must eventually win at some point. A different kind of challenge could be that a raid group has to split up. One half must distract an opponent that is invincible. The other half is trying to achieve some game goals within the same area. And the raid has only a specified time frame until their resources run out. Or you could have the players solve some puzzles. But then out of lazyness a considerable chunk of players will probably resort to solvers (even for easter eggs like an in game mastermind game).

If you look at it from a game mechanic view then you are right. They play similarly and have similar skills and abilities. Although with some differences. If you look at it story wise then you're wrong. The trooper (soldier) belongs to an organization. The bounty hunter doesn't belong to a big organisation, but works for himself.

I doubt it that creating a greater behemoth would be good for the industry. Besides such a deal would either leave the new company highly indebted or a lot of new stocks are thrown on the market to finance the deal. In the first case that would leave less money for developing games. In the second case shareholders wouldn't be happy (too many shares --> lower stock price). And after all. Such a behemoth would even try to mooch off as much as possible from the existing IPs. The easiest way is with standardized products. How many gamers are already now complaining about uninspiring sequels? My bet is rather that someone placed a rumor to make some arbitrage profits.

Allowing all non force users on both sides would be possible I think. Story wise it would be easier to incorporate them in their faction's organisations (e.g. trooper --> imperial armed forces or agent --> republic secret service). Offering some new class stories wouldn't hurt. Bounty hunters and smugglers really stand apart since they can be like mercenaries and/or just work towards their own goals. The latter two could even be put into a faction of their own (independents). The force users are a differnet matter. Their differing philosphies (sith vs. jedi) and opposing organisations would make it hard to allow jedi on the imperial side or a sith on the republic side. Switching factions while playing a class would be a whole different matter.

To be honest. If there were no group content (heroics or flashpoints) on the way to the level cap then I would have lost interest in the game. Combat while you do the "normal" quests is so ... how to say ... dull, boring, easy and predictable. On the other hand I acknowledge that on some days it's harder to find groups. But still I wouldn't like group content to follow the way of the dodo. I'm not much of a fan of racing to cap and mind numbingly farm end-game content. If I don't have fun and group content on the way to cap then there is no longer a reason for me to play a game which brands itself MMORPG. Most heroics can be repeated and are optional. So skipping them occasionally isn't much of an issue. You can also skip other soloable quests if you think they don't fit with your alignment (light side, neutral, dark side).