Well they can say. Do you want to make money EA or should we give the star wars IP to Turbine instead. Or some other company. Lucasarts dictates the terms of the agreement. They want their IP to look good. So EA had a choice yes. They could have turned down the biggest IP in sci-fi or accepted LA terms. They went with the latter.

Ya I think probably everything is up in the air so they cant really say whats going on. You can bet your bottom character slots will be available for coins. They will find a way just not till November.

What makes you think EA had a choice?

I agree with this. He has tons of money from the EA buyout. You dont have to resign your job to simply take a vacation. I am pretty sure EA demanded a change in management at Bioware SWTOR. I am also pretty sure he isnt happy about it hence this long vacation and vague comments about other projects. In the programming world when you are "working on other projects" that means you got laid off or fired heh.

You have no idea that is true. In fact before sony pulled the plug the president of lucasarts said he saw no reason they couldnt exist side by side. Meaning sony could have kept swg going while bioware ran swtor. Its not even the same timeframe.

What makes you think Lucasarts couldnt take Bioware's money AND let another MMO also do the same IP?

I just told you I havent spent any points. I think when you make a cash shop you have to put things on there people would want to buy. If not then what is the point of the store? So most likely by your definition swtor will be pay to win. You have to provide people with things they want to buy over and over if you plan on making money.

The information they have is that they do not have any information.

While I am sure at some point he planned to hand off the day to day management of SWTOR I somehow doubt he meant to do it less than a year after launch. Thats like saying while I knew my time on earth was finite but a bus hit me and well...Im dead now.

Yes ok so you can play the story. You can only do it according to the FAQ for certain races. Others will not be available. Yes you can play the storyline but a lot of the side quests will cost you coin. So to level up you can buy XP boosts from the store or grind mobs since only the class stories will be available to you. You are limited as far as travel so I assume no quick travel. No fleet emergency pass. Unless of course you pay for it in coins. All the new cool stuff also is going to cost you. These games do not go f2p because they want to make less money. They make it so you either sub or pay in coins. Either way its not free. For free you could just quit and never come back. They expect you one way or the other to pay something. trust me when you can only have 100k creds and cannot go above speeder piloting 1 you will prob want to sub. Trust me it wont be as cut and dry as you make it out.

Im a lifer I have never spent money in the store except for relic removal scrolls. I have like 18,000 points just from the 500 a month they give and the bonuses they gave when f2p launched.

You said why subscribe when you get everything free. Yet you ignore the fact it says there are all kinds of limitations on f2p accounts outside of the whole OPs, Wzs and FP thing. One other limitation is you cannot post on the forums as a f2p account. So this possibly would be good for us if a lot of these people went f2p.

Ok so show me where it says you will keep everything but the raid stuff? In fact it says the opposite. It says you will be restricted and for a fact we know you will be forced to choose what character you want. Also there is some evidence you might not be able to keep end game gear on that character. If you read the same thing I read I dont see how you could say you get everything without paying per month or buying coins.

Yes and your basis for your argument was that everyone who offered lifetime made a bad decision therefore it wouldnt be good for swtor to do it. I am talking about your reasons for thinking it would be a bad decision. For me I woudlnt buy it until I see them start putting out some good content. Even if they did offer it you are looking at $300 minimum. That being said I highly doubt with the f2p switch we see any lifetime sub offers.

Well your statement then was made out of ignorance. So you can do lvl 1-50. What if you can only do it on 1 character. What if you cannot use the taxis? What if you cant access in game mail or send/recieve credits or items? You just assume f2p will keep everything except the raid stuff.

All just conjecture. Which is what I was saying.

No it isnt. You said that lotro offering lifetime caused them to have problems later and go f2p. Thats not true at all. LOTRO went f2p because thats the future of MMOs.

Just curious why he would have to resign as manager of Bioware Austin to take a vacation.

Please read the whole thread. Your questions have already been answered.

Again very vague and says nothing about what is actually in the store. What is customizable gear exactly? What are these convinence features? I know there are restrictions but what exactly are they? Are we only allowed one race? How many character slots will f2p have? How many FPs do I get to do if I dont pay? None of this stuff has been answered.

Can you name any of these titles that went belly up after offering lifetime subs? The only one I know of (and I bought the lifer option) is hellgate london. Just curious since you seem to think there are 100s of mmos who have went under after offering lifetime. Can you name one besides the example I gave? STO is doing quite well actually. They are making money. Again a small budget with a small IP fee. They are a small outfit so they can afford to hire less people yet do the same thing. I would bet more people play STO right now than play SWTOR.

I agree he is freaking out about the GTN but honestly the page you linked doesnt have any real solid info. It says "some" things are restricted but doesnt go into detail about what. Its all really vague with no concrete answers. What does limited mean for example.

Success means the game is making money. Smaller games mean small budgets and wider profit margins. The game has no signs of closing so they must be making a profit. You dont have to be WoW to be successful in the MMO market.

It will still be deserted. There is no reason to go there. The VIP vendor has 1 item on it thats it. The CE items are the same as launch again no big deal. Maybe if they had chairs you could sit in or maybe mini games you could play. As is I dont see many people hanging out up there.

Again you have some kind of reading failure. LOTRO did not offer lifetime after they announced the f2p switch. They were the #2 north american mmo only beat by WoW when they announced the f2p switch. It had nothing to do with them doing badly . Everyone saw LOTRO's huge success and now everyone is going f2p except of course like I said WoW and some niche titles. Fact is Bioware doesnt need to offer lifetime to prove its in horrible shape and big trouble right now. They should have been a f2p/sub hybrid from the start but they listened to people like you and now we have this game noone plays. If they had offered lifetime subs to being with maybe we wouldnt be in this situation.