That is your whole problem. Before the addition of F2P and the Cartel Market this game was failing financially. The subscription-only business model is no longer a viable option in today's MMO market. There is absolutely no way this game could have survived as long as it has without the new model. It amazes me that so many subscribers whine and complain about what essentially amounts to an alternate payment method. Everyone who plays this game for any significant amount of time pays for it. Some with a subscription, and some with micro transactions for Cartel Coins. It's not that big a deal. edit: Fixed for clarity.

Back on Firkrahn Crystal before it got merged I was in <it's getting Hoth in here> and the first message of the day was "so take off all your clones."

I'm currently subscribed and I haven't per-ordered. I have a general policy of not buying a game or expansion without at least seeing a review first. I suspect this is true of a lot of other people as well. There is just too much out on the market to risk wasting your money on a dud. Hopefully this expansion will be good, but life is hard and full of disappointment.

They could leave the credit cap in place and add a feature to the market that allowed free and preferred status players to draw a certain amount of credits from their escrow at the cost of some Cartel Coins. I believe this is what DC Universe Online does with it's free players. It could be a good source of revenue for Bioware and allow free and preferred status players to be more involved in the in-game economy if they liked.

But do you know what game we won't be playing all night? Age of Conan.