Am I right in thinking that the new expac will be designed so you follow your story only to level up? If that's the case then it makes sense to keep the rest of the game in-line with that.

Thanks, I appreciate the reply. I love just being able to follow the storylines so I'm trying to get through as many as possible. I only re-subbed for this feature, so the longer it continues the better.

When does it end?

Here we go! http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/301hi

The XP thing is a massive step too far, as is the valor restriction. With Warzones restricted, valor is already restricted by default, so I don't understand their reasoning there.

Most are limited, but not to this degree. Most also reward former paying players with a higher tier of account, and thus increased access to certain things. Former paying players would be given the equivalent of 'preferred player status' for example, though even the preferred status is still less than many other F2P MMOs give. Edit: Just found out former players DO get preferred status, mine account seems to be missing it to which I will talk to BW about.

I bet you can't guess... I don't expect the full game, I do expect to see a properly implemented three tier Free to Play system that the majority of F2P MMOs have. I ploughed hundreds of pounds into this game yet it seems I'm worth as much to BioWare as someone who put nothing in. Oh wait, I DO get a some Cartel Coins but ONLY if I pay for a subscription. Most F2P MMOs implement the F2P option in such a way for it to co-exist with their Subscription option, but it seems this game is trying to force people down the subscription route. This just will not work. Of course there needs to be ways to coax money out of players, but IMO BioWare or EA are going about it the wrong way. I'm all for paying subs when the sub is warranted. I paid for UO for 4 years and still pay for DAoC despite it being a desperately aging game. DAoC is still a far better game than this and it's over 10 years old! I play a number of different F2P MMOs, each of them former subscription games which I have paid for over the years, and each of them has a significantly better Free to Play model. I'm not afraid to spend in the cash shop for things I need (bank space, bag space, character slots for example), but the way this game is set up, I doubt I'll be spending much, if anything at all. As it stands at the moment, the whole F2P thing feels like a road block. I can't even get access to my bank without paying 5 bucks for heavens sake!

Actually it was ruined by listening to the wrong type of players during the beta. Most of those jumped ship in January or February and we have the game you see before us as a result. Now because of the bad decisions made by the developers we have this poor excuse for a F2P option which is unlikely to add anything more to BioWare's coffers because it's too restricted.

Being a returning player means nothing to BioWare. Many other F2P games give extra rewards to those people who have previously spent money on the game and on subscriptions, yet BioWare treats these players the same as the other F2P players. I realise that former players can get Cartel coins for former 'loyalty', but they only actually get these if they pay for a subscription. Most other games have three tiers of accounts - F2P, Premium (former players) and Subscription. But I guess why should we be surprised when EA are involved? As I said in a previous post, this is probably the worst implementation of F2P in an MMO that I have ever seen.

This F2P option is one of the worst I have ever seen. In fact, it's not Free to Play, it's just an extended demo, nothing more. All they are doing is giving people access to the game in the hope that they will subscribe. The thing is, plenty of people have played this game since launch, yet only a handful decided to keep on paying and keep on paying. It's not because of the sub fee, it's because the game isn't worth the sub fee.

The game lived up to expectations (though my expectations were reasonable) but BioWare have been a real let down. I'll stick to their single-player games in future as they have no idea how to interact with communities such as you get in MMOs.

As an EU player I support this thread. I am an advocate for separate maintenance times determined by region. Therefore with the implementation of the Asia Pacific service, BioWare should be splitting the maintenance into three different periods. Unfortunately it seems that BioWare do not care. Back in January, Stephen Reid promised EU players some news on how they intended to improve maintenance times for EU customers. We are almost March and there has been no further comment from anybody at BioWare about this issue. Maintenance needs to be carried out when the majority of the players in that particular region are not logged on. Carrying out maintenance at any other time is a total fail on the part of the developers and should never be accepted. I've put up with this ridiculous times since launch, my sub is up today and I will not be renewing until they sort this issue out. I'm sorry I will not be around to lend any more vocal support to both this thread and the EU maintenance thread, but I'm sick of being treated as second best to the US player base who get all of their maintenance at night times. I wish you well in your campaign, but don't hold your breath. BioWare have successfully ignored the EU for months.

That's the MMO community, it's not specifically TOR related.

You are missing the point. There are more convenient times to do the maintenance when less people will be affected. Of course they cannot please everyone, but that is even more reason to do maintenance when the fewest people will be inconvenienced.

I would guess the same, and of course ensuring that your own character has the better visual aspects at all times. To be fair, a system like this is fine, I mean if you want to get a good look at someone's gear, it just means you have to get close to them, no problem, as long as my character looks as good as possible.

Ok this is the post by Stephen Reid that people are talking about: Source (scroll down a bit and you'll find it). So therefore texture improvements were promised for 1.2, I haven't however seen anything from Reid stating this is no longer the case. If they have changed their minds, I wouldn't be surprised.

You'll find more players on Empire. Republic is pretty dead on most servers by comparison.

As people have already stated, Trion do it currently with Rift. Trion are a tiny company in terms of size compared with EA and BioWare, so if they can manage it, I'm sure BioWare can too. Clearly your experience hasn't taught you a great deal because there are already people doing it.

You think 500k will be acceptable to Lucas Arts? They forced SoE into the NGE when they had a couple of hundred thousand subs, during a time when 200k subs was widely accepted as successful. You think they will accept 500k in a massively expanded market? Also, Asia Pacific isn't going to bring too many more subs. The majority of players in that region that are interested in this game are already playing. By the way, I do enjoy the game, my account is cancelled because BioWare are clueless at Customer Service and have no idea how to run a MMO. EU maintenance times are a total joke, so my account is cancelled until maintenance comes through the night. So please, don't make assumptions about why I may or may not be subscribing to this game. The bottom line is however, that this game has some very major problems, and thus far, BioWare haven't addressed any of them. If their patches continue the way they have so far, 500k subs is about all they will have left in a month or two, and that includes the Asia Pacific region.

There has only been one month where people have had to pay, and probably haven't actually paid yet because they are still in their free month. I wouldn't start rejoicing yet, because this game has a LONG way to go before it can be considered a success. Until you see subscription numbers in months 3-6, I would keep that champagne on ice.

Really? Because SWG barely made 300k. I wouldn't put so much faith in an IP. If the game isn't good enough, people just will not play it.

Erm, that thread is very much out of date. That post was made on launch day...

Indeed they have, they have pulled down the numbers so that heavy is triggered when there are smaller numbers. It's to fool the paying public into believing there are more players than there really are.

To be fair, the majority (or close to it) were only been heavy in the initial stages of launch. They haven't come close to most being heavy (or better) for weeks and weeks. So unless last night was a complete anomaly, it's BS.

I've mentioned that same thing to her before, funny that this time she dropped them whereas last time she just plainly ignored the comments. The claims she is making are false, most servers are NOT full, most are light or standard. Also, she is using the server labels as the basis for her arguments when we know that it's commonplace in MMOs for the developers to manipulate them to show populations are better than they really are.