That's it. That's the whole post.

The GTN is a cop-out answer for this kind of dilemma. Whose going to buy a ship for 1800 cartel coins in hopes that they can sell it on the GTN for anything close to that equivalent in galactic creds? And even if this was an acceptable avenue, those who could afford one by paying in-game currency at standard ultra-rare GTN prices are a much smaller percentage than those who can afford that in real money. I just want to progress in the star fighter expansion by playing it, and it frustrates me that there is gated off content. Adding premium ships for...I duno...say 10000 fleet rep, 15k, 20k, would be great!! Something worth setting your sights on and trudging through the content to unlock, and then proudly brandish. Rather, there is nothing particularly special about owning the coolest looking ships in the whole game. It doesn't mean ANYTHING other than you have more money to blow on stuff than most people. It's just a shame.

To the OP. I was curious about this too, so I did the math and was ready for some loop hole F2P gaming fun..... and I was so depressed by what I found out I just went ahead and resubbed. IMHO it's just really not worth playing F2P at all at all at all... mostly because even with all the purchased unlocks (which are extensive and altogether costed an inordinate amount) you're still subject to a myriad of hindrances, like no rest xp, less choices of rewards for quests, limited FP rewards, no OPs, limited PVP access (though that's changed I think)... F2P is a giant trial run, with it's advertised hindrances smacking you in the face and nearly every turn this game has to offer. It's designed to make you spend more money, so even if you sub and don't play for a few months at a time, you may still come out ahead in the end.

I understand why there are purchases you can make with cartel coins in Galactic Star Fighter than help speed up your progression and stuff. But there shouldn't be ONE thing you can't purchase with enough Ship or Fleet Requisition. By adding ship types you can only buy with Cartel Coins you have set a ludicrous gate on content in your own expansion. Not to mention the ships you can buy with Cartel Coins look so much sleeker, shinier, and nicer than the ones obtained through actual game play. Stop rewarding spending money over gameplay. If you're gonna sell the nicer ships for real world money offer them for a whole bunch of Fleet Requisition too! I want to see nicer, new, polished art you're adding to the game.... I'd like to earn it through playing the game not spending money. I'm not saying don't sell things in the Cartel Market. I'm saying offer them through multiple means. For those dedicated enough to grind out the in game currency to obtain these items, they should be rewarded.

Truth. This game could be really really great. Instead it's good with a focus on monetizing every single little thing. I can't wait for WildStar...

OMGosh yes please! I love this idea. There needs to be spaces specifically relegated for RP. And don't say cantina's cause theyre almost all ghost towns (theres no purpose to go there. just to log off). it's a shame some of the best spots in the game are inaccessible after you complete their missions. Opening all of them up for RP or just for exploring would be unreasonable, for sure. But add some. That would be great.

I too was wondering about this, transferring a toon from Jung Ma and I know a lot of guilds from the RP-PVP servers got swallowed up by POT5 with server mergers a long time ago. Are there any imperial RP guilds or players, or presence at all?

omgosh yes. why haven't they done this before?? it would encourage open world pvp easily. great idea.

This is what I want, but it would be a long way off: TRANDOSHA and KASHYYYK Expansion!! Malgus returns, sits on the thrown as Emperor, and welcomes Trandoshans into his new Empire. Trandosha is granted Imperial military aid and starts a religious war on a massive scale war against the Wookie home planet of Kashyyyk. Two new world pvp oriented planets (with some leveling pve zones). Start as a lvl 40 Wookie on Kashykk (republic) or a lvl 40 Trandoshan on planet Trandosha (Empire). Create 2 or 3 "new" classes. Just mirror some of the existing classes with a 4th talent tree made with Wookies & Trandoshans in mind. You could have a vibrolade/techblade tank class, a ranged dps class, and range support class. There could be 10 lvls of story content about the Imperial backed Trandoshans invading Kashyyyk, and the Republic backing the the Wookies, helping them ward off enslavement, colonization, or destruction, sending it's own task forces to cause trouble for The Empire's forces on Trandosha. This could culminate in epic world pvp achievement based zones for lvls 50-55 which all characters could participate in. Both planets are actually in the same star system, very near by each other, so you could even ad shuttles on the planet surface to easily take you from one open world warzone to the other, adding dynamic game play, cutting down travel time, and unifying populations easily without compromising story...actually by adding to the setting, emphasizing how tense the conflict is by showing you it's literally one planet over. As for the speech issue: give the Wookie a companion that can chime in on conversations as a translator if need be. And Trandoshans can actually speak basic, so there ya go. And lots of quest givers could be human imperial or republic military personnel, or off world traders/slavers. Also...droids. As for the wookie gear issue: take a page from SWG, make a new wookie gear set called "wookie garb." Utility belts, hoods, cloth tunics, helmets, etc.., Put a few basic skins earn-able through quest rewards & stuff, make some more craft-able, and then make all the cool, weird, wild, outlandish ones on the Cartel Market and monetize the heck of it, cause that's what EA/Bioware does with everything. I can dream.

I thought about this before. I would love if they added like or SOCIAL SPEEDERS. Basically an automatic reskin of your current speeder when using it in interior social areas, (like fleet) that would be roughly the size of a segway, and not a motorcycle, small car, or even boat (for some of us). Also you could add various cosmetic tiers of these star wars segways, you could tie them to social points, the fleets would look less cluttered, you'd have more items for Cartel Market, you could make them customization. It would be awesome. It'll probably never happen, and of course some people would be mad, but I wonder if it would cut down on lag...or increase it.

This is at the heart at why, to some, it means so little to be a subscriber. In a hybrid F2P/Subscription model, we are sold the idea of being able to access the entire game through a subscription, or paying for only what we want in the Cartel Market. Cool new gear is lumped in as "vanity" items, but that's not entirely the case. New gear is also new content, albeit not on the same level as new missions, companions, planets etc...but organically growing your character and evolving their look IS part of progressing yourself through an MMO. Make the ratio come closer to something like this: For every two items of gear added to the Cartel Market, add one earnable through normal game play. I get what the point of the cash shop is, to make money and to sell cool exclusive items, but this should NOT be at the expense of the rest of the game! Make cool new gear that is exclusively earned through normal game play (like the Republic Flight suit before that was added to the Cartel Market...). This can be through mission rewards, or small loot roll chances on lock boxes. Or MAKE SOME OF THEM CRAFTABLE! Do NOT allocate all of your artistic resources towards the Cartel Market while ignoring adding new art to the actual game itself. Lot's of people are complaining about the look of PVP and PVE gear you can currently acquire through comms compared to Cartel Market gear. Make sure you're listening to them and make us feel heard. I've seen this same suggestion worded differently pop up every few days for months and months.

DOHboy, in response I'm just gonna go ahead and quote myself...

If making chat bubbles appear everywhere is the issue just make chat bubbles only visible by friends, party members, or guild mates. Done. What's the problem? Where are our freaking chat bubbles? City of Heroes had them, and it was awesome. And I really really want them in this game. They make RP SO MUCH BETTER.

You also always have the option of claiming your character is force sensitive, but not actually trained in the force. This would allow for them to use fantastical powers but not actually be a Jedi or a Sith. That cybernetics thing was a real cool idea too.

RP is less organic on Jung Ma. Also world pvp is pretty non existent in the whole game. So if you really like RP I'd suggest Ebon Hawk. I like Jung Ma, and I hate seeing enemy faction characters in the real world and not feeling that sense of danger (it takes away immersion for me) but 99.9999% of the PVP I do is Warzones anyway....so....I'm just stuck on a low populated server that KIND OF caters to the RP crowd. It's a give and take.

I think it's a cool idea. Jedi have sexual orientations just like everyone else, but they don't pursue attachment. That does not mean the desire for attachment isn't there. It means they keep that desire at bay, dormant, controlled. I think hiding behind the idea that "Jedi put aside emotion/passion and also intimacy," is a terrible excuse for making boring, 2 dimensional Jedi RP characters. My JK struggles with his anger towards the ineptitude of the Republic government, and also the loss of his twin brother when they were toddlers. So even though he lives by a code that tells him to put aside emotion/passion, he struggles with that.

Yes! This would be SOOOO cool. But from responses I've heard from the Community Cantinas it seems like doing ANYTHING to your ship is incredibly taxing for the developers. Meaning I doubt we'll see this awesome idea, or ship customization of any kind, or....making...our ships...useful, or interesting, or personal, at all. :/

I get it. The work around for most everything is, "You can get it off the GTN," but that is just a means to artificially extend the length of the game, grinding up for credits to buy everything you want for every character you have. Emotes for sale, of all the things that you can buy, to me and some others in the RP community, comes off as petty, greedy, and nickel and diming. It also sets mild barriers to RP and immersion. Sorry, I can't figure out how to jump up in the air and click my heels together, because I didn't pay money...to...know....how to do that...? What?? I'm not contesting the idea of paying for content. This is an MMO. I get how development costs go. I've played many MMO's before. But the fact that there has been a resounding chorus of "This game's direction is greedy and far too cash shop oriented," caroling on for months & months & months should be some kind of a wake up call. I know it's small. I know it may not seem like a big deal. But if it's so small and not a big deal then take a page from some other MMO's and just let us have our freaking emotes. Tossing some small, FREE, social updates to your player base just to add flavor to the game does wonders for a game's image.

I like the idea of a general summit on the first Sunday of the month, and the then third Sunday just being the guild representatives and a few others. So big gathering in the beginning of the month, much smaller one in the middle.

The first one was a bit slow to get really goin but it DID go very very well. I'm excited to see how things progress, and how the Republics will actually take form.

It's great to see such enthusiasm on the Imperial side! Haven't had quite the wealth of interest on the Republic side.

- beep boop sccchhhzzzzzz click click - INCOMING TRANSMISSION Poll date recovered by our probe droids have detected sufficient energy and resources among the Imperial ranks to conduct the first meeting of the newly formed IMPERIAL COUNCIL - This will be an ongoing summit of highly influential individuals within the Empire - Guild leaders, noteworthy Imperial politicians, Sith Lords, high ranking military officers, Mandalorian clan leaders, as well as ambitious youth looking to get involved with Imperial politics. THE IMPERIAL COUNCIL [name up for change] will have our first meeting this Sunday - June 2nd in Kaas City at 4:00 PM ((server time)). It will be held in front of the monument to Lord Ergast. This event is open to all to discuss galactic wide community events, military strategy, war time politics, news from the holonet, and anything else deemed worthy of discussion. This first meeting will be a chance for interested parties to meet, discuss ideas or concerns, and let the council take form. There will be an informal meet and greet from 4:00 - 4:25 at the Nexus Room Cantina. Around 4:25 we will walk south to the monument of Ergast, and around 4:30 is when the meeting will actually begin, for those late comers. Guilds, special force squadrons, mercenary companies, Sith cults, send your most diplomatic representatives. Together we can build a united front against the Republic aggression. END TRANSMISSION -- PLAYING ATTACHED ADVERTISEMENT -- Were you an up and coming Imperial governor, now stuck on some backwater rock on the outer rim and you feel like your career isn't going places? Are you serving time in an Imperial prison and you're feeling like a change of scenery?? Then why not consider a position organizing or proselytizing for THE IMPERIAL COUNCIL?! If you are interested in a role as an organizer or an emissary for the council send a message through the Imperial Mail Service to Sith Lord:: SEITAN.

Everyone is invited. The shout outs were just to name a few. Anyone interested in an organizing role send in-game MAIL to Seitan if you're on the EMPIRE or to Veg if you're on the REPUBLIC.

Sounds GREAT!

Okay okay okay. Let's not get all hot headed and take things personal. I went on general chat and said, "What are some of the more active RP guild on this server currently?" I just threw up what I was told. The shout outs in my post were just naming a few. Any and all RPers (guild or not) are welcome to come. I didn't mean to ostracize anyone by NOT listing you. I'm sure some of the best went unlisted. I've spent most of my time on Republic so I'm better versed with that community. Shout outs were just vauge names to list a few. If you're guild is interested in sending some representatives please post in the thread below!! Also, if you want to help with the organizing and you're on the Republic send an in-game mail to Veg. If you're on the Empire send an in-game mail to Seitan. I am just an organizer I don't claim to own or run this event entirely. I want this to be very group oriented. I'm so happy to see interest expressed at all! Also I'm going to add some of the names that were listed in the OP. I claim relative ignorance to the guild politics of Jung Ma. That is partially why I'm calling for these regular summits.