It is worth nothing if they're planning on trivializing it less than a year down the road. And possibly even charge for it.

Simple: You don't. You either give them free game time until you can fix the game or you lose them. Most people that leave don't come back, so it's a big issue from a management standpoint. I'm yet to reach lvl 50, but for me this announcement has made me rethink staying subscribed. The level cap increase particularly is iffy since it invalidates the already not too thrilling endgame. While other games bombard you with endgame perks from the moment you start playing, SWTOR hasn't given me a single reason to want to hit the level cap. Some features are nice (legacies, for example) but they are so limited in scope that I can't quite use them to justify remaining subscribed. To be honest, I believe the developers just showcased how they have no idea what they're doing with that E3 announcement. They seem to want to bleed out more subscribers than they already have with those moves.

Though I'm not in a low pop one, I'm on a mid pop server that could use a lot more people around, and I do believe merges are the way to go. Having half as many servers (or even less, 30-40% could be) would mean most people would be on healthy servers, if not everyone. Then if the game starts getting lots and lots of new people, start reactivating old ones. Come to think of it, it's not only better for the players but also for Bioware - Less servers to maintain. MMO population drop 2-3 months after release is inevitable, so it doesn't speak badly of the game or its devs if servers are consolidated. What does speak badly of a game and its devs is having 40 servers online out of which at most 10 have healthy populations. It gives the impression that nobody plays the game.

Agree with this. Got 10 boxes, 4 kiras on them. Another 2 skins were repeated twice and another two appeared once. So I spent 200 DNA to get skins for uh... 5 characters, none for my class. Considering there is a VERY limited time frame for these, I believe they should've been made to be tradeable, bind on use items. The current system would've only worked had the event lasted for months, having such a limited time window for an RNG based item is ridiculous.

This is happening to me too. I was set to pay my monthly fee via paypal last tuesday. It failed for some reason even when I have enough funds. I set up another subscription, my account went active and said I'd be charged later that day. Fast forward, I still haven't been charged and every day the billing date just gets moved one day forward for some reason, meaning I've obtained almost a week free playtime by now. I do not qualify for the 30 free days.

... So I can't name my guild <YODA FANCLUB>? That sucks /unsub

Why, I didn't get any!

There was one not long ago where they accidentally deleted the source code or some part of it that made the game irrecoverable during a patch and had to go under...

I got Diablo 3, a mount and an invite to Pandaria Beta for staying subscribed to WoW...

I'd love to play as a Yoda thingy. Also, sith Ewoks!

Why would they have to delay the release even longer, having the game consuming resources and a horde of fanboys demanding immediate release, just because the legacy system wasn't implemented? WoW has ben out since 2004 and, last I checked, it DIDN'T have a legacy system in place either. As for TERA, it's a Korean game. Expect a grind grind grind.

It has, also, been out for well over a year, just not in the west. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exiled_Realm_of_Arborea

Actually, that article is from last week (april 6th). So the next week it refers to would be this week, though apparently James Ohlen corrected his comment about "next week" (this week).

Just two days ago there was a several pages long post stating Bioware preferred Empire over Republic. Good to know they got their act together and made massive changes to the game since then to make Republic the better side.

You can also bet there'll be a game update (1.3?) by June or so to attract said demographic along with 1.2 being released mid-April to keep people from getting TERA. EDIT: To the OP: No, I don't think it'll be going F2P anytime soon. Considering Star Wars Galaxies had a much less impressive run than TOR has so far (Though it's still very early to tell) and it never went F2P, I don't think TOR will ever see such need. And before anyone speaks of Galaxies closing, it close because the license expired when TOR launched. Not because it wasn't making any money even when it was a mess.