My friend and I clicked on your referral link, and we're probably going to end up subscribing. GG, no rematch. Off topic, but whatever.

I've paid for SWTOR for several months now without very many complaints. This isn't a "stealth" thread at all, I've even said that SWTOR free to play isn't horrible, you can work around it for the most part. But like some other people have said? The presentation is off, and a few restrictions shouldn't be there. I think the game would be better off if it took a true free to play model like Tera has, that would just mean more benefits for subscribers. But this is just what I think and I'm not trying to super impose my ideas over anyone else. In fact I'm pleasantly surprised how well this thread has done, most people are trying to keep it a calm and rational discussion which I hardly ever see these days. I've been a happy subscriber since launch, and even if some restrictions were lifted I would still be a subscriber. If you're not going to say anything constructive about the topic and continue to insult myself and other people for no reason? Please take that negativity else where. There's enough of it in the forums.

You need a subscription to post in the forums, so all of us posting here right now are paying for the game. We're simply suggesting things that we think would help the game do better. $15 is not hard to come by, but MMORPGs are starting to go with the free to play model now. We saw it with SWTOR, Tera, Rift, etc. They're making more money while the game is free compared to when it was pay to play. I don't think anybody here has said, "WOW THIS GAME SUCKS IT ISN'T FREE ENOUGH." we're mainly just trying to point out ways to help the game improve. And for the future I'm sure many people would appreciate it if you didn't insult them or swear, it's against the rules.

My favourite thing about SWTOR is the class story missions. I think these are easily the strongest point of the game, I really enjoyed the focus on story telling over generically reading lines of quest text. It thrust me into this whole new world set thousands of years before the STAR WARS Trilogy, and I loved it. However my enthusiasm for the class story missions didn't extend to the planet missions. Most of the planet story lines were dull and boring. The thing I dislike the most is that class story content is discontinued. (For now at least.) Makeb wasn't very interesting for me, I was really wanting to delve deeper into my character's story, but this new hyped up story content on Makeb was very generic and boring in my opinion, weaker than the other planet story lines imo.

You've got a point. I think the game would do a lot better if it went with a true free to play model like Tera and Rift, the numbers definitely quadrupled for Tera once it went free to play, and obviously they're making enough money to stay afloat. I think most subscribers feel like free to play is threatening them, but I myself feel like it's starting to become a necessary change. Paying $15 a month for access to a game has never been something I was ever really keen to do, but if the game was worth it and something enjoyable then I would pay. Just look at the success of SWTOR with free to play and the Cartel Market. If there were less restrictions or even none at all? We'd see a lot more people checking the game out and probably a lot more people actually staying, and if you've got more people playing and enjoying the game, they're probably more likely to subscribe to the game to support it and purchase things from the Cartel Market. But like I've said and others have said, the current model isn't horrible. If you know how to play it smart you can work around it for the most part. Races can be unlocked with some credits, (although the cap is 200k.) hide headslot can be unlocked, companion customization can be unlocked, but restrictions like head slot and companion customization shouldn't even be there in the first place. I think it's really obvious that SWTOR's current free to play model is just to give people a taste of the game, and if they think it's delicious then they'll buy the whole pie. But it seems that free to play is generally met with a lot of groans and frustration. We haven't seen the end of free to play models like Tera and Guild Wars 2/Rift yet. It's going to continue, subscriptions are going the way of the dinosaur. We'll see if TESO plays it smart and goes free to play, if it does and it's successful? I think it'll open quite a few more doors. And please don't get me wrong, I love SWTOR. I absolutely love this game with a passion, I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying I think it would do much better than it currently is if it removed most of the free to play restrictions.

More PvP content will be added soon.™ We've been doing a lot of waiting around lately for new content to be added, and PvP players MIGHT get something worth while with 2.4. And the Super Secret Space project? I hope it'll be something good, but I'm not getting my expectations too high. Chat bubbles and sitting properly in chairs should've been in the game at launch. People aren't going to sit around and wait forever for something great to be released, eventually the PvPers will end up moving on if something doesn't come out.

Several people commented including yourself, so somebody does care.

Does anyone else love how the discussion doesn't end here? A wide grin crept up on my face when the thread continued to receive comments. Seriously man, please take your trolling else where. On topic though, I think it's fine if a free to play game has restrictions. I think some subscribers would be upset if some of the free to play restrictions were lifted, I know that some people feel like their subscription isn't worth it. You could even argue that some of the restrictions in place prevent people from spamming and advertising gold selling websites, but I still see it going on anyway. I think the chat limitations should be lifted depending on how long you've played. If you're free to play and have played for more than two days or something, then you can talk in general chat, send mail, etc.

You do know there's a possibility that perhaps some people haven't seen those threads? I haven't found one that isn't bias or provides links and decent comparisons. But if it's really that big of a deal then I guess we can just let the thread die then, I was interested in seeing some constructive debates without any flaming.

So? I'm a subscriber and I feel the restrictions are a bit too much. You can still have an opinion on something even if it doesn't affect you.

Bump. Is nobody interested in this topic anymore? I haven't seen someone attempt to create positive discussion about the matter.

Do you think SWTOR's free to play model is fair? Feel free to check out the limitations placed on our free to play cousins here, http://www.swtor.com/free/features I personally think the list is quite immense. Basic features like hiding your headslot have to be purchased, as well as completing more than 5 warzones and 3 flashpoints a week. Their credits are capped at 200k, restricted player messaging, general chat restricted to Origin Worlds. They can't wear certain items, and can't even send people mail. And to top it off there's even more if you take a look at the chart I linked. But don't get me wrong, you can still play the game from level 1-50 without too many issues if you know how to play it smart, most of the unlocks can be purchased from the galactic trade market, though some probably exceed the 200k credit cap. All in all it isn't that terrible, but I think it's quite obvious that the free to play option is mostly just to give people a taste of the game and get them to subscribe. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's terrible that BioWare/EA is trying to get people to subscribe to their game. Leveling in this game isn't very difficult if you know what you're doing, even as a free to play player. If you make sure you complete each bonus mission, bonus series, etc, and run a few flashpoints? You'll be fine. You get to experience what is arguably the strongest point of the game, the story content. But what about other free to play MMORPGs? Let's take a look at what games like Tera and Rift free to play have to offer compared to SWTOR. TERA TERA free to play has hardly any restrictions for free to play players at all. There isn't a restriction on what race you can choose to play as, you have access to all zones and dungeons for free without a weekly limit, (Dungeons are the equivalent of SWTOR's flashpoints.) you can send as much mail as you want, although if you're sending gold, you can only send 10 gold per letter. You can trade items as much as you want, list auctions, etc. You can take a look at the comparison list between free to play and subscriptions here: http://support.enmasse.com/tera/tera-rising-play-for-free I've got quite a few friends who play this game and judging on what they've said and what I've experienced myself and read on their forums, there really are no restrictions for free to play players. You can play the entire game and have access to all dungeons and raids without having to purchase an unlock to do so, and then some. The only benefit to subscribing is some consumables and a faster than average mount. You can buy most of the stuff on their store, similar to what the Cartel Market offers, with ingame currency. It doesn't have a big impact on gameplay, similar to the Cartel Market. The game has a very active and healthy player base as well, so I'd say their model for free to play is working quite well. RIFT Rift free to play is coming shortly on June 14. The free to play for Rift has very little restrictions as well, offering all of the content in the game entirely for free, no level restrictions, no limit on how many dungeons and raids you can do, etc. Although if you want access to the souls that the expansion offers (Souls are like talent tree specs, Rift has a system that allows you to fuse a bunch of these different things called souls, kind of like mini-classes, together to create a unique class that caters to you. There's some really fun stuff you can do here, but of course there are preferred soul specs.) you'll have to purchase the STORM LEGION expansion. As far as I know, you have access to most of the content from the expansion for free. If there are any RIFT players here and I'm saying something incorrect, please feel free to correct me. From what I've read on the forums, the RIFT cash shop offers a variety of items, including high level gear among other things. But the best gear is still obtainable through the game itself, supposedly you will never be able to buy gear better than what you get from grinding. Rift also likely has a very healthy playerbase. You can get a better look at the restrictions for free to play and the benefits of a subscription here: http://www.riftgame.com/en/promo/freetoplay.php There are other free to play MMORPGs including STAR TREK ONLINE that don't have nearly as many restrictions as SWTOR does. So if you felt that SWTOR free to play was fine, what do you think after seeing a comparison to other free to play games? This is not a troll thread, I'm interested in seeing what people think about SWTOR's free to play compared to other free to play MMORPGs. Please keep the comments clean and refrain from insulting/trolling people who don't share your opinion, let's keep this thread a civil and engaging debate. Tl;dr: Do you feel SWTOR free to play is fair compared to other large MMORPGs like Tera and Rift? Why or why not?

It's honestly very frustrating to see this game continuously ran into the ground like this, this game had the potential to compete with World of Warcraft. Of course it wouldn't have killed WoW, but it would've definitely been able to stand on its own two feet and not transition into free to play. But they came up with ridiculous excuses like, "We thought that the players would take 5 months to reach level 50." It doesn't matter how spectacular the story content is... at the time there was really nothing else to do after that was done but roll another character to experience an alternate story. While there has been much more content added since then, it's still not enough. Players blew through that really quickly, and Rise of the Hutt Cartel was a very poor expansion, it didn't extend our personal class story at all, offered lack-luster same-sex romance options for the players interested in that, and it made little sense for most of the classes to even be there. PvPers are basically getting the middle finger, they've played the same season and the same maps over and over and over again, just hoping that the next patch adds some more PvP content. To top it off? There was a statement from one of the devs that open world PvP is probably not going to be worked on further. Pretty cool for PvP players! I guess they'll just have to "wait and see" if 2.4 brings anything good to the table, just like we just had to "wait and see" if 2.2 was going to bring anything, right? I'm getting tired of having to sit and "wait and see" if anything worth while comes out. And it's really frustrating to see that a lot of players who are really passionate about this game get bashed for trying to voice their opinions on the matter. Why do you encourage other players to leave? That doesn't bring the community together at all, that just spreads it further and further apart. Do you know why some of us "complain" and "whine" about the game so much? It's because we like this game, we want it to do well, we really do. It's frustrating to see nothing but disappointments each patch. And before someone comes in and says that EA/BioWare is making plenty of money off of this game, I'm aware of that. But I personally think things are starting to look very bleak for us subscribers, they also basically confirmed that they aren't continuing the personal class story content. Big mistake. I'm going to finish up my class story content, look for a group of people to roleplay with and see how I feel about the game at that point. If I don't start enjoying myself more? I'm unsubscribing and leaving the game. I don't know about others who feel the same way as I do, but I'm not going to sit around and wait and wait and wait just hoping that something good comes out. Please note: This is my opinion, I'm not saying that it's yours, or that you have to follow what I'm doing. If you're enjoying the game? I'm happy for you! keep playing in that case. But if you're not enjoying it? I wouldn't stick around for much longer. I really hope things start to look up for this game, I like it and want it to do well. But I'm not sticking around for much longer to find out, there are better things to do with my time. Have a great day everyone, and be safe.

But that proves that you do in fact care.

Curious. If you don't care, then why reply? Seems like you've got an issue with people voicing their opinions! And if that bothers you, then you do care that people are doing this.