I played Wow for less than a month, just plain didn't like it. Actually I hardly recall it lol. So I don't fit your 2 categories. You need a 3rd category for those from CoH/CoV, Co, STO, TSW, Aion, UO, GW1, etc I do keep multiple subs up on games as well. I make my decision based on how much I enjoy the game and how attached I get to my characters (this takes a few years). This will be the first game I have left due to being treated poorly by the game provider. I liked playing quite a bit, but after having my 50s renamed I lost my attachment to them. After having my other characters trapped in the flawed server merges with zero help getting them out of limbo I've just had enough. TSW is a new game, one I'm really liking, heck I even dropped $200 to life it. I'm expecting to also enjoy GW2. I played the beta weekends and also have loved the complete GW1 game (still play it too). I'd say a good game has every chance at success. I'd say a bad or mediocre game with poor customer assistance and a firm that constantly lies and misleads its customers won't. It's not rocket science.

I think a better solution is to provide a product/service that their customers feel is worthy of their asking sub price. Quality not manipulation please.

This is where you went wrong. You believed them! You should know better by now given their history.

If so it'll mean me walking and never looking back at SWTOR ever.

Indeed it is. I'm quite disapointed.

My one big issue is the still incomplete transfer scheme. I wish their time-line was for faster final resolution of this rather than the lingering unfinished "thing" that it is. We had weeks of voluntary transfers. Origin servers are closed and those trapped on them (full destination server) still have no firm idea when they can play their characters again on a populated server. Since about one week into the free transfers phase when my server became a ghost-town I've not enjoyed playing my characters at all. My destination server holds my 50's. This transfer scheme split friends and guild-mates. That is the glue of MMOs. Some day maybe they'll finish up this project of theirs to consolidate the servers (we still have no set dates). For those stuck until it is resolved the game is just one huge frustration. If I had designed this whole system myself it would have run its course in two weeks max and would have had a safety net for players whose characters could become trapped. For crying out loud we are still trapped now at 2 months. Ridiculous way to treat customers you wish to keep. Even though I do love this game I'm at my wits end.

There are different ways of expressing skill, it doesn't have to be the players hand to eye coordination version. What if skill in building characters was the determinant factor? How one builds a character to play with ones guild so powers and skills of the character synergize both for that character and within the group. Games I adore that are not gear centric but character skill centric, they are - Jagged Alliance, Guild Wars, Champions Online, and The Secret World. Unfortunately in this game character building just results in cookie-cutter copies of the three talent trees. If they could open those up, add more, perhaps add alternate ways of obtaining new powers or variations on powers we could get away from a game that is so heavily weighted to gear and gear grind. At one point in closed beta we had benefits for all stats on characters, not just one stat characters like we have now. It was fun to think about and to build ones character. In simplifying the game to one stat characters I think they did enormous harm for allowing uniqueness and differentiation of characters in this game. If only they could go back in time and change this feature of the current game to what it had been before.

I have 3 level 50 trooper Vanguards. They are redundant from a pragmatic viewpoint I'll admit. I don't play video games for pragmatic reasons. I play for fun. Two are tanks and one is DPS but the motivation isn't for one of each talent tree, although to be honest that is why I started them. The reason is of all the classes I liked the vanguard the most. I'm not big on FPs and OPs as all my friends and most guildmates have dried up. I get the biggest kick in this game leveling vanguards with Snipers as my next favorite. I have a few more vanguards on the way up now, I've suspended playing them until they are moved from my now dead server to one that is viable for teaming (Destination server is full). Whats wrong with leveling multiples if you enjoy the trip?

I always liked how they addressed this issue in Champions Online. There upon getting a character to max level you are awarded a new character slot. It's a nice simple solution that encourages players to do all the leveling content and not stagnate with multiple alts all stuck at mid-level and rewards playing with the opportunity for more playing! Great way to do it IMHO.

The games gear centric design. Much too late now to fix this aspect of the game unfortunately.

Characters on destination servers that did not transfer got the rewards as well if they were level 10 and if they existed come the end of the offer (31JUL12).

I would assume so as we are now 9 days past the deadline. It's over. It's done.

Nope. I don't think a lifetime sub would actually be of value here. Don't think lifetime would be long enough to warrant the expenditure.

No new word yet, however there were many questions in the weekly Q&A thread before it was replaced with the F2P Q&A. When they swapped them out the CS folks said the questions in the replaced weekly Q&A would be answered next week. I'm sure they know we are keen for answers. Only time will tell if anything new is forthcoming as they have said nothing new regarding this issue of late.

I don't see how one can offer this game without the class story. Class story is the mechanism to move players from one quest hub to the next. Class story both unlocks companions and gates companion conversations needed to advance them to full. Without a huge effort to redo these aspects of the game the game would not entice me to want to pay for a sub if the class stories were not included as the game would be basically broken for leveling. If the class story was missing as the game is now I'd just look at the game as being broken without them and move on as a F2P player.