The point is they wouldn't lose revenue. I have so much money I am willing to spend on this game, I don't like spending that money on "time" which I may or may not use, but I am fine with spending it on tangible things that are mine permanently. I spent 5000 GC on lockboxes this month (and selling my duplicates is part of the reason I felt forced to subscribe), I'm not here to leech off a free game, I just don't like when it feels like my money is being wasted. Most F2P games have no subscription option at all, period. F2P works on it's own, and it works very well. Only a handful of western games continue to cling to some form of subscription bonus system, and it is highly unlikely they get any benefit from it. It's just fear of letting go of something they know and trust. People are going to spend what they can on a game, whether that's $5 every few months, or $50 per month, trying to force them into diverting $15 every month just for basic gameplay mechanics is going to alienate a large number of players and simply reduce what other people who stick around are willing to spend on things like lockboxes or costumes. If they removed the subscription limitations entirely and half their subscribers stopped paying $15 a month for it, those same players would very likely be spending that $15 a month on the store, and they'd gain a large amount of new players willing to spend perhaps a lot less than that. Even players who spend nothing are a benefit though, more people in the game making it more alive, more people spreading the word about the game and increasing it's popularity, the larger the game population the more likely they are to pull in a few new whales.

There's a reason I put "free" in quotes. I have never been a "froob" or "freebie" or whatever this community calls them. I am a founder, I've been around since the game came out, I have several years of combined sub time and well over $100 in additional purchases. I have every permanent account unlock you can get, purple unlocks, titles, color matching, headslot hiding, etc. and I've paid for expansions to perma unlock them. All of this is wasted because you get every single one of those things for free if you sub, and subbing is the only way to have any interaction at all with the economy, and the only way to get most quest rewards. That said, being a free player doesn't really change things, because the mechanic works so that they would have to buy those unlocks using normal game credits from people who spent real money on them. Which is identical to them spending real money on them themselves, either case EA gets the same amount of money and support. This mechanic is entirely broken at this point because last I checked there were basically zero unlocks available for under the credit cap. I don't mind the unlock system or all the current unlock options, the problem is there is no way around the biggest obstacle, which is currently the one breaking the system entirely. If they changed the escrow items to be permanent cap increases, that would fix it. Sure inflation means non-subs would have to spend more and more on them to keep up with acceptable caps, but I guarantee you that would be more money in EA's pockets. Why don't I like subbing? Because I don't have the time or attention span to play a game every day for a month. It sucks when you subscribe to a game for a month of time then only play 3-4 days. That's where I'm at, and why I couldn't even get back to this thread for a few days. I had to subscribe for a month of game time to unload some of the items I had stored up, and after just a few days I'm pretty much done with the game again. $15 isn't a lot sure, but $15 can get me a full game on Stea...Origin that I have forever and can play whenever and for as long as I want. My St..Origin wishlist has a couple hundred games on it, I don't have the time or money to buy and play all of them, but spending $15 on a sub for a game I've already spend hundreds of dollars on just to use the AH for a month means that's one less game being taken off my wishlist.

Ebon Hawk. Doing that same hour of heroics I found like 5 orange items that sold for 100k each, the champion at the end of a lot of the quests seems to almost always drop one. I was undercutting by a lot, some of them were going for 300-400k, I don't like sitting on items. I'm not even at the level cap either, I've been playing a character in the late 40s, and planetary specialty vendors are starting to sell things for like over 50k as well. 350k is such a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the current economy. Edit: I actually sold the items. I'm not talking about random prices people set and never get sold at. I listed the items for 100k each and sold all but one so far.

There is a reason F2P exists and why the game switched to it (why essentially all games switched to it). The F2P model earns more money than the subscription model when used correctly, by a large amount. It relies on a much larger population of players willing to spend less money per month and a smaller population of players willing to spend more per month. SWTOR seems only aimed at the later currently. It's likely missing out on a lot of potential profit because it's so unappealing to the the larger masses of players that would be willing to occasionally buy an item or two from the market every month. Regardless, my issue is I have been supporting the game with GC purchases in order to unlock features, and it's all in vain, I have to subscribe again and again and invalidate those unlocks to accomplish the things I want in the game. Honestly I would be fine if they removed all those unlocks and refunded my GC and just said subscribe or get out, because at least that's clear and I'm not going to be wasting my money on futile attempts to make a bad "free" experience playable when it simply isn't.

I am not adverse to spending money on games, I just don't like the subscription model. It seems at first like this game has a good alternative, that you can unlock things and play without subscribing, but it feels like a lie, and the game does everything it can at every turn to make you feel bad. I have spent well over 10k GC unlocking everything I can to make the game as close to subscription level as I can, and I feel like that money was wasted (because I have to keep subscribing anyway to accomplish anything). The biggest offender is the credit cap. This wasn't too bad back in the day before all the expansions, level cap increases, and the massive inflation that came with that, now it's a joke. I can do an hour of heroic missions and hit the credit cap, getting nagged about it every time I loot something for that last 15 minutes. Any random trash equipment found will pretty much sell for 100k+ on the AH because of how many credits are in circulation. AH is off limits, OK, fine, except that's how the truly free to play players are supposed to unlock things, but all the unlocks, even things like escrow items, are all priced above the credit cap at this point. Not that many escrow items are selling, because that system is terrible, and nobody is going to be using hundreds of them to to buy items in the 10-20 mil range that is common on the AH now. Then you have things like most of the quest rewards being locked, the game constantly warning you about your exp and reputation being reduced, stronghold prestige being cut in half for no reason, etc. etc. It just feels bad, after spending so much money on the game it's like being spat on over and over. Please just remove the penalties that nothing can be done about and change the subscription system to provide more bonuses. That's how every other free to play game with a subscription option works, it's common decency. You don't kick your free players in the sack over and over and try to force them to subscribe, you entice them to subscribe with shiny things, boosts, and bonuses.

It is never "wrong" to find an exploit, in fact most companies are grateful to players who find and report them through the proper channels. Intentionally abusing an exploit, or telling people how to do so, is what is wrong. There has to be abuse of the exploit involved for punishment to be warranted, buying and selling one or two chairs is obviously not abuse. My warning specifically says "repeated and excessive selling of the Temple Chair (Basic) Decoration." Edit: And I would like to point out again, that the warning on the launcher did not say what the exploit was. It just said don't use the temple chair exploit. For all I knew at the time of reading that it could have been an exploit related to sitting on the chair in a certain position to glitch through a wall. I am an honest player that would never dream of using an exploit, so I'm not going to click a link on a launcher to read further explanation about one.

I got a warning for this. It makes me sick to my stomach. I hate people who abuse things like this, and I wish every single one of them got perma banned, the fact that my clearly honest mistake has lumped me in with those same people literally makes me ill. Abusing an exploit is what should get people actioned, not when innocent people stumble onto it and then quickly walk away and leave it alone. Some people say it's just a warning, but warnings in these games are typically a permanent mark, and the next time Bioware screws up and gives me a warning for their mistake it might be upgraded automatically to a ban. I have disputed it, but I honestly don't feel like playing any more. There is now a looming fear that any seemingly innocent action I take could get me banned.

I am really hoping they are taking a few minutes to look over each instance before banning. I saw the warning on the launcher and dismissed it as I had no idea what it was and I never intentionally abuse things like that. I hadn't played in a very long time and I actually stumbled into the market bazaar area for the first time ever because of the random bounty quest I picked up. As I was looking over all the vendors in there I saw a chair for 1c and my first instinct was "Oohh free stuff!" I bought 2 before remembering the launcher warning, and realized this was the chair it was talking about, and I thought the "exploit" was buying/using them in the first place so I instantly sold those 2 chairs back without checking the price. I am really hoping a don't get a 7 day ban the day after I resubbed because of 198 credits.

I wouldn't mind such a change, I like my black/yellow crystals and I'm happy they added high level versions since I last played. The stats on a crystal are so low though it makes no difference, I'm perfectly happy using the low level crystal all the way through the game and feel no motivation to ever upgrade. Even at level 40 it's only like +17 for the best crystal over the low level preorder one, when you have like +1000 stats or more total.

What more are you expecting in terms of communication? They've acknowledged pretty much every real bug and said they are working on them. Do you really expect them to come out and tell you exactly which parts of the source code is buggy and causing issues with real-time updates for every line change and test they do?

Every healer can spam their big 2.5-3 second heal which will always give them the 2.5k medal on a crit even with terrible gear. CDs are all on smaller fast heals. Realistically though a healer doing their job only gets 3-4 medals in a match, which is what the problem is.

I've not seen any (blue/orange) pants (or helms) drop in BT since the game came out, and I've done it a few dozen times.

Pretty sure that was their point. Healers get crap for medals, so once you roll one and realize this you can go back to your sniper and feel grateful about all the medals that fall into your lap.

They are certainly "in the game" as are armoring 23s, 24s, and 25s, all in green through purple.

The fact that you can even remove your scattergun and still use the skill is all you really need to know. Maybe you have a crappy gun, maybe you didn't remove it "instead" but at the same time (no pistol or scattergun). I dunno, what I do know is the game calls it a tech skill, says it's kinetic damage not weapon damage, can be used without a scattergun/vibroknife equipped, and in my own personal test on my operative a couple weeks ago did not provide the results you are claiming. Removing my vibroknife had a similar effect on my "vibroknife skills" as it did on my other tech skills (frag grenade. explosive probe), which was a fairly minor drop in damage (15-20% or less).