Pay to Win

I can't see how mailing to alts would benefit gold sellers. Naturally that doesn't mean there isn't some way it could...if someone could point it to me I would appreciate it.

Right now that is the most draconian restriction in place IMO...I can see restricting mail to other players and support that. Mailing to other characters on the same account though? That seems more punitive than protective to me.

IMO the entire free to play setup is designed to be punitive compared to subscribers to get them to do precisely that: subscribe

I don't approve of the business model but it's pretty clear to me that's their goal. Nobody with half a brain could get any real enjoyment or satisfaction out of the free to play portion of this game. Not compared to being a subscriber.

Though I think that the subscription is appealing for obvious reasons I don't think it is appealing enough YET to really encourage folks to STAY subbed. Not to mention the fact that the F2P model here is one of the most draconian in the market (but not the worst mind you) and could be more friendly to new players.

I believe it is close to what it needs to be. But these are the adjustments that I think need to be made.

Subscription

Milestone reward program similar to CoH or SWG, that rewards for total subscription time, presenting unique rewards at different intervals.

Ability to summon group members to your location on the same planet as group leader...does not work in instances or in PVP areas.

Legacy presence boost, 10 point boost every 5 legacy levels.

Speed boosts work when mounted.

Preferred

Legacy mail, ability to mail to your alts unrestricted.

Legacy cargo bank, ability to unlock additional slots and EC bank that can be shared across all legacy members.

F2P

Ability to purchase unlocks for one week regular prices, regular XP, regular rewards, quick travel, medical droids, fleet pass. One month flashpoints, operations.

I'm not certain how tracking is done in MMO's, but I can hazard a guess based on the way other MMO's have responded to gold farmers and how that had an effect on players "caught up in the sweep".

If EA/BW tracked every single transaction they would eat up huge amounts of hardware power. Much like RADAR has filters set into it such as size and speed (in order to not track a train or flock of geese, for example, while still catching low flying planes) a tracking program probably looks for patterns of transactions and the amount of a transaction and only keys on certain parameters that would indicate gold farming.

Gold farmers with unlimited mailing abilities to alts would be able to mail smaller amounts to throw-away alts and have those alts transfer those smaller amounts to another account for further dispersal or to players. To further muddy the waters they could delete the alts as soon as a transaction takes place and create a new one which might make tracking more difficult.

Only EA/BW knows the particulars of their data collection systems, so we can't be certain, but I can imagine a number of ways that free accounts mailing to alts could be used in an attempt to circumvent tracking software.

Absolutely correct.

Yeah. The fact that so many subscribers complain about the F2P restrictions just exemplifies that what they want is sub access at F2P prices.

Could they get any more greedy and self-indulgent as players? It's ironic that these same people label Bioware as "greedy"

It's not about mailing to alts, it's about mailing to another character.. PERIOD.

Bioware simply has not bothered to add code to parse mailing restrictions based on character affiliation to an account rather then account status.

I'm sure they could, but there is no business motivation to do so. What?.... the F2P players are going to take their money elsewhere or something?

Now.. a gold farming operation could actually use unrestricted mailing on a single account to launder credits/items multiple times to make it harder for analytics to track said items/credits down. So while I don't think that would be the most effective method for them to do so, I also would not underestimate their inventiveness and willingness to do so.

I'm not sure that's true, as you can only mail to the other faction if they're in your legacy (and thus on your account). Some form of that exists.

That coding =/= coding for account status + affiliation within account.

More coding would be required, even though parts of the routine might exist in other parts of the code base.

I don't think the coding matters. What matters is that F2P is going to have restrictions and those restrictions are going to encourage subscription or purchases in the CM as well as have some protections against those who would use F2P accounts for nefarious ends.

Personally, I think F2P is too easy. I don't think F2P should be able to buy unlocks on the GTN and should instead be forced to buy them through CC themselves. This is, of course, just my opinion as I see F2P as a pimple on the backside of MMO's. It might make MMO's more successful but it also appears to remove some of the pressure on MMO makers to actually make a good game that draws players in and keeps them.

IMO, F2P is a crutch for developers.

The irony is that i find the restriction not too bad enough for me to still pay a sub, not to mention no content that i got with my sub since... well.. 1.7? (i dont count recycled content as content, sorry) No class balance except every 6-9 months, F2P restriction arent that bad when you look at it, doesnt mean i will play tho, nothing to keep my attention on the game anymore.