Is the F2P/Preffered system too prohibitive, and if so, what should change?

to give players a reason to sign up as a subscriber? Make them feel part of a wider community?

I think that if F2p players have more... they will have more reason to stay F2p. But maybe I'm wrong and it's a too simple argument ?

Mind that many of the suggestions made by the community ends on the Wall of Crazy. And I don't think this wall is big enough to take into account more ideas.

Ah, I see. Ok, I can play this game for at least one serve. Lets review your post and see where it may be a bit over the top.....

So I dont get how you consider growth when someone plays for free and spends no money

Plays for free and spends...cough...no money? Well, you qualified your question with the contention that I consider growth as players that play and do not pay.

So here are the errors in that.

1) I consider growth the same way Bioware likely considers growth, based on the public reports they have released to that respect.
2) Obviously anyone that plays and pays nothing would not be counted, but this kind of player is simply not as common as one might think generally speaking. In fact, historically F2P players actually have paid MORE than subscribers...though in the beginning in this particular game it appeared players had a lead on F2P players with market expenditures.

Any question with qualifications is not a serious question. Here is how you could have phrased it to be taken seriously....

I just do not see the growth you claim, when one considers that many players that play for free probably contribute little to the game. How exactly do you qualify growth?

And on to the next line....

The current F2P system encourages (or outright demands) you pay some money to play

But you want to eliminate that so you pay nothing and get everything the subs do.

HOW does that help game?
Seriously I want to hear the answer to this

I want to eliminate....what?.....everything folks have to pay for? So because I request they allow players to mail items and coin between their created characters, allow them to chat with one another and ask that the sound spam from the credit cap be removed....that means I want to eliminate any and all payment and give everything that subs have?

And you see no error in this statement? You feel THIS statement you made is sensible, but my response is moronic....?

So how could you have posed this part of your....we will call it a "statement" for now....?

The current F2P system encourages (or outright demands) you pay some money to play.
But it seems to me you want to eliminate one of the key things that encourages folks to sub.

I believe that the restrictions and nuisances you wish you lift encourage subscriptions, and your suggestions would not. HOW does that help the game? Seriously I want to hear the answer to this

You want a serious answer? Dial down the drama and demonstrate some self respect.

"If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." blue_beetle, Metafilter, August 26, 2010

The reason why F2P models work is because they bolster a waning population. Free-to-trial is not so successful and TOR's Preferred status experience is simply dreadful. If I ever drop my sub, it's bad enough that I'll just go elsewhere.

What would I change? Nothing to F2P status, but for Preferred I'd eliminate all pay-per-use items (Escrow, Ops passes, FP passes, WZ passes, the bloody med probes) and in exchange Preferred would require a $60/yr expenditure. Content releases like SecX, RotHC, Oricon, GSF, CZ-198 would require access unlocks. Subs would still retain their monthly CC grant, rested xp and improved comms payouts.

In fact I'd prefer that model because if the TOR devs fail to deliver the content I want to see, I just don't pay for it. Or pick it up off the GTN.

While I feel the number of flashpoints and space missions should be doubled for pref users over flat f2p my main problem with pref is the rest XP. I'm not saying that prefs should still gain XP or even be able to use their rest XP while in pref status, but they should at least be allowed to keep it. Granted, if you don't log into a character that had rest XP, you have all the rest XP when you resub, but if you log in while pref, poof, its all gone. Again, you can keep it for chars you don't log in for, why should you lose it just for logging into a character while pref?

The problem as I see it, is that Bioware is trying to force more people to subscribe and that simply isn't working. Even with its draconian methods.

To have players subscribe, you need to show value and by locking content that has been here since day 1 away, is not the way to go about it, neither is excluding F2P from being part of the SWTOR community. Outside of WoW, I can count on one hand the subscription based MMOs that actually GREW its user base.

The slow pace at which content is pushed out is almost the same as a totally free game, apart from Guild Wars 2 which does this fortnightly so you can see that for some, there is little value.

League of Legends has over 30 million players and that is totally free to play with the focus on Riot Points to spend on XP boosts, skins for your characters, new characters to either purchase or get xp for to unlock over time. This is how F2P should be done.

People who have nothing, maybe their parents can't afford things or whatever the reason, people shouldn't be excluded from something in a GAME. It happens all too often in real life.

Yes Bioware is a business and yes, they are here to make money but there's a different way to achieve that and probably make even more money - they just need someone with the balls to stand up and make that change. It will happen, its just a matter of time when.

I think a lot of posters here are basically getting it: free and preferred players do a lot of things that benefit subscribers. They queue for flashpoints and warzones, and they spend money in the cash shop that can be used on development.

But F2P restrictions are getting in the way. Weekly limits on content lengthen queue times and severely inhibit the learning curve of free players, so when you do get them in your group they are less effective. And other general restrictions like artifact gear and respec cost inhibit free players getting invested in the game, which in turn decreases how much they spend in the cartel market. We all know subs spend the most on the market and it's because they are the most invested in the game.

By the way it's funny to see the various opinions on what restrictions are most annoying. Rested xp doesn't bother me at all, but respec cost is such a frustrating thing!

Bioware wants more subscribers but they are not focused on F2p players.

That's exactly what is expected. And that's why Bioware does not necessarily need F2p players' subscription.

You're still not getting it. Every single free player has the POTENTIAL of spending money, which is obviously Bioware's end-goal. If you don't focus on making the free player happy, then they don't spend money. In this case, that means they probably won't sub. If they don't sub, maybe they'll buy a few CC here and there per year (lol, not bloody likely with the price of things in the CM). If they don't buy CC or sub, then Bioware has failed in delivering enough of an enjoyable experience to warrant being spent on. You can't get a subscriber to subscribe twice (unless they're paying for a significant other), so unless you treat the free players as they deserve to be treated, then you're not going to get any more subs. End of story.

Subscribed players only buy more from the CM because they get a monthly stipend of CC, which means their purchases are going to obviously be more frequent than any individual free player. However, "subs spend the most on the CM" isn't necessarily true. You'd be amazed at how much a free player will spend if they feel like it.

Way to truncate my words and miss my point. I said subs spend the most because they are most invested in the game. In other words, lower certain F2P restrictions so F2P can become more invested in the game and they will spend more money too.