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

Add WOT offering a flat HALF xp and money for freeloaders. And that game is ALL ABOUT xp and money, nothing else.

If I am to believe the first spots in that graph, this game should sell power, PLUS free ONLY UP TO lvl 14 (20 out of 80 is roughly 14 out of 55) AND give ONLY half xp and cash to freeloaders.

Let`s make it happen, shall we? Since we like to quote other games, let`s quote games on both sides of the fence too.

So, you qualify, as a free player, for free play up to lvl 14, with half xp and cash AND can end up ROFLSTOMPED in PvP by a wallet warrior with 2 +200 crystals at 55. A perfect world, I tell you.

Oh, the one where I keep insisting that we only get what we pay for? That discussion might be? Because that is the main underline - we only get what we pay for and, if we don`t pay nothing, why should we have ANYTHING? And some folks seem to be too vocal about the quality of FREE things, instead of, you know, be grateful.

Free is the norm, right? And bandwidth and dev wages are paid with FREEDOM coins, right?

Really? Putting $5 into a game once and getting some serious restrictions lifted forever is shafted? I'd sure as heck hate to have General Motors force me to drive a Corvette with a manual transmission for free, or even a one-time payment of $100. I'm sure my... backside... would never recover from that shafting!

Come on man. It's still just about free. And people still know exactly what they're buying when they pay their $0 or $5 to play the game. So it's all perfectly well and good. In fact, I personally would like every F2P account permanently squelched except guild and party chat, since BioWare isn't willing to do anything else about the credit spam.

Here is where I think a third free tier is needed....like "veteran" for instance.

Someone that has subscribed to the game at least 6 months or has paid out at least 200.00 in CM purchases should have a tier or access that is a bit more lenient than the current Preferred tier, though still not completely open like it is for subs.

I would suggest almost all restrictions are lifted except chat, costs, XP and limitations on end game play.

People who preordered the game or bought the game after launch and played at least for 3-6 month before f2p conversion should have had their own tier. it is quite unfortunate how they are treated the same way as someone who only spend 4.99$ to buy CC.

Ummm no?
We were discussing changing the term Subscriber to Premium Account or something else to stop people from focusing on the number of subscribers the game have to instead focusing on if the game is making a profit or not.

But I'm not surprised you lost track of what we were talking about in your fanatical fervor to prove a point about how NOTHING is free and this game ISN'T of the free-to-play model.

I personally couldn't give a rats *** about what F2P do or do not get.
I'm just saying that people are too focused on the number of subscribers and not the actual profit the game is making and that would change quickly if they just renamed the term subscriber.
And it probably wouldn't hurt the game if they switched from "you are not a subscriber so you get this and that restriction" rhetoric to "this is the base game, if you become a VIP player, you get these bonuses" which is how other F2P games "disguise" their free-player limitations.

For a lot of people, you are correct. This is basically what they are saying...but not everyone is like that. I am a subscriber, but when I was laid off of a job a while back, I ended my subscription (for obvious reasons) and played as a preferred status player (when I wasn't out looking for a job). It was a bit frustrating, obviously, and I don't even want to know how annoying it would be as a F2P player. Luckily a friend gifted me with enough cartel coins to get several unlocks which helped a lot.

Luckily, I'm a bit of an alt-o-holic so whenever I got close to the credit limit, I either utilized my wife to log in and trade credits to, so she could in turn trade them to my lower level characters (and yes, I did give her some too), or I did some shopping on the GTN for them. A lot of people don't have wives or husbands who play, and may not have the luxury of someone to help them like this. Not being able to send more than one item at a time, and no money through email is a little ridiculous in my opinion. That's the one restriction that I think is really over doing it....although I would certainly prefer they, at least, raise the credit limit.

And what PRACTICAL difference will it make? Subs will still ask for and feel entitled to better benefits, or there would be no point in paying a sub to begin with.

BTW, PREMIUM sounds a lot more ... demeaning than Subscriber, just saying. And it`s not demeaning towards the other Premium players. Imagine little pauper kids banging on the walls of the Golf Club or watching a cake through the glass.

But the bottom line still stands - regardless of the name, people that pay get and SHOULD get significantly better advantages. You know what would TRULY not hurt the game? All those mouthy freeloaders paying their 15.

And again, you completely miss the point.

This will be the last time I try to explain my post to you, if you don't understand after this I'll just chalk it up to either lost in translation or just willful ignorance.

I am not talking about what benefits subs have or how entitled they feel.
I am not talking about whether or not the restrictions on preferred and F2P players are too prohibitive or not.
I am simply saying that the whole "This game is dying because it only has XXX number of subs" would go away if you renamed the subs to something else and did the same thing all other F2P games I know of do; Namely disguise the cut-down restricted version of the game as "the base game" and making all the restrictions look like benefits for being a premium member.

Right now the game still appears to be a subscription based game with a "try before you buy" kind of option.
There really are no big difference between this game and many other F2P games except how the rhetoric is angled.
In this game it's "You are F2P so you earn less xp than a subscriber, subscribe now if you want to earn the regular amount of xp".
In other games it's "VIP accounts earn XX% more xp as a bonus, become VIP to get your bonus".
Same with credits. It's "Because you are not a subscriber you will earn less credits, become a subscriber to remove this restriction" instead of "Premium members earn a bonus amount of credits, become premium now to get your bonus".
Do you see the difference in the way it is angled?

And the whole point with my post was that if you remove the terms "subscription" and "subscriber" and rename it premium or whatever, people will no longer be able to say "this game is dying because it only has XXX subscribers".
Since not once have I heard that discussion about premium accounts in a F2P game. Nobody cares how many premium accounts there are in World of Tanks or Warthunder for example.
Because in the framework of a F2P game it doesn't matter.
But because SW:TOR so stubbornly hold on to that term, people still see this as a subscription based game and not an F2P game, which it is.


PS: I use the term F2P here as defined in Wikipedia: "Free-to-play (F2P) refers to video games which give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying. There are several kinds of free-to-play games, but the most common is based on the freemium software model. For freemium games, users are granted access to a fully functional game, but must pay microtransactions to access additional content. Free-to-play can be contrasted with pay-to-play, in which payment is required before using a service for the first time."

And SW:TOR most certainly falls under that description.

Really, the only people who should care whether or not the game is making a profit are BioWare and EA employees and investors plus industry analysts.

Players? We should just care if it's enough fun for the dollar. We might also choose to care that new features and content arrive at a pace fast enough to keep the game fresh and fun.

We hardly need to care how many subscribers or players there are or how many dollars flow into EA's coffers via the game.

We get enough sub-only perks in this game....really we do. We don't need a veterans reward program... most especially we don't need one just because some other MMOs offer one.