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

its $15.00 a month. U cant find entertainment like this anywhere else for the price. try going to the movies with a date and buying a soda and a snack there for 15.00 for 2 hours. it cant be done unless u got a dollar theatre and even then it will be 15.00 for the drink and snacks too, not to mention u still only get 2 hours out of it.

Going to the movies with a date > SW:TOR > Going to the movies by myself

Just sayin'

Exactly, while I have bought a few characters in the Marvel Allaince or whatever it's called Facebook game before I quit playing it (I just had to have Mockingbird and Psylocke) other than those two, I don't pay a dime. There is really no reason to because you can earn everything just by playing. League of Legends? Same thing (haven't paid any real money for any characters yet)... a subscription is a guaranteed $15 a month. Plus, I honestly don't think the free players are going to be spending $500 a month on the cartel market but are not doing so because they are subscribing instead. That kind of logic just makes me laugh.

The 350k credit cap. The problem here is that they're actually hurting themselves. F2P and Prefered buy unlocks and other stuff from the GTN, which in turn is bought with real money by people who are subscribers and want some extra credits.

So basically they're only "harming" sales in a way, since if people could actually buy these things for a proper price, more people who want credits would buy them from the cartel market and sell them.

Even now F2P and Prefered actually generate income that way, also by actually "putting people" for the subscribers to play with into the game.

I do agree that some of the prices they have listed in the market are a bit high....I have made posts based on this in the past. Unfortunately they seem to feel the prices are fine....at least based on inaction.

Removing the credit cap of f2p/preferred will practically kill goldselling. So what am i basing it on? I have observed that in Rift, there is absolutely no profit in selling platinum(credit in that game) in Rift; why is that? All the f2p in Rift spend all of their money in Auction House trying to buy Cash shop items(mostly cash shop items, some very nice mounts in there, then there is REX), end game gears, mid level gears etc. So basically f2p are adding the platinum they earn while playing the game into the game economy, there is no shortage of platinum in game economy thus there is no need for people to do shady business with goldsellers. But here, due to the credit cap restrictions f2p/preferred are far away from in game economy, of course there are those escrow removal but 50k and 100K removal are waste and 600K is most of the time overpriced. Removing credit cap and disabling credit trade through mail and direct trade for both f2p and preferred would help the in game economy and improve gameplay experience for all players. But we all know that will never happen.

It's not really free to play. It's demo mode that's titled "F2Play" to entice people to try it out and potentially subscribe, or spend RL money to get more access, if they like the game enough. It's intentionally misleading. Free to play implies unrestricted/full game access for all, which is obviously not the case with SWTOR. That's what most people don't seem to get. The only solution, I believe, is to simply call it "SWTOR demo".

Here's a comparison:
I've spent roughly $240 on MechWarrior: Online just for limited-time packages (the foremost item of which is "Hero" version of 'Mechs that earn slightly more soft-cash and have a fancy paint job and have zero difference to the non-hero version), because A) I love the franchise, B) it's a different paint scheme(s) that literally no one else can get anymore, and C) I can play the entire rest of the game for free, so why not drop a few (hundred) dollars in the developer's laps? I'll probably buy a few more when they're available and I like the contents (I skipped the most recent one because I just wasn't interested in what it offered).

I've spent $30 on SWtoR because EAWare is garbage at doing F2P correctly (or as the post above this one points out, "SWtoR demo mode"). They got my $30 for features that should be unlocked from level 1. They're getting nothing else. I probably would have been willing to spend a little more, but the pricing and pay-walling killed that notion.

I'm confused. Are you unhappy with the value you're receiving as a subscriber? If so, what do you think BioWare needs to do to provide the level of value you would desire as a subscriber?

Yes, being able to play the entire level 1-50 story plus all flashpoints and group quests while doing so... that is what the game was originally intended to be and what it was at launch... gosh, yep that's a demo all right.

So, then is the new Soulcalibur: Lost Swords not free to play then? Bandai CLAIMS It is... but there is some equipment that you can only get from the "Premium Treasure Chests" that cost $1.99. So, is that a demo too?