Latest Badfeeling Podcast with Bioware Devs

It's the classic "But all my friends do x, so y is impossible" -- it says more about you than anything else.

This is not an opinion but empirical data.
And what it says is: PvE players on the whole tend to sub when there is new content, finish it, and unsub -- and repeat. PvP players stay subbed.
What this means in practice is: Keep making PvE stuff on the reg to maintain returning subs, but keep making PvP content too for the (apparently large enough to matter) paying PvP group.

Don't be a bloody doomsday prophet.

Personally I liked what the devs said in this podcast.
Resources are as we all know limited but they're showing that they are making priorities that include a broad playerbase based on the data, which they -- unlike us -- have access to.

We're not gonna get everything we want. But I think we're on the right track.

For us that love story we should be happy that what we get is not covered in a little podcast. That would herald bad things. Instead we wait until they're ready to unveil the big stuff.

No ...

This made me facepalm a bunch.

It reads like: "Normally we completely disregard the entire point of even having a PTS, but this time we came to our senses, and it was really difficult, so it's unlikely we'll do that again."

I didn't much care for the Rishi stronghold, but the way BW went about the PTS for it was the most optimistic they've managed to get me in years, because that's how it should be done.

I haven't and will not listen to the podcast, so I'm praying that that bit was inaccurately represented, but it looks pretty straightforward.

Yes, I tend to agree with this.

Testing on the pts should probably be done 6-8 weeks before they intend to launch content live. That way they can tweak it if their ideas need it and also spend MORE TIME FIXING BUGS, so they don’t go live.

I was encouraged when they pushed back the launch dates and thought they were fixing bugs. Instead they were playing with strong hold features instead of fixing in game bugs and mechanics. I was very disappointed with the live launch after all the feed back they were given on bugs and mechanics that weren’t fixed.

Again a very difficult topic. As it was said all MMOs have issues with the player base, but as we can see WoW is hurling out new expansions and PVE stuff regularly.

I know, they run a different budge, but that should be the way the Devs should go. I really have no idea on their resources, but they need to decide like small stuff, more regularly or a lot of stuff annually or something like that. I mean we got the Iokath expnasion, then slowly the full Gods operation, then some FPS, now PVP. Still, it feels too far apart and thats when the players leave!

When i see posts about Toxic pvp players i start to laugh because you kids never played real nightmare mode pve. NiM operations in swtor is a child's play, you should try mythic or high lvl key's dungeons in wow. You will see that pve is also same as toxic as pvp when it is really hard to do it and rewards are awesome. When players are trying to complete a real hardcore pve content with awesome rewards and failing all the time you cant even imagine how toxic they are. I quited 2 hardcore pve guilds in wow after seeing how toxic, rude and horrible players can be after third fail of killing argus the unmaker in mythic mode... pve can be same toxic as pvp if pve is as difficult and provides great rewards as pvp. izax is more difficult than previous Swtor bosses but still nothing compared to wow most difficult mythic bosses

So, let me ask you this.

Since PVE story content isn't generally (except high level stuff) restricted by subscription status, but PVP warzones are...
Do you think the people who PVP/Warzones would subscribe if they were able to do unlimited queing as F2P or Preferred?

Right now F2P and Preferred can do 5 a week if what I just read is still accurate.

That says, to me, that the reason PVE players only subscribe for story content is the F2P restrictions on PVE are less severe than they are for PVP. If they were balanced out, either way, the numbers would probably match up.

Weak, sor was almost 4 years, the last exception, kofkek dont count

You mean other than the 10% xp penalty (not that xp has any meaning anymore) and severely limited credit balances (no buying bling on the GTN if you're F2P). Have you at all listened to the complaints that show up on the forums about the limitations. Whether or not you agree with those complaints, it is obvious that making F2P/Preferred more restrictive will not cause those players to sub. It will cause them to leave. As to the "let them leave then, they don't contribute anything anyway" response that pops up just about every time it comes up, remember that players not playing the game never sub but those playing F2P might (however small that number might be its not zero).

The reason "story" players don't subscribe is that their content is one and done, especially now with the single storyline. The vast majority of the "story" cannot be repeated at all on the same character unlike Raiding, Flashpoints, and PVP where repeatability is infinite per character.

If you want "story" players to sub you need to give them content to play. 30 minutes of story in two years is no better than one Operation in 2 years or one new warzone in 2 years.

As to the question about PVPers subbing, I think there was a good reason Bioware did away with the weekly passes and it was most likely a financial decision based on how PVPers (and Raiders) for that matter were "paying" for their play time. Bringing them back would be fine as untradeable cartel market items. There are too many "free" CCs around now to let them be sold on the GTN. At the same time they could institute a weekly CXP token that let F2P and Preferred accrue CXP. Pricing would have to be set so that it was more beneficial to sub than to use any of the tokens (for example buying four weekly WZ passes should cost at least double what subbing costs)