Latest Badfeeling Podcast with Bioware Devs

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)

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.

That was facepalm worthy.

It was bad enough to hear biowres thoughts on cheaters and what little they actually do to them and that slap on the wrist garbage but hearing that the PTS was great but sorry. It's to hard for us was a bit much.

Combine that with it was still pushed back for what most though were great reasons but then it was still bugged so badly when it was released makes you wonder about biowares intentions all the way around with it.

They are becoming very great disappointments over there.

Just reading that is disappointment. if the content they produced was longer then 8 hours a year maybe more people would stick around, or if they released a few hours of content a month people wouldn't sub for 2 or 3 months and leave. Maybe somebody said this already but I read a few comments and I basically posted this.

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.

To me, the problem with the monthly chapter release is that people will wait until the last chapter of a story is released, sub for the month, then cancel again.

Kind of the problem CBS had with their streaming only Star Trek show. Wait until the final episode is out, use the free trial, watch it free (or pay the month and then cancel).

I actually think that summary doesn't really explain what they were talking about well. They were specifically saying that adding the Rishi apartment room was something they wouldn't normally be able to do, that it would be something that would be pushed to a later patch. Basically that designing a completely new room and also adding it all within the PTS time frame is not something they can normally accomplish, but were able to this time because they had more people working on it instead of having split teams, and also because the devs worked really late because they wanted to get it done. They weren't saying they can't fix bugs and stuff (although they can't always do that quickly either), just that adding a whole new feature isn't normal.