Great news. That was one of the few things i felt was preventing me from playing f2p. With the cartel coins i gained from my earlyer subscription, i can unlock the 3. crew skill and have pretty much everything i need to be able to play casually without subscribing.

Thank you!

Awesome. That was one of my biggest complaints about F2P. Basic UI functions shouldn't be restricted.

Now just give F2P players and preferred status players either more character slots or at least the option to buy more slots with Cartel Coins and I'd be very satisfied with ToR's transition to F2P.

I'm a subscriber too but this is fantastic news indeed.

Maybe now they'll also reconsider some of the other, quite frankly useless restrictions as well like not having the ability to display a title or not being able to hide your head slot because we all know how essential those are to playing an mmo and they're sure to make them lots of cash *rolls eyes*

This is a huge victory for the good guys!

No, this will actually just cause more F2P QQing. Now that you know your QQing will get you more free stuff...

The last sentence indicates that they'll probably be offering some sort of refund for those who have purchased the quickbars.

I would tend to guess no refund. They seem to have established a very strong pattern of never refunding any cartel coins for any reason ever. They'll do something else. Anything else.

Awesome. That was one of my biggest complaints about F2P. Basic UI functions shouldn't be restricted.

 

Now just give F2P players and preferred status players either more character slots or at least the option to buy more slots with Cartel Coins and I'd be very satisfied with ToR's transition to F2P.

Wait! F2P players cannot purchase additional character slots with cartel coins? That's a huge oversight!

Great change! I subbed a day after joining F2P and this is a fantastic game, I hope you guys keep your word on listening to feedback so this game grows and attracts more people to try it and buy stuff from the Cartel Market . As for me, the only thing keeping me from buying coins is there isn't much incentive in the market (though I'm only level 21) so maybe putting out a few more cosmetics and the like would be nice...more variety of items basically.

Awesome. That was one of my biggest complaints about F2P. Basic UI functions shouldn't be restricted.

 

Now just give F2P players and preferred status players either more character slots or at least the option to buy more slots with Cartel Coins and I'd be very satisfied with ToR's transition to F2P.

Certainly hope it's not for free or cheap because then what'd be the point of subscribing if we'd be getting almost everything free?

Glad to hear this change will be made. It seemed like a stupid restriction to begin with but it also felt odd that they hadn't had the (logical) formula of 2/4/6 for F2P/Preferred/Sub to begin with. At any rate good job devs, giving people more bang for their buck when upgrading to Preferred can only be a good thing in encouraging people to spend cash.

I still think that the "hide head slot/unify colors" is a bit silly to not have. That being said those features weren't always in the game so I think it won't kill people to not have access to them off the bat. Although I think the account wide price should be lowered to be closer to the "display legacy name/titles" which server a comparable cosmetic/vanity purpose.

The next thing I'd change is completely removing the guild bank access. I think who has access should be decided by the guild, not by who subs/buys the unlock.

No, this will actually just cause more F2P QQing. Now that you know your QQing will get you more free stuff...

Your qq is what most people would refer to as feedback - just because you disagree with it doesn't make it invalid.

This doesnt affect me as Im a sub, but arent we giving away abit too much? Even if it is for "preferred players".. Afterall its really cheap to be a "preferred" player... just $4.99!

At least make it so that you HAVE to have subbed at least once in order to be a preferred player... That or maybe just give 3 instead of 4 quickbars. (3 is wnough to comfortably play the game. 4 or more a er for luxury/convenience)

Otherwise i feel too much is being given away for free

This doesnt affect me as Im a sub, but arent we giving away abit too much? Even if it is for "preferred players".. Afterall its really cheap to be a "preferred" player... just $4.99!

 

At least make it so that you HAVE to have subbed at least once in order to be a preferred player... That or maybe just give 3 instead of 4 quickbars. (3 is wnough to comfortably play the game. 4 or more a er for luxury/convenience)

 

Otherwise i feel too much is being given away for free

Arguably it makes more sense since it follows a 2/4/6 scaled upgrade model as opposed to 2/2/4 no scaled upgrade model.

At any rate as a subscriber I'm glad they're doing this. I think the more preferred is adapted to be a distinct bridge between F2P and Subscriber in terms of features the better. It gives more people incentive to buy something (CC or temporarily subscribe) and the more money the game gets the better. I think it's fair if Preferred continues on this trend of scaled upgrade where it meets halfway between what F2P and Subs get.

If Preferred status doesn't grant much in upgrades/middle ground between F2P/Sub less people it'll just give people the negative impression that the devs are trying to bully people into subscribing by giving people minimal value for shelling out some cash unless that cash is for a sub.

I would tend to guess no refund. They seem to have established a very strong pattern of never refunding any cartel coins for any reason ever. They'll do something else. Anything else.

The cartel shop has been out for all of what? 2 weeks?

Not enough time to establish any patterns really...

Nice to see they are listening to reason.

IMHO the worst and most detrimental of all restrictions is the -30% xp.

It might not seem like much to a subscriber, but if you count in the fact that they cant do flashpoints, space missions and PvP to fill out those xp and they dont get any rested xp either, this means they fall far behind the leveling curve even when doing all the side missions and heroics.

This then leads to people playing Alderaan at lvl 20-25 and constantly spamming the general chat for help from higher level players to do their class quests...

Thats bad for everyone.

Now they just need to give free to play players a 3rd bar, so they can actually have access to every one of their class's core skills (my Shadow has 35 class abilities, which is almost exactly 3 bars.)

Let them pay for the additional hotkeys needed for things like pets, mounts, and inventory items, but don't make them pay to have full access to their character abilities. That's not right.

-Macheath.

Now that this is over with, I wonder what people will latch on to next. My guess is either the credit cap or hide head slot.

Anything and everything that causes a player to hit a wall before end game. If the idea of a pay trap is to trick F2P players to spend money, then why limit the amount of people you are going to trick by causing a wall to suddenly appear before you can suck the player in.

This game has already limited the amount of MMO players that will like it with the massive holes that exist in its gameplay,chopping that game up into even smalller pieces is going to limit your paying playerbase even further by making it even less enjoyable.

Deal with the fact that this game is not great already before you allow Bioware to think freemium is a good idea long enough to make this game die an even faster death...hell, you should be worried enough to be screaming at Bioware to get off their backsides and expand the game faster to SAVE it, not ask them to do more moronic things to kill it quicker.

Here's the thing. BioWare really should be trying to compete with Guild Wars 2, their biggest free to play competitor right now, but they don't seem like they are even trying. Guild Wars 2 not only grants full UI access without additional cost to players, but also grants access to 5 character slots, and the ability to equip any armor in the game. Then there's unlimited access to instanced PvP and PvE content as well. Guild Wars 2 also handles their equivalent to "cartel packs" better. You have a chance to find both their random item boxes, as well as the keys to open them, within the game itself. Alternately, you can purchase the boxes, or the keys, individually in the cash shop as well, if you desire.

The only items in GW2 exclusive to the cash shop are cosmetic items like "town" equipment (equipment only shown off while in town, like an appearance tab) and mini-pets, barber shop "makeover" items, and some minor EXP boosts (which could be seen as pay-to-win, but they offer fairly insignificant gains.)

BioWare is seriously behind the 8 ball, here. I don't think they deserve much praise for this one change alone. In order to keep their hybrid F2P/sub model running, they obviously have to restrict some things for the free to play crowd. But, there are currently far too many restrictions for F2P players in SW:ToR to even begin to compare to the competition. Games which are completely free to play, and thus have absolutely no guaranteed source of cashflow, manage to offer far more options to their players than BioWare does to their free to play accounts. That has to change.

Surely, BioWare must see that their model isn't competitive right now with other F2P games on the market. I mean, it's not even close.

-Macheath.

Here's the thing. BioWare really should be trying to compete with Guild Wars 2, their biggest free to play competitor right now, but they don't seem like they are even trying. Guild Wars 2 not only grants full UI access without additional cost to players, but also grants access to 5 character slots, and the ability to equip any armor in the game. Then there's unlimited access to instanced PvP and PvE content as well. Guild Wars 2 also handles their equivalent to "cartel packs" better. You have a chance to find both their random item boxes, as well as the keys to open them, within the game itself. Alternately, you can purchase the boxes, or the keys, individually in the cash shop as well, if you desire.

 

The only items in GW2 exclusive to the cash shop are cosmetic items like "town" equipment (equipment only shown off while in town, like an appearance tab) and mini-pets, barber shop "makeover" items, and some minor EXP boosts (which could be seen as pay-to-win, but they offer fairly insignificant gains.)

 

BioWare is seriously behind the 8 ball, here. I don't think they deserve much praise for this one change alone. In order to keep their hybrid F2P/sub model running, they obviously have to restrict some things for the free to play crowd. But, there are currently far too many restrictions for F2P players in SW:ToR to even begin to compare to the competition. Games which are completely free to play, and thus have absolutely no guaranteed source of cashflow, manage to offer far more options to their players than BioWare does to their free to play accounts. That has to change.

 

Surely, BioWare must see that their model isn't competitive right now with other F2P games on the market. I mean, it's not even close.

 

-Macheath.

That doesn't make any sense you have to still pay 60 dollars for Guild wars 2 and there No Free Trial what so ever it one of the reason I've never touched the game . It B2P ,Jesus how many times do people have to keep mentioning this ? TOR you can play for free literally download and try and make a character level as far as you liked , You can't do that with Guild wars 2. it is no a Free 2 play game it like saying Mass Effect is a Free 2 play game after you pay 69,99 to access it .