Although it's been quite sometime since I've seen a direct thread talking about f2p and preferred players, I've seen quite a lot of dissing on these groups of player through comments in game, and on the forum, that they contribute nothing to the game. Yes, its true, they may not contribute financially to the game, but they contribute to other very important and vital parts to the game - the community. The community, imo, is one of the most important parts of any multiplayer game, a place where you can chat, socialize, and be yourself with like minded peers who share your interests, passions, and enthusiasm, however, due to one of the removed features years ago, and how galactic command is implemented, preferred have been left out to dry on the rack.

That certain feature that was removed helped bridge the gap allowing preferred and subs to play together for endless ours of fun until exhaustion, until work called, until the kids called, until the wife/husband called, until you fell asleep at your keyboard, which was, ops passes. As you know, ops passes gave preferred players one week of access to operations, this games versions of raids, a place where a strong community is needed to overcome obstacles with your mind and your peers. While you may scoff in disgust and go "just subscribe, its only 15$ a month," keep in mind, that financial situations do go on between people that may prevent them with enough money to sub continuously, which happened to a VERY good friend of mine.

For his sake, I will keep his details rather scarce, but he is a very good man who tries very hard to get a job, but due to a disability, he could only sub for a few months. During that time, we had a ball together conquering world bosses on Balsavis, quesh, even the nightmare pilgrim at times, etc. etc. tons of flashpoints, and our personal favorite- operations. At one time we were practically doing operations everyday during the beginning of a new era, the 4.0 cycle, a time, for us at least, where we got to experience all the bosses in full, not 5 or 10 levels over, but on par, albeit a few nerfed mechanics, where we now worried about mechanics and actual rotations. This lasted a good while going through some vigorous wipes, some bosses lasting... eight hours ...(damn you hyper gate irregularities!!!) until we really saddled up... and started our own raiding group.

Fast forward in time a bit, we now can easily conquer any story mode with our eyes shut closed and mouths sewn together, but during that time, our friend could no longer sub. Needless to say, we didn't worry much, we could still gear him and bring him along through a ops pass, no muss no fuss. Now, we were a pretty new group to raiding, and we had some problems, but we enjoyed all meeting up together just to wipe over and over. We had a lot of good laughs, frustrations, and even a little bit of rage, but we were together, we were enjoying our selves, being a community up until that fateful day... The day they terminated passes. The day that everything changed...and effected more than him.

While this may look on paper, a no loss in money, another skrebby preferred player off to freeload another game, it led to a chain reaction that eventually caused us to stop raiding, and for a few people to move on from the game. My good friend happened to be a tank, a exotic and rare breed in swtor, finding another tank isn't easy and didn't go well. Most are taken at a young age and tamed through other guilds, others are simply dysfunctional, standing in AOE, blaming the healers for there own mistakes, and refuse to guard players who take threat. The worst offenders of this breed, are the half breeds, this who only queue tank, and have dps gear, or attempt to skank tank in PVE, and do neither job effectively or efficiently, causing extra strain on the healer. Yes, we found another tank, but evidently it was too late, players were disinterested now, they lacked the excitement, that rush, that feel of battle, fighting a new ops boss, and out of the 10 or so people who were on the group, only 4-5 of us stayed, and those of us who did stay, played severely less, and limited our time a lot more. We lost our connection with the game, but we still straddled on, and to this day, only one of that raid group returned, and that was only a month ago.

This simple error while costing no money on paper, lead to a loss of, for the longest time, six players, and also leads to my next point, the loss of community. Their are four parts of the community, whales, subs, preferred, and f2p. Sort of like a hierarchy, or ecosystem, they feed off each other. The whales buy the cartel packs, generating the most revenue, and while yes, they do sell to other whales occasional, they normally sell it to a much larger part of the community, subs. In return, the subs play together, and previously, preferred, while preferred play with f2p. I still remember doing my first set of heroics on Balmorra with four people, and with the exception of one of us, the rest of us weren't a sub. One of the members were preferred, and little old I, was a simply f2p at a time. We were there for the sub, helping him through his heroics, and in return, we friended each other. I still remember the preferred player crafting me a armor piece, and although I couldn't equip the gear, its a gesture I appreciated and remember YEARs later. If I didn't start the game as a f2p, I probably wouldn't of been playing at all, and I would be missing a great deal of fun in my life. A place I've spent years here, and hope to do so for many many MANY more.

IMO, we NEED more blocks to help build the community, not to be separated. Reinstate ops passes, warzone passes and implement passes to gain CXP.

Actually, can't they still buy cartel coins? It might be a fallacy to assume they contribute nothing financially. I don't know know that they can or can't, and obviously not all of the would buy cartel coins. Still, if they can I'm sure some do. It's less support and probably not as consistent but it would still be money.

I started out f2p but subbed pretty quickly. Had it not been for the option to try it for free I probably would not be subbed now. So, yeah, it does have some positive influence on the game. I don't dis f2p or preferred. I don't know what a person might be dealing with in life and what sort of monetary restrictions they face.

^ This guys gets it.

Community in an MMORPG is like the baseball field in Field Of Dreams - "build it and they will come".

Without unfettered access to that "community" player retention is made a lot harder, turning F2p?Premium players into Subs becomes a lot harder if they can't experience it without a Sub.

All The Best

But.. but.. "duh freeloadrz!"

Your mistake OP, was assuming the "community" was indeed like-minded peers. While that may be true of some subsets, on these forums the mission statement is sub, and deny everyone else anything. BioWare does no wrong unless it's something on the Unilateral Masters of the Game's list of approved complaint topics, which include such blatantly obvious entries as:

-lag

-Nerf ALL the things

-no new ops/pvp maps

-exploits (which can sometimes include "someone is making easier money/xp/whatever than I am") and obvious bugs

I’ll just contribute this very interesting take from a SWTOR developer on microtransactions. And, yes, removing the weekly passes is totally contrary to his treatise …

http://www.swtorstrategies.com/2017/11/damion-schubert-former-swtor-dev-on-loot-boxes.html

Some excerpts:

The number one mistake that I’ve seen in F2P games is devs who don’t understand that NOT SPENDING IS NORMAL PLAY. Most of your customers will NEVER give you a dime. (3)

 

The Zynga Facebook games that used to spam your feed were a success if they had a conversion rate of 2%. That’s right – a successful business model if 98% of your population never drops a dime. (4)

 

What this means, though is that the non-spendy version of the game is the NORM. The game that you see as a non-spender is what 90%+ of your customers will see. (6)

…

In MMOs, you need ppl so that dungeon queues will fire. In PvP games, you need enough people to make a match – and matchmake them with appropriate enemies. (10)

…

I still am a huge proponent of Free to Play because I’m a big hippy. I *like* the idea that 98% of my population can play for free. (16)

[long post inc]

I've been playing since Spring 2013. Started as a F2P, but the leveling mechanics were more unforgiving back then, and I realized I needed to at least get to preferred. So I spent five bucks on some CCs, and was pref from about June 2013 right up to December 25, 2017. Nearly four years as a pref, never subbed till now, on a whim. I don't have any sob story about money, I'm afraid. I had a credit card back then and could have spent it subbing on this game, I just didn't want to.

I didn't REALLY need to become preferred, as it turned out. It gave the game longevity, certainly, but what made it easier to play wasn't a few extra quickbars, but a community of people in-game willing to give some tips on how to play, how to tank, how to get extra xp, that kind of thing.

I think what we prefs [and I'm going back to pref in february, perhaps for good] offer the subs is community, certainly, but as a practical thing, we mainly offer more bodies in pvp, and we buy things off the GTN - We also maintain current levels of civility on Fleet and DK chat, if that appeals to you for some reason - Those are the two big ones. I bought both the new species when they came out, virtually all of the account-wide unlocks [ie. Artifact authorization, hide head slot, etc], and I bought a lot of armor, speeders for new alts, character slots, and, before 4.0, experience boosts. So we help the in-game economy, and some of us even sell stuff on the GTN, crafting etc.

I'm pretty reluctant to credit the OPs/FPs thing. The major reason to sub [apart from no credit cap] is the end-game, and the endgame is mostly group activities. I told myself I'd try at least one op before I left, but tbh, I don't really GAF. They sound like larger versions of FPs, which I have many terrible memories of. I think it would have been extremely difficult for someone who hadn't subbed to get good at Ops on a weekly basis.

I don't doubt Peter's story, I just think it's an anomaly. I'm certainly an anomaly - most pref are not in my situation. Before I subbed, I'd already bought all the SHs except Yavin 4 and Umbara. I'd already hit LL50 years ago. Before the merge I had 50 characters spread across all the North American servers. I had two insta-60/65 alts, which BW had offered to all players at the beginning of KOTFE and KOTET, respectively. And I also had access to all the expansions and level 60, thanks to a promo BW ran in Oct-Nov 2017. I had no need to sub, I just figured it'd be fun for a month, and in the process I got the newcomer bundle, which is almost completely useless except that it gives a crew skill unlock for new alts, which isn't really needed [two is fine when you've got 25 alts] but is nice.

So, I don't personally need anything from BW. I think GC is clever in a way, because having gotten to rank three, I think it'll be kinda difficult to run star fortresses, or even get through all of KOTFE/KOTET without ranks in GC. If you wanna do that stuff, you should sub. If you wanna run ops, you should sub. If you wanna run group FPs [ie the way they were originally intended to be run], you should sub. You don't need to sub to pvp [ranked is the cesspit I'd always heard it was], but it's nice not having a limit of 5/week. If you want to buy some of the big things on the GTN [i never got around to buying Revan's mask on this run, unfortunately], you should sub. Screwing around with escrow is a pain, though that's all I use CCs for nowadays [that and collections].

Some of you guys, like Cricket, are great at shouting down the good ol' boys club who equate pref with welfare and would pay actual CCs to permakill F2Pers, but personally, it's ironic to me because everything that they complain about it - about BW not giving enough to subs and F2P getting too much? They're right. They weren't right in 2.0, but they are nowadays. What makes me happy is that BW patently doesn't care about their tears or they'd have reversed course years back. Hell, the game is even getting too faceroll for me.

Again, I don't speak for all prefs, let alone F2P [they seem a lot dumber than I was; they do only class mission and don't understand why they're level 23 on Alderaan], but in my experience, BW could stand to put more resources into keeping the game from falling apart at the seams, than worrying about us. We'll be fine.

This thread isn't over yet!!! not yet!

Actually, can't they still buy cartel coins? It might be a fallacy to assume they contribute nothing financially. I don't know know that they can or can't, and obviously not all of the would buy cartel coins. Still, if they can I'm sure some do. It's less support and probably not as consistent but it would still be money.

 

I started out f2p but subbed pretty quickly. Had it not been for the option to try it for free I probably would not be subbed now. So, yeah, it does have some positive influence on the game. I don't dis f2p or preferred. I don't know what a person might be dealing with in life and what sort of monetary restrictions they face.

Yes, a preferred player can still buy cartel coins, but in all honesty, I'm sure that's pretty rare, normally if they buy coins directly they will probably sub. My friend simply obtained cartel coins through the security key anyway. I was more poking fun about the bias and perception of quite a few players on preferred players on how their "nothing" to the health of the game.

But.. but.. "duh freeloadrz!"

 

Your mistake OP, was assuming the "community" was indeed like-minded peers. While that may be true of some subsets, on these forums the mission statement is sub, and deny everyone else anything. BioWare does no wrong unless it's something on the Unilateral Masters of the Game's list of approved complaint topics, which include such blatantly obvious entries as:

-lag

-Nerf ALL the things

-no new ops/pvp maps

-exploits (which can sometimes include "someone is making easier money/xp/whatever than I am") and obvious bugs

While that may be true for some particular posters, im sure theirs enough other sensible posters around that recognize the need to decrease regulations such as this.

IMO, we NEED more blocks to help build the community, not to be separated. Reinstate ops passes, and implement passes to gain CXP.

I could not agree more with your post Peter. They DO serve a very vital purpose...one that few seem to truly understand.

Some of you guys, like Cricket, are great at shouting down the good ol' boys club who equate pref with welfare and would pay actual CCs to permakill F2Pers, but personally, it's ironic to me because everything that they complain about it - about BW not giving enough to subs and F2P getting too much? They're right. They weren't right in 2.0, but they are nowadays.

Except the two aren't related, at all and the latter I heavily disagree with. Or, if you did want to tie them, you could make the case that the entire model is going the wrong way, with subs merely getting the full game and F2P/Prefs getting "punished" for not subbing- a negative model. A positive model on the other hand would be F2P/Prefs getting just the game whereas subs get all sorts of crazy perks. But perspective can skew the tables either way.

I'm all for a recurring, stable system of rewarding subs. But like the now fabled "bountiful content updates" it may be too late.

I haven't tried this, though I remember someone recently saying they did, but starting a new account and trying to play the game without any of the perks and boosts that long-time players have, on a F2P account. Prior to legacy sync, if you played the game without doing heroics, without using xp boosts, without doing FPs or WZs, just doing the class story, the planetary quests, and a few sidequests, you'd hit a wall around Tat or Alderaan where you'd be too far underleveled and even regular trash could wipe you out. It was theoretically possible to get to 50 under the old system, unlike WoW where they actually block you from advancing past 20, but I never met another F2P who did it. I remember driving around Tatooine on a crappy vendor speeder trying to get enough xp from exploration to move up another level so the trash would merely be orange instead of red.

Nowadays, that is not an issue. I think level sync, and the increased xp gains, means you could easily play to 50 on a F2P account now. Your character might look ugly, the gear might be crappy, and your comp might be on heal mode, but it's easily doable. If you want extra char slots, if you want an even easier time of it, pay five bucks to get rocket boost, move up to pref, and away you go.

I haven't tried this, though I remember someone recently saying they did, but starting a new account and trying to play the game without any of the perks and boosts that long-time players have, on a F2P account. Prior to legacy sync, if you played the game without doing heroics, without using xp boosts, without doing FPs or WZs, just doing the class story, the planetary quests, and a few sidequests, you'd hit a wall around Tat or Alderaan where you'd be too far underleveled and even regular trash could wipe you out. It was theoretically possible to get to 50 under the old system, unlike WoW where they actually block you from advancing past 20, but I never met another F2P who did it.

 

Nowadays, that is not an issue. I think level sync, and the increased xp gains, means you could easily play to 50 on a F2P account now. Your character might look ugly, the gear might be crappy, and your comp might be on heal mode, but it's easily doable. If you want extra char slots, if you want an even easier time of it, pay five bucks to get rocket boost, move up to pref, and away you go.

Not an F2P, but my first two and a half (had started an agent and BH) classes I leveled 2012-2013ish with no legacy (I couldn't decide on a name/didn't know I could hide the name/didn't know about the perks/was a noob) no datacrons (**** jumping puzzles), no FPs (I was scared noob), no guild (had no skillz) and usually avoiding heroics because of the pain of finding a group for them (I still remember this one H4 on Alderaan Imp that was in a small instance that I kept running in and clicking a thing before dying. By the time I was done I had stripped to my underwear to avoid my gear breaking all together. Nonetheless I cheesed it to completion). It was the worst grind I'd faced but it was doable. Actually come to think of it I did do part of it pref, as I gave up for a while, came back and I remember using the CCs I had stored to buy med probes until I ran out and resubbed). My main was a sentinel and I ran with Kira (so no healing). My second char was a sorc I hybridized (also apart from my sorc and agent (which were extremely functional), all my classes were barely functional hybrids).

It was still doable. Thing was, you had to do ALL the quests, use stims, keep a supply of medpacks handy, sacrifice your comp sometimes, use CC and of course keep up your gear- planetary comms >blue mods. And you had to focus on one comp because unless you did other stuff, comp gear came from quests and you could only choose one piece at a time.

I don't miss it one bit. These days, my buddy who is F2P isn't that far off- obviously he doesn't die like I did and he doesn't need to do EVERY "collect wampa asses" quest, but he still regularly buys gear, either from vendors or GTN. Mostly because what the hell else is he gonna spend 200k on, but still. And reportedly he does still feel a difference in power when properly geared vs not. So yeah, it's been simplified and streamlined, but I think people exaggerate when they claim the game plays itself.

Again, I don't speak for all prefs, let alone F2P [they seem a lot dumber than I was; they do only class mission and don't understand why they're level 23 on Alderaan], but in my experience, BW could stand to put more resources into keeping the game from falling apart at the seams, than worrying about us. We'll be fine.

Although I highly respect your opinion, this is where I disagree, to a point. Preferred are integral to the community, you mentioned it yourself in this post, maintaining chat, putting more bodies in pvp, buying off a few cheap things from the gtn, rolling through flashpoints, and hopefully soon, participating in operations. No one wants to stand by 30 mins waiting for a pop to do a flashpoint, or wait in queue forever for pvp, or go "LFM for Rav, LF 2 tanks, 1 heals!" for an hour. They want to get into the action, actually play the game, enjoy the content their queued up for and join friends in a raid, not go to LOTRO because as a preferred you're unable to do ops anymore.

Not to mention, although I've advocated for the return of ops passes for quite sometime, I'm also advocating it because its a easy input back into the game. They already had ops passes before, ill imagine it'll be relatively easy to throw them back in, along with adding a galactic command pass. People sub to the game not only for access, but because they enjoy it, and a lot of people I know enjoy the game because of friends, friends you bring along in every raid/fp, friends you joke around with in voicechat, people to bond with, people to play with, this is why we need ops passes back.

This discussion, like every other discussion about F2P/Preferred VS Subs, will go circular and get wrapped around the forum axle. It will also likely devolve into back and forth attacks that will keep the forum moderator busy as well.

Look.. it's quite straight forward here...... the blended access model is here to stay in MMOs. It has proven effective for a wide range of studios (both pre-release and post release). It is a model that is fairly easy to tune and adjust to get to the sweet spot mix between Free, Preferred, Sub....that any given studio seeks for it's MMO.

It really does not matter what individual players think or want with respect to access models for MMOs. Players simply get to choose which tier in a studio model they prefer and which MMO they prefer in that context. It is up to the studios, who will tune, adjust, adapt to changing market needs on a broad basis. Clearly... blended access models for MMOs are here to stay and subscription only is now days the exception to the rule for MMOs.

Of course different studios do things a bit differently for their MMO and their audience, and that not only fine.. it's good as it injects a degree of innovation into the business model. If one studio does something with their flexible access model that is clearly working well for them.. other studios will observe and in some cases either copy or adapt with a different innovation. But this is all done based on company goals and objectives vs the market and is NOT dictated by players, much less special interest groups of players (like pro F2P and anti F2P).

As for all the hate-mongering by some Subs about non-subs...... MMO players are generally not happy unless they have a boogey-man they can attack and blame for whatever frustrates them personally. Human nature at it's most primitive level really... it's the reptile brain effect gone amuck.

TL;DR: blended access business models are here to stay in MMOs, because they have consistently proven successful in the MMO market for close to a decade now. Crying about it won't change it, nor will attacking alleged boogey-men either.

I think ops passes should be purchasable for cash, only. They should, further be legacy bound.

This would prefer 'referral link' scammers from paying nothing into the system.

Blend all you want. You want ops, you pony up a couple of bucks.

Capitalism.

I think ops passes should be purchasable for cash, only. They should, further be legacy bound.

This would prefer 'referral link' scammers from paying nothing into the system.

 

Blend all you want. You want ops, you pony up a couple of bucks.

 

Capitalism.

I disagree.

While I do not want the business model such that it is more attractive to "free-load" then to pony up some cash to play the game.... I do understand that friends, guild mates, or relatives can and will buy things like passes for their friends and that is completely OK in my view. It does not harm the studio as someone is buying the passes.

And NO.. I do not buy into the meme that non-subs are scrubs in the community so we need to do things that isolate them or discourage them from playing. MMOs are populated with players that are not good for the community and are toxic or disruptive no matter what the business model may be.... so that dog will not hunt as far as I am concerned.

I personally DO support the return of weekly passes in the CM... as it simply gives players more options as to how they play, when they play, and how much they personally invest in playing.

As for "referral link scammers" if they offend you.. do not participate with them. Besides.. there are legit ones in game, and they do have to be a subscriber to deal in the credits that are typically paid out for referral linking. So.. it is pretty simple if you choose to engage someone doing referral link farming and separate them from non-sub scammers ------> make them give you more then a million credits up front.. and that freezes out any actual non-sub scammers because they are under a severe credit cap. In fact.. this exemplifies a good reason (among numerous ones) why low credit caps for non-subs exist.

This would prefer 'referral link' scammers from paying nothing into the system.

I'm not sure exactly what your point is, but you do know that only Sub's have a referral link, right?

http://www.swtor.com/info/friends

"Only active Subscribers can refer friends."

So if someone is engaging in referral link scams they are, by default, paying into the system.

F2P and cash market was supposed to save the game. But now they’ve broken their own model. F2P or preferred players may not have subbed, but many purchased weekly access tokens to pvp or other activities.

When Bioware removed those access tokens completely, they alienated more F2P people than there are subscribers in the game.

Some of the figures and things I’ve read or got from watching things over the years has shown that there were way more F2P and preferred players than subscribers. Bioware were actually making more money off them than subs alone, that suggests that a large amount of money was being spent on the cash shop and I would guess a big portion of that was access tokens.

The permanent removal of those tokens was a massive mistake IMO and has broken the F2P model they were making money off and actually driven players away from the game.

The simple solution is to put those access tokens back on the CM. They should also add ones to allow F2P and preferred to earn CXP (that would need to be refined as to how many and how fast).

F2P and cash market was supposed to save the game. But now they’ve broken their own model. F2P or preferred players may not have subbed, but many purchased weekly access tokens to pvp or other activities.

When Bioware removed those access tokens completely, they alienated more F2P people than there are subscribers in the game.

Some of the figures and things I’ve read or got from watching things over the years has shown that there were way more F2P and preferred players than subscribers. Bioware were actually making more money off them than subs alone, that suggests that a large amount of money was being spent on the cash shop and I would guess a big portion of that was access tokens.

The permanent removal of those tokens was a massive mistake IMO and has broken the F2P model they were making money off and actually driven players away from the game.

The simple solution is to put those access tokens back on the CM. They should also add ones to allow F2P and preferred to earn CXP (that would need to be refined as to how many and how fast).

Well of course there are more F2P and preferred players than subscribers. Still, many of us spend money on the cartel market, and if it keeps offering cool stuff (like HK-55 bonus chapter), we will keep throwing money at them.

Well of course there are more F2P and preferred players than subscribers. Still, many of us spend money on the cartel market, and if it keeps offering cool stuff (like HK-55 bonus chapter), we will keep throwing money at them.

Don’t get me wrong, subs are important and should always get more of everything. I also don’t believe F2P should have even been given as much free stuff as they were. But Bioware developed their F2P model and basically fostered the environment of all content for free. With the exceptions of brand new expansions and limited group activities. They did have weekly passes people could buy and many did. Bioware set the expectations for the F2P community and then shafted them the same as they shafted just about every other part of the game’s community,

Now they’ve permanently removed passes and locked F2P and preferred people out of the end game gearing. They have broken their own funding model and driven players away.

IIn MMOs, you need ppl so that dungeon queues will fire. In PvP games, you need enough people to make a match – and matchmake them with appropriate enemies.

That was the biggest flaw of SWTOR's old F2P model.

F2P got everything for free that didn't require interaction with subs, and to actually be content for subs they had to actively obtain the means to do so. Without adjusting the F2P credit cap for inflation, the GTN quickly was out of the picture, and the F2P were dependend on the goodwill of subs to get the passes. Many F2P may have simply enjoyed their free 8 star wars rpgs, and then moved on to play mmos where F2P are more welcome.

The new model is even worse. The incentive to sub is still not the access to mmo content (why would you do so before you know whether you like it?) it's geting all addons and max level with one small purchase. It's a great deal, but again it doesn't do anything to keep the F2P (now prefered), let alone put them in a position where they can make subs happy.

I haven't tried this, though I remember someone recently saying they did, but starting a new account and trying to play the game without any of the perks and boosts that long-time players have, on a F2P account.

Might be me as I’ve done it TWICE now, and have reported back on it.

Nowadays, that is not an issue. I think level sync, and the increased xp gains, means you could easily play to 50 on a F2P account now. Your character might look ugly, the gear might be crappy, and your comp might be on heal mode, but it's easily doable. If you want extra char slots, if you want an even easier time of it, pay five bucks to get rocket boost, move up to pref, and away you go.

And yes, Pref is far, far superior. The biggest hinderances to pure F2P (besides being locked out of post-basic story) are:

Inventory management due to only 3 Inventory slots and no cargo bay

2 quickbars (annoying, but for class story, you can easily make do)

1 crew skill (if you want to craft, plan to sub)

200K credit limit – very limiting and annoying, but you can make do

I’ll maintain to this day the Pref is completely viable for just playing all solo content. And an added plus: you don’t feel compelled to do the GC hamster-wheel grind

Actually, can't they still buy cartel coins? It might be a fallacy to assume they contribute nothing financially. I don't know know that they can or can't, and obviously not all of the would buy cartel coins. Still, if they can I'm sure some do. It's less support and probably not as consistent but it would still be money.

I've always wondered if the majority of preferred were former subscribers who also at some point bought some cartel coins. Or, at the very least only bought some cartel coins.

I myself would find it hard to run around in gear obtained only from vendors, crafted gear, or loot drops. How could you not be seriously tempted to spend $10-$20 or more on CC for a good looking armor set or a cool color crystal?

The last time they had the white crystals on the CM, I spent $20 on CC to buy and unlock the crystals. It probably wasn't the best use of my real life money, but hey. The crystals LOOK nice in game, IMO.

I started out f2p but subbed pretty quickly. Had it not been for the option to try it for free I probably would not be subbed now. So, yeah, it does have some positive influence on the game. I don't dis f2p or preferred. I don't know what a person might be dealing with in life and what sort of monetary restrictions they face.

I've tried to start new lv 1 characters as preferred (during the times I've had to let my subscription expire), and honestly when I do start new lv 1 characters as preferred, I find myself thinking "I might as well part with the $15.98 to get more subscription time." I think it would be very hard for me to play the game as preferred for an extended period of time.

What do F2P and preferred players do? Do they just play the story and then leave (or at least leave until they decide to buy some subscription time)? They can't PVP or do ops or wear purple gear (without that artifact authorization) and there's that credit cap. This is an actual question.

When I play end game (I only play end game as a subscriber because of all the restrictions as preferred), I do PVP and ops and quests specifically to earn credits. But, I wouldn't be trying to earn credits if I had that preferred status' credit cap.

I think a "fair" model (not taking into consideration if the game could survive financially since pretty much no one here knows anything in dept about this game's current financial standing) would be something like a buy to play.

(unlimited) Trial game: Starter planet, capital planet, Taris or Balmorra (depending on if you're an pub or imp). You can only group up for Essles or Black Talon as well as other restrictions.

Base game: The base game, the lv 1-50 content and everything else released in the 1.x era. The only big restrictions are that you can't access any other content that came out with and after 2.0, maybe some smaller restrictions where applicable. Maybe $10 is a fair price.

RotHC and SoR: all the content that came out during the 2.x and 3.x eras. No access to 4.0 and later content, maybe some smaller restrictions where applicable. Maybe $20 is a fair price.

KOTFE/ET: all the content that came out during the 4.x era to present. Maybe $15 is a fair price.

Future expansions (if any): buy to play, at a fair price.

Subscription: subscriber rewards. Off the top of my head, here are some suggestions.

Of course, as we already have, a monthly CC grant.

A "crafting bag": a place for your crafting materials so they don't take up space in your "regular" inventory.

Bonuses to ©XP and credits earned through quests, missions, and loot.

Real subscriber rewards: yeah, let's have some.

Other good ideas.

Please note that I am not married to any of what I suggested. These are just some ideas that I thought of off the top of my head one day some time ago. Of course, adjustments can be made and adjustments likely need to be made to ensure the game doesn't go into the red, financially speaking.

The general idea that spawned my thoughts about this is that the F2P and preferred statuses, while technically are a free to play model, are, as a lot of us agree, very restrictive. The game should be encouraging you to spend money on it, make you feel like it's more than worth the price, not feel like the game is punishing you for not paying.

How could you not be seriously tempted to spend $10-$20 or more on CC for a good looking armor set or a cool color crystal?

I would never spend $20 for virtual currency for virtual cosmetic armor. I probably didn’t even check the CM till hundreds of hours in. The concept was originally alien to me ("Cartel Market with silly gear, whaaat??”). After a very long time, yeah, I started to prioritize cosmetics. And after amassing tons of free CC, I’ve “bought” some. But spend $ on it … never. How many people are like that? We’d all be speculating, but I’d be shocked if it was unusual.

What do F2P and preferred players do? Do they just play the story and then leave (or at least leave until they decide to buy some subscription time)? They can't PVP or do ops or wear purple gear (without that artifact authorization) and there's that credit cap. This is an actual question.

I have no interest in PvP. Thousands of hours in, ZERO warzones, ZERO GSF. And ZERO Ops. Minimal interest doesn’t overcome the time, gear, and leveling curve apprehension. My interest is storylines. There’s 8 stories to do. And there’s still FP’s, crafting, Reputation / Achievement hunting…

That may not be the majority of players, but no doubt there’s a whole bunch of people who prefer solo RPG’s, and would have been happy just with a KOTOR3. SWTOR solo (non-sub) can scratch that itch.

I think you asked the questions honestly. Please take my reply in kind.

Prior to legacy sync, if you played the game without doing heroics, without using xp boosts, without doing FPs or WZs, just doing the class story, the planetary quests, and a few sidequests, you'd hit a wall around Tat or Alderaan where you'd be too far underleveled and even regular trash could wipe you out. It was theoretically possible to get to 50 under the old system, unlike WoW where they actually block you from advancing past 20, but I never met another F2P who did it.

As strict F2P, I didn't do it, but I played mostly Preferred for a couple of years, and I levelled my first(1) character on the basis of:

* Class story

* Planetary <Story Arc>

* Side missions, including those that are now "Exploration" missions.

* A sprinkling of Heroics.

* One run through The Esseles at level 11 on my way to Coruscant.

I could feel that "wall" you mentioned approaching when I was on Voss - the whole time I was on Voss, I was a level below the recommended level for the missions I was doing. I actually paid real money for RotHC, and finished levelling to 50 by diverting to Makeb at level 47.

(1) Not strictly true. It was the second character I created, but I sort of abandoned the first one on PubTaris or Nar Shaddaa at around level 24. The one I'm talking about above was created not long after 2.0 came out.