For anyone who is considering an account status change, what follows is intended to help make your decision an informed one. All prices are USD.

 

Subscription, Preferred, Free-to-Play feature comparisons

http://www.swtor.com/free/features (looks like this page was removed - that didn't take long)

 

SWTOR Expansion to Free-to-Play Option - Frequently Asked Questions

http://www.swtor.com/support/helpcenter/6449

 

Subscription Options

• $14.99 for 30 Days (recurring @ $14.99 per month)
  
• $41.97 for 90 Days (recurring @ $13.99 per month)
  
• $77.94 for 180 Days (recurring @ $12.99 per month)
  
• $29.99 for 60 Days (non-recurring)
  

 

Cartel Coin Purchase Costs

• $4.99 for 450cc
  
• $9.99 for 1050cc
  
• $19.99 for 2400cc
  
• $39.99 for 5500cc
  
• $99.99 for 14500cc
  

 

Escrow Transfer Costs (available in the Cartel Market)

• 40cc per 50K Escrow transfer
  
• 80cc per 150K Escrow transfer
  
• 240cc per 600K Escrow transfer
  
• Maximum credits allowed in escrow ≈ 4 billion (unofficial)
  

 

All 7-day passes cost 240cc each.

 

Thank you to all who contributed. Cheers!

Edited December 21, 2015 by GalacticKegger

Subscribers on the fence who are considering a wait and see approach by dropping to Preferred Status really need to beware. Subscribers lose a LOT going to Preferred. The longer they've been playing and the more they have invested the more they will lose.

Subscribers on the fence who are considering a wait and see approach by dropping to Preferred Status really need to beware. Subscribers lose a LOT going to Preferred. The longer they've been playing and the more they have invested the more they will lose.

 

that depends.

 

for example. I already have all possible one time unlocks added to my account. becasued I've been playing since launch, not only did I have enough credits to buy them off GTN, but I also caught them back when GTN was flooded, making the costs relatively low.

 

extra cartel coin cost so far? zero.

 

I also bought a whole bunch of ops passes when they were going for about 100k a pop or less. not that I've been running a lot of ops lately, but if I wanted to - I'm set either way.

 

extra cartel coin cost so far? still zero.

 

don't need other passes becasue I barely run groupfinder flashpoints or pvp nowadays (and never been too big of a fan of ranked anyways), so preferred limits are more than sufficient for me. (and they don't apply to manually entering a flashpoint anyways)

 

legacy = fully maxed. strongholds=fully maxed. character transfers are still cheap, so if I wanted to give myself more storngholds to play around with, I can just transfer character or two to another server and have my full legacy available there.

 

still getting 100 cc per month for having security key attached.

 

here's what I'm truly losing.

 

acess to all my credits. ability to queue crafting and use all 6 companions instead of 3. ability to mail credits (there is a way around it anyways, same as mailing more than one item at a time). possibly acess to couple of lowbie alts I don't really play due to character slot limits... unless those character slots I got from insta 60ties are still open. ability to get boxes from quest rewards.

 

most of the preferred restrictions are of the petty rather then essential variety.

 

oh yeah... starting feb - new story chapters. but seeing as you can just unlock them in one fel swoop at a later date? again, meh.

Wow ... you already have your Plan B covered. I personally did not anticipate this game being turned into something other than the SWTOR I'd been playing since beta. At least not overnight. So I never entertained a plan B, and imagine I'm not alone there. Which is why I'm posting what I find and appreciate all your input.

 

And I forgot all about the companion crafting limitations.

Edited December 13, 2015 by GalacticKegger

not the first time I've been unhappy with direction this game was taking although... to be honest, i originally did the plan b because at one point we were trying to spend as little as possible and $15 a month might not seem like much, but it does still add up. I've been preferred for a few weeks. depending on your playstyle it can be either horrible, even with all the unlocks... or barely noticeable.

 

on crafting. you also get lower crit chance while preferred.

Politics.

The longer they've been playing and the more they have invested the more they will lose.

What? You don't lose anything because you get it all back if and when you re-subscribe.

What? You don't lose anything because you get it all back if and when you re-subscribe.

So no characters above 6 will get deleted? Because I could not find that information anywhere. If they don't get deleted then dropping to Preferred would make sense.

So no characters above 6 will get deleted? Because I could not find that information anywhere. If they don't get deleted then dropping to Preferred would make sense.

That's why you have to mark your 6 choices as active. The others stay inactive until you resubscribe (or delete one of the active ones, I suppose). It would be a major downer if they got deleted. If that happened, lots of people would just quit entirely never to return rather than dropping to Preferred then (possibly) resubscribing later.

So no characters above 6 will get deleted? Because I could not find that information anywhere. If they don't get deleted then dropping to Preferred would make sense.

 

you keep all characters, you just lose active acess to some of them. acess that can be reacquired with either purchased extra character slots and/or resubscribing.

 

nothing gets deleted. it kinda works similarly to escrow. not exactly the same but similar idea.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Jeweledleah

What? You don't lose anything because you get it all back if and when you re-subscribe.

 

If you never resub, then you do in fact lose stuff...

It's all lost by default. The game will end someday.

you keep all characters, you just lose active acess to some of them. acess that can be reacquired with either purchased extra character slots and/or resubscribing.

 

nothing gets deleted. it kinda works similarly to escrow. not exactly the same but similar idea.

If I have previously purchased 5 extra account-wide character slots from the CM ... would I then have 11 character slots available to me as Preferred? (I read that the max for preferred is 16.)

 

Similarly, what happens to other account-wide unlocks I've already purchased from the Cartel Market like inventory slots, cargo hold tabs & character races?

Edited December 14, 2015 by GalacticKegger

If you never resub, then you do in fact lose stuff...

No, it's always there, waiting for you (until, as someone noted, the game ends, but even subs lose their stuff when that happens).

 

Transparent trolling attempt. But if not trolling, m-w.com is your friend.

If I have previously purchased 5 extra account-wide character slots from the CM ... would I then have 11 character slots available to me as Preferred? (I read that the max for preferred is 16.)

 

Similarly, what happens to other account-wide unlocks I've already purchased from the Cartel Market like inventory slots, cargo hold tabs & character races?

 

yes and you keep those. whatever you unlocked? you keep. similarly, for example you have a chiss agent. with preffered account, not only do you keep that chiss agent - but if that chiss agent is 50+ - you get chiss unlocked for your legacy and can create another chiss character.

 

the 16 character maximum is something that I'm seriously side eyeing. like... if you have originally available maximum of 10 extra slots unlocked, than yes you should have 16, but if you added more, for example through buying lvl 60 tokens? you should have those also available. but... I cannot yet test this theory as my time hasn't run out yet.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Jeweledleah

What happens to our guilds? (We have one on each side.) I read that Preferred can only GM a free to play guild, but I have no idea what that entails. As the two players we gifted time cards to left to play something else this week, there's only two of us remaining now. Each guild bank has 5 packed tabs and around 5M in credits, so I don't want to lose them in case we come back.

 

[edit] It looks like the biggest changes will be having to pay for guild bank access as non-subscribers, and rank titles & permissions would reset to the default rank titles & permissions. The tabs and their contents would remain intact, though I couldn't find anything about what happens to the funds.

Edited December 20, 2015 by GalacticKegger

Everything that is really worth saying is that if you are going to play a game with subscription, you should just subscribe and get it over with. I play such games either when subscribed or not at all. Edited December 27, 2015 by Kaedusz

Everything that is really worth saying is that if you are going to play a game with subscription, you should just subscribe and get it over with. I play such games either when subscribed or not at all.

 

nope. games where subscription is optional rather then mandatory? are worth playing in whichever way the person playing them? prefers to play them.

 

in other words? your personal preferences are your own and no one else's so you don't get to tell other people how they should be playing.