Developer Update: Free-to-Play Option

... and others above

GOD FORBID that mail is unlocked for free-to-play players! Credit SPAM galore! Also LOTRO had restrictions on Quick Travel for F2P as well as Bag size and bank! At least when I played 2 years ago or so, don't remember.
In fact, when I compare the prefered status of LOTRO and SWTOR the following can be said (features as advertised on the lotro.com site)
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Trait:
SWTOR (SW):
LOTRO (LO):

Chat:
SW : limited for general/trade etc
LO: limited (do not remember what)

Mail
SW: limited to one attachement
LO: limited by CURRENCY cap

Money:
SW 350000 creds
LO: 5gold
not really comparable because of differnt prices but limited as well and 350k should get you pretty far

Bags
SW: 30 (?) slots
LO: 3 bag slots (item slots dependend on bags in slots, so 3 ten slot bags would be same as SWTOR

Bank:
SW: 80 slots
LO: I... do not remember. In the feature list only "shared" bank is mentioned, but that were extra slots where you put items which were available to all your chars.

Content:
SW: Class and Region Quest available
LO "Epic Quest" (class quest equivalent, but same for all races/chars except the first chapter) available. Region quests need to be purchased except the first regions

Dungeons:
SW: all available. Limited number of loot allowances (which I still do not know how this should work see below)
LO: IIRC the dungeons were given access to, when one purchased the region. Also the "event encounters" were also tied to the region.

PVP:
SW: WZ available but only 3 per week (also not clear if per character or per account)
LO: PVP as a reaver available, other options need to be purchased.

Crafting:
SW: 2 crew skills all recipes available for crafting, even artifact quality
LO: crafting available BUT crafting guild access needs to be purchased crafting guild offer exclusive recipes which are prototype or artifact quality. I can not remember how to get higher quality recipies
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So all in all, I think SWTOR F2P is NOT restrictive. Hell, you need the 3 hotbar not before lvl 25-30.... that is some time to test it. Also content wise the deal is EXTREAMLY good. You can play EVERYTHING, except Operations (Raids) which start at lvl 50 anyway. What I do not know and would like to have clarified contetn wise is:
3 per week per character or per account. Also if I pass on everything in a FP, do my 3 loots per week stay the same or get deducted. If the latter the deal is even better.
If you compare it to EQ2 F2P the deal is also top notch. So get real and quit bashing.
Also thing is: If you start as F2P, do a one month subscription adn revert to preferred, you retain all the stuff you purchased as a sub: cargo hold, inventory slots, gear. +500 cartel coints. So I gues you can get pretty far by timing your subscription and doing key purchases in the store. OF course the experience will be limited if you do not spend a dime, but THAT should be obvious, right? because otherwise nobody would do a sub or all the subs would cry Havok and rightly so.

Cheers
Olaf

The preferred status is still pretty restricted if you look at the big picture, so no cow for you.

That was already bumped up to 5 on the PTS. Seeing how you have to buy the weekly passes per character (which I still think is a bad idea), I'd venture a guess and say that the limit applies per character as well.

RIGHT, BIOWARE?

Looking good, cant wait for 1.5 to go live

I am ready! That Cartel Pack throne is going to be mine!!

Arg... yes. forgot about that. Ok... 5 per character... with 12 characters after unlocking the additional slots for my alts... thats 60WZ a week... that is more than i have played in the last 6 month...

Ah well...
one thing not to worry about...

FTP seems really exciting. I have a lot of friends who's been looking forward to it. Keep at it, guys!

"The first core rule is that we want to be sure that players can reach level 50 without paying a cent, if so desired. "

Has any game developer played game with free to play restrictions to lvl 50?

Few years to implement hairy butts lol
There's actually no excuse(or rather I don't see one) outside revamping gear not to put wookie in the next big patch. Breaks the story? Needs new voices? BS imo. Give the wookie little translator droid hovering beside him and use old voice overs with a speech synthesizer so it sounds a bit different. Is it cheap? Yea it is, but people just want to play wookies and nobody would be forced to buy it.
Beside cheapness in story cut scenes is already present. Like a sniper not using his rifle just a pistol which magically appears in a cut scene.

The restrictions seem to be about making the game so frustrating to get to level 50 without purchasing additional perks that I wonder if people who found 15 bucks a month too much of a commitment will just quit in annoyance than dig into their pocket.

As for not effecting the subscribers game it seems that it already is. Without the free to play element of 1.5 it seems we would already be working towards getting HK. The new areas were on Belsavis before free to play and appeared to have far few known bugs. But that aside surely if there is new gear and options available only if I as a subscriber is willing to purchase them in a cash shop it is negatively effecting my game as they have been removed from the normal subscribers game. The masks, pets, armour sets, vehicles extra would have been put in the game as high end equipment or just because many of the current armour sets are so ugly. Instead we have to wait for free to play and then purchase them.

If more cargo space is considered a good thing why can't I as a subscriber purchase it but rather have to pay for it. Players have been asking for better armour for a long time and instead we got reskined Black Hole gear as dread master gear while the cash shop gets a number of new outfits. And then perhaps the most loathsome aspect the gambling lock boxes or cartel boxes. Now if you want a certain saber or other item you have to purchase a container which will likely have a xp buff that is worthless to most people that have been playing here for a while, some random crafting material and some junk. Dont worry though next time you might hit the 3% to get that item you wanted. But probably not but don't worry keep buying cartel boxes!