Is the F2P/Preffered system too prohibitive, and if so, what should change?

Why would African-Americans care more about names than Hispanic-Eurpoeans? I don't get it. I mean, their own name, sure. But the name of an abstract concept is pretty irrelevant. The concept is what is important.

I don't understand why you brought a racial slur into a discussion about the concept of how one pays to play the game. The two have absolutely no relation to each other. And I totally didn't get that you were referring to a racial slur; I figured you were talking about the unique names African-American parents give their children because, you know, that's their name and we were talking about names.

TOR has a mixed revenue model, just like other games including the big dog, WoW. If people get their minds wrapped around the axle of how many subscriptions the game has, that's their problem for thinking about such an irrelevant thing like it means something. (Unless they intend to invest in EA, in which case it means something but not much because SWTOR is but a nugget in a large pile of... something... within the EA portfolio.)

Who the heck are "Hispanic-Europeans"?! Spanish immigrants in Spain who originally came from Spain? These fellows are not Hispanic-Europeans. They are the original Spaniards who first colonized the Americas and from whom the Hispanic-Americans party descend.

In all honesty, F2P has no universal definition past "I am playing without spending a single cent".

http://www.swtor.com/info/overview <--- what can we read just under the usual PR BS?



So, it`s NOT F2P - you are playing up to lvl 50 with some restrictions, or become a sub. People tend to read what they want to read, but this is not the case - the norm, or standard is STILL the subscription - the only difference being that freeloaders get to load the game and play it to some extent, as opposed to the 2012 state of things, which required the client bought and a sub plan set.

You said "what's in a name" referring to the title "subscription".
You weren't talking about personal names. You were implying that changing the title of something makes no difference because a title or name has no inherent power. You ware very wrong on that.

This isn't a "mixed revenue model" that can be compared to WoW. WoW is not F2P with a subscription option.
World of Tanks is a F2P with a subscription option.
And nobody ever starts arguing about how many subscribers WoT has... since they are not called subscribers.

I had my sub lapse for a few days last month, and I did find one restriction very bad. Titles.
In the game you earn titles by doing certain things. Leave ambassador behind on Esseles? get a title. Kill fat boss on Sith Warrior? get Darth.
And yet even though these are things f2p, preferred and subs can do and get, non subs can use it? That honestly, is messed up. Non subs get so very little. At least let them show off the things they CAN do..

I am of the opinion that there are three distinct weaknesses in the current F2P/Preferred system that do not lend themselves to promote growth for this title. They are, as follows....

1) Lack of ability to more than one item and money between legacy characters on the same account. Perfectly fine. Preferred gets to mail stuff as they should for financially supporting the game at some point in time. F2Ps should rightfully be shut out of the mail system except for the ability to retrieve things from GTN. They don't pay to maintain the game and are therefore a drain on resourcs.
2) Constant spam to indicate that you have reached credit cap. That's called "marketing".
3) Lack of ability for F2P and Preferred players to openly communicate among themselves in game (lack of a chat channel for F2P) And with good reason - features cost money to add and maintain. Preferred had their chat feature fixed; F2P needs no fixes (and frankly, that's an anti-spam measure, keeping them squelched until level 10. It SHOULD be level 20.)

I also feel that a third tier is missing from the mix, a "Veteran" tier if you will, one that removes most (but not all) of the remaining restrictions for preferred players if they have subscribed to the game for at least 180 days in the lifetime of the account. Nah. The three tiers we have work rather well. F2P gets the bare-bones experience, Preferred gets recognized for their past contributions despite the fact that, in many cases, they're not regular contributions, and Subscribers rightfully get access to everything because without the subscribers the whole system goes straight to hell.

These are the only remaining weaknesses of the current model IMO. Below are my suggestions for each.

1) Allow folks to purchase an unlock that will open up legacy mail. I can agree with that if we're talking an artifact-quality item much like Equipment Authorization or Unify Colors.
2) Either remove the sound effect from the coin limit spam, or space it out over, say, every ten deposits.Nah. Then it's not as effective a marketing tool. Understand that it's structured specifically to annoy you into buying something. That's why it's called a "nag".
3) Add a channel to the chat box that would exist for free and preferred players to openly chat among themselves. Subscribers would naturally be able to participate, or could simply ignore it. Absolutely not. I can tell you from personal experience that setting communication limitations is EXTREMELY effective in converting freeps and preems to subscriber status. Wanna talk? Gotta pay. Free speech ain't free.

As far as the "Veteran" tier, I have a list of changes that I will post later after some editing.

I would like to hear some other opinions on this, even those that wish for more restrictions, not less. Thanks for reading.System seems to be fine the way it is. Consider a subscription if you don't like the restrictions. -bp

They don't spend nothing... and one day, they spend a lot on something they really want. And 2 months later, they do it again because they forget the previous one or because it's easier the second time.

But the important point is that Bioware doesn't pay nothing for us. No ingame request, no customer service, no moderation and better : free players have no priority to access the server. They only take the vacancies.
They are free to Bioware.