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

Yep yep.

All this faux-concern and faus-doom about the business side of the MMO (any MMO really) is hilarious in gaming forums. It is low hanging fruit however for correcting false assumptions and understandings by said players with faux-this and faux-that.

As to players going the Preferred route in this game... yep.... it's a pretty good path for a veteran who has end game wealth. Since any transaction of $5 or more qualifies.. and since most veterans have sufficient in game wealth to outright purchase all the unlocks they want/need off the GTN... Preferred, with unlocks, is in fact Free play after the initial investment.

I am aware that you feel that way, I just simply do not agree.

I only have issue with the insinuation that folks may be disingenuous with their concerns about game growth, and wanting to see it thrive. My intentions are not faux Andryah, even if I am wrong, which you should know by know I am the first to accept.

It is only my opinion. I do not think this game gets a fair shake, and I have made those reasons that I feel are causing that known, to include some unwise choices.

Now, naturally, if that is not what you meant...then I digress.

but it would be kinda nice, no? :P

that said, you are right, a veteran player can pretty much circumvent any and all restrictions and play pretty comfortably as preferred for a while. but the issue is a bit more complex than that I think.

I have a friend who cannot afford subscription and I cannot afford to pay one for him. becasue I'm a veteran player I was able to at least get him a bunch of unlocks and help out with promotion to preferred status at least. but... he still cannot play past lvl 50. he might be able to... eventually... maybe.. sometime. but meantime, we cannot play at max level together.

honestly? I think that while you should be paying for content modules as non subscriber, I genuinely think now that it should be something more like section x. something that can be traded and sold on GTN, not directly through website. and max level should be normalized between all players of the game.

The issue is, and remains that if they loosen the preferred limits many people will unsub and they'll lose money thus hurting SWTOR.

that depends on how they do it. if they loosen the limits by allowing more things to be unlocked? (for example - escrow unlocks that allow to temporarily circumvent credit limits that they have already added) then they don't lose money, just shift slightly the source of where it comes from. might even make extra if they for example implement something like Eve's plex. (sell blocks of subscription on GTN, but charge 5 bucks more for those, or charge the same price, but make it come without cartel coin grant - either way. adds more flexibility to how people play/subscribe and still provides source of income)

I don't agree. The amount they can gain in just a short period if they loosen the RIGHT knots FAR exceeds the income they could possibly lose if folks choose to unsub.

Frankly plenty of folks choose to unsub now, I don't think this would increase that amount, but I do think it would give the game a better face to that that are actually considering BECOMING a sub.

And there is the rub.

I just checked and it seems the expansion can't be bought anymore for non subscribers? That would have been helpful for your friend, because it would be one time cost and not recurring cost like a subscription. I mean it is nice to get it as a subscriber but it should be available for non subscribers too.

In LotRo you can buy access to areas and new quests if you are free to play, this would be a good feature for SWTOR too.

you can still buy it. its $20, so its still cheaper to subscribe for a single month to get access to it (one month's subscription grants permanent access, in case you were wondering). but its still directly from the webstore. meaning, I cannot help him out by buying a token of GTN like I did with all the other unlocks (tokens that someone else bought, so its not like bioware is out of money there - and no, you cannot continuously buy that many tokens to sell with just monthly grant - between abundance of packs and abundance of unlocks - people are specifically buying cartel coins, providing income stream to bioware).

now. I don't think added content should be completely free. I think content modules should be sold, the way section x is sold. I just think it should be for cartel coins and tradable. like Section x. and other then that - keeping part of your player base split up like that is not a great decision IMO, so at this point not only Makeb should be just available to everyone, but any future level increases should not be gated like that.

yes a lot of my reasoning is self interest. but... I'm not asking for handouts. I'm asking for expanded purchase options. I doubt it matters to bioware which person pays how much, as long as overall income stream is steady and there's a continued demand for cartel coin transactions.

Really 20? Wow, that is quite expensive. Was it not available for less when it came out? Maybe it is because I am currently loged in because I don't see how expensive it is, it only says free to subscribers on the store page.

I agree that F2P players and prefered players should not get eveything free -then there would be no reason to subscribe at all. But to be able to buy access to the higher level and higher level areas should be possible and I don't see why they should not add it to the cartel market too. It would help and they would still make money. Maybe add it to the suggestion forum? But who knows if they are doing it and how long it will take. Maybe it could also be mentioned during one of the streams they are doing, at least to get it to their attention.

How would loosening restrictions on F2P - opening more of the game to them thereby making it easier and more pleasant for them to play for free - encourage them to spend money?