F2P - Have you gone back to SWToR?

[Dezerte]

I went back (CE owner+2 subbed months), but I found out I had to delete almost all my character to create a new one. I was planning on starting a new character, but my plans were sabotaged.

So now I'm waiting to see if they loosen up some of their restrictions & show some goodwill towards former subscribers.

[RoninaThorstone]

why even include "not playing swtor" in the options? If you don't play the game, why are you voting about playing the game in a sub forum about the game?

[volrath50]

The F2P restrictions are stupid. Especially restricting action bars. The idea behind F2P is they entice you in with an enjoyable game that makes you want to pay more. Instead the impression you get is they think F2P players can be give such an unenjoyable experience that they will be forced to pay. They forget there is a third option that many people will take: just not play, even for free.

[Mothhive]

Was tempted to give it another go, but the limits on Free and Preffered accounts are ridiculous. If they ever make them less ridiculous, I'll give it a shot.

[Kelimbror]

I wouldn't say I have gone back to it, I'm just farting around with my coins and got HK. I will not be playing again after this month.

[Arcilux]

I resubbed for one month to get the cartel coins and preferred status, now will be unsubbing and probably not playing. WAY too many restrictions even for preferred status, and I let my sub expire for a reason before f2p was announced. I really feel there was a right and a wrong way to handle f2p, and BW chose the wrong way. I know that is just my opinion, and I know plenty of people still subbed or playing free, it's just not worth the money to me personally, and f2p is too gutted for me to bother.

[Sunseeker]

Nope, I even uninstalled the game when I saw how horrid the "F2P" setup is. It's not F2P, it's Pay-to-win, or maybe it's free-2-suck, I dunno. It's a horrid system. They're charging people for the basics when every other successful F2P MMO charges players for the extras, the vanity, the silly or the high-end. It'd just plain bad and I won't support that by playing any more, even without paying for it.

[Lagwin]

Played and did not like, literally on the game for 30 minutes the uninstalled after seeing just how greedy they are being...the only way anyone would be playing the f2p and liking it would be solely for the story from start to finish and even that may be pushing it, from what i can remember some people struggled to get to level cap when it came out and now you cant even get the rested exp boost without forking over some cash...all the titles you may get you cant use very limited funds and inventory space, crew skills almost pointless unless you unlock the additional slots and not even worth doing anything at max level unless you are incredibly casual and spread out the PvP/dungeon/spacemissions to one a day during the week and 2 on the weekend.
And i can't even gain access to the cartel coins i supposedly have accrued when i subbed without subbing again...

[Yunru]

Customer Service Support is also a laugh. If you dont have a premium you cant even contact game master. So if you get somewhere permabugged you can just delete and start again.

[DarthMuffin]

I had a subscription for 3 months last winter and tried F2P yesterday. I'm probably going to keep playing on the side and might even drop some money in it if I end up playing it a lot.

To be honest, the only thing I cared about in the game were the storylines, so the flashpoints and PvP restrictions don't really annoy me. I do think some of the locked features are too draconian though, such as the hotbars limit. I don't care that you can technically play to 50 with only 2 bars; charging for something as basic as a core UI feature has got to be one of the most ridiculous ideas I've ever heard about. I also find it funny that they're charging for a "hide headgear" feature, it's like they're aware that their headgear models are atrocious.

The one thing I hope they change is allow us to buy extra character slots. This is probably the thing I would be most willing to pay for.

All in all, I think the F2P change suits me pretty well, though their model isn't as good as LotRO's in my opinion. As others have said, they certainly don't make it easy for returning players. We'll see how it goes.

[Zetsumei]

I did the trial of SWOTR a while ago. I never liked Star Wars - still don't. And while playing the game it did not feel good to me. I quit after an hour of play

[Speedy92286]

I was really interested in the game, but I could not afford the sub fee along with WoW's (paying for mine and my fiancee's at the moment) so I never bought it. Downloading it right now. Since it is Star Wars and my fiancee loves Star Wars too, maybe it is another game we can play together, but first I want to see how restrictive the game feels for F2P users.

Some of the restrictions seem to be a little much, so if I really like it I may just pay the 5 dollars to chat and get a few more features.

[Deleted]

Went back f2p to finish the storylines i couldn't do in the first month I got after buying the game on launch, but that's gona be it, and I don't want to spend a dime on this thing they call free to play. Honestly it just looks like a quick cash grab than actualy them trying to fix the game. I'm starting to get disgusted by Bioware realy, wich is sad because they were pretty much my favorite developer who made some of my favorite games of all time, like KoTOR 1 and DA:O. And yes I'm also disgusted at EA, but they are just being themselves.

I realy don't see Bioware having more games in them if DA3 flops aswell, and considering the information we have of it so far, it doesn't look very promising.

[Theodon]

Customer Service Support is also a laugh. If you dont have a premium you cant even contact game master. So if you get somewhere permabugged you can just delete and start again.

That is a pretty insane pay to acces feature to have. You have to pay to get ingame customer service?! Hell no! The posts in the thread seem to indicate EA/Bioware (I'm suspecting EA had most of their hand in this, knowing them) have taken the P2P model well beyond its breaking point.

[Steelyorc]

well, keep in mind that free-users can't do hard-mode dungeons as far as i recall... they also cannot raid.
i guess that most of the people only in the upcoming days and weeks are free users.

That would be incorrect...since the server merges, populations have been robust...well before F2P kicked in
Also...They usually split into 2 fleet instances during prime time to help game performance

The game has improved 10 fold since they killed the dead servers

---------- Post added 2012-11-18 at 08:18 PM ----------

I was really interested in the game, but I could not afford the sub fee along with WoW's (paying for mine and my fiancee's at the moment) so I never bought it. Downloading it right now. Since it is Star Wars and my fiancee loves Star Wars too, maybe it is another game we can play together, but first I want to see how restrictive the game feels for F2P users.

Some of the restrictions seem to be a little much, so if I really like it I may just pay the 5 dollars to chat and get a few more features.

Even as a subscriber, I will agree that the F2P restrictions are harsh.
However, I think it really shows people what a value a full subscription really is.

[Kelimbror]

Even as a subscriber, I will agree that the F2P restrictions are harsh. However, I think it really shows people what a value a full subscription really is.

This is the dumbest thing I have read all day. That's like shoving shit down someone's throat to show them how much better merely being rolled around in shit is.

How about they actually make the game show the value of a subscription? Ever thought of that novel idea? Well every other company out there has, which is why they are doing better than this one.

[Shoridayo]

I was going to, but the things they've done for F2P are insane and over the top. No action bars? Less XP? No queuing? Can't even hide my damn helm? I'm good.
I could have gotten over everything except not letting me do something as simple as not being able to hide my helm.

[Deleted]

i understand limiting instances, raids and pvp thats pretty standard. Bank slot, rested xp etc all fine. But UI restrictions? Limiting the ammount of action bars which hampers play at later levels?!? Not being able to hide yer helm??? blah i say ill wait a couple of days for planetside 2 to come out they at least know how to run a f2p model.

[igame]

why even include "not playing swtor" in the options? If you don't play the game, why are you voting about playing the game in a sub forum about the game?

Because a lot of people (like myself) come to check the forums to gauge the people's reaction before going through the trouble of installing. It's people who would have gone back to game if it followed let's say something akin to GW2 model instead of restricting every single aspect of game.

OT, seems like a majority who tried F2P seem to think the restrictions are too much which myself and almost all other reviews had also concluded.
EA might get a temporary jump in sub numbers but over time, this will hurt them in the long run. Almost all gamers agree that EA never had any integrity or the desire to stand out as a good developer and this greedy, money grabbing stunt will just make sure that henceforth Bioware is also looked at in the same manner.

---------- Post added 2012-11-19 at 03:00 AM ----------

Even as a subscriber, I will agree that the F2P restrictions are harsh.
However, I think it really shows people what a value a full subscription really is.

This is absurd seeing as how almost 75% people who bought the game chose not to stay subbed within the first six months, we already know the game is not worth a sub.

[Deleted]

I voted for "Played F2P and did not like it"

I am a subscriber since January and my subscription ran out just a few days ago before November 15th. SWTOR.com or PayPal is still in process of handling my sub payment. But I only subscribe for one more month just to get my cartel coins. After that I will see what I will do, but most likely just to buy the unlocks. With my current work I have evening/night shifts, I can't do operations anyway, haven't done them in months even I think before this new work. I don't care much about doing PvP or space missions. So it doesn't affect me anyway if I don't have access to those content.

But even if I do get another work allowing me to work during normal day, I still would have chosen to just subscribe for 1 month only. If I look at the restrictions, it's really over the top. In particular the actionbar and mission reward restrictions are in my opinion the worst ones. As far as I can see, there is no F2P MMORPG game out there that have these two restrictions. Prove me wrong by providing me a link. I understand that restrictions are needed, after all as a company you want to make money and profit. You need money to keep the game running.

I don't want to hear ppl saying, it's only 13 euros a month, that's two-three Mc Donalds meals. You are absolutely right if you are trying to point out if it's not much money you pay for playing the game each month. But you seem not to understand this: the ppl at Bioware/EA can come up with restrictions like these, especially the two that I just mentioned, is beyond words in my opinion. They knew before making this F2P (extended trial...) model that ppl left the game cause of the subscription, that ppl want greater access to the game and yet they managed to come up with a model this restrictive (http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/...g-free-to-play). In-game you see practically everywhere an icon that tells you to become a subscriber. And seriously, you don't receive support if you don't have a Premium? Would like to have a source for that. I don't like most of the restrictions.

I honestly don't know what is going in the minds of the ppl at Bioware/EA. I like the game a lot, but the ppl running it are ruining it. I still think if they just went with a B2P model with a cash shop that sells convenience features and vanity items or a F2P model with same cash shop and selling purchasable content will work much better on long-term. If they still would like to have a subscription model next to a F2P model then let subscribers be the players that have access to only ranked warzones and hardmode/nightmare operations. But they allowed to let their greediness get the better of themselves, trying to grab money as long as they can. In my opinion they are unable to take any sensible actions to make this playable in a "normal" way.

I think Bioware will only release contents and not trying to improve the game at all. They somehow manage to introduce new bugs with new patch, fixed some bugs and they reappear again in a future patch. I don't think they will work on character related services, name change, character transfer etc. They said they are thinking about allowing players to earn cartel coins in-game, I think that ain't going to happen either. I mean they will make less money if such feature exists in the game? I really don't see that happening with their greediness. I'm not getting my hopes up for what I mentioned.

All in all, I don't like most of the restrictions and I "just" don't have faith in the ppl running the game. Those are my primarily reasons why I did not like it. If they expect to see a rise in subscription numbers, they can't be more wrong in my opinion. Everywhere no matter which gaming website, ppl react/respond pretty much the same to this F2P (extended trial...). As much as I like to see the game growing, but the company behind needs a big wake up call. The only way to reach that if they see a loss in subscription numbers under 500k.