So, I was having a discussion with a fellow F2P about how much it sucked to play free to play. He was a high-end character, so he's really limited in what he can do. During the discussion, I promised to point him in the way of the above video, and make a forum post about it, so I did. Now we can all discuss what we think of F2P considering the wealth of insight the above video provides.

Great Video! I have some pretty serious thoughts about free to play and most of them were developed by playing games by three rings (yes I am going to bring up puzzle pirates again). All content is accessible . . .eventually. They use a market system for their 'cartel coins' where players may trade cartel coins for what ever they want. The only way a cartel coin comes into the game is by someone paying money for it. This makes it so free loaders burn the coins and increase demand; Players willing to trade their CC's will now be able to charge more.

That isn't what has bothered me though. I think the F2P, as inconvenient as it is, is great! Not only does it let me play during my off-game months (work sucks) but it has encouraged my brother and few close friends to try the game! I am super excited for that. I dont agree with the video about 'segregation' I think having pay-areas is a viable option but maybe give those paying a guest pass to bring in one person a month or so. This gives those free loaders a taste! Power selling though . . .eek! I agree it shouldn't happen but selling powerful weapons and such that can be traded is great! Again it makes the content indirectly accessible which encourages small payments.

What really pissed me off is when my brother started playing. For free he has access to everything I have as a preferred member. He will also become a preferred member with just one month of subscription. Why do I feel cheated at this? well I pre-ordered the game for 60 bucks and paid for several months of game play. At the time I was happy to do it and I am still glad I did but now i am looking at unlocking content to have a less irritating more enjoyable game and it is going to be close to 40 bucks just so I don't rip my hair out in those free months. My brother can get all that for 40 too! The problem. . .I already bought the game. Now obviously the money is not that big of a deal (besides the fact that I am close to broke) but I feel cheated.

Easy fix . . . create a 'game box' package that cost 60 bucks and has a set of unlocks and stuff (for starters 6 quick slots, 2 Mill credit cap, 3 crew skills, 14 battle zones a week (2 a day), 14 space mission a week; you get the idea). Anyone who already purchased the game gets this package and it is available for other people to purchase if they want.

I am actually thinking about petitioning pretty hard for this just because I feel like I am not valued as a customer right now. It makes me reluctant to pay in the future and it is really not unreasonable. Thoughts from anyone else would be appreciated.

Cheers Ponies,
K-Zed

I think they got it right-ish.

They give you what a lot of people regard as the biggest part of the game (the 8 class stories) completely free. However the fact that they degrade the leveling experience for ftp players is just totally stupid to me. Its fair enough to not allow people that haven't paid at all to not do end game content but restricting quick bars, crafting, trade, chat..... is just ridiculous. They should have at bare minimum provided an in game way of unlocking these things without actually paying. Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking restricting quick bars... its a fucking mmo.

In my posting anger I decided to hop over to the swtor forum and see whats what. . . .

turns out you can buy some/most of these unlocks on the GTN!!! this does exactly what I was hoping it would but it sticks the GTN poster with some product no one may want. better to directly trade cartel coins.

Also due to the credit cap non-subscribers will never be able to afford the items unless people are willing to sell them for less!

really I think the credit cap is what is pissing me off most! I wouldnt mind if ti were a weekly limit on how much I can earn but a hard cap . . .ugh!

I think they did a lot of things right. But there's 3 things that I really don't like.

1: Cartel Points. There's literally no way to get them outside being a subscriber. I'd much rather them be added at greatly reduced rate, say 1/4 what normal subscribers get. There's a lot of inconveniences which I should be able to remove due to my preferred player status.

2: Next, how preferred players. Instead of being barebones f2p, it should be like a limited subscriber status. We already invested money at one point, so we aren't freeloaders. I'd say, just make it harder to get to the same level as subscribers, until we're ready to subscribe again. Nothing should be impossible to get, just harder until we're ready to commit. I'm talking like being able to use artifacts

3: Guild Bank Storage. Seriously. Of all the things f2p players are locked out of, this is the most annoying. It upsets everyone to play bank teller/wait hours to retrieve a damn diatum. Take a quick travel, take a PvP gun, but seriously, nobody feels good about this.

Pop and Kronusz were you not given preffered status?

CCs are designed to be bought, either via microtransaction or subscribtion, nobody gets any for free.

As far as the quickbars go, it is inconvenient but 2 are enough for leveling of any class. Even on 50 it is unnecessary to use more than 2, even on a Knight, simply remove those that are no longer of any use (the ones usable on incapacitated/slowed targets), as well as slows which are mainly for PvP. You also do not need aggro dumps.

Endgame really is not for F2P. In the end you have to ask yourself if you just wanna pay for FPs/Artifact Gear/Operations which will likely cost more than a subscription. The whole point of this startegy is to make players interested in endgame subscribe.

Good point about the decreased experience, essentially making F2P buy the boosts, fortunately minor boosts go for as little as 4k.

I cannot see myself going F2P or even PS but I could imagine doing F2P without having played the game before.

List of all the abilities i use constantly:

blade rush, strike, masterstrike, bladestorm, zealous slash, precision slash, cauterize, dispatch, rebuke, saber ward, guarded by the force, leap, force sweep, force stasis, force kick, force camoflage, awe, valourous call, transcendence, zen, mount, throw huttball, leg slash, rest, force valour.

Lesser used ones: Crippling throw, cyclone slash, inspiration, disable droid, pacify, medpack.

Sure it might be perfectly possible to only use 24 of those 31 abilities. Doesn't mean it isn't stupid to restrict quickbars. If you took the pvp ones out I would still be short quickbar space. This also isn't counting rocket boost or stances or quicktravel.

The new trailer,i really like this one,includes most of the cool scenes from class story

so there are unlocks on the GTN these days. Funny part is some of them cost more than a prefered account can have access to.

I foresee an interesting future because of this; player credit companies. As a f2p I want to unlock the chiss so first I have to play a chiss character to lvl 50 then I need 1.5 Mil. Since I can only have 350K I will never afford it . . .and even worse EA has gone and made it so I cannot make a chiss character to begin with (I happen to have one made from when I subscribed).

Solution?

my friendly subscriber 'gifts' me a chiss unlock. cost to them of 1.5 Mil which takes 2-5 days of work. I pay them back 2-3 Mil as I level my new blue skinned friend! basically I become an indentured servant and obviously it would take a level of trust, as any unregulated loan does but for me this is about getting what I paid for when I pre-ordered the game.

ultimately I think it will be a problem for EA in terms of its money making in the way the cartel market is set up. . .but this is really how any F2P goes. It becomes a balance between in game time farming and spending real world money.

For me, I dont think any of this will be a real issue. I am having fun doing some analysis but I plan on getting subscriptions whenever I have the time/money to play and in the off months appreciate the fact that I can still play story and FP's and all that jazz!

KronusZ wrote:

my friendly subscriber 'gifts' me a chiss unlock. cost to them of 1.5 Mil which takes 2-5 days of work. I pay them back 2-3 Mil as I level my new blue skinned friend! basically I become an indentured servant and obviously it would take a level of trust, as any unregulated loan does but for me this is about getting what I paid for when I pre-ordered the game.

I cannot imagine anyone doing that. As an f2p it would take you forever to get that money. I would say it is more likely someone just outright gives you the unlock since they may not need their CCs. Crafting is already a stretch as far as trust goes in this game.