Ever since Game Update 1.5 for Star Wars: The Old Republic, went live on the Public Test Servers, the forums have been alight debating its implementation, why Bioware is greedy, why Free-to-Play players are leeches, and how the conversion is going to fail. All debate aside, Bioware seems to be listening and took to the forums to clarify what being a former subscriber would grant you, making a cash shop purchase etc.
Quoting directly:
Once our Free-to-Play option launches, Free-to-Play Players will gain Preferred Player Status by making a single purchase through our website. This purchase can simply be a quantity of Cartel Coins, or a Game Time Card, or even a month of a Subscription. Additionally, former Subscribers who are returning as Free-to-Play Players, will find they have Preferred Status!
As a Preferred Status Player, you will gain the following benefits compared to Free-to-Play Players:
• The Sprint ability at Level 1
• Access to your Cargo Hold (an 80 item Player Bank)
• Access to Secure Trade
• The ability to send Mail, including one (1) attachment
• Increased allowance for chat message frequencies in Public chat channels (such as /general)
• An increased Credits Cap
• Access to the Who List
• Three (3) additional Sale Slots on the Galactic Trade Network (for a total of 5)
• One (1) additional active Crew Skill Slot (for a total of 2)
• Reduced skill point respecialization costs
• Increased Server queue priority
In addition to the above benefits, Subscribers who return as Preferred Status Players will find that they retain any Cargo Hold and Inventory expansions they had unlocked, any Legacy Unlock or Perk they have gained (including Species) and can continue to use any Artifact equipment that was bound to them previously.
UPDATES: recent posts concerning more changes concerning F2P
We've been observing PTS closely over the last few days. In that time, we have generally been very pleased with how well the build has been performing, as well as overall reaction to the build both on the boards and in-game. That being said, based on community and internal feedback here and further deliberation, we will in short order make the following changes to the Free to Play restrictions:
- Free-to-Play players will now get a second quickslot bar.
- Free-to-Play players will now be able to do 5 Warzones per week instead of 3.
- The Cartel Coin item lock (i.e. temporary bind) will be reduced to 3 days for Free-to-Play players, and 2 days for subscribers.
We've found some crucial bugs that needed stomping, which is good. These changes will make their way to you probably early next week.
Second: (third post from the end)
'Account' unlocks are server agnostic. They are unlocks across the entire service.
Third: (+41 Color Crystals Discussion)
So the other bit of discussion to have is about the color crystals. I thought in this case that I would start the discussion with all of you, so that you could understand our logic and guide our thinking.
Currently, these crystals appear in cartel packs with a level 10 requirement, and on the store with a level 35 requirement, in order to access stats roughly equal to a standard level 50 color crystal. It's worth noting that color crystals are something that the itemization team stopped improving the itemization of shortly after launch, because people really hated losing their signature lightsaber color because it was no longer Best in Slot. We have, incidentally, seriously entertained removing all itemization from color crystals entirely (it makes many problems go away for us), but we didn't have the time to make such a large change on itemization before this patch went live.
The reason why we put these in with low level requirement is pretty simple: getting an item you can't use in the Cartel Packs really sucks. It's the same reason we pursued the tech that allowed us to make mounts adaptive - we expect a very large influx of new players when we launch free to play, and those guys opening cartel packs to get items they can't use for months (literally, for casual players!) is a negative experience, not a positive one.
So after discussing with the balance team, we decided to put these in with lower level requirements, with the following reasoning:
- The balance math shows the bump to be pretty good at level 10 (not something the balance team was uncomfortable with, though), but pretty unremarkable by the time you hit, say, level 30 or so. Since pretty much open world PvP doesn't happen at those low levels, the impact on open world PvP is pretty much negligable.
- The way the math works out, the benefit pretty much washed away by the bolster system in warzones, which means there is no significant advantage there.
- The crystals are exactly as good as end-game color crystals, which means they have ZERO impact on endgame activities (level 50 ranked warzones, operations, heroic flashpoints, etc). We're still philosophically avoiding putting any stat advantage at this level that subscribers cannot earn through reasonable normal play.
- The fact that these items are fully tradeable means that players who do think there's a balance advantage here can acquire them on the GTN for pure credits without spending a single cartel coin.
The net result of all of this is that slapping one of these color crystals in your saber at level 10 effectively makes levelling from levels 10 up somewhat easier, with the benefits tapering off quickly as the player levels up, and eventually zeroing out altogether. We felt, in general, that that was okay. The focus groups that we ran also seemed to think it was okay, as long as we avoided endgame power.
Fourth: (security keys)
We've been getting some questions about security keys and how they will work. For starters, Free-to-Play and Preferred players cannot use NEW digital security keys. However, if you had one on your account and you decided to go to Preferred Player Status, then you can still use your digital security key. Free-to-Play players may purchase a physical security key, which will give them Preferred Player Status and the ability to use the physical security key.
Hopefully this settles many of the debates, most of which have been civil but many are beginning to devolve into flame wars. For the record, I don’t think Bioware is going wrong in the conversion model. So far my only real issue with the conversion is one quick bar for free to play but cost to upgrade is low and as described above it conveys many more benefits, so that issue has been addressed in my book.
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