of course the UI restrictions are the most hateful, its obvious why
if some1 knows ..... the f2p players can they get CC with any way? didnt read anything about it.
Sadly no. I wish you could earn them by some basic achievment grinding like in LOTRO. However that would require EA to be less than the greedy entitiy it is. I think I'm more eager to see how the F2P move gets received than I am about TOR actually going F2P.
The game went F2P, i cancelled my sub and abandoned the game, can't see anything positive about the F2P aspect of the game and the restrictions it places on it.. just wish i'd had time to finish the storyline of the 2 toons i did have, guess i'll never know how it would have ended now, and the storyline was the only reason to even play the game in the first place. Far as im concerned F2P was the absolutely worst thing they could do to the game, guess listening to the players really wasnt on their agenda, or perhaps we werent the players they were interested in.. deja vu.. again..
Originally posted by Phry The game went F2P, i cancelled my sub and abandoned the game, can't see anything positive about the F2P aspect of the game and the restrictions it places on it.. just wish i'd had time to finish the storyline of the 2 toons i did have, guess i'll never know how it would have ended now, and the storyline was the only reason to even play the game in the first place. Far as im concerned F2P was the absolutely worst thing they could do to the game, guess listening to the players really wasnt on their agenda, or perhaps we werent the players they were interested in.. deja vu.. again..
They went with a very poor f2p model IMO. I would've rather seen a less restrictive buy 2 play. I really liked SWTOR, to me it was a great installment of the KOTOR series but after I finished the game it was over and no need for me to subscribe.
I think they would've been better to have made an expansion instead of putting in the time to convert it to a f2p. It could've been a mini-expac and added in some of the stuff roleplayers have been asking for such as mini-games, races and open space flight.
I wonder who keeps making these retarded decisions in the gaming industry and how do they still have a job? It takes a real pro to fubar a f2p model. You would think that 'understanding the community' would be a major requirement of some of these important roles in the industry but they show us time and time again that half of them have no idea what they are doing.
Man the mmorpg crowd is going the way of the our society. Whinning and crying because they want everything handed to them and FREE. Listen up if you want to put the time and effort in guess what you can make it to 50 free. This isnt handouts and Freebies to play.
Here are your choices, you pay $14.99/month and have no limitaiton or you play for free and have limitation. Crying and whining cause your cheap and you think you are entitled to play a video game for free will not change that.
Honestly, I feel like you're brining in a lot of the "subscribtion" argument into this. The truth is that the game needs players more than players need it.
When you have people complaining like this it's not because they are whinny and want a handout, it's because the designers did not do thier job in successfully promoting the product. There have been some successful free to play models and those are the ones you don't notice.
Man the mmorpg crowd is going the way of the our society. Whinning and crying because they want everything handed to them and FREE. Listen up if you want to put the time and effort in guess what you can make it to 50 free. This isnt handouts and Freebies to play.
Here are your choices, you pay $14.99/month and have no limitaiton or you play for free and have limitation. Crying and whining cause your cheap and you think you are entitled to play a video game for free will not change that.
Getting to level 50 for free sounds great until you realize that by level 30 you really NEED those side action bars. Many people will quit because they are just so annoyed with the gimped UI. EA is doing something I've never heard another F2P publisher do, they are restricting you from having a fully functional UI. Their goal is to get EVERYONE to pay some money, rather than wowing them with their game and getting them to sub because they enjoyed leveling so much.
See I would agree there are some good f2p games out there. With games like LOTRO you will still have peopel whinning and crying because its too restrictive. MMOPRG gamers (not all) seem to be demanding more and more FREE and if they dont get it they call it a failure. Well we wil see how TOR does with F2P since its still 2 days away.
Free to play, they can be restrictive as they want IMO. I do think they should give players who actually bought the game less restrictions, that would at least give people a reason to buy the game.
From what I've gathered, some of the most successful free2play models give you full access to the game but charge for things you don't really need. Limiting things like action bars is blantatly retarded.
I don't know much about LOTR, from what I understand they charge for quest packs which really isn't a bad idea. There are some complaining from the community that you can overlook to a point. Customers will take advantage if you let them.
See I would agree there are some good f2p games out there. With games like LOTRO you will still have peopel whinning and crying because its too restrictive. MMOPRG gamers (not all) seem to be demanding more and more FREE and if they dont get it they call it a failure. Well we wil see how TOR does with F2P since its still 2 days away.
Free to play, they can be restrictive as they want IMO. I do think they should give players who actually bought the game less restrictions, that would at least give people a reason to buy the game.
From what I've gathered, some of the most successful free2play models give you full access to the game but charge for things you don't really need. Limiting things like action bars is blantatly retarded.
I don't know much about LOTR, from what I understand they charge for quest packs which really isn't a bad idea. There are some complaining from the community that you can overlook to a point. Customers will take advantage if you let them.
LOTR has good and bad. My understanding, as I'm a lifer and haven't tried leveling as F2P, is that not too long after finishing Bree, you will have to buy quest packs for regions in order to level without massive grinding to earn points. Apparently you can grind the points needed by leveling a lot of characters on different servers and doing the exploring/killing deeds in low level areas. That's great if you don't mind grinding and don't want to pay any cash.
My personal opinion is that they should let you play all of the release content for free. If you want access to the expansions you have to buy them. The same for character slots, classes ...
What's good is that as far as leveling goes you just unlock quest packs with one purchase. I was turned off from AoC F2P because they didn't seem to offer those single unlocks. They designed their system to get you to subscribe. The fact is that if I wanted to sub to an MMO I'd more likely just return to WOW until I got bored again.
Originally posted by Phry The game went F2P, i cancelled my sub and abandoned the game, can't see anything positive about the F2P aspect of the game and the restrictions it places on it.. just wish i'd had time to finish the storyline of the 2 toons i did have, guess i'll never know how it would have ended now, and the storyline was the only reason to even play the game in the first place. Far as im concerned F2P was the absolutely worst thing they could do to the game, guess listening to the players really wasnt on their agenda, or perhaps we werent the players they were interested in.. deja vu.. again..
They went with a very poor f2p model IMO. I would've rather seen a less restrictive buy 2 play. I really liked SWTOR, to me it was a great installment of the KOTOR series but after I finished the game it was over and no need for me to subscribe.
I think they would've been better to have made an expansion instead of putting in the time to convert it to a f2p. It could've been a mini-expac and added in some of the stuff roleplayers have been asking for such as mini-games, races and open space flight.
I wonder who keeps making these retarded decisions in the gaming industry and how do they still have a job? It takes a real pro to fubar a f2p model. You would think that 'understanding the community' would be a major requirement of some of these important roles in the industry but they show us time and time again that half of them have no idea what they are doing.
If they had brought out an expansion for the game, i probably would have bought it, assuming it was another world or 3 full of content that is, SW;TOR imo could have had regular expansions just from adding new worlds to the game, pretty sure the expanded universe had enough raw material for them to utilise. Going F2P though, imo, clear case of someone dropping the ball somewhere up in the management chain, trouble is, when things go pear shaped, its the people who make the game that get axed, not the ones who decide what happens to it, or at least thats how it looks from outside..
Originally posted by Phry The game went F2P, i cancelled my sub and abandoned the game, can't see anything positive about the F2P aspect of the game and the restrictions it places on it.. just wish i'd had time to finish the storyline of the 2 toons i did have, guess i'll never know how it would have ended now, and the storyline was the only reason to even play the game in the first place. Far as im concerned F2P was the absolutely worst thing they could do to the game, guess listening to the players really wasnt on their agenda, or perhaps we werent the players they were interested in.. deja vu.. again..
They went with a very poor f2p model IMO. I would've rather seen a less restrictive buy 2 play. I really liked SWTOR, to me it was a great installment of the KOTOR series but after I finished the game it was over and no need for me to subscribe.
I think they would've been better to have made an expansion instead of putting in the time to convert it to a f2p. It could've been a mini-expac and added in some of the stuff roleplayers have been asking for such as mini-games, races and open space flight.
I wonder who keeps making these retarded decisions in the gaming industry and how do they still have a job? It takes a real pro to fubar a f2p model. You would think that 'understanding the community' would be a major requirement of some of these important roles in the industry but they show us time and time again that half of them have no idea what they are doing.
If they had brought out an expansion for the game, i probably would have bought it, assuming it was another world or 3 full of content that is, SW;TOR imo could have had regular expansions just from adding new worlds to the game, pretty sure the expanded universe had enough raw material for them to utilise. Going F2P though, imo, clear case of someone dropping the ball somewhere up in the management chain, trouble is, when things go pear shaped, its the people who make the game that get axed, not the ones who decide what happens to it, or at least thats how it looks from outside..
There were some serious design issues with the game. I'm not convinced management was responsible for it all. Actually, I'm pretty sure the leads at Bioware can take most of the blame. They had the budget and time, but seemed to not understand MMOs.
It's basically unplayable without a subscription, which is probably the point. Most of the "restrictions" feel punitive rather than restrictive. Stuff like not being able to hide your head slot, and the oft-mentioned action bar locks. The real question I have is how often they are going to try and remind F2P players that they get upgrade while playing the game. Is every new ability learned going to prompt the user that more action bars are available via sub or cartel points?
I plan on keeping my sub around for another month or two most likely, because I'm still enjoying the game. I just can't see ever playing it "free" like I do LotRO, which means I won't be as likely to get an itch and resub on a whim. Their loss.
Man the mmorpg crowd is going the way of the our society. Whinning and crying because they want everything handed to them and FREE. Listen up if you want to put the time and effort in guess what you can make it to 50 free. This isnt handouts and Freebies to play.
Here are your choices, you pay $14.99/month and have no limitaiton or you play for free and have limitation. Crying and whining cause your cheap and you think you are entitled to play a video game for free will not change that.
This and the fact that NO so-called "f2p" game is really ever free. Frankly, I wish that no one ever came up with such a totally inaccurate if not down right false term as "free-to-play". I will be walking (or running as fast as I can) away from this game pretty soon. Won't play the "free" side nor the "subsidise the freeloaders" side of the game.
Man the mmorpg crowd is going the way of the our society. Whinning and crying because they want everything handed to them and FREE. Listen up if you want to put the time and effort in guess what you can make it to 50 free. This isnt handouts and Freebies to play.
Here are your choices, you pay $14.99/month and have no limitaiton or you play for free and have limitation. Crying and whining cause your cheap and you think you are entitled to play a video game for free will not change that.
Thank you for bringing up the stunningly obvious...although you missed an option. People can choose to stay the hell away from this train wreck.
You seem to have an extremely low opinion of your fellow gamers. I think that most people would be willing to pay some money at least if this was a quality product with a good revenue scheme.
Instead it's all "What have you done for EA lately?" and "GIMME GIMME GIMME" on EA's part.
Are you *really* going to argue that you believe their model is not going to drive far more players away than it will attract?
Well.. I may be a sucker here but after reading this whole discussion I went ahead and upgraded my trial to a 30 month sub. I love the storyline and want to play that through with at least one character. I figure 30 days and then I'll be a decent level, have at least a preferred player status and see what it's like at that point.
I wish they had looked at LOTRO for ideas. They did it pretty well.
I believe this was from October 2010:
"This year--it's still early, it's only been a couple of months--monthly revenue's tripled for us," director of communications Adam Mersky Mersky said on the Ten Ton Hammer podcast (via Gamasutra), "which is obviously making us very happy."
"We're getting a ton of new players in and the game feels alive and vibrant," said executive producer Kate Paiz. "This really echos a lot of what we see throughout the entertainment industry in general," she added. "It's really about letting players make their choices about how they want to play."
I doubt the income is still as high, but I would guess it's higher than the monthly required subs were getting them before. If you have a lot of people playing your game and spending a few dollars here and there when they need/want to, then you will make more than only a few paying 15 a month.
What would of made the game better (in my opinion):
Restrict species to F2P members, just make the first 4 that are available before you level to 50 with one of the races. Able to buy the others in the in game store.
-Restrict character slots to 2, able to buy others.
-All UI bars available for all players (being unable to compete could drive some away after a few levels, no sense in that).
-Haven't done enough PvP or flashpoints to choose one way or the other on implementing them.
-Full chat options for all players. If you can't have a full conversation with a F2P player how can you group with them or answer questions they may have? Could drive more away.
-Make all players able to equip all weapons at their current level.
-Either heighten or take out the credit cap so players can afford the items they need.
-Restrict bank space but make more options available in store, same for inventory.
-Be able to use the Galactic Trade Market, but only able to sell 2-4 items at a time, able to buy more slots/full access in the store.
-Put customizable armor in the store (the orange armor, different skins, possibly light saber crystals, etc).
-Any new content added (outside of full expansions) make free to current subscribers and available in store to all others.
Just a few thoughts. I believe that if you go F2P your goal should be to bring in more players (which everyone benefits from) and make all players want to use the cash shop. I for one with a subscription would at least check out any armor skins as I prefer my Jedi Guardian without a hood. I don't have a headpiece that allows me to hide it yet.
As to those who say that "new players want everything free" and "you have to live with the restrictions of not subbing" I agree in part. You can't have everything free because that would piss off a lot of current subbers. However, you can't restrict it so they aren't able to keep up gameplay wise with the people who do pay or you'll lose out on a lot of future revenue. If you look at LOTRO, they give subs points to spend in their store every month. I think this would go a long way for the F2P update in keeping members subbed. Add new skins and cosmetics to the store, add new content every once in a while, and with these idea in place I think they could see a boost in population and revenue at the same time.
Again, I haven't played through the game yet, only reached level 18 yesterday. This means that there may be some reason later in the game that proves me wrong with one of these ideas, so feel free to offer up an opinion!
Just a few thoughts. I believe that if you go F2P your goal should be to bring in more players (which everyone benefits from) and make all players want to use the cash shop.
Edit: sorry, my browser went crazy...
So, first I agree with the LotRO part, I think Turbine made a great model with DDO / LotRO f2p conversion.
Second, I don't completely agree with your statement above. Goal of f2p is to bring in more money than they received before the conversion.
A sane company does it with bringing in more players, just as you said. It's a successful way, with lots of f2p converted games to prove.
A not-so-sane company tries to focus on the cash shop It could be successful as well, I mean AoC has a more or less steady income, they already made Turan and Dragon's Spine is on the way. Actually I think it will work with TOR too. Those few who stayed and keep subscribing probably won't turn away from the Cartel Market and the nice and shiny cosmetics
Don't really have an issue with any of them to be fair.
If you want to play the game for free and not support it in any way you have all of the tools to do so.
If you want some additional QoL components like extra toolbars and extra customization options then support the game and drop a couple of quid to get what you want.
If you want all of the bells and whistles then sub,
Why should a load of cheap ass freeloaders who simply want everything for nothig undermine the value of those that pay a sub.
Just a few thoughts. I believe that if you go F2P your goal should be to bring in more players (which everyone benefits from) and make all players want to use the cash shop.
Second, I don't completely agree with your statement above. Goal of f2p is to bring in more money than they received before the conversion.
My thinking is that if you bring in more people and encourage them to use the cash shop (not for gameplay reasons but for ease of access to certain things and cosmetics) you actually can bring in more money.
Just a few thoughts. I believe that if you go F2P your goal should be to bring in more players (which everyone benefits from) and make all players want to use the cash shop.
Second, I don't completely agree with your statement above. Goal of f2p is to bring in more money than they received before the conversion.
My thinking is that if you bring in more people and encourage them to use the cash shop (not for gameplay reasons but for ease of access to certain things and cosmetics) you actually can bring in more money.
I said that too. It was on the next sentence
"A sane company does it with bringing in more players, just as you said. It's a successful way, with lots of f2p converted games to prove."
Why should a load of cheap ass freeloaders who simply want everything for nothig undermine the value of those that pay a sub.
Answer: They shouldn't.
Driz
I'm just comparing SWTOR's F2P setup with LOTRO's, as LOTRO's is largely considered a success. What I didn't understand is why you wouldn't want to model your F2P transition on one of the only MMO's on the market that actually had a successful transition and increased their revenue.
I hate playing a game and knowing every month that I'll automatically be paying the company a certain amount of money. I'm more liable to buy items through a cash shop. This gives me the option of not feeling forced to play monthly because I'm paying them for the time, but rather play for fun and spend money when I am playing.
I would not call everyone who wants the game to be F2P "cheap ass freeloaders" because I'm sure many of them would use the cash shop for items. You have to give a little in the restrictions in order to get enough people in and playing and using the shop in order to boost the revenue. If you make them pay for features that are available in games like LOTRO for free then most will feel cheated, and may quit.
I figured that most subbers would (assuming it's done right) welcome F2P because it increases server population thus adding more options and items to the Galactic Market, more people to group with, and better helps the communtiy overall. Sure you'll get the occassional troll but you have that with every game. That's why games added the /ignore option.
If F2P fails, then the company will lose out on what would of been a large source of revenue, and that would severely affect any future content they plan on adding.
For me, None. Restrictions are there for a reason, now if everyone is going to start whining and crying over it then the game community will be nothing but the "gimme, gimme" crowd who wants everything handed to them. Might as well make it Pay2win for you kiddies.
Leave the restrictions, infact add more. Make those FTP folks buy a sub. If you don't like restrictions go play Hello Kitty Online.
Just a few thoughts. I believe that if you go F2P your goal should be to bring in more players (which everyone benefits from) and make all players want to use the cash shop.
Second, I don't completely agree with your statement above. Goal of f2p is to bring in more money than they received before the conversion.
My thinking is that if you bring in more people and encourage them to use the cash shop (not for gameplay reasons but for ease of access to certain things and cosmetics) you actually can bring in more money.
I said that too. It was on the next sentence
"A sane company does it with bringing in more players, just as you said. It's a successful way, with lots of f2p converted games to prove."
Then we are on the same page! Awesome. That never happens on these forums.
Comments
Sadly no. I wish you could earn them by some basic achievment grinding like in LOTRO. However that would require EA to be less than the greedy entitiy it is. I think I'm more eager to see how the F2P move gets received than I am about TOR actually going F2P.
what? pft, I'm just gonna cancel the update and not even bother.
Wait a sec, are people who bought the game going to lose their characters if they're not subscribed?
They went with a very poor f2p model IMO. I would've rather seen a less restrictive buy 2 play. I really liked SWTOR, to me it was a great installment of the KOTOR series but after I finished the game it was over and no need for me to subscribe.
I think they would've been better to have made an expansion instead of putting in the time to convert it to a f2p. It could've been a mini-expac and added in some of the stuff roleplayers have been asking for such as mini-games, races and open space flight.
I wonder who keeps making these retarded decisions in the gaming industry and how do they still have a job? It takes a real pro to fubar a f2p model. You would think that 'understanding the community' would be a major requirement of some of these important roles in the industry but they show us time and time again that half of them have no idea what they are doing.
Honestly, I feel like you're brining in a lot of the "subscribtion" argument into this. The truth is that the game needs players more than players need it.
When you have people complaining like this it's not because they are whinny and want a handout, it's because the designers did not do thier job in successfully promoting the product. There have been some successful free to play models and those are the ones you don't notice.
Getting to level 50 for free sounds great until you realize that by level 30 you really NEED those side action bars. Many people will quit because they are just so annoyed with the gimped UI. EA is doing something I've never heard another F2P publisher do, they are restricting you from having a fully functional UI. Their goal is to get EVERYONE to pay some money, rather than wowing them with their game and getting them to sub because they enjoyed leveling so much.
Free to play, they can be restrictive as they want IMO. I do think they should give players who actually bought the game less restrictions, that would at least give people a reason to buy the game.
From what I've gathered, some of the most successful free2play models give you full access to the game but charge for things you don't really need. Limiting things like action bars is blantatly retarded.
I don't know much about LOTR, from what I understand they charge for quest packs which really isn't a bad idea. There are some complaining from the community that you can overlook to a point. Customers will take advantage if you let them.
LOTR has good and bad. My understanding, as I'm a lifer and haven't tried leveling as F2P, is that not too long after finishing Bree, you will have to buy quest packs for regions in order to level without massive grinding to earn points. Apparently you can grind the points needed by leveling a lot of characters on different servers and doing the exploring/killing deeds in low level areas. That's great if you don't mind grinding and don't want to pay any cash.
My personal opinion is that they should let you play all of the release content for free. If you want access to the expansions you have to buy them. The same for character slots, classes ...
What's good is that as far as leveling goes you just unlock quest packs with one purchase. I was turned off from AoC F2P because they didn't seem to offer those single unlocks. They designed their system to get you to subscribe. The fact is that if I wanted to sub to an MMO I'd more likely just return to WOW until I got bored again.
If they had brought out an expansion for the game, i probably would have bought it, assuming it was another world or 3 full of content that is, SW;TOR imo could have had regular expansions just from adding new worlds to the game, pretty sure the expanded universe had enough raw material for them to utilise. Going F2P though, imo, clear case of someone dropping the ball somewhere up in the management chain, trouble is, when things go pear shaped, its the people who make the game that get axed, not the ones who decide what happens to it, or at least thats how it looks from outside..
There were some serious design issues with the game. I'm not convinced management was responsible for it all. Actually, I'm pretty sure the leads at Bioware can take most of the blame. They had the budget and time, but seemed to not understand MMOs.
It's basically unplayable without a subscription, which is probably the point. Most of the "restrictions" feel punitive rather than restrictive. Stuff like not being able to hide your head slot, and the oft-mentioned action bar locks. The real question I have is how often they are going to try and remind F2P players that they get upgrade while playing the game. Is every new ability learned going to prompt the user that more action bars are available via sub or cartel points?
I plan on keeping my sub around for another month or two most likely, because I'm still enjoying the game. I just can't see ever playing it "free" like I do LotRO, which means I won't be as likely to get an itch and resub on a whim. Their loss.
You make me like charity
This and the fact that NO so-called "f2p" game is really ever free. Frankly, I wish that no one ever came up with such a totally inaccurate if not down right false term as "free-to-play". I will be walking (or running as fast as I can) away from this game pretty soon. Won't play the "free" side nor the "subsidise the freeloaders" side of the game.
Let's party like it is 1863!
Thank you for bringing up the stunningly obvious...although you missed an option. People can choose to stay the hell away from this train wreck.
You seem to have an extremely low opinion of your fellow gamers. I think that most people would be willing to pay some money at least if this was a quality product with a good revenue scheme.
Instead it's all "What have you done for EA lately?" and "GIMME GIMME GIMME" on EA's part.
Are you *really* going to argue that you believe their model is not going to drive far more players away than it will attract?
RELAX!@!! BREATHE!!!
Well.. I may be a sucker here but after reading this whole discussion I went ahead and upgraded my trial to a 30 month sub. I love the storyline and want to play that through with at least one character. I figure 30 days and then I'll be a decent level, have at least a preferred player status and see what it's like at that point.
I wish they had looked at LOTRO for ideas. They did it pretty well.
I believe this was from October 2010:
"This year--it's still early, it's only been a couple of months--monthly revenue's tripled for us," director of communications Adam Mersky Mersky said on the Ten Ton Hammer podcast (via Gamasutra), "which is obviously making us very happy."
"We're getting a ton of new players in and the game feels alive and vibrant," said executive producer Kate Paiz. "This really echos a lot of what we see throughout the entertainment industry in general," she added. "It's really about letting players make their choices about how they want to play."
I doubt the income is still as high, but I would guess it's higher than the monthly required subs were getting them before. If you have a lot of people playing your game and spending a few dollars here and there when they need/want to, then you will make more than only a few paying 15 a month.
What would of made the game better (in my opinion):
Restrict species to F2P members, just make the first 4 that are available before you level to 50 with one of the races. Able to buy the others in the in game store.
-Restrict character slots to 2, able to buy others.
-All UI bars available for all players (being unable to compete could drive some away after a few levels, no sense in that).
-Haven't done enough PvP or flashpoints to choose one way or the other on implementing them.
-Full chat options for all players. If you can't have a full conversation with a F2P player how can you group with them or answer questions they may have? Could drive more away.
-Make all players able to equip all weapons at their current level.
-Either heighten or take out the credit cap so players can afford the items they need.
-Restrict bank space but make more options available in store, same for inventory.
-Be able to use the Galactic Trade Market, but only able to sell 2-4 items at a time, able to buy more slots/full access in the store.
-Put customizable armor in the store (the orange armor, different skins, possibly light saber crystals, etc).
-Any new content added (outside of full expansions) make free to current subscribers and available in store to all others.
Just a few thoughts. I believe that if you go F2P your goal should be to bring in more players (which everyone benefits from) and make all players want to use the cash shop. I for one with a subscription would at least check out any armor skins as I prefer my Jedi Guardian without a hood. I don't have a headpiece that allows me to hide it yet.
As to those who say that "new players want everything free" and "you have to live with the restrictions of not subbing" I agree in part. You can't have everything free because that would piss off a lot of current subbers. However, you can't restrict it so they aren't able to keep up gameplay wise with the people who do pay or you'll lose out on a lot of future revenue. If you look at LOTRO, they give subs points to spend in their store every month. I think this would go a long way for the F2P update in keeping members subbed. Add new skins and cosmetics to the store, add new content every once in a while, and with these idea in place I think they could see a boost in population and revenue at the same time.
Again, I haven't played through the game yet, only reached level 18 yesterday. This means that there may be some reason later in the game that proves me wrong with one of these ideas, so feel free to offer up an opinion!
Edit: Cleaned up the text
Edit: sorry, my browser went crazy...
So, first I agree with the LotRO part, I think Turbine made a great model with DDO / LotRO f2p conversion.
Second, I don't completely agree with your statement above. Goal of f2p is to bring in more money than they received before the conversion.
A sane company does it with bringing in more players, just as you said. It's a successful way, with lots of f2p converted games to prove.
A not-so-sane company tries to focus on the cash shop
It could be successful as well, I mean AoC has a more or less steady income, they already made Turan and Dragon's Spine is on the way. Actually I think it will work with TOR too. Those few who stayed and keep subscribing probably won't turn away from the Cartel Market and the nice and shiny cosmetics 
I look at F2P as hardcore mode
Goodluck on enjoying the game if you don't sub to it, I guess it will keep more of the freeloaders out.
But to answer your question it would be the hotbars.
Don't really have an issue with any of them to be fair.
If you want to play the game for free and not support it in any way you have all of the tools to do so.
If you want some additional QoL components like extra toolbars and extra customization options then support the game and drop a couple of quid to get what you want.
If you want all of the bells and whistles then sub,
Why should a load of cheap ass freeloaders who simply want everything for nothig undermine the value of those that pay a sub.
Answer: They shouldn't.
Driz
My thinking is that if you bring in more people and encourage them to use the cash shop (not for gameplay reasons but for ease of access to certain things and cosmetics) you actually can bring in more money.
I said that too. It was on the next sentence
"A sane company does it with bringing in more players, just as you said. It's a successful way, with lots of f2p converted games to prove."
I'm just comparing SWTOR's F2P setup with LOTRO's, as LOTRO's is largely considered a success. What I didn't understand is why you wouldn't want to model your F2P transition on one of the only MMO's on the market that actually had a successful transition and increased their revenue.
I hate playing a game and knowing every month that I'll automatically be paying the company a certain amount of money. I'm more liable to buy items through a cash shop. This gives me the option of not feeling forced to play monthly because I'm paying them for the time, but rather play for fun and spend money when I am playing.
I would not call everyone who wants the game to be F2P "cheap ass freeloaders" because I'm sure many of them would use the cash shop for items. You have to give a little in the restrictions in order to get enough people in and playing and using the shop in order to boost the revenue. If you make them pay for features that are available in games like LOTRO for free then most will feel cheated, and may quit.
I figured that most subbers would (assuming it's done right) welcome F2P because it increases server population thus adding more options and items to the Galactic Market, more people to group with, and better helps the communtiy overall. Sure you'll get the occassional troll but you have that with every game. That's why games added the /ignore option.
If F2P fails, then the company will lose out on what would of been a large source of revenue, and that would severely affect any future content they plan on adding.
For me, None. Restrictions are there for a reason, now if everyone is going to start whining and crying over it then the game community will be nothing but the "gimme, gimme" crowd who wants everything handed to them. Might as well make it Pay2win for you kiddies.
Leave the restrictions, infact add more. Make those FTP folks buy a sub. If you don't like restrictions go play Hello Kitty Online.
Then we are on the same page! Awesome. That never happens on these forums.