I don’t really care about the free month – it makes no difference to my budget one way or the other. But the phrasing was majorly WTFy. Excuse me, but I’ve shown support and loyalty, too.

Being able to rearrange and resize the UI elements was a wonderful addition, and I had some fun on my warrior with the /agent emote. Oh, and BoE hoverbikes made by cybertechs! I have two of those already.

In SW:TOR there is no reputation to grind, no collections, not much in the way of achievements, and no real daily structure. Yes, there are dailies on three planets but if you are at all organized you’ve gained all they have to offer in a few weeks – assuming Corellia follows the pattern of Belsavis and Illum. How long did it take to complete the Firelands dailies, or even to grind your faction in the Twilight Highlands to max to gain the gear? I don’t see much reason to run the Flashpoints, unless you enjoy that run or are helping a guildmate, once you have the drops as you aren’t grinding points to purchase better gear as in WoW or RIFT. And money isn’t an issue. Ignoring the GTN my main had 2M credits when he hit 50 – space missions are high profit. It feels like I’m in a tiny sandbox in the middle of a theme park. The game is clearly designed to lead players though content, until 50 when it’s telling you to find something to do.

What sold many people on SW:TOR was story. That is expensive and very rapidly consumed in an MMO. It may also become, I think, a noose for BioWare. Having been a GM in tabletop RPGs since the early ’80s I have to admit that I was shaking my head in dismay when my Inquisitor became a member of the Dark Council. Where are they going to go from here? I’m one of the 12 most powerful people in the Empire. I have fleets and armies at my disposal. Why am I going to accept some insignificant planetary governor giving me lip? They may surprise me, but I’m not going to hold my breath until 1.3 is announced – and if this doesn’t include at least Chapter 4 they will have even more problems with defections.

In the end, I want SW:TOR to succeed, but I’m not really clear on how they are going to get there.

my highest level character is 44. i play on several servers and both empire and republic (thanks, friends for deciding to split up >_> ) so I’ve been splitting my time when I play between them. I preordered. I have a digital deluxe upgrade. I was originaly subscribed for 3 month increment payments. but I guess I’m not a valuable customer, becasue I was playing my way.

that’s nice to know.

I don’t have a problem with free stuff that I personaly may not be eligible for. but once again, the way EA presented that free stuff? to quote Mordin, implications unpleasant

But at the same time, we know for sure that lots of people quit themepark MMOs after hitting max level, that the pace of an MMO changes after hitting max level, and also that current endgame needs active level 50s to participate so that the ops/ hard modes/ warzones/ open PvP can function at all. So I can see why they’d feel that was the area to target and this was a good time to do it. It is interesting that they’d want to do this in addition to the new op/flashpoint/ warzone and the legacy stuff though.

I’ve also seen arguments that it is intended to soften the blow to the PvP fans of having rated warzones taken out at the last minute. One thing I suppose from giving out bonuses to 50s now is that you know you are targeting players who liked the game enough to finish it on at least one character. I can see the logic, I don’t know if it was a good thing to do. It won’t surprise me if they do decide to extend it to all launch accounts or somesuch. We’ll see I guess.