PVE focused players are rarely going to turn into hardcore endgame players, why waste ton of resources into trying to get them to buy into that? No EA/BW will need to focus on making new content that they can sell to those players. This is something that is on BW's table to make sure they take care of to keep those players interested. Those players are never going to care much about the stuff behind a weekly pass pay wall or endgame, they are going to want cosmetic stuff and stuff that expands their character and pve content. F2P is not about keeping players hanging around longer, much of the people who play often come in, sometimes toss some money at it, and don't stick around long term. But being free it's a constantly open door for new people to come back to without a subscription commitment.
The success of TOR's F2P is going to be highly dependant on them being able to produce content to sell to these players, as the game is lacking in what it can offer. We've gone over the sub base problem already, and that is not going away anytime soon. But everything can change, and once those subs hanging over their head start to leak away, they will no doubt change their tune, but at that time the game is going to have grown in it's offerings and they will have more freedom to play with their pricing schemes.
It's not about making a long term solution, as there never will be one, the solution is going to keep changing depending on the players demands and what they can offer and make from it.
What EA
should have done is give each F2Per the same basic suit of cosmetic armor, and no matter what gear they equip, have them always look the same. Then make it so any orange gear you acquire can be "unlocked" with Cartel Coins, allowing the player to wear it properly. Do this for mounts/pets too.
This would mean:
- No stat penalties for F2Pers means they have don't have to be avoided like the plague.
- There could still be rare drops, since non-subscribers will need to pay to unlock the appearance.
- A bunch of orange gear can be added to the Cartel Market like they are currently doing.
- Subscribers have normal access to all gear, giving people a big incentive to subscribe.
- Every time a player opens the character sheet, it shows what the character
would look like, if only they would subscribe/pay coins.
What EA doesn't seem to understand is that limiting the amount people can play in a week without paying will cause most people to simply not play. If they can play a lot, they will want to make their character look cool.
What you have been saying is that it's more about getting people to throw out a few bucks every-once-in-a-while, and what I am saying is weekly passes / artifact gear restrictions / ui limitations will make it too frustrating for people to pop-in. There were ways to avoid this negative reaction people are having; they are just being greedy.
I agree that their #1 goal should be content creation. Charging for mini-expansions makes sense. But can we all agree that the pace of updates is a large reason they are in this mess now?
If they folded on the artifact gear and quick bars, I'd be a little more willing to accept the weekly passes on good faith. But things like making people resub to get their coins makes me sick as a genuine fan of the game. We can debate details of good and bad F2P models, but there's no denying that SWTOR's is misguided and more focused on nickel-and-diming people than creating a symbiotic relationship between players and the developers. If it wasn't, people would be excited to come back and play.
Everyone is always helpful.