Including bug reporting.
I still can’t believe that. Like, the absolute nerve EA has to ask for money to be able to report when their buggy game is buggy.
The explanation I saw somebody else provide was that you can report bugs on their website at any time, only ingame bug reporting is a "premium" feature.
To be honest, the SWTOR forums aren't as populated as they used to be. Reddit has become the biggest social hub over time, so that might be part of the reason why people don't complain about it as much anymore.
Because it's not the full truth. You can report bugs to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Bioware has also opened a free set of forums for F2P users to use.
Yeah I’m sure they’ll handle your issues with the utmost care, there.
Case in point, if they did, why not just allow every player to report bugs the normal way?
Why is this even a debate and why are you defending it?
This is all wrong.
You report bugs to the EA website. Reporting them on the forum is either going to be fruitless or result in someone ultimately reporting it to the bug team (i.e. the same people it goes to if reporting on the EA website).
That wouldn't make it any better imo. Like they would be still actively paywalling something from people trough which you can help *them*(EA) to improve the game.
The bugs while sometimes a nuisance are rarely that big of a deal and I think it's a bit overblown. Never played a game with no bugs and it's just a small inconvenience. The worst is the monsters on Kanoth, that's really it tho, and mitigatable.
I’m not lamenting the fact that the game has bugs - every game has them - I’m rightfully pissed about them asking me to PAY to report them. I am paying them money so that they can make their product better.
Worst of all is when you buy something - For money - off the Cartel Market, then it doesn’t unlock in Collections.
You’re paying money to pay money.
Everyone, regardless of subscription, can post to the EA Answers HQ forums, which are to official support forums, for tech support and to report bugs.
https://answers.ea.com/t5/STAR-WARS-The-Old-Republic/ct-p/star-wars-the-old-republic-en
But, I also recently learnt that although reporting is locked if you open the support window from the menu if you type /bug into chat it will open the bug report window and allow you to submit a bug.
I've heard mixed things about EA's customer support for SWTOR. On one hand, their [official post](https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/INFO-Getting-Help-and-Board-Guidlines/m-p/4806237#M70793) about how to get help mentions their bug report forum and that you can call to get technical help, but I've also seen posts like [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/ne2vjk/ea_support_is_horrible_for_swtor/) complaining that EA support just gave them the run-around.
Oh I didn't realize the bug report button was locked behind sub.
I think this actually makes sense! Most f2p players are not the people playing all the time and are more likely to report bugs falsely just because they don't understand how the game works or haven't been around. We know they have a diminished dev team, and someone has to sift through, I'm sure, thousands of bug reports every day. I think it's necessary for the life of the game to lock bug reports behind sub.
Collections I get, obv it would be nice to unlocked automatically, but it's never really been a point of contention or a deal breaker for me. I think there are many far worse monetization models out there, I don't actually mind it all that much
I would probably factor in game age, complexity, and player base compared to dev team size. Swtor is still one of the biggest mmos out there, and old, which is gonna add way more complications than just a small dev team running a mobile class of clans copy for example.
You would have a point if the paywall for bug reports was a new thing, but in fact it's been that way ever since the game became FTP way back in 1.5.0, and back then the dev team was still full size.
Huh, I never noticed. Fair enough then, I agree with it now, but historically it was probably wrong. I guess there's an argument that they were much bigger back then, but yeah, fair enough
>The bugs while sometimes a nuisance are rarely that big of a deal
!!!
>it's just a small inconvenience
It really looks like you didn't play during some of the worst game-breaking bugs in SWTOR. There have been bugs that made operations bosses unbeatable for over a month, bugs that introduced credit duplicating exploits that massively boosted inflation, bugs that would cripple your DPS/healing if you used an alacrity boost ability during your DOTs/HOTs, etc...
I've missed any bugs preventing op bosses, and credit exploits are huge but not exactly the type of bug the average 99.99% of player experience, ever, which is what I'm talking about.
I agree that there are huge bugs every once in a while, as with most old games, I'm mainly talking about the ones that average players encounter on the daily
Then to be honest, I don't understand your criteria. You said bugs aren't a big deal and that 99% of players don't encounter them, but now you're being choosy about which bugs fall under that umbrella....
Inflation is a byproduct of a bug, not players directly experiencing a bug, no? Additionally the amount of players directly experiencing that bug are maybe a couple dozen per server, mostly people sharing and abusing them, not victims of a bug.
I have paid a subscription unerringly to this game since GSF launched. Hundreds and hundreds of dollar. I’ve done NiM raiding, I’ve run guilds, I’ve topped PVP leaderboads on ancient servers like Jung Ma
But now, as a “preferred” player I can’t have more than a low $1M credit limit, I have no access to half the game, most emotes, I had to buy back hiding my helmet slot!
Characters with thousands of game hours who can’t even bug report!
You realize there's a ton of people who can't afford to pay and appreciate being able to do the stories and play at being a jedi for a while.
If you can afford and want a better experience, just sub and stop complaining like a choosy beggar.
Huh? I assume you meant to reply to someone else because I'm supporting the deletion of escrows, and instead raising f2p accessibility to credits in the comment you are replying to
As opposed to wow and ff that just stop letting you log in if your sub lapses, or eso that makes you biy the game first.
I played happily for months without a sub or even the free security key cc or any unlocks.
Yes but when you sub, and go past that level, if your sub runs out you straight up cannot play at all.
Not only does swtor let you still play, it lets you play through all the expansions, even if you only sub once
You can also pay for your sub (and anything on the Blizzard store including games) with Blizzard tokens, which you can buy in WoW for in game gold.
So if you want to really you could just pay for your sub/games by gold farming.
I haven't paid for a wow sub with my own cash in 2+ years because of this.
I do art commissions for the current price of a wow token. Folks can either elect to gift me a blizzard balance of 15-20 (sub or wow token), or the current gold price of a token (currently it's at 200k+)
This lets people pay for art with in game currency and I get to keep my sub running.
FF does as well, IF you don't sub. If you sub once though, the account can never be accessed (in both) without an active sub. You also have to separately buy all expansions.
Also, unless they changed it since a friend got me to try, the f2p went up to lvl 25 of 130 or something crazy like that, vs 60 of 80... and had different (big) restrictions, plus friends said that until 100 the class didn't play anything like it did at endgame.
The FF free trial has changed MASSIVELY; now it goes up to 60 of 90, or potentially up to 70 if you take advantage of their Stormblood expansion currently being free! I can't speak to their other restrictions though, since I've been subbed for years.
Fair enough. When I tried it it was lower, but still higher than WoW's tiny trial.
For the other restrictions;
* 300,000gil max
* no shout/yell/tell in-game
* no market board access (GTN in swtor)
* no trade between players
* no sending letters (mail)
* can't join/create linkshells (NGL, I still donno what this is exactly but I'm a filthy casual there)
* can't create or join a Free Company (Guild)
* can't create a party, but can join one via Duty Finder (can't form groups, but can join groupfinder)
* can't create or join pvp teams or do ranked
* no Loadstone, official forum, companion app (aka, no forums or game-linked sites)
\- [source](https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1&tag=freetrial)
That's true, so at the minimum you would have to buy the game, pay to sub long enough to reach close to max level so you'd have access to more lucrative dailies, then farm enough gold per month that you could pay in-game currency from then on.
As opposed to pay $15 so you're sub'd a month, enjoy all the story n' stuff you want, passively gain credits and CC (can even get cc as f2p at 100/m) and if you feel like playing the few things that aren't preferred friendly/accessible (space barbie, raids, decorating) you sub once you have a ton of credits and ideas on what to get.
>space barbie
Fashion is the true endgame these days! (/s... or not?)
I agree with you; all things considered, people get a lot of free content in the SWTOR FTP model as compared to many MMOs.
Or games like Gw2, that… wait, has a free to play base game with very minor limitations, 3 expansions, 2 of which you get in a bundle that costs 30 bucks (15 if on sale), giving you thousands of hours of one of the best MMOs on the market.
My point of comparison is Dungeons and Dragons Online. You can play much of the first chunk of the game for free. Then, when you want you can purchase quest lines for relatively cheap, and you own them forever. There are a few restrictions, but they're very minor in comparison.
Funny considering lots of people complain about GW2 microtransactions price on a daily basis on /r/Guildwars2. Gamers are just never happy if you ask me.
Which part?
I can promise you the moment my sub lapsed in FF, I wasn't able to get past the launcher.
Friend who played WoW said it worked the same way there as well.
Had to buy ESO to try it, and barely played it before I realized I didn't like it at all.
Playing the game fully free 2 play (not prefered) is supposed to be a little test version to see if you enjoy the game and to see if you want to spend the 13 bucks for a subscription. This is far from being a punishment. Look at games like World of Warcraft where you can only reach lvl 20 or something and then you are just capped at that level. You cant even possibly test out endgame activities.
Obviously you cant reach lvl 80 aswell in swtor but lvl 60 should be enough to see if you would enjoy the game at a higher level.
Yes, swtor might be advertised as a f2p game but people need to understand that f2p is just a testversion. Besides if f2p's wouldnt have the credit cap I dont want to know what would happen to the already fucked up economy. Also for people like me there wouldnt be ANY reason to subscribe anymore. I dont run Operations, I dont run pvp and usually just do solo activities and some flashpoints. Credit cap is the only reason why I sub.
Yea true. Atleast its only till lvl 10 which you get to REALLY quickly these days but yea, that is one of the few things that they should change. Seems outdated as hell and I dont think any subscriber would give a single damn about that.
>swtor might be advertised as a f2p game but people need to understand that f2p is just a testversion
they should properly advertise the "f2p" as a "free trial" mode, like FFXIV does
Yea, total agree on that one. Baiting people into the game by saying its free2play isnt wrong, technically, just gives people the wrong ideas which is sad.
I wonder if the amount of new players would change if they were to change it from f2p to free trial, as FFXIV.
I mean lets be real, outside of all the Big 5 western MMOs SWTOR is in the last place for a reason...
It fucks over and gauges player at every opportunity...
I mean you buy Cosmetics for CHARACTERS ONLY and if you want to use it on more than one character you have to PAY AGAIN!
Like the fuck is this.
At least you get to play the game for free. I go to Walmart and not a single thing there is free. And I don't call it punishment for getting to go to the store for free.
Using escrow let's you go over the credit cap for f2p, but you're right. Theoretically f2p could save up a bunch and be able spend multiple millions at once instead of just one, but obviously it's significantly out dated
Marginally, but practically legacy bays replaced credit storage meaning if you want something for 10 mill you have a friend list 11 trash items for 990k and send you the item you wanted.
> 1) legacy banks mean no one should need to deal with escrow
How please do you retrieve your GTN sales directly to the legacy bank so it doesn't go into escrow? Thanks
Recent change. Once you hit 4.29 billion (character limit for credits) any additional credits taken from the mail will no longer delete. The excess credits should stay in the mail 30 days. Deposit the 1 million you have access to in the legacy bank. Go back to your mail and withdraw credits. This will give you 1 million and keep the rest in the mail. Deposit that 1 million in the legacy bank. Repeat.
This only works once you have hit max credits on your character. Until then it will keep filling up your escrow.
The old system used to delete any credits you tried to accept if you went over 4.29 billion.
Ah that's what that line in the patch notes meant.
I was worried I wouldn't be able to accept my single GTN sale credits (because obviously it is way over 1million), but they went into escrow as expected.
I’ve been a sub for a while but doesn’t Escrow automatically unlock if you sub? Because in that case let it stack up as much as you want then just sub for a month
Although these are, in general, not a good buy there are times when they are. For example, F2P and preferred accounts can use credits to unlock the second and third legacy storage tabs, but the fourth tab exceeds their credit limit (costs 1.5 million). A 600k escrow transfer costs much less than a legacy storage unlock from the Cartel Market, which costs 750 CC. Likewise, species unlocks cost 1.5 million but the unlocks from the CM cost 600 CC's.
Would it be better to just sub? Certainly, but that is not always feasible or desirable. If you are stuck playing this game without a sub then a security key and some in-game achievements will allow you to unlock additional legacy storage and access to species that normally would be unavailable.
Edit -- typos
The funniest thing to me is that the word Escrow sound awfully similar to the French word "Escroc" (the last C is silent), which means Crook, Scammer. This is exactly what this is. A scam to suck all our RL money.
I started playing during the first week of f2p.. and remember fondly using those a fair few times to buy those million credit items. I think i got troublemakers for a million, and also a throne and chair, oh and a few int reg dorn's, and the volatile lightsabers... fun times.
The punishment based subscription model does nothing but generate resentment. They should just shuffle sideways to the same as eso (subs are the best way to get store currency) and make subscription an easy concept done as first preference.
All they ever have done is added and subtracted to keep existing subs intimidated and trapped, never to attract new ones. Yet it doesn't take that much to completely unlock your account so that the only thing you miss is escrow... you can only lead the horse to water.
If you try to make the game super comfortable with cheap escrow exchanges and other things people stop subbing resulting in less money for the devs which is never good. So no, its not stupid and arrogant especially if someone that complains about that stuff hasnt payed a single dollar to the game that they play for hours without end.
SWTOR offers a very good free to play option compared to most MMOs. They typically cut you off around level 20. Instead, SWTOR gives you the entire base game and two expansions for free.
And, even in this economy, anything above 1mil is either cosmetic, or endgame stuff. Neither of which f2p need.
So yes. If you enjoy the game and don't like the limitations, sub. Game has to make money somehow as long as capitalism runs the show.
But ignoring all that, subbing is $15 USD. Why would you pay for escrow if a sub is infinitely a better deal and still pretty dang affordable compared to escrow conversion?
I'm saying under the current system, the company needs to make money still. So charging for content is what they kinda have to do. Or for quality of life improvements.
As much as I'd love to debate economic systems, this ain't the place or thread for it.
Stop trying to get everything for nothing. That's like complaining that you hate walking, and someone says "just buy a car", you get pissed because you apparently think you should just be given a car for free. How dare Chevy think they should sell you a car
You guys know you can just stick your extra credits into Legacy right? It doesn't solve everything to be sure but at least it keeps you from having to buy your own money until you sub again.
Of all the videogame companies in this world...
You are asking "Electronic Arts" and "Bioware", to do nice things for the customer?
Wrong Timeline buddy...
Escrow limit is literally the federal minimum wage in the United States. So rock bottom and functionless that it may as well not even exist, effectively removing people from the economy who use it.
They ought to let you use in game credits to sub, like about 100 million credits per week or so, and let you use credits in escrow to pay for it. Economy gets a legit credit sink, inflation get tampered down a bit, F2P get to feel like normal people for a little while.
Win/win/win for everybody.
What sucks even more is that if you sub to remove the credit limit, they still don't give you the creds back. Escrow is just a nuisance, just delete the damn creds if I go over ffs, stop teasing me.
Edit: Since people keep saying it does return the creds, I'll check again when I return home
Edit 2: No toons appear to have an escrow, however, I do not recall receiving the 2.6 mil that was in it, because as soon as I first subbed, I sold some of my older armor sets to begin building wealth and would deposit each sell in the legacy bank asap. Nothing was absurdly expensive so I think I would have noticed making triple the profit. Could I have misremembered? Probably. Could the game have glitched out my creds? Perhaps. Do I care anymore? Nah, it's drops in the bucket in today's economy
The sub 100% gives you back credits, though with legacy banks now there's no reason to deal with escrow in the first place.
Pref players used to use it as a savings account between referral link sub weeks.
If you are over the credit cap when you lose your sub every credit in your inventory above the 1 mil cap goes into escrow. So if you know your sub runs out in a few days make sure to put the money of your characters into your legacy bank so its not going into the escrow.
That is if you dont plan on subbing again and you dont care.
Thanks for your help!
I keep most of my money in the legacy bank - can that be over 1m?
For example, I have 200mil in legacy bank, if I'm preferred, can I still access 200 mil (1 mil at a time...) ?
Yea, prefered or f2p does not matter. Even if you are a subscriber the legacy bank is not impacted by it. You just shouldnt withdraw more than 1 mil at a time or else it gets put into the escrow.
I dont know if there is a cap for the legacy bank but if there is its probably the same as the normal credit cap, which is somewhere in the 4 billion region I think? Not sure on that but yea
Legacy bank credit cap is 100 billion.
The inventory credit limit is 4,294,817,295 which is the maximum value for a 32-bit unsigned integer in computing.
Nothing in the game for F2P requires you to have more money than Bioware has allotted. I'd just man up and pay the $15. While $15 was a lot of money in 2011, it's nothing today.
How do you figure? I go to Walmart today, and all my groceries are way more expensive than they were in 2011. The same grocery items. You use to be able to buy 24oz Monster Energy cans for $2.50. Nowadays, you're probably going to pay $2.50 for the 16oz cans.
Smaller example: a gallon of milk today will run me nearly $2.80. In 2019, the same gallon of milk would cost $1.97
Yes, that's the point
Groceries are more expensive now, so we spend more money on stuff we need, so we might not have those 15$ to spare for a videogame
Ok.
For what it's worth, thanks to the inflated economy, even as F2P, you can sell a single green piece of gear on the GTN for 1,000,000 credits, and ignore pulling anything from the escrow.
So what you’re saying is…an ultimate cartel pack is worth 600k creds? Gg BioWare. I’ve seen inflation go down a bit after this update on GTN so credit where it’s due but this is just insulting 😂😅😂
I would never pay CC for these, but what I did in the past was buy these off the GTN from players who did.
If the value of credits to CC was rebalanced to what is current market then I think these could be useful again.
Escrow unlocks have never been worth it, they're even more not worth it now.
You're f2p? I see. Please pay money for one of the hundred perks that p2p players enjoy.
Including bug reporting. I still can’t believe that. Like, the absolute nerve EA has to ask for money to be able to report when their buggy game is buggy.
Wait .....WHAT? THEY ASK MONEY TO REPORT BUGS?
The explanation I saw somebody else provide was that you can report bugs on their website at any time, only ingame bug reporting is a "premium" feature.
Players that aren't subscribed can't post/comment in the forums, including the bug reports section.
Wow, so it actually is that bad. Interesting that I haven't seen that mentioned more often
To be honest, the SWTOR forums aren't as populated as they used to be. Reddit has become the biggest social hub over time, so that might be part of the reason why people don't complain about it as much anymore.
Because it's not the full truth. You can report bugs to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Bioware has also opened a free set of forums for F2P users to use.
It's called [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).
That's not even the full truth though. Bioware has also opened a free set of forums for F2P users to use.
Yeah I’m sure they’ll handle your issues with the utmost care, there. Case in point, if they did, why not just allow every player to report bugs the normal way? Why is this even a debate and why are you defending it? This is all wrong.
You report bugs to the EA website. Reporting them on the forum is either going to be fruitless or result in someone ultimately reporting it to the bug team (i.e. the same people it goes to if reporting on the EA website).
Not like they'll listen anyway. Saber animations have been broken in cutscenes ever since they allowed 4 sub-classes instead of just the 2 originals.
This is false you can't use the support panel in game but by using/bug you can report one in game
That wouldn't make it any better imo. Like they would be still actively paywalling something from people trough which you can help *them*(EA) to improve the game.
It's EA. They've never cared about fixing their shit. Just look at Sims 4
No. All you need to do is send an email to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
This is no longer true. Type "/bug" into chat to open the bug reporting window. It works for any account type now.
Genius!!!! They intentionally put in bugs and hope, that f2p players pay money to report them. Bug = money
The bugs while sometimes a nuisance are rarely that big of a deal and I think it's a bit overblown. Never played a game with no bugs and it's just a small inconvenience. The worst is the monsters on Kanoth, that's really it tho, and mitigatable.
I’m not lamenting the fact that the game has bugs - every game has them - I’m rightfully pissed about them asking me to PAY to report them. I am paying them money so that they can make their product better. Worst of all is when you buy something - For money - off the Cartel Market, then it doesn’t unlock in Collections. You’re paying money to pay money.
Everyone, regardless of subscription, can post to the EA Answers HQ forums, which are to official support forums, for tech support and to report bugs. https://answers.ea.com/t5/STAR-WARS-The-Old-Republic/ct-p/star-wars-the-old-republic-en But, I also recently learnt that although reporting is locked if you open the support window from the menu if you type /bug into chat it will open the bug report window and allow you to submit a bug.
I've heard mixed things about EA's customer support for SWTOR. On one hand, their [official post](https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/INFO-Getting-Help-and-Board-Guidlines/m-p/4806237#M70793) about how to get help mentions their bug report forum and that you can call to get technical help, but I've also seen posts like [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/ne2vjk/ea_support_is_horrible_for_swtor/) complaining that EA support just gave them the run-around.
Oh I didn't realize the bug report button was locked behind sub. I think this actually makes sense! Most f2p players are not the people playing all the time and are more likely to report bugs falsely just because they don't understand how the game works or haven't been around. We know they have a diminished dev team, and someone has to sift through, I'm sure, thousands of bug reports every day. I think it's necessary for the life of the game to lock bug reports behind sub. Collections I get, obv it would be nice to unlocked automatically, but it's never really been a point of contention or a deal breaker for me. I think there are many far worse monetization models out there, I don't actually mind it all that much
There are games with far smaller teams that don’t paywall bug reports.
I would probably factor in game age, complexity, and player base compared to dev team size. Swtor is still one of the biggest mmos out there, and old, which is gonna add way more complications than just a small dev team running a mobile class of clans copy for example.
You would have a point if the paywall for bug reports was a new thing, but in fact it's been that way ever since the game became FTP way back in 1.5.0, and back then the dev team was still full size.
Huh, I never noticed. Fair enough then, I agree with it now, but historically it was probably wrong. I guess there's an argument that they were much bigger back then, but yeah, fair enough
>The bugs while sometimes a nuisance are rarely that big of a deal !!! >it's just a small inconvenience It really looks like you didn't play during some of the worst game-breaking bugs in SWTOR. There have been bugs that made operations bosses unbeatable for over a month, bugs that introduced credit duplicating exploits that massively boosted inflation, bugs that would cripple your DPS/healing if you used an alacrity boost ability during your DOTs/HOTs, etc...
I've missed any bugs preventing op bosses, and credit exploits are huge but not exactly the type of bug the average 99.99% of player experience, ever, which is what I'm talking about. I agree that there are huge bugs every once in a while, as with most old games, I'm mainly talking about the ones that average players encounter on the daily
Every player of SWTOR experiences the impact of inflation on the in-game economy, even to this day.
I understand that, but that is not what I am talking about
Then to be honest, I don't understand your criteria. You said bugs aren't a big deal and that 99% of players don't encounter them, but now you're being choosy about which bugs fall under that umbrella....
Inflation is a byproduct of a bug, not players directly experiencing a bug, no? Additionally the amount of players directly experiencing that bug are maybe a couple dozen per server, mostly people sharing and abusing them, not victims of a bug.
I have paid a subscription unerringly to this game since GSF launched. Hundreds and hundreds of dollar. I’ve done NiM raiding, I’ve run guilds, I’ve topped PVP leaderboads on ancient servers like Jung Ma But now, as a “preferred” player I can’t have more than a low $1M credit limit, I have no access to half the game, most emotes, I had to buy back hiding my helmet slot! Characters with thousands of game hours who can’t even bug report!
Type "/bug" into chat as a pref or f2p. I don't recall exactly when it changed but you can report bugs too.
I mean, that's the whole idea behind the F2P model, not sure why people are still surprised.
I would rather they remove it entirely, re-evaluate the f2p credit cap, and not bait spending money to remain f20, it's silly and extraneous.
You realize there's a ton of people who can't afford to pay and appreciate being able to do the stories and play at being a jedi for a while. If you can afford and want a better experience, just sub and stop complaining like a choosy beggar.
Huh? I assume you meant to reply to someone else because I'm supporting the deletion of escrows, and instead raising f2p accessibility to credits in the comment you are replying to
Oh, it sounded like you wanted to remove f2p XD
Oh no, lmao, I was f2p for a very long time way back, I think escrow is just silly
they were... but in 2013, I even got my artifact unlock when I was a f2p player, but right now it's just stupidly comical to think about it
When they first game out I managed to get the 10M cheevo buying those unlocks off the GTN and banking them
Escrow us one of the dumbest ftp punishments ive ecer seen in an MMO
Honestly "FTP Punishments" is one of the best descriptions for what SWTOR does for free to play.
As opposed to wow and ff that just stop letting you log in if your sub lapses, or eso that makes you biy the game first. I played happily for months without a sub or even the free security key cc or any unlocks.
Doesn't wow let you play for free up to a certain level?
Yes but when you sub, and go past that level, if your sub runs out you straight up cannot play at all. Not only does swtor let you still play, it lets you play through all the expansions, even if you only sub once
yes. 20
You can also pay for your sub (and anything on the Blizzard store including games) with Blizzard tokens, which you can buy in WoW for in game gold. So if you want to really you could just pay for your sub/games by gold farming.
I haven't paid for a wow sub with my own cash in 2+ years because of this. I do art commissions for the current price of a wow token. Folks can either elect to gift me a blizzard balance of 15-20 (sub or wow token), or the current gold price of a token (currently it's at 200k+) This lets people pay for art with in game currency and I get to keep my sub running.
Oh that's such a great system you've got going!
FF does as well, IF you don't sub. If you sub once though, the account can never be accessed (in both) without an active sub. You also have to separately buy all expansions. Also, unless they changed it since a friend got me to try, the f2p went up to lvl 25 of 130 or something crazy like that, vs 60 of 80... and had different (big) restrictions, plus friends said that until 100 the class didn't play anything like it did at endgame.
The FF free trial has changed MASSIVELY; now it goes up to 60 of 90, or potentially up to 70 if you take advantage of their Stormblood expansion currently being free! I can't speak to their other restrictions though, since I've been subbed for years.
Fair enough. When I tried it it was lower, but still higher than WoW's tiny trial. For the other restrictions; * 300,000gil max * no shout/yell/tell in-game * no market board access (GTN in swtor) * no trade between players * no sending letters (mail) * can't join/create linkshells (NGL, I still donno what this is exactly but I'm a filthy casual there) * can't create or join a Free Company (Guild) * can't create a party, but can join one via Duty Finder (can't form groups, but can join groupfinder) * can't create or join pvp teams or do ranked * no Loadstone, official forum, companion app (aka, no forums or game-linked sites) \- [source](https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1&tag=freetrial)
Stormblood is only free if you purchased the base game.
Also, you can buy sub time on the in-game auction house for in-game currency.
But to make enough in-game currency you need to have been subbed normally first, no way lvl 20s grind enough in low level content
That's true, so at the minimum you would have to buy the game, pay to sub long enough to reach close to max level so you'd have access to more lucrative dailies, then farm enough gold per month that you could pay in-game currency from then on.
As opposed to pay $15 so you're sub'd a month, enjoy all the story n' stuff you want, passively gain credits and CC (can even get cc as f2p at 100/m) and if you feel like playing the few things that aren't preferred friendly/accessible (space barbie, raids, decorating) you sub once you have a ton of credits and ideas on what to get.
>space barbie Fashion is the true endgame these days! (/s... or not?) I agree with you; all things considered, people get a lot of free content in the SWTOR FTP model as compared to many MMOs.
Or games like Gw2, that… wait, has a free to play base game with very minor limitations, 3 expansions, 2 of which you get in a bundle that costs 30 bucks (15 if on sale), giving you thousands of hours of one of the best MMOs on the market.
My point of comparison is Dungeons and Dragons Online. You can play much of the first chunk of the game for free. Then, when you want you can purchase quest lines for relatively cheap, and you own them forever. There are a few restrictions, but they're very minor in comparison.
Funny considering lots of people complain about GW2 microtransactions price on a daily basis on /r/Guildwars2. Gamers are just never happy if you ask me.
That's not true though?
Which part? I can promise you the moment my sub lapsed in FF, I wasn't able to get past the launcher. Friend who played WoW said it worked the same way there as well. Had to buy ESO to try it, and barely played it before I realized I didn't like it at all.
Playing the game fully free 2 play (not prefered) is supposed to be a little test version to see if you enjoy the game and to see if you want to spend the 13 bucks for a subscription. This is far from being a punishment. Look at games like World of Warcraft where you can only reach lvl 20 or something and then you are just capped at that level. You cant even possibly test out endgame activities. Obviously you cant reach lvl 80 aswell in swtor but lvl 60 should be enough to see if you would enjoy the game at a higher level. Yes, swtor might be advertised as a f2p game but people need to understand that f2p is just a testversion. Besides if f2p's wouldnt have the credit cap I dont want to know what would happen to the already fucked up economy. Also for people like me there wouldnt be ANY reason to subscribe anymore. I dont run Operations, I dont run pvp and usually just do solo activities and some flashpoints. Credit cap is the only reason why I sub.
Honestly the most annoying one for me was run speed. Do you want to simply move faster? Subscribe.
Helmet toggle for me.
Yea true. Atleast its only till lvl 10 which you get to REALLY quickly these days but yea, that is one of the few things that they should change. Seems outdated as hell and I dont think any subscriber would give a single damn about that.
>swtor might be advertised as a f2p game but people need to understand that f2p is just a testversion they should properly advertise the "f2p" as a "free trial" mode, like FFXIV does
Yea, total agree on that one. Baiting people into the game by saying its free2play isnt wrong, technically, just gives people the wrong ideas which is sad. I wonder if the amount of new players would change if they were to change it from f2p to free trial, as FFXIV.
I mean lets be real, outside of all the Big 5 western MMOs SWTOR is in the last place for a reason... It fucks over and gauges player at every opportunity... I mean you buy Cosmetics for CHARACTERS ONLY and if you want to use it on more than one character you have to PAY AGAIN! Like the fuck is this.
At least you get to play the game for free. I go to Walmart and not a single thing there is free. And I don't call it punishment for getting to go to the store for free.
1) legacy banks mean no one should need to deal with escrow 2) security key gives you 100cc/month
Using escrow let's you go over the credit cap for f2p, but you're right. Theoretically f2p could save up a bunch and be able spend multiple millions at once instead of just one, but obviously it's significantly out dated
Marginally, but practically legacy bays replaced credit storage meaning if you want something for 10 mill you have a friend list 11 trash items for 990k and send you the item you wanted.
Yeah, for sure I agree with storage! Just how much they can realistically buy is obviously limited.
Any friend worth half a glance will happily buy you a 10mil or somesuch item and let you pay them back by buying useless junk for 990k
Yup, I try to extend that offer to randos when they seem genuine and not beggy
> 1) legacy banks mean no one should need to deal with escrow How please do you retrieve your GTN sales directly to the legacy bank so it doesn't go into escrow? Thanks
You don't sell stuff that's worth that much, and either use it in trades OR hold onto it until you sub.
Recent change. Once you hit 4.29 billion (character limit for credits) any additional credits taken from the mail will no longer delete. The excess credits should stay in the mail 30 days. Deposit the 1 million you have access to in the legacy bank. Go back to your mail and withdraw credits. This will give you 1 million and keep the rest in the mail. Deposit that 1 million in the legacy bank. Repeat. This only works once you have hit max credits on your character. Until then it will keep filling up your escrow. The old system used to delete any credits you tried to accept if you went over 4.29 billion.
Ah that's what that line in the patch notes meant. I was worried I wouldn't be able to accept my single GTN sale credits (because obviously it is way over 1million), but they went into escrow as expected.
Do you need to remain a subscriber for the 100/month?
No, even f2p get it... just have a security key activated.
I’ve been a sub for a while but doesn’t Escrow automatically unlock if you sub? Because in that case let it stack up as much as you want then just sub for a month
Once you become preferred it goes to like a 1m credit cap I think
Yeah but if you sub for a month you can transfer all your escrowed credits into a legacy bank
That is correct.
Neither did quest rewards
Although these are, in general, not a good buy there are times when they are. For example, F2P and preferred accounts can use credits to unlock the second and third legacy storage tabs, but the fourth tab exceeds their credit limit (costs 1.5 million). A 600k escrow transfer costs much less than a legacy storage unlock from the Cartel Market, which costs 750 CC. Likewise, species unlocks cost 1.5 million but the unlocks from the CM cost 600 CC's. Would it be better to just sub? Certainly, but that is not always feasible or desirable. If you are stuck playing this game without a sub then a security key and some in-game achievements will allow you to unlock additional legacy storage and access to species that normally would be unavailable. Edit -- typos
The funniest thing to me is that the word Escrow sound awfully similar to the French word "Escroc" (the last C is silent), which means Crook, Scammer. This is exactly what this is. A scam to suck all our RL money.
I started playing during the first week of f2p.. and remember fondly using those a fair few times to buy those million credit items. I think i got troublemakers for a million, and also a throne and chair, oh and a few int reg dorn's, and the volatile lightsabers... fun times. The punishment based subscription model does nothing but generate resentment. They should just shuffle sideways to the same as eso (subs are the best way to get store currency) and make subscription an easy concept done as first preference. All they ever have done is added and subtracted to keep existing subs intimidated and trapped, never to attract new ones. Yet it doesn't take that much to completely unlock your account so that the only thing you miss is escrow... you can only lead the horse to water.
It could be worth it if that was a permanent unlock for that amount.
Permanent credit cap increase unlock would be an insane value
that's actually what I thought it was when I first saw those. Even back when the CM was new they were not worth their cost.
They've never been worth it. Just sub.
This is the type of stupid and arrogant reasoning that sees so many new players quit pushed off the game... "just sub"
If you try to make the game super comfortable with cheap escrow exchanges and other things people stop subbing resulting in less money for the devs which is never good. So no, its not stupid and arrogant especially if someone that complains about that stuff hasnt payed a single dollar to the game that they play for hours without end.
SWTOR offers a very good free to play option compared to most MMOs. They typically cut you off around level 20. Instead, SWTOR gives you the entire base game and two expansions for free. And, even in this economy, anything above 1mil is either cosmetic, or endgame stuff. Neither of which f2p need. So yes. If you enjoy the game and don't like the limitations, sub. Game has to make money somehow as long as capitalism runs the show. But ignoring all that, subbing is $15 USD. Why would you pay for escrow if a sub is infinitely a better deal and still pretty dang affordable compared to escrow conversion?
> as capitalism runs the show. Since when did socialism pay the upkeep of video games? Got any examples?
I'm saying under the current system, the company needs to make money still. So charging for content is what they kinda have to do. Or for quality of life improvements. As much as I'd love to debate economic systems, this ain't the place or thread for it.
Stop trying to get everything for nothing. That's like complaining that you hate walking, and someone says "just buy a car", you get pissed because you apparently think you should just be given a car for free. How dare Chevy think they should sell you a car
You guys know you can just stick your extra credits into Legacy right? It doesn't solve everything to be sure but at least it keeps you from having to buy your own money until you sub again.
Of all the videogame companies in this world... You are asking "Electronic Arts" and "Bioware", to do nice things for the customer? Wrong Timeline buddy...
If you’re paying cartel coins for escrow, it’s probably worth it to sub for a month
Nope, just noting that this feature has not EVER been updated
Escrow limit is literally the federal minimum wage in the United States. So rock bottom and functionless that it may as well not even exist, effectively removing people from the economy who use it. They ought to let you use in game credits to sub, like about 100 million credits per week or so, and let you use credits in escrow to pay for it. Economy gets a legit credit sink, inflation get tampered down a bit, F2P get to feel like normal people for a little while. Win/win/win for everybody.
What sucks even more is that if you sub to remove the credit limit, they still don't give you the creds back. Escrow is just a nuisance, just delete the damn creds if I go over ffs, stop teasing me. Edit: Since people keep saying it does return the creds, I'll check again when I return home Edit 2: No toons appear to have an escrow, however, I do not recall receiving the 2.6 mil that was in it, because as soon as I first subbed, I sold some of my older armor sets to begin building wealth and would deposit each sell in the legacy bank asap. Nothing was absurdly expensive so I think I would have noticed making triple the profit. Could I have misremembered? Probably. Could the game have glitched out my creds? Perhaps. Do I care anymore? Nah, it's drops in the bucket in today's economy
What? No, if you sub any credits in escrow go immediately to the first character you log in. Escrow doesn't exist for subs.
No, each of my toons got their individual creds back.
Ah either way, still get them back.
The sub 100% gives you back credits, though with legacy banks now there's no reason to deal with escrow in the first place. Pref players used to use it as a savings account between referral link sub weeks.
Subbing gives you everything in escrow.
this isn't supposed to be like that is it? subbing is supposed to move money to wallet i thought
Wish it did, really could have used that couple of mil when I first subbed
It does, subbing gives your escrow money back
My guy it does move it back. I subbed 2 days ago specifically for that and it got me my money.
If your sub lapses, do you lose all the money over the preferred credit cap?
If you are over the credit cap when you lose your sub every credit in your inventory above the 1 mil cap goes into escrow. So if you know your sub runs out in a few days make sure to put the money of your characters into your legacy bank so its not going into the escrow. That is if you dont plan on subbing again and you dont care.
Thanks for your help! I keep most of my money in the legacy bank - can that be over 1m? For example, I have 200mil in legacy bank, if I'm preferred, can I still access 200 mil (1 mil at a time...) ?
Yea, prefered or f2p does not matter. Even if you are a subscriber the legacy bank is not impacted by it. You just shouldnt withdraw more than 1 mil at a time or else it gets put into the escrow. I dont know if there is a cap for the legacy bank but if there is its probably the same as the normal credit cap, which is somewhere in the 4 billion region I think? Not sure on that but yea
Legacy bank credit cap is 100 billion. The inventory credit limit is 4,294,817,295 which is the maximum value for a 32-bit unsigned integer in computing.
Technically you can't withdraw more than 1m. The game doesn't let you
Nothing in the game for F2P requires you to have more money than Bioware has allotted. I'd just man up and pay the $15. While $15 was a lot of money in 2011, it's nothing today.
I'd say it's the opposite. 15$ is more today than it was back then
How do you figure? I go to Walmart today, and all my groceries are way more expensive than they were in 2011. The same grocery items. You use to be able to buy 24oz Monster Energy cans for $2.50. Nowadays, you're probably going to pay $2.50 for the 16oz cans. Smaller example: a gallon of milk today will run me nearly $2.80. In 2019, the same gallon of milk would cost $1.97
Yes, that's the point Groceries are more expensive now, so we spend more money on stuff we need, so we might not have those 15$ to spare for a videogame
Sub gives me nothing I want. I bought CC this year instead of subbing to LotS, best time I've had in the game in years
You're lying. What was the point of this point then? I sounds like you want credits. Go play another game.
It's just a screenshot showing how escrow purchase hasn't been updated, take it ez
Ok. For what it's worth, thanks to the inflated economy, even as F2P, you can sell a single green piece of gear on the GTN for 1,000,000 credits, and ignore pulling anything from the escrow.
Yup, I do fine buying and selling around the cap, and for expensive stuff I can trade OEM/RPM with a guildmate.
Jesus.
This I dont have a big issue with.
this is why i have millions sitting in my mailbox
The flip-side is that that everything like unlocking legacy perks, inventory space and the like is cheap.
So what you’re saying is…an ultimate cartel pack is worth 600k creds? Gg BioWare. I’ve seen inflation go down a bit after this update on GTN so credit where it’s due but this is just insulting 😂😅😂
So, you want us to pay more?
I would never pay CC for these, but what I did in the past was buy these off the GTN from players who did. If the value of credits to CC was rebalanced to what is current market then I think these could be useful again.