1.6 - Geebs is not amused :[ [Wampa Milk - SE++ TOR]

Bogey · January 2012

Rock Lobster!'s Star Wars - The Old Republic F2P Guide

This ended up being longer than I expected, but here you go. In case any new/returning players are wondering about the ins and outs of free-to-play, look no further.

The Free-To-Play Question-O-Rama and Also Hyphens

Specific details are slightly hard to come by, so here is everything that I could piece together through the SWTOR website's information (http://www.swtor.com/free and http://www.swtor.com/free/features mostly), the test server/patch notes, and developer responses on the forum.

So what's this free-to-play thing, then?
Starting on November 15, new, returning, and current players will have the option to play the game without a subscription fee. You'll be able to level to 50 and experience basically the entire game, but with certain limitations. Also of note, if you want to start playing right now, the free trial (play up to level 15) still exists and all trial accounts will be converted to free-to-play ones when it launches. http://www.swtor.com/trial

Do I have to buy the game?
Nope!

What are these limitations?
Spoilered for long.

Spoiler:

Slower XP gain after level 10.
Limited races at character creation (only human, cyborg, and zabrak).
A cap on how many credits you can have. Increased cap for preferred status, unlimited for subscribers (or whatever the cap was for them before free-to-play launched, anyway). Extra credits you earn after the cap are placed in escrow, which is given to you if you subscribe/buy a month of game time (or 150,000 of it is given to you if you go up to preferred status).
Two ability bars. Suscribers get six.
Cannot do operations.
Five warzones per week. Unlimited for subscibers.
Three space missions per week. Unlimited for subscribers.
Rewards from only three flashpoints per week (can do them as many times as you want, just can't get item drops from them after the third).
One crew skill. Three for subscribers.
Can only gain access to the cargo hold and additional tabs with cartel coins. Subscribers have cargo hold access by default and can use credits or cartel coins to buy additional tabs.
Can only increase inventory with cartel coins. Subscribers have the option to use credits.
Longer quick travel cooldown.
Limited number (5) of field revives. Subscribers have unlimited field revives, though the increasing cooldown still applies.
No priority status for login queues.
Cannot use most artifact (purple) gear.
Cannot use the hide head slot or match color to chest piece cosmetic options.
No access to the guild bank.
Cannot display titles or your legacy name.

Almost all of these can be allieviated with cartel market purchases (either one-time permanent authorizations or weekly passes for operations/warzones/flashpoints/space missions), with the exceptions of the credit cap and login queue priority. If you want more than just a few, though, it'll probably be more cost efficient to subscribe.

What's this about Preferred Status?
If you've ever subscribed in the past, or you purchase $5 or more on the web store (cartel coins or the physical security key or whatever; more about the security key in a bit), you get Preferred Status, which has a few perks over a regular free to play account. This status is permanent: once you have it, you'll never go all the way back to the base free-to-play account.

Preferred status perks

Spoiler:

Sprint ability at level 1
Access to your cargo hold
Access to secure trade
Ability to send mail, including one attachment
Increased allowance for chat message frequencies in public chat channels (such as /general)
Increased Credits cap
Access to the Who list (player search)
Three additional sale slots on the Galactic Trade Network, for a total of 5 slots
One additional Crew Skill slot, for a total of 2
Reduced skill point respecialization costs
Increased server queue priority

So what was that about security keys?
Information about security keys
Okay, so if you've played in the past, and you have the mobile security key attached to your account, you can continue using it even after going free-to-play/preferred. You can't, however, attach a new one to your account if you're free-to-play/preferred. If you have the physical key fob thing, nothing changes. You can continue using it, and if you're a new player, buying it on the web store will also give you preferred status since it's 5 bucks. It's been said that attaching a new one will not be available at day one of free-to-play launch, however.

If I'm currently subscribed, or have in the past, or do in the future, what do I lose/keep if I switch (back) to Free To Play?
Look over the free-to-play limitations, add in the preferred status perks (since if you've ever subscribed, you'll only ever get bumped down to preferred, not free-to-play), and that's what you'll have. Some things are slightly more complicated, though.

If you've created more than 2 characters, you'll still have access to them all (regardless of whether they're free-to-play races or not) at the start of free-to-play launch. If you delete any, however, you cannot create more until you have one or less characters. Notice I said, "at the start of free-to-play launch"? In a patch soon (how soon, they have not said) after it launches, you'll have to choose which 2 will be your active ones. It is unknown at this time if you'll ever be able to change your active characters, or if there will be a cooldown on how often you can change them if so.

Any artifact (purple) gear you have that is bound to you is still able to be equipped, though any future drops will require the one-time artifact gear authorization. Any extra cargo hold tabs or inventory expansions you previously purchased will be kept. Legacy unlocks and perks (including species unlocks) will be kept.

So what are these cartel coins?
These are the currency used for the cash shop; think microsoft points. If you're a current subscriber, you'll be granted some at the launch of free-to-play (http://www.swtor.com/free shows how much for what, and http://www.swtor.com/user/cartelcoins shows how much you, personally, will get). You'll be able to buy them on the SWTOR store, though currently it is unknown how much they will actually cost.

So this cartel market. What can you buy on there?
You can buy a handful of one-time authorizations or weekly passes. At max level and want better gear? Get the artifact gear authorization and you'll be able to equip purple quality gear from that point on. Only really care about warzones? Buy a pass for unlimited warzones for a week. You'll be able to use your cartel coins to upgrade your inventory/add extra cargo hold tabs (it is not advised to buy the base cargo hold access, since any purchase of $5 or more will give you preferred status, and thus automatic cargo hold access). Even as a subscriber some of these have value, since inventory upgrades (and most of the one-time authorizations if you ever want to go F2P for a while) have the option to be account wide. They're usually a little over double the cost of the per-character cost, and apply to your entire account: even characters you make on other servers will have them.

There are also consumables like temporary XP and Valor boosts, Fleet Passes, and medical probes (for in the field revives). There are sets of level 31 artifact (purple quality) armor, and level 15 and 43 single chest pieces. They're about the same quality as equivalent level artifact drops you might find rarely on enemies, but the main draw is that they are adaptive, which means the amount of armor matches the highest type of armor you can equip and everyone can equip them, opening up cosmetic choices that were previously only available to certain classes.

One of the main draws will be the vanity items, such as unique speeders, vanity pets, and toys (like the carbonite chamber or rancor holo-replica). Additionally, there will be cartel packs for sale, which can contain items only found in the packs. For example, the Crime Lord's Cartel Pack contains: two rare bonus items with a chance of a super rare, one XP or social point boost consumable, one type of crafting material (how much I got seemed to depend on the quality: 10-20 for blue, 5 or so for purples), and one companion gift. The rare/super rare items can be mounts, vanity pets, empty adaptive armor, or toys like the sith meditation throne, etc. If you want these items but don't want to spend money/cartel coins to get them, don't despair! Whenever an item is bought on the market or found in the cartel packs, it has a cooldown during which it is bound to that person; after the cooldown is over (which is 3 days for free-to-play players and 2 days for subscribers), the item can then be sold on the galactic trade network or traded to other players.

Bogey · January 2012

Original TOR Thread OP:

Spoiler:

Original Guild Roster:

Spoiler:

Yukira · January 2012

Dang it, I wanted to make the thread.

T4CT · January 2012

HEY BOGEY WHERE'S THE THING THAT SAYS T4CT- Miike - MOTHERFUCKING BOBA FETT

Bogey · January 2012

Somebody else can have the next one. Sorry, I added a bunch of stuff to the OP, plus spent all day updating the Roster. And since the old thread was already in the mid-90's...

Angry · January 2012

dirtysorc is a dirtyed alt.

Angry · January 2012

Companion healing abilities no longer apply a permanent green effect on the character.

is the best fix in the whole patch.

Beasteh · January 2012

hee hee

Dev Response posted:

Hi folks,

We're currently investigating potential issues related to the Ilum open world PVP area post 1.1. We understand that this is a topic of much discussion and we ask that you please direct all discussions to this thread...

We will update as soon as we have more information.

Update #1

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that we are currently working on an official response to these issues (we used the term "potential" during our initial investigating, and have now removed the wording on the title of this thread) and we will be posting it soon. Please understand that these issues require some time to investigate and we are making sure that we provide you all with the most updated information in our official response.

We understand that some of you may be frustrated, but we ask for your patience on this to give us time to respond with thorough developer input

Thank you to those of you that have been posting constructively in this thread.

We will have a response shortly.

sat at ohhh a good 200+ pages of pissed off angry responses

why are you so bad at handling fuckups, bioware

The Geebs That Is A Pony · January 2012

Angry wrote:

Companion healing abilities no longer apply a permanent green effect on the character.

is the best fix in the whole patch.

wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

zucchini · January 2012

hurf durf

T4CT · January 2012

wait did it patch

should I be relogging or something

Lord Dave · January 2012

Bogey wrote:

Somebody else can have the next one. Sorry, I added a bunch of stuff to the OP, plus spent all day updating the Roster. And since the old thread was already in the mid-90's...

Never give up the thread Bogey
Never let them ruin it

minor incident · January 2012

Just ran a quick test. On an abundant, 2 bountifuls, and a rich yield, I spent just under 5,500 credits.

My total take from those four missions? Just under 15,000 credits.

Either my luck is stunning, or they un-nerfed Slicing.

Der Waffle Mous · January 2012

Aaaaaaahhhh they better not have fixed before I get back later.

I missed out on that initial rush and my counselor needs some scrilla.

Yukira · January 2012

Lord Dave wrote:

Bogey wrote:

Somebody else can have the next one. Sorry, I added a bunch of stuff to the OP, plus spent all day updating the Roster. And since the old thread was already in the mid-90's...

Never give up the thread Bogey
Never let them ruin it

Fight for your right to make a thread.

End · January 2012

look

first it's you making the thread

then it's bucketman making the thread

and then it's just anarchy

End · January 2012

I don't recommend alt-tabbing while it is on the loading screen now

it seems to handle it less well than it used to

Der Waffle Mous · January 2012

Alt-enter twice

Problem solved.

End · January 2012

nope

Yukira · January 2012

Write a script to fix it.

End · January 2012

oops I think I just killed myself because I had autorun on when I alt tabbed and I fell into those pits on the fleet

Goose! · January 2012

Ban all beastehs from the SWTOR threads.

Lord Dave · January 2012

I have jumped into those stupid fleet pits so many times

End · January 2012

that's the first time that has ever happened to me :<

on the plus side for this patch, warzones seem a lot more responsive to me now

The Geebs That Is A Pony · January 2012

because of the show ALCATRAZ and me waiting for this to patch I am now looking at lostpedia

The Geebs That Is A Pony · January 2012

I mostly want to see if they preserved the insane speculation

if that's all gone I will be INCREDIBLY SAD

Beasteh · January 2012

Goose! wrote:

Ban all beastehs from the SWTOR threads.

fuckin FART

ps. whats the bet that come saturday they lower the server limit so they dont have to look at every single server with LIGHT status

captaink · January 2012

The Geebs That Is A Pony wrote:

I mostly want to see if they preserved the insane speculation

if that's all gone I will be INCREDIBLY SAD

Jack is one of the Alcatraz escapees. Not only that, he's Jorge Garcia's character's dad!

Weaver · January 2012

Need..more..space missions

Javen · January 2012

Beasteh wrote:

Goose! wrote:

Ban all beastehs from the SWTOR threads.

fuckin FART

ps. whats the bet that come saturday they lower the server limit so they dont have to look at every single server with LIGHT status

Is this an EU only thing? I literally just looked at the server select screen and saw only Standard and Heavy, with a few servers as Very Heavy. I do see Light servers, but only in the morning on the east coast.

Yukira · January 2012

EU? More like PU!

Weaver · January 2012

Hey dudes, we need a 4th for foundry. Somebody step up.

Yukira · January 2012

Patch, patch, patch, patch, patch.

Der Waffle Mous · January 2012

FFFFFFUUUUUUU

Goose! · January 2012

I cannot wait till I have more money. Might even have to do time cards just to make it easier.

Aretè · January 2012

Oh man, war zones with the new 50 only brackets. . .so good. I am not sure how it is for those at level 50, but for the rest of us, its a blast. Had a really great hutt ball game that went back and forth till we finally scored a goal for the win with just over a minute of play left. Then had an alderaan match that was another barn burner through the end. Got some solid xp in, about 25% into level 38 and it is all rested and will just continue to pile up, vacation is going to be a blast but soon as I get home, I am destroying levels 38 and 39. With any luck I will have enough rested to take me through to 41/42.

@Bogey Kobex is another Kobei alt, same friend of mine. Though I am pretty sure that Kobex is his main now, got to level 25ish with his merc and decided he preferred melee.

One last thing, for those level 40 and up, what is with none of the commendation vendors having any good tank mods (the small mod that cost two comm)? Up until level 36/38 I was able to get some good guardian mods, but the vendors for taris and hoth didnt have anything like that.

Yukira · January 2012

There aren't any good tank mods on the vendors after that point. I've mostly found them through quests.

Bucketman · January 2012

End wrote:

look

first it's you making the thread

then it's bucketman making the thread

and then it's just anarchy

*force lightning*

Weaver · January 2012

So hey, I used my fleet pass and all of Kaliyo's orange armor dumped all mods.

rhylith · January 2012

Weaver wrote:

So hey, I used my fleet pass and all of Kaliyo's orange armor dumped all mods.

Just submit a ticket. They'll fix it.

Beasteh · January 2012

they will suggest you try the /stuck command

ps. here is a list of keywords to use if you want customer service to process your ticket quickly

Character Restoration request – keyword: Scooby
Item Restoration request – keyword: Seesaw
Mission Issues – keyword: Hedgehog
Crashes – keyword: Bandicoot
Lost Modifications – keyword: Fridge
Unable to retrieve patch data issue, with a launcher log error “ERROR Patch manifest state error in patcher: DownloadFail (8)” – keyword: Giraffe

Penny Arcade

1.6 - Geebs is not amused :[ [Wampa Milk - SE++ TOR]

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