SWTOR: My thoughts after free to play hit

Be honest, You want to be a jedi too!

SWTOR(Star Wars: The Old Republic) was released late in 2011 as a subscription only MMO. It changed sometime late 2012 not even making it a year of a subscription MMO. SO it was a huge announcement(at least to me it was) when they were changing the game to free to play. I thought to my self "This is good I have been interested in a Star Wars MMO for awhile but couldn't afford the subscription(15 dollars is bullshit)". Once I saw the announcement that it was to become free to play I instantly got excited! I had got a free month of sub for buying the game and I tried it out and was really engrossed in it! The game is great and I love being able to play as star wars styled classes in the star wars universe! But had I known now how they were going to make it free to play, I wouldn't have been as excited...

When they finally released more information about free to play I found out some shady stuff. Come to find out the free to play limited A LOT of features. How did they do this? Oh by keeping the god damn subscription to technically play the full "game". Sure in free to play you could level up to max level and do the whole story quest and play it through with each class. But that only gets so far in an MMO where they have it focused on flashpoints(dungeons is what I call them) and operations(raids). They limited the number of times you could run operations and flashpoints! It really pisses me off that they limited to 3 PER WEEK of both. See you unlock flashpoints at level 10 and I love doing dungeons since they emphasis on group play with a certain role(Tank,Damage, Healer). I really think they did wrong here on limiting the dungeons you can do per week as a free to play player. You can get weekly passes in the cash shop. Yeah that's right not only do they keep the subscription to play the full game with no micro transactions but they also added in the cartel market(cash shop) where you can pay real money to get things like weekly passes to flashpoints and operations, warzones(pvp zones) and cosmetic skins. I do not have a problem with being limited the amount as a free player to do those things, but when it is 3 a week that is a very low number. It just shows how greedy the publisher is (EA...*shudders*) and how fucked up their "Free to play" option is. I understand limiting the operations since those are end game only things and require a lot of dedication to finish and complete, but the flashpoints? Come on let us do as many as we want as a free to play player.

Cartel Market: Whole new level of "nickel and dimeing" your money

I could go on and on about how bullshit their restrictions are but honestly, I ignore most of the restrictions. The game(to me) is engaging enough for me to ignore the silly restrictions and just simply enjoy the game. You can go on and on about how they need to change that but when it comes down to it, it is just a game and we as gamers play games to be entertained and to have fun. And that is what I'm doing when I play SWTOR. I'm genuinely having a lot of fun. I just think they could have handled the free to play options way better and let us do more things. The game itself isn't horrible and in fact, this is the only mmo that is like WoW where I actually love just as much as WoW. I have never had a game do that before. Some might ask "why don't you just play WoW then if you like games like it so much?" Well to answer that it is because I don't have money to subscribe to it so I need to find free to play options. SWTOR is the closest thing I can get to that is free and almost exactly like WoW. As bullshit as the restrictions that are put on me when playing, it is still a great game to play and enjoy. I would recommend it to anyone who likes WoW but can't afford subscription!

-Lamesbond007