Thanks for nothing.

So after two weeks of waiting we got an FAQ telling us more information would be released in the future.  This is my chief complaint with all of SWTORs FAQs.  They pick questions they can’t provide answers to, and then answer them 50 different ways, all saying “More information to come.” or “We can’t talk about that now.” essentially saying nothing.  There is generally one question, maybe two with any substance.  After waiting even longer, I still haven’t learned anything more.  So, trying to make some lemonade here, I picked two things worth elaborating on;  One positive, and one negative.

First the positive.

ChazDoit: I’m not much interested in Flashpoints and Operations but will I be able to purchase other features like full access to Warzones, purchase extra character slots, bank slots, and travel features?

Damion Schubert: Yes! When the Free-to-Play option goes live, players will be able to purchase key upgrades to their game experience allowing them to bypass some restrictions, and this list will expand as time goes on. We will have more information about some of these in coming weeks.

Being able to purchase individual game features gives you the ultimate freedom.You can buy the new Warzone to play over and over, but don’t have to pay for the Operation that you’ll never set foot in.  It’s like the dream of buying television channels one by one, instead of buying 20 to get 3 you’ll actually watch.  Of course the final judgement of this system will come when we see the pricing model.  If they charged $5 per person to unlock a Warzone at 500,000 subscribers, they’d make $2,500,000.  I would be willing to bet that a lot more than 500,000 players will want to unlock that Warzone immediately.  Then you would have the residuals over time.  I have no clue what it would take to develop a Warzone, but I would think a $2,500,000 drop on day one would really make the money managers happy.  Anyone who PvPs is going to unlock that feature, so they will have a nice residual income as well over time as new players join the game.  Again, I have no knowledge of game development, so it’s just a ‘wait and see’ thing now.

And now the negative.

Thorvath: So if I cancel/switch to the Free-to-Play option are you going to automatically delete all my Rakata/War Hero gear?

Damion Schubert: You will retain your gear.

Take away War Hero gear, no.  I can only assume this means that F2P players won’t be getting access to the top tier of PvP gear.  I’ve looked, but haven’t found anything to back up that assumption.  This is by far the worst thing they could do to the game for me.  Who would want to do Warzones, or any PvP at all, where you were always wearing second tier gear?  Certain people would always have an advantage over you, so essentially F2P turns into P2W (Pay to Win).  Do you really want to go get beat up on in second string gear to improve someone else’s game experience?  Not me.  Depending on how this is implemented, this could be the straw that brakes the camel’s back.

We shall see.  In the meantime, what do you think about the F2P FAQ?  Or any of their now-defunct weekly FAQs?

Link to the FAQ