Anyone else mess with this?

I am not an MMO guy but the story stuff and solo focus made me try this game out way back, but I would never pay a subscription. Now that it's free I am playing it a little and it's actually not bad. The story moments can be good, the worlds are cool to explore, some quests are actually entertaining. It suffers the horrible MMO slow pacing and dragged out gameplay, but now that it's not charging you that feels more acceptable.

The main impact of the in-game market for solo play is charging you for med probes and cutting your XP gain by 25% unless you pay to supplement it. Neither of these are really bothering me because the game isn't that hard and there are hospitals everywhere, so med probes aren't that big a deal. The XP stuff can feel annoying because you're not getting what you should, but there is still plenty of solo content to level at a normal pace for each planet.

I won't play it forever, and the fact all this story will disappear the day the servers cost more than they're making REALLY bothers me, but... it's okay.

If you're playing it for free drop some opinions or tips.

The quests I have been playing felt fast pace IMO, I did say 10 main quest things in Tython straight.

Yeah the quests are actually pretty good for an MMO. It's more how much traveling and stuff there is that pads the game hours.

I tried it for a bit, the nickel and diming you for basic stuff like hotkey bars and crafting etc really diminished my enthusiasm to find out what's happening next in the sith inquisitor storyline.

I tried it when there was 30-days free trial or something similar. It has kind of fast, quests were generic ("Help! Go there! Kill X of Y to get to Z to report your struggle") but at the time not very populated. When they went free-to-play, they included a paid fast travel (you can use it once per circa 24 hours) and some pseudo-paid running mode which took ages to do anything.

It should have more players now but I don't know if it's friendlier towards players who don't want to participate in microtransactions or membership now.

I avoided this one when even the fan-boys of the game couldn't justify how deeply rooted the store/microtransactions were into the core game. Things like the 25% xp and reports of quest rewards changing based on what you paid left me wanting to stay away.

Games like Rift, Neverwinter, and even LOTRO provide much fuller gaming experiences for the same price. Of course, those aren't Star Wars ;)

I tried it for a bit because friends were playing, but I didn't like it. The MMO side ruined the single-player side, and the single-player side ruined the MMO side.

I been playing this game tons! The game is padded sometimes with tedious fights but no worse than some of the older single player RPGs even with the limits set with F2P. The class story stuff which is the best part of the game is perfectly viable with F2P. The questing does get a bit repetitive if you try to play all class stories but a suggestion is if you want to keep playing the classes is to alternate between the factions. Stealth is also nice for skipping fights, since the XP at least to me comes primarily with quests and bonuses.

I view the F2p like getting Dragon Age or Mass Effect with none of the DLC.

BTW, make sure to do the Imperial Agent story if you haven't since it is the best one. My second favorite is probably the Sith Warrior.

Also, remember you can buy some of the unlocks on the GTN with in game credits. Would recommend buying the character slot unlocks since that way you can keep your characters on one server. The legacy system makes it benifical to keep all your alts on one server. Some of the heroic missions are soloable like two of them on Balmarra on the Pub side. Those two missions can be done with NO COMBAT and without stealth. Also, depending on your class you may want to buy additional quickslot bars off the GTN.

Would recommend doing Black Talon/Esseles flash points because they have good stories and can be soloable at like level 15. Most of the Fps have basically no story.

There are stories in the Maelstrom Prison/boarding party and foundry missions but you need a group for them. Same with Battle of Illum and False Emperor.

Also you get xp boosts items with completing quests. For me I think it is best to wait till you have like 5 or more quests to turn in and use the xp boost to get the the reward for the quest. I managed to almost keep up with subscribers by doing that I think.

You may also want to join a guild not to socialize but just for the xp bonus. There are guilds with enough people for the xp bonsues where like people almost never talk and obviously just in it for the bonus xp.

Also, I don't get how anyone who complains about things like the Cartel Market can ever watch TV with all its advertising which seems way more annoying than the F2p model of SWTOR.

I played it when it first came out, but only for a month. Leveling was a pain and slow, I can't imagine taking a 25% cut even off that. I did do a bunch of side missions AND space missions, but it still took way too long to level up to continue the main storyline. I remember at one point I had to fight a gamorrean that was 7 levels higher than I was, my bounty hunter had to run in circles around a platform for 30 minutes to kill it, it wasn't very heroic. I was regularly 3 levels behind what the storyline quest was suited for, despite doing a lot of side missions along the way.

It starts off amazing, that Black Talon flashpoint at the start was great, it was fun grouping up with other random people and having a fairly story-intensive quest. You even get to answer questions and your character talks in front of everyone, you can show off your cool outfit that you gathered up until then. Unfortunately none of the other grouping up quests was near as good as it. They were either extremely light on story or inaccessible for casual players. The worst is later on, when bosses reset to full health after a certain amount of time; it completely removes strategy, as the only way to beat them is to do enough damage within that time. Meaning you have a required set of characters in order to win, instead of randomly grouping up and finding a way to make it work.

It is definitely interesting, especially at the beginning and good for one playthrough, but after that all the common areas that all the characters have to go through is too dull and grindy. In my opinion, far too much MMO and not enough storyline.

1. Not a great comparison as TV doesn't have a way to pay to buypass the adds. Even cable has commercials and even exclusive pay channels like HBO have commercials around the programming. The cartel market is a cash shop. Customers don't pay the tv station for adds... other companies do. Customers can skip the adds on TV either with a DVR or by simply walking away. The only way to skip cash shops is to heavily invest in them financially. And most of the games I know of, never let you fully buyout the store... there is always something else they want to show you.

2. I don't watch tv. Sooo I can easily complain about the market and also not watch tv :P

3. Play a few other F2P MMO games (like the ones I mentioned) and compare. THAT is how you can complain about the market. Even LOTRO provides more gameplay (along with ways to unlock things with accomplishments in game) and I quit LOTRO because the store was taking over the game. In Neverwinter... I never ever felt forced to use the store. Its there if you want it, but the game isn't constantly nagging you over how they hindered your game intentionally and will sell the fix to you.

You are certainly free to your own opinion, but in no way is the market something that I am able to endure in that game.

No interest in other F2p games cause my favorite part of SWTOR is the class stories. Almost anything worth while in the cash shop can be bought with in game credits in the GTN.

It's a great game, unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to play MMO's. Most games that offer "Evil characters" miss the whole point completely, this is where TOR get it's right in spades. My only question is how limited is the game is on "Free?"

Edit; This is the game that SOE should have made. The original was good until they turned it into a "Let's cater to the masses."

Well, sounds like you you already paid for it in the past so that means you would be preferred not F2p. Preferred has a bit less limitations than pure f2p does. Best way is probably just to try it out yourself what you think. The limitations doesn't bother me and some other people but others are driven nuts by them.

Finally got around to installing it. It's downloading now, will post impressions after getting to play for a bit.

Can I ask besides this game, is there in MMORPG you do like? And I say that as in is there an MMORPG on your absolute favorite games list?