In reaction to the outcry against the heavy restrictions against Free-to-Play players in BioWare's flagship MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare has recently relaxed some of the heavier restrictions, as well as announced its current attitude towards Free-to-Play, as detailed in a recent blog post.
BioWare states that the issue of Free-to-Play is "an ongoing dialogue", acknowledging the complaints lodged against its treatment of free-to-play players and "is working to improve the experience" for all of its players.
This takes the form of an upcoming patch containing:
An increase in default Quickbars from 2 to 4 for Preferred Status Players.
An increase in character slots from 2 to 4 for Preferred Status Players.
and in addition to this, also contains:
The removal of the 50 character limit for Subscribers.
It seems that BioWare has realized the flaws in its current system and are working to correct them, albeit in small steps. Exactly how much of this initiative is sincere, and how much of it is lip-service, is still in question, but if BioWare continues this trend, then it would certainly prove to be the former rather than the latter.
Posted 05-12-2012, 18:21
Still too limited I feel. Part of why I stopped playing it back when it was subscription based was due to how limited the game already felt (thus how long it took to get different things and many other restrictions that I felt were unnecessary). Many of those are still in place when you even subscribe though, but at least some of them can be circumvented using the Cartel Coins you gain when you are subbed. BioWare was just far too conservative with the game in some aspects