BioWare recently conducted a livestream Q&A on Star Wars: The Old Republic's free-to-play option and the future of the game. In this week's SWTOR column, we offer a breakdown of what we learned during the Q&A along with our thoughts.

On the F2P front, anyone who is actively playing the game since it has gone free-to-play has definitely noticed a significant pick-up in the game’s population. Of course, BioWare was eager to play this up by highlighting that the growth has “blown away” their expectations. Spin? Truth? Who knows, but the game has definitely been livelier as of late; that much is certain.

Read more of Michael Bitton's SWTOR Livestream Q&A Thoughts.

Originally posted by catlana
I would have preferred Togruta over Cathar as a new race, but I am happy that they have at least started adding new races. The relaxing of f2p restrictions is a good idea as well. PvP wise, I will until I play the new Warzone before deciding on my opinion.

Cathar? As in Juhani from KotOR 1?

I'm very glad to hear that about the quickslot bars--that's a huge impediment to play. The other things sound good as well, though I'll hold my opinion on open-world pvp till I see it--just never seems to work very well in these graphically intensive games.

As for putting guild features on the backburner--I can understand that. They have to put in cash content first or the game won't survive the accountants at EA.

i would love to see some actual data on how much money they are making off the market from new accounts created because i believe this is just all hype as they have lied so much in the past about sub numbers and active accounts . I think honestly that a lot of people who were on the fence with this title now have been playing it for free.

Warfronts do not pop any faster on the ebon hawk , nor do dungeons on dungeon finder. I see players yes but how many of them are not dropping a dime on this game? Also on Ebon Hawk at primetime we only have 2 fleet instances and ive never EVER on any planet seen more than 2 instances going of it at the same time and that was only during primetime hours. Maybe other servers are different but people on here saying there are 4 and 5 instances of fleet i honestly think are full of it here.My shard says full or very heavy all the time like the rest.

Originally posted by ThumbtackJ

Originally posted by catlana
I would have preferred Togruta over Cathar as a new race, but I am happy that they have at least started adding new races. The relaxing of f2p restrictions is a good idea as well. PvP wise, I will until I play the new Warzone before deciding on my opinion.

Cathar? As in Juhani from KotOR 1?

Yup!

Originally posted by ThumbtackJ

Originally posted by catlana
I would have preferred Togruta over Cathar as a new race, but I am happy that they have at least started adding new races. The relaxing of f2p restrictions is a good idea as well. PvP wise, I will until I play the new Warzone before deciding on my opinion.

Cathar? As in Juhani from KotOR 1?

Yes, Juhani was a Cathar. I do think that Bioware will need to work on the models a bit before releasing the new race.

All of the stuff covered here is great.  I am happy to have my new quick bars.  I haven't seen my increased character slots yet, but that's alright.  I can survive for now.  

As a whole, I think F2P has really helped SWTOR.  The new player base has injected some life into the game and I really am enjoying myself.  I honestly haven't found F2P all that restricting, even on my level 50 character.

I am really looking forward to the new race, though I do hope they introduce more.  Guess I'll have to buy the new one when it comes to make sure they do more.  I would also love to see some more lightsaber crystals on the market.  I don't dig the yellow orange.

Overall, I'm happy with the whole thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtTg8FSNbmU

For starters they can't listen to free to play players, as they are second class citizens and can not post on swtor official forums, they are just hering what some of the folks who can post are saying, they sure are not listing to those of us over here. 

Second they are saying the wrods staraging, lol. They are up according to torstatus.net but not stagering.  I still see a lot of servers in the medium status according to the torstatus.net.

I have to say they still have not fixed the reasons why I left swtor, until then I just can't see going back,  they sure did not listen to us back then about what was wrong, and have not listed to any of that feedback. 

In the end my time (lets say 1-2 hours a day) is worth much more then say the 50 cent a day a subscription would cost) and while SW:Tor wa fun for  month thwey in the last year have added almost nothing to its strong points. (ie IMO its a story based game)

   Instead of actually adding meaningfull content the devs blamed the subscription model for poor player retention. Sorry but IMHO the Ea/bioware Devs seem cluesless and are listening to marketing rather then any actual player input.

Originally posted by TheHiveLeader

All of the stuff covered here is great.  I am happy to have my new quick bars.  I haven't seen my increased character slots yet, but that's alright.  I can survive for now.  

As a whole, I think F2P has really helped SWTOR.  The new player base has injected some life into the game and I really am enjoying myself.  I honestly haven't found F2P all that restricting, even on my level 50 character.

I am really looking forward to the new race, though I do hope they introduce more.  Guess I'll have to buy the new one when it comes to make sure they do more.  I would also love to see some more lightsaber crystals on the market.  I don't dig the yellow orange.

Overall, I'm happy with the whole thing.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtTg8FSNbmU

the characters slot will be increase in a future patch, but we don't know it yet

Originally posted by catlana
I would have preferred Togruta over Cathar as a new race, but I am happy that they have at least started adding new races. The relaxing of f2p restrictions is a good idea as well. PvP wise, I will until I play the new Warzone before deciding on my opinion.

You mean species.

Originally posted by NorseGod

Originally posted by catlana
I would have preferred Togruta over Cathar as a new race, but I am happy that they have at least started adding new races. The relaxing of f2p restrictions is a good idea as well. PvP wise, I will until I play the new Warzone before deciding on my opinion.

You mean species.

Race is an accepted term for that... If you didn't know that than you must not know MMOs that well...

I see a lot of talk talk talk. Time to see if they can walk the walk. 

I have extreme doubts about their ability to put out any type of meaningful open worlf pvp. The engine is just horrible for it.

Originally posted by Jyiiga

I see a lot of talk talk talk. Time to see if they can walk the walk. 

I have extreme doubts about their ability to put out any type of meaningful open worlf pvp. The engine is just horrible for it.

Aye. Regardless of how many awesome features/content SWTOR has/adds, or any game for that matter, if it lags like hell even on a current gen beast PC, its worthless.

Of course the company will only say something good about it......I doubt it blew away their expectations I think they expected more then what they recieved for F2P who knows.......

and IMO, the only good/great superduper awesome OPvP takes place in a sandbox mmo, doesn't belong in themepark, I rather they never do a reboot on llum or make that whole planet pve oriented.

Originally posted by Jonoku

and IMO, the only good/great superduper awesome OPvP takes place in a sandbox mmo, doesn't belong in themepark, I rather they never do a reboot on llum or make that whole planet pve oriented.

As true as that might be most of your fellow PVp:ers does not see it that way and demands that every last game have a PvP element and that it is so awesome that it sucks your eyeballs out... That is why they are dissapointed most of the time... But at least they avoid going blind.