I have been reading about low population problems and all this chit-chat. Seems SOE won't do server merges until the last soul is in there. And the LFG system won't do anything beyond a mirage to the already very low population servers.

Why not make trial accounts play with the same limitations as now except instead of a 15 day limit, let them play with no time limit? no houses, no Wookie planet, no Mustafar, etc. Lock them to select light/medium populated servers (don't let them go to Bria,Azahi, etc)

If such freebie players want to go to Mustafar then they have to pay for the expansion and start paying the monthly fee.

This is something like Anarchy Online done a few years ago when it's population declined and it went very well, lots of "freebies" finally bought expansions and started to pay monthly fees. Even if they don't, they add to the population health so it's a win-win situation.

PD: anyway, 25 servers for nowadays average mmo is way excessive, free player transfers will occur because some of the server will effectively die during this year.

Are you kidding, SOE/LA would never go the way of AO with the allowing of a Free Player base system, they are about the money, nothing more, nothing less, take a look at all that they did with the game when the turned it into the now 'Brillant Game Strategy' from the one where they had 300k+ paying subscribers. they didn't listen then, and they refuse to listen now. They even said that Server Mergers aren't an option.

Hell Funcom is about the money too!

Freebies add to server opoulation health -> economy works+more poeple to do things -> players happy -> better word of mouth -> more people join the game -> more money for SOE

Freebies happy -> freebies change to paid accounts -> more money for SOE

True, I totally agree, and, yes, before I became a paying customer on AO, I was a free player, but, that doesn't change the fact that some companies actually hate the idea of giving anything away for free, SOE/LA is the number 1 scorer in that regard. The only thing they give out free is those passes, and, I've never used one since I've quit SWG, all because I've never been approached by SOE to indulge in even the veteran pass, and, I'm sure as heck not even going to log in to the station pass just to get one either.

SOE don't listen it goes no further lol. SOE lose money, but they don't really care, I heard years ago this game was going to die, they only had a 3-5year life on this game or something stupid, so anyone still playing is I suppose a bonus to them.

Or just offer the game  Star Wars fans  like to play like classic pre cu servers?

would help subscription wise ....

Would love to play on those servers. But, I'm smirking as I read this other Forum post, as Smed tries to explain away some of the bad reputation the company has come down with.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/178496/page/1

Now that would get loads of players back. I'd even go back if they did that, I played the game when it first came out and I was so young I had no idea what i was doing, but now I have a brain lol I'd love to try it all over again.