I am also a returning player, had a mid 30's rogue. Came back recently with a F2P rogue. Been reading years old posts about opinions and discussions and had a few thoughts of my own to share, instead of necro'ing an old post.

I don't really mind the F2P model. I understand there are major restrictions to exp gain in later levels, no access to guild, and a slew of other things that should entice to subscribe, or at least guide one to use tokens.

In my opinion, this is the entirely wrong approach. It hits me as a "Yeah, the tokens will help, but sub is the way to go!" approach. I may not understand the entire big picture and certainly don't see Simu's financial data, but my gut instinct is that the majority of F2P players will not and do not end up subscribing. And if they do, probably not for longer than 6 months. (Random made up data is...well, random made up data. Everyone loves statistics, though.) I myself, feel like the tokens are just there as bread crumbs that hopefully lead to a sub. There is a better way, or at least a possible option that will still increase monthly revenue in steering towards the token microtransactions.

Let F2P unlock restricted areas in game via silvers in game. They are already burdened with bank cap and lessened treasure, so this is no easy task anyway. Not an apples to apples comparison, but LotRO and DDO use a similar approach, just with specific coins earned by achievements. Let me throw out some examples.

1) Become a citizen. To start down this path, the town council must recognize your ability to support the town. How? First, by requiring F2P to spend X (maybe 10-20k+) in each store in town. F2P already pay more per item anyway. (Can't remember backroom access entails exactly, maybe it's just a quantity vs cost, but a similar theory.) Once the merchants get friendly with you, they would (from a RP perspective) make your name known to the council. You're on your way to not being a nobody anymore.

2) Just because the merchants now like you, doesn't mean the council will. I don't have any concrete suggestions for any other steps, but I'm betting the community could throw in some ideas. Maybe a donation bucket in the town hall? Maybe the banker would have the final say after depositing a total of 2 million silvers? (Not have a balance of 2 million at once, the overall idea is to further entice token purchases, not necessarily require them. F2P crowd generally frowns on even perceived paywalls.)

3) After completing these steps or other time/money sinks (which would be no simple task for a F2P), one could then become a citizen. Now, the player has the option to buy from player shops (at a X% markup from subscription players, of course), the option to join a society, and perhaps their profession guild. (I'd suggest monthly guild dues to obviously be higher also. The F2P life shouldn't be easy.)

With this small sample of character advancement, a treasure (get better loots? YES!) and/or silver/bank enhancing token(s) would seem very desirable.

The entire idea is to help increase token purchases per month, then like other posts have said, if the token purchase to normal sub ratio becomes close...the scale might tip in favor of the sub for an increased length of time. Some increased monthly revenue is better than none, right?

I also throw my vote for extra character slots for a regular subscription. A 3, 6, or 12 month reduced plan would be nice too. I personally can't say at this moment if either of these would sway me to re-sub, but it might for some.

I hope this was somewhat coherent. I'm at work and pretty tired today. My brain often works faster than my fingers and thoughts get derailed quickly.