I have been gaming for a very long time. I didn't start on-line gaming when it started, but I've been on-line gaming in MMOs for a good 15 years at this point. You used to have to subscribe to an decent MMO game in order to play it. Then came the F2P mechanic. Apparently, it was forgotten that one reason to allow F2P players into an MMO was to give the subscribers more players to game with. Yes, allowing F2P players to play in games that were previously only accessible to subscribers gave subscribers gamers to game with - giving them more of a reason to resubscribe to the game. So here we are. I don't know about other servers, but I am seeing a severe drop in population on Emerald. Why? First off Planetside 2 was apparently never all that bright and shiny to begin with. No ad revenue could be give to get that "hey, look at that over there" going. Now, I think it should be obvious to everyone, that sitting in a faction queue to power up your main for an hour because you are F2P drives players away. In come the NS Operatives. You no longer have to sit in a queue. You get directly into the game. The character gain skills and weapons that can always be used no matter what faction you are (have to) swap over to in order to get into the game. I'm a lifer. I put my bucks in at Christmas time. I'm All Access until DBG falls apart. NS Operatives should have been given to F2P players. They should have been given a 4th slot for the thing. There are enough reasons to subscribe (from my point of view), there are fewer reasons now than even 2 years ago for an F2P player to stay loyal to Planetside 2. It was the wrong move not to give NS Operatives to F2P players. I hope it is corrected soon. NS Operatives give a great starting point to get into the game. If an F2P player really gets into a faction then perhaps they will make one, decide that paying the subscription is worth the price to be able to get on continent quickly with that Faction, join an Outfit, and become a die-hard Planetside player. If it seems like not of subscribers are making and playing there NS Operative, then, well, maybe they really love their outfit and are willing to wait that 5-15 (sometimes 20) minutes to get onto continent do they can game with their friends and helps them enjoy the game all the more. The DEVs apparently sometimes do read these forums. I hope they read this post, because, regardless of all their apparent ignoring the forums for greener pastures like Redddit, these are the official Planetside forums, and they really should be treated as such instead of some moss covered cave in Hossin with slime dripping from the ceiling. (or at least that's the way it seems to be to me.)
Yeah it seems to me that this would have been far more useful as a free to play option since you get left out of any faction arms and vehicles. Plus free to play tend to be far more casual so the lone wolf playing whatever side is the least populated would make more sense. They could then add a small paywall to get access to factions and the normal fee for the bonus xp etc.
