SWTOR Free to Play ?

[RoninaThorstone]

I believe swtor has reached the point where it would be more profitable f2p. even I would buy really good looking orange gear, and I hate micro payment. and swtor offers many possibilities for other micropayment stuff, especially star wars related items would probably sell very well. I just hope its only vanity stuff, if you could actually buy weapons or gear that improves your character for combat I would never play it again. but I doubt they'll do that. or at least I hope it, because I actually liked the game. always did, but now more than ever.

I 100% agree on the moddables part.

They could sell them like LoL sells skins. BOA moddable appearances. Such a great idea.

[Xcitement]

I think SW:ToR is going to suffer from this movement to a Free to Play (F2P) model.

The model works for games that are specifically built, developed and invested in for that purpose. SW:ToR was built to be a subscription based MMO, and changing that from both a technical, investment, development and general point of view wont be easy. The task ahead of them is not going to be a small one, but I feel that SW:ToR really is suffering from major early design fails.

We've all seen how poorly the MMO part of SW:ToR played out. They made it an online, single player game where any interaction with other players was clunky, slow and quite demanding. The issue with today is that World of Warcraft & Rift both offer more in terms of gameplay and stable enjoyment.

People often reply saying: "Well, World of Warcraft took time to get right, so SW:ToR should have the same". Wrong. We live in a world were the MMO Market is now saturated and bloated. If you want to release a MMO you have to build it to be vastly superior then World of Warcraft and Rift, something SW:ToR didn't do.

Going F2P will help them in the short term, but I feel it isn't the end of these troubles. Do they really think that the F2P model will cover for the gaping holes in their game? Sure massive improvements have been made, and continue to get made, but the launch and handling of SW:ToR in my mind has been a shambles, and I personally don't think a F2P model will fix that.

---------- Post added 2012-06-29 at 10:53 AM ----------



Whatever the subscription fee is, you got to ask if it is worth it to you personally. I still play and pay for World of Warcraft through the annual pass because I enjoy it. I would probably try SW:ToR if it went F2P because I don't think it is worth my money.

Money is tight for a lot of people also. We can't underestimate how quickly the bills rack up when you're paying out $15 to a game that has as many issues as it does.

For me its not about the money, I'm not interested in managing two characters in two different MMO's, I just want to play the storyline, I don't wish to pay for the game nor do I wish to play once the main story line is finished.

If you want to play you pay your subscription. Even if it's "Just the Story". Wishing it goes Free2Play makes it look like you're just too cheep to pay the subscription. Justify it all you want but if you don't like a game you wouldn't want to play it free or not.

you say the MMO market is flooded right now. With what? There are not a lot of worthwhile subscription MMOs out there to say the market is flooded with them. So what's left? Free2Play games? And you want to add this one to the list!?!? That makes absolutely no sense.

Bottom line is the Free2Play model is crap. The make things in such a way that people who can throw their money away spend way more than they would in a subscription model for advantages so they can feel L337. Developers trade taking time to develop content for creating items to put in the item shop. That is not a step up in the right direction for me.

[Kelimbror]

Bottom line is the Free2Play model is crap. The make things in such a way that people who can throw their money away spend way more than they would in a subscription model for advantages so they can feel L337. Developers trade taking time to develop content for creating items to put in the item shop. That is not a step up in the right direction for me.

I pretty much agree with the opinion behind this statement. However there are some games that handle F2P fairly well. League of Legends immediately comes to mind, but my experience with LotRO was pretty good as well.

Instead of wanting you to pay out your end to get everything, it feels designed to make you want to pay a subscription to get the part of the game that is being held back from you(in a good way). Otherwise it appeals to addictive grindy personalities who like unlocking things with achievements. I think that is much better than an overloaded cash shop that a lot of other games have.

[Xcitement]

I pretty much agree with the opinion behind this statement. However there are some games that handle F2P fairly well. League of Legends immediately comes to mind, but my experience with LotRO was pretty good as well.

Instead of wanting you to pay out your end to get everything, it feels designed to make you want to pay a subscription to get the part of the game that is being held back from you(in a good way). Otherwise it appeals to addictive grindy personalities who like unlocking things with achievements. I think that is much better than an overloaded cash shop that a lot of other games have.

There will always be an exception to the rule but let's be honest. How many good Free2Play games out there and how many good subscription games are out there. We can count them on our hands for both groups. So tell me how is the market saturated?

[Kelimbror]

There will always be an exception to the rule but let's be honest. How many good Free2Play games out there and how many good subscription games are out there. We can count them on our hands for both groups. So tell me how is the market saturated?

True...not many. Though that number is debatable as it belies a qualitative interpretation translated to quantitative data. Still, entirely true. In this event, the market is hardly saturated with *good* games.

For this particular game, F2P would be crap. For most games in general, F2P tends to be garbage. Just look at the App stores and Facebook. Though now that I'm on this thought train...what if games went F2P with advertisements like actually *good* games on tablets/phones. Kinda like 'lite' versions of an MMO.

Imagine if you could choose to not pay for WoW, but had to use a portion of your screen to display adds or it played a youtbue like commercial after every bg or raid. I'm surprised someone hasn't tried this model yet. It is devious and evil...but maybe an effective way to get a high quality F2P MMO.

I would of course just choose to pay the sub. If you can afford a computer and internet connection at the price ISP's ram down your throat, you can probably afford $15.

[snowcrash512]

Banned – I think you would LOVE for TOR to die, just so you can say YUP I WAS right!!! – I have a friend like that who was a spurs supporter and got fed up with only getting in the top 5 so now he supports Man Utd, I bet you also think IPHONES are better then SAMSUNGS because more people have them.

I played wow for 6 years. Yeah I enjoyed it but got bored. Swotor is better, looks better, sounds better, the combat is more fun, and has got better and better since its launch. I remember when wow first launched, it was pretty basic, terrible by todays standard and has evolved, just like Swotor and other games will evolve. I don’t know the reasons you gave up so easily on it. Perhaps wow has you institutionalised.

You can’t say Swotor - lacks content because unless you play every day for like 12 hours a day there’s plenty to be getting on with. No one wants a game that has so much content you don’t know where the fuck to start and you never feel like your accomplishing anything.

I think you should come back to swotor, play it actively invest time in it, and then make comment about actually references to parts of the game, rather than just saying yeah I played it for a month, its shit, end of its DEAD its official.

Even the very wise cannot see to all ends bro. I think if you spent as much time playing it as you do talking about it you might actually start having fun. A dying game huh, well I logged in last night PVP virtually all night!!! – 267 on fleet, HEAVING!!!! Mate it was!!! – People are playing it and enjoying it, and I’d rather be a Sith Warrior, fighting Star wars creatures then playing wow, killing 80ft kunfu panda’s and elites which are just the same creatures 50 times enlarged with 20 million HP. – Nothing on wow comes close to hacking people down with sabers, I don’t miss 20k warlock crits 1 bit.

Swotor’s better - Concept / art / feel / Species / Customising / gear / sound / story telling / PVP / Clases / creatures - BETTER - Contents comming - its just BETTER, it just has not been around as long as wow and as finished as wow but ever patch it just gets better.

Im sorry, but thats just not true, I leveled a repub and sith character to max and got the best gear I could resonably get at the time on both, and that was all done within two months of buying the game... so whats left? Space missions? Clunky pvp? Wait for the next raid to face-keyboard through?

They made the game level curve waaaay to fast, its like they were going for that newer concept in MMOs where leveling is just a small part and max char level is where the content is, except, they forgot to make their endgame work that way.

They havnt done much of anything since I unsubbed to make me want to come back, legacy was the biggest thing but thats not going to do much other than effect alts, and since 90 percent of the leveling process is quest for quest exactly the same the second time around, why on earth would I want to do that.

[Deleted]

A sudden surge in the playerbase? I don't see your point.

Except there is no surge in playerbase. At least not through Population tracking.

[Profyrion]

Except there is no surge in playerbase. At least not through Population tracking.

You're gonna have to back that up.

[RoninaThorstone]

Except there is no surge in playerbase. At least not through Population tracking.

That is incorrect. 3 days into the transfer process there was a 10% increase in concurrent players. That alone is a surge.

And as you know, 3 days in we had only transferred about 1/4th the servers.

[synthetikv]

Swotor’s better - Concept / art / feel / Species / Customising / gear / sound / story telling / PVP / Clases / creatures - BETTER - Contents comming - its just BETTER, it just has not been around as long as wow and as finished as wow but ever patch it just gets better.

While I loved swtor the truth is the endgame content is not near the quality or quantity it should be. The truth is the community has died down alot. There were tons of people stoked for this game but once they burned through the content they got bored and left.

The absolute worst part was the glitches, finishing nightmare kp in under an hour and not getting title because of some glitch on fabricator, and having that happen 4 weeks in a row really pissed off my guild. Then people started leaving. SWTOR still could be a great game, its not too late but they need to not only get content out to us, but make sure this content is free of rediculous glitches. SOA having platforms dissappear 4 months after it came out and causing your group to wipe is not ok.

I loved swtor and agree that so much of it is in fact better than wow, but it being a better product does not mean people will migrate to it. Google+ is insanely better than facebook, but after a year of being out its a joke among the social networking world.

[Kelimbror]

I loved swtor and agree that so much of it is in fact better than wow, but it being a better product does not mean people will migrate to it. Google+ is insanely better than facebook, but after a year of being out its a joke among the social networking world.

This is a great point. I tried to make a cold turkey switch, but found I was alone in a sea of nothing after a month. So strange that a better implemented design can fail so miserably to a norm. Humanity severely dislikes change of habits.

[Odegon]

Im sorry if it has been posted before i was not able to check all 21 pages. The original article is back online with a correction.

http://www.gamestm.co.uk/discuss/sta...lead-designer/

Update: EA comments on how The Old Republic might use a free-to-play model.
UPDATE

games™ would like to make a correction to the original article posted 14 June. While Emmanuel Lusinchi was discussing whether Old Republic could transition to other business models, we misquoted the lead designer in the original post. Lusinchi did not explicitly use the words “free-to-play” but did answer a question about the possibility of The Old Republic going free-to-play by saying “we are looking into everything.”

[Roxinius]

Im sorry if it has been posted before i was not able to check all 21 pages. The original article is back online with a correction.

http://www.gamestm.co.uk/discuss/sta...lead-designer/

Update: EA comments on how The Old Republic might use a free-to-play model.
UPDATE

games™ would like to make a correction to the original article posted 14 June. While Emmanuel Lusinchi was discussing whether Old Republic could transition to other business models, we misquoted the lead designer in the original post. Lusinchi did not explicitly use the words “free-to-play” but did answer a question about the possibility of The Old Republic going free-to-play by saying “we are looking into everything.”

dude even if this was posted on the first page right after the op the trolls would have still taken it and run with it they cant understand that it was a misquoting of someone

[Thrage]

I remember getting a temp-ban from these forums for saying SWTOR's combat was sub-par and would be free to play by the end of 2012. I was only being honest.

[Rellitan]

I remember getting a temp-ban from these forums for saying SWTOR's combat was sub-par and would be free to play by the end of 2012. I was only being honest.

You likely got a ban for your presentation of your opinion, and not the content of your message.

At any rate, I think you'll be proven wrong (that, and combat has been tweaked to be more responsive). "Sub-par" is awfully vague. I have a blast with it.

[Vexies]

For this particular game, F2P would be crap. For most games in general, F2P tends to be garbage. Just look at the App stores and Facebook. Though now that I'm on this thought train...what if games went F2P with advertisements like actually *good* games on tablets/phones. Kinda like 'lite' versions of an MMO.

Now its unlikely that this game will go this route but the misconception here is the definition of F2P or B2P (buy to play). Free to play is never buy anything dowload it all for free and play with xpacs and items cosmetic and otherwise sold. These games tend to be more aggressive with there cash shops and the ones that usually lean more toward your pay to win schemes. B2P is if anything the model we want there. That being you buy your box game, xpacs and what not and the cash shop is there to further support development with no sub fee. This is a far more successful model and I wouldn't be disappointed to see them go this route.

The game is set up perfectly for it. All that legacy stuff and Modable gear / social gear is ripe for a cash shop. Not to mention vanity pets, mounts and so forth. None of these give a in game advantage and all of it is stuff people would shell out more than enough for to support the game.

[Arlee]

Im sorry if it has been posted before i was not able to check all 21 pages. The original article is back online with a correction.

http://www.gamestm.co.uk/discuss/sta...lead-designer/

Update: EA comments on how The Old Republic might use a free-to-play model.
UPDATE

games™ would like to make a correction to the original article posted 14 June. While Emmanuel Lusinchi was discussing whether Old Republic could transition to other business models, we misquoted the lead designer in the original post. Lusinchi did not explicitly use the words “free-to-play” but did answer a question about the possibility of The Old Republic going free-to-play by saying “we are looking into everything.”

Oh thanks for posting that I was curious if they were going to repost it with a correction or pretend it never happened.

[orsraunia]

I'll tell you one thing, WAR is still not F2P. That says something about super-hyped swtor.

[SirRobin]

I'll tell you one thing, WAR is still not F2P. That says something about super-hyped swtor.

Not as much as you might think. WAR crashed harder and faster than TOR. Nor did EA bigwigs make comments like "biggest ever" about WAR. So I suspect that not only was there less "pressure" to find another revenue model for WAR, there was also less time too before the game was pretty much written off.

[Crysis]

I'll tell you one thing, WAR is still not F2P. That says something about super-hyped swtor.

Yep. That people behind it know that it is worth trying to bring more players to it. Because it has a great potential. Because the story is superb.

Because it's the game the fans deserve, but not the one we have yet.