Gamasutra - The Burning of Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Edge-]

Yeah. Waiting about, what? 6 months to do mergers?
That was insane.

I don't think it was by choice. I think a big part was that they simply didn't have the tech to do it : /

[RoninaThorstone]

I don't think it was by choice. I think a big part was that they simply didn't have the tech to do it : /

I'm not sure that's excusable given the current competition in the mmo genre.

[Azuri]

I'm not sure that's excusable given the current competition in the mmo genre.

Last I heard they don't even have a proper transfer to PTS mechanic. I recall watching a Republic broadcast that asked if they tested the new operation that came out and the response was it's difficult to get people to test it if you can't transfer over current geared characters. They need to put more effort into certain things and less focus on filling up the cartel store until key features are brought up to date.

[Repefe]

BW went pretty old school on this one. I really wish they did that in DA2 instead of TOR

[RoninaThorstone]

Last I heard they don't even have a proper transfer to PTS mechanic. I recall watching a Republic broadcast that asked if they tested the new operation that came out and the response was it's difficult to get people to test it if you can't transfer over current geared characters. They need to put more effort into certain things and less focus on filling up the cartel store until key features are brought up to date.

That's a problem that shouldn't survive past beta.

But it's a year later.

[ati87]

This is the part I agree compelty agree with

Locking players down to a handful of Flashpoints and Warzones a week and out of Ops entirely was a big part of the plan (and the source of that $56-a-month fee). Which means the F2P solution they came up with does nothing to help address the concerns subscribers had when they were cancelling their subscriptions in droves.

The way I see it the whole purpose of F2P is to bring enough free players in so the free population can at the very least support the paying population. In other words create some activity so those that pay keep on paying.

The direction Bioware took is excluding the free players from to much content and thus they don't really support the paying players.

First thing I would do is to allow F2P players use the purple gear, not the most recent gear but few tiers behind at the very least;
Second: lift the restrictions on trade and increase the gold cap. Allot of cartel items go for more then 200k (or even 350k+), at least in time (to prevent inflation) increase the cap so the trade activity also increases.

[RoninaThorstone]

This is the part I agree compelty agree with

Well, you shouldn't completely agree since they don't limit the number of flashpoints.

[Jtbrig7390]

Well, you shouldn't completely agree since they don't limit the number of flashpoints.

Last checked I could be wrong or it could have changed you are limited to 5 a week/3 item rolls.
That is limited.

At lease with DCU you can still do the first tier of raids and even new content comes out f2p and play without paying for like the solo dungeons u can do now. I though DCU's setup was strick until I seen SWTOR's.

As I said tho this could have changed I stopped staying updated with it.

[RoninaThorstone]

Last checked I could be wrong or it could have changed you are limited to 5 a week/3 item rolls.
That is limited.

You can do unlimited flash points. You are limited to winning 3 rolls on final boss loot.

Also, the article says

Locking players down to a handful of Flashpoints

Which is simply false.

[Jtbrig7390]

You can do unlimited flash points. You are limited to winning 3 rolls on final boss loot.

Also, the article says


Which is simply false.

True but your still limited to loot rolls tho and that's stupid even if it is just on the last boss. Also F2p players should be able to do tier 1 raids but they can't..

[RoninaThorstone]

True but your still limited to loot rolls tho and that's stupid even if it is just on the last boss. Also F2p players should be able to do tier 1 raids but they can't..

While I agree, it's somewhat beside the point.

The guy writing this article should know that.

[Lezarin]

One question what does resubbing actually get you .i lost interest when my friends stopped playing i did enjoy the flashpoints and operations.but got bored talknig to myself for hours, i unsubbed just after the server mergers etc .

Just wondering as ti was an appealing game and if its jsut a resub to get all your access back i can live with that .or can you even resub now

[Jtbrig7390]

While I agree, it's somewhat beside the point.

The guy writing this article should know that.

I agree he should have.

[RoninaThorstone]

I agree he should have.

I mean, I'm not saying he doesn't have a point. Just the way he goes about it completely invalidates his article.
He doesn't need to make it sound worse than it actually is. Its already gone from decent launch to horrible follow through and there's an insane amount of solid evidence of that. Making up stuff is totally unnecessary.

[anyaka21]

I agree he should have.

And therein lies the whole point. He should have. In fact, his "article" is filled with those kind of misunderstood notions. He didn't know, he didn't do his research. In his follow up in the forum part of this, he claims to have submitted the article to the editor before some recent changes, but it also shows he didn't know anything because he didn't do his research at all. Not knowing what's coming even though anyone how has done 5 minutes of research knew that 4 quick bars were come 3 weeks ago. If he did his research through anything other than fleet chat, he'd know these things.

Terrible, terrible article and he really should be banned from publishing an actual article until he learns to do some real actual research. Add that Gamasutra should print an apology for allowing, editing and probably paying for said article to be published.

[SirRobin]

Gamasutra - The Burning of Star Wars: The Old Republic

Even though I no longer play TOR and it ended up being a disappointing game, seriously, what was the point of this article? TOR is what it is, whether they charge for it or not. If your biggest problem with TOR was that they were charging for it? Then you'll probably like it now. If your main problem was something else? Well, there is a good chance that you still won't like it.

[Psychlon]

Fanboy it up all you guys want

, the game was disappointing in depth at launch and it hasnt exactly improved, current raiding i cant comment on, I only raided for about two weeks at launch and saw everything there was to see. Everything else is spot on, the F2P model is ransoming off interface elements and playability instead of selling content which is what a respectable F2P model would be about, not that they can afford to crank out any decent content now anyway. Trust me, I will give them credit if they actually start churning out content packs and lighten up on stupid things like "pay us to activate this interface option, and those buttons!" but somehow I doubt it will happen.

I guess you don't have actually any clue what you are talking about, given the evidence you provided yourself. But hey... I guess it's fine to be biased about the state of the game at launch 1 year later and judge the current game in the same way which is not only not fair but .... well... doesn't make you look really smart.

- you can unlock via ingame cash... and you do it once for interface/ purple gear etc. . In fact everything apart the weekly passes...

The story is amazing exactly once per faction, after that you are stuck doing the exact same quests in the exact same order on the exact same planets every single time, and no, 3 or 4 class quests are not enough to break up that planetary boredom that starts in on your second char. especially with gems like Balmorra in there with its brilliant system of making a small planet seem huge by requiring you to walk around finding elevators to get anywhere, that's totally exciting.

there are... speeder now... /facepalm

The combat itself is fairly pathetic, they want you to feel "heroic" so they give you an NPC to follow you around and save your butt every fight, not really all that heroic. A Jedi/sith that cant handle 3 standard guys in a group without investing a significant amount of time and recovery afterwards is certainly not heroic. A trooper or smuggler or their empire equiv. not being able to kill random gangster # 344 without having to shoot him 30 times, not heroic and quite retarded actually. Classes may be balanced against each other (mostly) but they are horribly balanced against the concept of being a hero which was supposed to be their big "thing". Im not saying every mob should fall over dead from seeing you approach, but come on, I have a lightsaber... 3 random chem addicts or gangsters, or creepy dudes living out in the swamp should not exactly require a huge amount of time to kill, I might as well just pick up a random stick off the ground and hit them, it would be as effective.

Finally someone who discovers how to completely shorten Karagga's Palace. Have a sniper headshot Karagga by the time you walk into the arena with the Rancor.

Planets themselves are dead, NPCs stand in one spot forever, groups of baddies stand in one spot for eternity waiting for somebody to attack them, 90 percent of scripted fights between NPCs and mobs are soo heavily scripted that even if you go kill the bad guys off the NPCs keep shooting where they were at because they have zero AI and are just glorified trees. There are very little moments that make the worlds feel like they are living breathing planets instead of a random assortment of monsters/people waiting around for somebody to slaughter them with zero motivation to do anything else or even be there.

you are new to the MMO genre? What makes a planet feel alive are players... and having 100+ only on Korriban or Dromund Kaas makes it feel very much alive. However SWTOR doesn't have these "epic-life-quests" from GW2 which will get boring after some time in which you've seen all of them...

Game engine... well why even bother, its a massive pile of buggy crap that runs terrible for what you get visually. Its ability to handle large numbers of players is questionable, which totally makes sense for an MMO. There are blatant bugs that have been around since beta that still have zero signs of being fixed, seriously every third or fourth fight im left with a dead npc standing up like nothing ever happened to him... and thats STILL not fixed after a year?

I guess you can shed some light on the functioning of the game engine to find out the reason why Bioware would put a higher priority on actual content than on some randomly standing dead npc's which cleary should have a higher priority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_article

an article that reflects the opinion of the author is a valid type of professional article.

There just have been two guys kicked out for stating that Obama wouldn't stand a chance to win his re-election... . Just because someones opinion is a valid typ of professional article doesn't mean that it's correct.

First of all, before I get flamed, I'm not the biggest fan of how SWTOR implemented f2p, but I feel that the author presented some of his points in a distinctly illogical manner to "strengthen his points"

First of all, if you make a purchase at all, you are a "preferred player" which gets you 4 action bars instead of 2. That should be enough for anybody. Also, you will, soon, get 6 character slots (OMG $168/month to play!) instead of 2.

Second, even with 2 characters, someone who is trying to every flashpoint, warzone, space mission, and operation on a weekly basis - the point that he makes when claiming that it costs $56/month to play the game - is obviously invested enough in the game to pay the monthly subscription. The way that I understand the model is that if you just want to play single player or more casually, then you can buy the unlocks a la carte. If you want to take advantage of all the options in the game, the sub is more effective for you.

Third, claiming that Bioware is intentionally obscuring prices or whether the unlock is single character or account wide is almost completely without merit. With the exception of the legacy speeder unlock, which was mislabeled and fixed, it is very clear which unlocks apply to the whole account. When purchasing, there are separate buttons with different prices, which are pretty easy to see.

Finally, claiming that it would make more business sense to sell $50-$100 ships or a $240 ship instead of a $3 lock box. It is far easier to get 100 people to drop $3 on a lockbox than to get one to spend $100 on a ship. However, I would certainly buy a customer ship at a lower price points.

That being said, some of the cash shop items are ridiculous. I'm on board with the xp boosts, and the customization options (title, legacy, etc.), and even the cosmetic gear. I think that the medical probes limit is terrible for free players, and I think that all the life day stuff is awful, especially the mount. If you are going to sell a $20 mount, at least give it a unique model and not just lights (and a snowblower) on an existing mount. I'm also concerned about the implication of selling the grade 7 ship gear on the market.

There is nothing else left to say but... thanks, I'm not the only one.

This is the part I agree compelty agree with


The way I see it the whole purpose of F2P is to bring enough free players in so the free population can at the very least support the paying population. In other words create some activity so those that pay keep on paying.

The direction Bioware took is excluding the free players from to much content and thus they don't really support the paying players.

First thing I would do is to allow F2P players use the purple gear, not the most recent gear but few tiers behind at the very least;
Second: lift the restrictions on trade and increase the gold cap. Allot of cartel items go for more then 200k (or even 350k+), at least in time (to prevent inflation) increase the cap so the trade activity also increases.

You can unlock purple gear... why would you make such a thing out of something you have to unlock once. Do you actually know why there are chat/ money restrictions in place? Like, what Bioware thought about when they put this in the game?

And therein lies the whole point. He should have. In fact, his "article" is filled with those kind of misunderstood notions. He didn't know, he didn't do his research. In his follow up in the forum part of this, he claims to have submitted the article to the editor before some recent changes, but it also shows he didn't know anything because he didn't do his research at all. Not knowing what's coming even though anyone how has done 5 minutes of research knew that 4 quick bars were come 3 weeks ago. If he did his research through anything other than fleet chat, he'd know these things.

Terrible, terrible article and he really should be banned from publishing an actual article until he learns to do some real actual research. Add that Gamasutra should print an apology for allowing, editing and probably paying for said article to be published.

This guy is a sensationalist.... he clearly lacks informations. This is a fact, like it or not and in my point of view, if you are writing something you have the responsibility to inform yourself first or you intentionally want to spread false informations as "sensational" stuff sells better than others.

[Chickat]

Seems like a Dear diary type of blog post than a professional article. He has some good points but really over the top on his rants.

This is exactly what I was thinking about the article.

[Arlee]

Last I heard they don't even have a proper transfer to PTS mechanic. I recall watching a Republic broadcast that asked if they tested the new operation that came out and the response was it's difficult to get people to test it if you can't transfer over current geared characters. They need to put more effort into certain things and less focus on filling up the cartel store until key features are brought up to date.

They don't. They keep saying it's something they want to happen, and they have admitted that a large part of the issue with getting things properly tested on the Test Server is because people can't just copy their toons over. But it hasn't happened yet.

[RoninaThorstone]

They don't. They keep saying it's something they want to happen, and they have admitted that a large part of the issue with getting things properly tested on the Test Server is because people can't just copy their toons over. But it hasn't happened yet.

How do they justify that?
Its like, one of the most basic elements of running a MMO.