Do you think SWTOR has increased its revenue going F2P?

[traen]

I suspect he won't be returning to defend himself. People tend to run in and lob these sorts of posts and then never return.

There is nothing to defend.
It is personal opinion and everyone can have one. I'm not taking yours, you are not taking mine. We are even.

I'm trying to think out of the box. I'm trying to be as objective as possible.
I see people who take advantage over other people by using real life resources. You can't say anything against it, because its true.
The only difference between us is that I call this cheating and you call it "donation", or whatever. The thing itself is not very different.

We are going offtopic. Its not about "swtor revenue" anymore. I would be thankful if you stop judging people the way you did in this your post.

[Darsithis]

Oh yes, it is still cheating.
What would you say if I got the same advantage without paying money?

Its like creating gold in diablo2 or skyrim by using trainer or developers console. Obviously you can earn this gold in game. And it will not make you more powerfull than anyone else in-game.
But you did not earn it in game. You spawned it ignoring ingame mechanic. And such things are called cheating.

And there is no real difference if you cheated by using trainer or by using your credit card.

It's not cheating. You'd reach end game the same as everyone else. Slower, it's true, but no more powerful than anyone else.

[Parrin]

Did you buy the book? If so you used an out of literary method to unlock it. You should only be able to read it if you write it. Otherwise you are skipping the mechanic of earning it.

Yeah, I was worried about that. Good to know. Thanks.

[RoninaThorstone]

There is nothing to defend.
It is personal opinion and everyone can have one. I'm not taking yours, you are not taking mine. We are even.

I'm trying to think out of the box. I'm trying to be as objective as possible.
I see people who take advantage over other people by using real life resources. You can't say anything against it, because its true.
The only difference between us is that I call this cheating and you call it "donation", or whatever. The thing itself is not very different.

We are going offtopic. Its not about "swtor revenue" anymore. I would be thankful if you stop judging people the way you did in this your post.

It certainly would be true if it were a real advantage.
But its not.

Also, you aren't thinking outside of the box so much as being wrong.

[Beefhammer]

I think it may have stopped the bleeding form sub losses. Posssibly keeping them at a comfortable point. Only time will tell. If they ad more features to F2P it possibly means people are not buying what they need to really play so offering all the bars per say might make a free customer buy more bag spaces. I still think it is on the fast track for totally F2P, but then I thought that since beta. I was on the official forums saying SWTOR would be F2P in less than a year since all it really is is SWTOR 3 with a multiplayer lounge. Nothing in the game screams pay me money.

[Edge-]

I'm trying to think out of the box. I'm trying to be as objective as possible.
I see people who take advantage over other people by using real life resources. You can't say anything against it, because its true.

If it applied to SWTOR, I'd agree, but it doesn't. There a ton of games where that does apply, mainly in mobile/social games, but you don't see Pay-to-Win (P2W, what that form of cash shop is called) very often in MMO's. MMO's will sell convenience, cosmetic items, and restriction removals for the most part. That will not sell outright power, except in the cases of some very small games, usually poorly made Korean imports.

So no, I can say everything against it in this situation because it's patently false. Please cite some example of how you see it is true with SWTOR's cash shop, I'm genuinely curious now.

[RoninaThorstone]

Please cite some example of how you see it is true with SWTOR's cash shop, I'm genuinely curious now.

You know he is going to say that the artifact gear authorization is buying power with real life money.

And then I'll point out how I got mine in game without spending real life money.

He will ask how.

I'll explain it.

He will still think its cheating despite all evidence that it's not.

[Shiny212]

Definitely an increase, albeit temporary. Just the act of going F2P is going to attract many people and some of them will resub/buy certain things from the cartel store, however I have no doubt it'll fall dramatically when all the people turned off by the arbitrary restrictions leave.

[Tokas]

damn why am i here anyway, wish dat game just died


Please do not ignore moderator warnings

[RoninaThorstone]

damn why am i here anyway, wish dat game just died

Not really a smart thing to post when several moderators are reading this thread.

[traen]

It's not cheating. You'd reach end game the same as everyone else. Slower, it's true, but no more powerful than anyone else.

There is only one currency in games. Its not "gold", its not "credits" and not even "Cartel
Coins". Its your real life time, that you exchange into different ingame currencies. Time is money, friend.
So yes, you will be as powerful as other players, but you will get it without spending time in the game.

Just like if you spawned/bought some gold in some other game - you did not get anything that other players were not able to get by themselves. Yes, they can farm gold, but they will spend time in game farming this gold. The thing that you did not. That's why spawning/buying gold is not a fair play.

I want you to answer one simple question again.
Lets say that SWTOR Game Master spawned 50000 Cartel coins for his girlfriend's character. Is it cheating or not?

[Edge-]

There is only one currency in games. Its not "gold", its not "credits" and not even "Cartel
Coins". Its your real life time, that you exchange into different ingame currencies. Time is money, friend.
So yes, you will be as powerful as other players, but you will get it without spending time in the game.

I want you to answer one simple question again.
Lets say that SWTOR Game Master spawned 50000 Cartel coins for his girlfriend's character. Is it cheating or not?

Money allows for convenience purchases for those that don't have the time/want to spend the time to achieve certain goals (hitting 50, for example). These goals don't end with higher power, and are goals that those with more time/that don't want to spend money can totally hit too. So it's offering an alternative method to reach goals based now a player wants to progress. It doesn't make that player any more inherently powerful than another, so they're not really "winning" or buying power.

As for your question, that would be cheating as a GM spawning currency for someone without a reason (i.e. they purchased the currency but there was an issue with it being delivered) is outside the rules.

Would it make her any more powerful than anyone else? Not at all.

If she purchased 50000 Cartel Coins, would it be cheating? No, because she purchased them legitimately. And still, she wouldn't be any more powerful than anyone else.

[Sialanne]

I'm going with "increase in revenue".

It's obviously too early to see what real effect F2P will have on the game. Myself and several others I know were interested in the game, but since we all already play WoW, Rift, or pay for xbox gold, not too many of us were willing to throw down on a new sub'd game. The F2P has undoubtedly piqued interest in myself and many others, so if they can make sure to provide some decent content, it'll no-question be able to make itself money. Some of the F2P restrictions seem pretty odd (Actionbars?!?!) but I'm sure that they'll iron that out in time (like they've already addressed for Character slots, and the previously mentioned Actionbars)

[Airlick]

Cut it out. Don't come into the thread to bash the game and the people who play it. Stick to the facts and keep it civil

I did stick to the facts. TOR is bad and won't atract new players even if EA paid them to play. That's an opinion and a response to OP's question, not bashing. Maybe you should learn to understand what you read. I then was attacked by angry TOR fans and I'm the only one getting warned? Good moderation, no sarcasm here. Huehue.

[traen]

Money allows for convenience purchases for those that don't have the time/want to spend the time to achieve certain goals (hitting 50, for example). These goals don't end with higher power

As I already said, even if you don't break ingame limits, obtaining ingame currencies without using game mechanics is still not fair. And it is advantage over other players who play the game fair.

As for your question, that would be cheating as a GM spawning currency for someone without a reason (i.e. they purchased the currency but there was an issue with it being delivered) is outside the rules.

Thing is, from inside the game there is absolutely no difference where some kind of currency comes from. You did not earn it. You did not farm it. You did nothing to get it. You spawned it from outside the game.
From a CUSTOMER point of view - the game master was cheating. But from the player's point of you (or from your character's point of view), both game master AND the person who bought the currency were cheating equally. They had nothing, and out of all sudden they received it.

Would it make her any more powerful than anyone else? Not at all.

Yes. It would.
As I said, TIME is the real currency in games.
Lets say you start playing at the same time, you have equal skill, and you play the game for the same amount of hours a day.
At any given point in the game she will ALWAYS be more powerful then you are. You are lvl 10? She is level 15. You are 30? She is 40.
You are 40? She is already farming high level gear on level 50. No matter what you do, she will always be ahead of you by the time she bought with real life money(or the help of her boyfriend).
She spent less time in the game than you, but she already got more gear, more money and more achievements(or whatever game values you like) then you did.

Also talking about "convenience purchases". Maybe an additional quick slot is not much, but it still saves you some time. And guess what? Time is money again. "Convenience purchases" allow you to spend you time in the game more effectively --> you get more resources per play hour, you become more powerful than characters who spend the same amount of time in the game without using the help from outside.

I guess the problem in your reasoning when you say that "cheating would not make you more powerful than anyone else" is that you are assuming that your time costs nothing, and that all characters you compare already spent infinite time in the game. But its not true.

[RoninaThorstone]

I guess the problem in your reasoning when you say that "cheating would not make you more powerful than anyone else" is that you are assuming that your time costs nothing, and that all characters you compare already spent infinite time in the game. But its not true.

Can you tell me how "hide helm" increases your characters power?

[Kelimbror]

I did stick to the facts. TOR is bad and won't atract new players even if EA paid them to play. That's an opinion and a response to OP's question, not bashing. Maybe you should learn to understand what you read. I then was attacked by angry TOR fans and I'm the only one getting warned? Good moderation, no sarcasm here. Huehue.

I guess you're aiming to get banned today?

I enter into the court, these exhibits as evidence:

Then they will find out that it's the biggest fail in the history of MMO genre and will simply quit.

You're delusional if you think otherwise, sir.

Hear, hear, another delusional TOR fan has come to flame someone stating the obvious truth about their precious game.

Then after all of this garbage you insulted a moderator for calling you out.

1) Where are these 'facts' you are sticking to?
2) You stated you stick to facts then 2 sentences later state that you are giving an opinion. Which is it?

---------- Post added 2012-12-03 at 06:21 PM ----------

Can you tell me how "hide helm" increases your characters power?

Let's not even argue the fact that he's painted himself into a corner. If time is a currency, and not having to spend that currency is cheating...let me propose these ideas:

1) Rested XP is cheating. Who cares if anyone can do it, not everyone will. Cheating.
2) Doing things in groups to go faster is cheating. You are robbing individual players of their time which gives you an advantage.
3) Legacy perks? Cheating
4) Space missions? Cheating.

[RoninaThorstone]

Let's not even argue the fact that he's painted himself into a corner.

Fair enough.

The boards certainly perked up today. I guess we were all playing firefall beta over the weekend?

[Edge-]

Yes. It would.
As I said, TIME is the real currency in games.

And TIME is the only currency that will buy you high end raiding or PvP gear. You can't buy any of it with cash. So again, nothing changes. You get to level slightly faster, but you still have to put in the time throughout the raids or the BG's in order to acquire the gear.

So again, it would not make her any more powerful than anyone else, as she would need to put in the same time investment to get the raid/pvp gear as someone who is a simple subscriber and purchases nothing in the cash shop.

I'm well aware that not everyone has the same amount of time to invest in the game, that's part of the reason these types of purchases exist. They don't mean that someone is any more powerful. If I spend 10 hours to get a level, while someone else spent 5 to get that same level, and neither of used boosts, is he more powerful than me? No, because we both achieved the same level, I just took longer to purchase it.

As for the action bar you mention, that doesn't make you any more powerful. It's convenient, but you're no more powerful with 20 action bars than someone with 6 (the number you get for subscribing). I'm basing everything off of someone as a subscriber, since they're the baseline for this. Free players are restricted due to the nature of the freemium system (though I still think a bit too restricted in this game), and aren't really a good basis for any comparisons, especially when you consider you get things like 4 action bars for simply buying 5 dollars worth of cash shop currency.

[Daverid]

Myself and a few friends were totally into SWTOR when it initially released .. I pretty much ditched WoW and every other game for a solid 2 months and REALLY enjoyed getting a couple of toons to 50 and experiencing the incredible stories that accompanied the classes. The rest of the game lent towards the 'Meh' side but it was still respectable.

I haven't tried it since it went F2P, but my other friends did and they uninstalled it pretty much straight away after playing. Their response was basically that sure F2P is cool because you can experience all the character stories for free, but all the restrictions just make it ridiculous. 2 Action Bars makes it impossible to have every skill you need on yours bars... 350k Credit Limit is absurd ... Basic things like Flashpoints/Operations are restricted and you have to buy passes ... 2 Character slots per realm is completely ridiculous ...

I'd say the majority of people who play it because it's F2P will either get to level ~30 or so, love it and just subscribe so they can not be restricted to hell ... Or they'll just keep carrying on with the restrictions, get to 50 and realise they can't do crap and just quit and not come back. I think the latter will be the more common response.

I think it'll be great short term revenue, but it just won't pay-off in the long run and they'll end up just getting rid of half of these absurd restrictions to keep new players coming.