Updated F2P Restrictions

[Valeron]

I agree edge. While I do think they have improved the F2P, it started off on the wrong foot. The ideal is to make people want to buy stuff from the cash shop. To make it necessary will turn off a lot of players.

[RoninaThorstone]

I agree, however, they have done a lot to fix the model with the updated restrictions.

If they could lower the cartel coin cost over some of the big ticket unlocks it would help subscribers justify spending their stipend on unlocks and selling them for credits. They could also increase the cartel cap to 500k so that subscribers could charge preferred more per unlock.

There's a lot they could do to tweak the model to make it easier for f2pers to enjoy the experience while also making subscribers have more value for their stipend.

Another thing they should focus on is less dinky bags that are usually worthless and more features like addons and macros on the cartel market. Things that subscribers could use.

[Kelimbror]

Another thing they should focus on is less dinky bags that are usually worthless and more features like addons and macros on the cartel market. Things that subscribers could use.

Unfortunately this wouldn't be received well by the community. They would prefer to have the ability to create their own addons for the game because they will be able to do it quicker and better than Bioware could ever do. Asking people to pay money for something that will feel necessary, especially if they have the education to do it for themself, is opening another bad can of worms.

If WoW charged for addons, even it if it were F2P, I would quit in the blink of an eye.

Now with that being said, if they stated the intention to never have addon capability or no time soon, but allowed 'skins' for the UI via Cartel Coins, I would be ok with that. In essence that would be a cosmetic only skin that is exactly the kind of thing we should pay extra for ala LoL.

[Edge-]

I agree, however, they have done a lot to fix the model with the updated restrictions.

Absolutely. Unfortunately they did some damage with the restrictions to begin with, but I'm thrilled to see them loosening them up. Once the patch with the character slot increase comes through I'll definitely drop a few on the cash shop.

Another thing they should focus on is less dinky bags that are usually worthless and more features like addons and macros on the cartel market. Things that subscribers could use.

That would probably be the best way to get people to quit pretty quickly : /

The whole point of addons/macro's is to improve game functionality/user experience, and putting them behind a paywall is super counterproductive.

I see where you're coming from with it, but those dinky bags are a huge cash cow for them. I don't think they're going anywhere in the near future.

[RoninaThorstone]

True.

I just wish they would implement things like power auras (is duplicity up? do you have 3 or 4 red buff boxs? Ops, you missed the kick because you were looking at you buff bar) and recount.

They refuse to open it up to 3rd party developers. They are clearly on a strict budget and I have trouble seeing them just adding QOL features for free. If they offer them only to subscribers they piss f2pers off. If they offer it on the cartel market subscribers could get it with their stipends and f2pers could buy it off the GTN/market.

I think that the "least damaging" would be the cartel market, unless they want to do it for free and I doubt they do.

I don't know. I have a very high tolerance for grinding out things like unlocks.

[Edge-]

I agree that they need some sort of system to display procs ect (Aion/Rift both have a good display system for reactive abilities/procs), it's a great change.

But on the addon front, I can totally see why they aren't releasing the API's for the game. First they'd have to determine the level of access they'd want to give addon devs to the game. That's a big decision, as you either move in the direction WoW moved and allow them a ton of freedom, or you go where Rift did and only allow restricted access. Addons create their own batch of problems, as you need to support the addon dev community to keep them around, and you need to be able to quickly deal with addons that create unintended functionality. Not to mention, you need to take them into account when developing content.

Addons would be nice, but they need to have the foundation in place for them and be prepared to deal with them. Given the current state of the game, I don't think they're in a position to do that yet, if they even want to at any point.

[anyaka21]

True.

I just wish they would implement things like power auras (is duplicity up? do you have 3 or 4 red buff boxs? Ops, you missed the kick because you were looking at you buff bar) and recount.

They refuse to open it up to 3rd party developers. They are clearly on a strict budget and I have trouble seeing them just adding QOL features for free. If they offer them only to subscribers they piss f2pers off. If they offer it on the cartel market subscribers could get it with their stipends and f2pers could buy it off the GTN/market.

I think that the "least damaging" would be the cartel market, unless they want to do it for free and I doubt they do.

I don't know. I have a very high tolerance for grinding out things like unlocks.

I would also love to see something like power auras because it does seem like a lot of class dps is based on this, and you have to peer down at your buff bar to see if a certain type of cooldown or buff is up. It's kind of maddening. Shadow dps seems to be optimal based around this, it would definitely help.

I would definitely agree that a simplified form of adding add-ons to the game. At least as far as the types of 3rd party add-ons they allow in, they would need to be restricted because I don't want to see a WoW form of a macro/add-on necessity in order to play effectively. But something, definitely.

As far as it being available, I'd suggest it be freely available to subs with unlock for f2p.


And as far as other "restrictions?," Remember back in the day with Everquest, there were no mounts. If you died, you got rezzed at your spawn point which could be 2 continents away and you'd have to hoof it back if a rez wasn't available. Add that you also had a limited amount of time to get back to your corpse before it despawned and you lost all your stuff. So people complaining about rezzes, sprints, etc..., go back to old school mmo's, and SWTOR is light years better and less restrictive even as f2p than old school pay to play.

[RoninaThorstone]

I would also love to see something like power auras because it does seem like a lot of class dps is based on this, and you have to peer down at your buff bar to see if a certain type of cooldown or buff is up. It's kind of maddening. Shadow dps seems to be optimal based around this, it would definitely help.

Ermagerd yes. Duplicity is the assassin version of infiltration tactics and it is SO STUPID.

Isn't power auras a wow standard UI thing now?
I could see it being the same thing in swtor.

[Barnabas]

And if you want free players to feel welcome and have a good experience, you need to make some concessions.

I still think that they've gone about this whole thing backwards.

What they did: Leave the subscription benefits mostly as-is. They didn't want to "cheapen" the value of the subscription. Consequently, they put heavy restrictions on free players, restrictions that have caused pretty huge backlashes that they are having to respond to by loosening, which in turn creates a less enjoyable experience.

What they should have done: Provide a slightly more restricted (keyword, slightly) experience for free players, but find ways to improve the value of the subscription. This gives free players a great starting experience that leaves a positive impression, while providing great incentive to subscribe (happy feelings help that) as subscribers get great benefits. Many F2P games use this model to great success and it's wonderful.

They framed their thinking in the negative rather than the positive, and that's backwards when you're making a F2P/freemium transition.

My point with sprint, is that it was a big QoL issue. It was big enough for people to voice enough complaints for the devs to add it in. If it's big enough for that, it's big enough to leave an impact on free players who BW needs to win over early on in their experience. Removing a great QoL feature like this isn't the way to go about it. Restrict the character slots and bag slots, that's all standard fair and totally fine. But when you have documented QoL issues like this, that's not the kind of thing you remove if you want to hook players early.

This issue isn't "Is it playable as F2P", but "is it enjoyable as F2P". If it's not enjoyable, they're not going to get free players to stick around and potentially turn into subscribers/paying players.

Yeah if they did any of that it would be better in the long haul. I'm not surprised they didn't do any of that though looking at their past history with this game and the choices they've made that got them into this boat. The entire mmo industry sucks the fun out of games though. I'd like to meet the person at blizzard that thought a daily model was fun amongst other things.

[Edge-]

And as far as other "restrictions?," Remember back in the day with Everquest, there were no mounts. If you died, you got rezzed at your spawn point which could be 2 continents away and you'd have to hoof it back if a rez wasn't available. Add that you also had a limited amount of time to get back to your corpse before it despawned and you lost all your stuff. So people complaining about rezzes, sprints, etc..., go back to old school mmo's, and SWTOR is light years better and less restrictive even as f2p than old school pay to play.

Excuse me while I go compare modern games to Pong in order to highlight how awesome modern games are in comparison.

That's a pointless comparison. The tech, fanbase, capabilities, design decisions, and pretty much everything was completely different at the time. EQ1 is still a great game, but it's absolutely designed for a different crowd of people, with different limitations.

Those same "less restrictive" bits that make SWTOR "light years better" are in basically every other modern MMO too, so you can't really claim that it's something exclusive to SWTOR.

[Kelimbror]

And as far as other "restrictions?," Remember back in the day with Everquest, there were no mounts. If you died, you got rezzed at your spawn point which could be 2 continents away and you'd have to hoof it back if a rez wasn't available. Add that you also had a limited amount of time to get back to your corpse before it despawned and you lost all your stuff. So people complaining about rezzes, sprints, etc..., go back to old school mmo's, and SWTOR is light years better and less restrictive even as f2p than old school pay to play.

Worst. Argument. Ever.

Why is it that people want to defend SWTOR by saying 'look back to 10-20 years ago, at least it's better than that'...Really? Same BS excuse used to say why not having any of the QoL features they have now added, plus the ones it still needs, is something that should just be accepted.

What other products that we spend money on do we justify by comparing it to something incredibly outdated? Nothing. We compare it to the current offerings. I don't compare a cheap, offbrand tablet to a Commodore 64 and say well...at least it's portable and looks better. Yeah it might not work half the time and only lasts for a year until it breaks, but at least it's not a Commodore 64.

---------- Post added 2012-12-07 at 01:35 PM ----------

Isn't power auras a wow standard UI thing now?

Yes /10char