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  1. #721
    Immortal SirRobin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    Welcome to all F2P/freemium relaunches. There's an initial explosion of interest, with tons of people checking out the game and revenue skyrocketing (including subscriptions). However they then have to give people a reason to stay and pay a subscription or purchase things from the cash shop. They haven't been able to do that since launch, and while I'm really hoping they can for the freemium relaunch, I have my doubts.
    Unless they fix the issues that caused TOR to lose sixty to eighty percent, or more by this point, of its customers in the first place. Something I'm pretty confident EA is no where near willing to pay for. I just don't see them letting people play some of the game for free is going to give them any more than a speed bump in "actives." I'll keep my fingers crossed but, personally, I'm pretty doubtful.

    If TOR was a Turbine, Trion, or even Blizzard game, I would be more hopeful that any profit would go back "into" the game. However, its EA we are talking about here and I get the feeling that they've already written it off.
    Last edited by SirRobin; 2012-09-22 at 05:57 AM.
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  2. #722
    Quote Originally Posted by SirRobin View Post
    Unless they fix the issues that caused TOR to lose sixty to eighty percent, or more by this point, of its customers in the first place. Something I'm pretty confident EA is no where near willing to pay for. I just don't see them letting people play some of the game for free is going to give them any more than a speed bump in "actives." I'll keep my fingers crossed but, personally, I'm pretty doubtful.

    If TOR was a Turbine, Trion, or even Blizzard game, I would be more hopeful that any profit would go back "into" the game. However, its EA we are talking about here and I get the feeling that they've already written it off.
    It's a tough situation. I suspect that parent EA essentially has written off TOR at this point and will make periodic decisions accordingly. But the survivors at BioWare still believe in their game and want to make the best of it despite factors beyond their control.

    As for "fixing the issues," I'm firmly in the camp that says there aren't really individual "issues" that caused TOR to slump down to its present size after launch. Sure, you can always find someone to say that it's all because Admiral's Hat was bugged, or some queue time, or the lack of a bestial romance option , but my theory is that the game, as franchised and designed, has a stable audience somewhere in the range of what you see today. You can shrink it - temporarily or permanently - with really bad game execution and management or NGE-style convulsions; you can grow it temporarily with interesting new content; but you can't grow it permanently except by slow, steady work over a period of 2-4 years. EA/BW did a KOTOR-worthy sales job and moved a couple of million boxes, then had to watch as the game asymptotically approached its true audience.

    I don't blame BW, EA and LEC for not wanting to believe this. It's a good thing too, because if they had believed it, we might not have a game to write about.

    Still experimenting...

  3. #723
    Quote Originally Posted by edgecrusherO0 View Post
    This argument doesn't fly. Their staff was PACKED with industry veterans with 5-10 years of experience or more, working on a ton of different MMO's. There is no learning curve when you have the funds to pack your development staff with very experience employees. There's a period where they all get used to the new job, but "they're new at this" is not a viable argument when it comes to this game. Not even remotely.



    No, it was to inject some positive news into a game that had nothing but negative news after the initial sales numbers. I don't see how this announcement makes people any more likely to re-subscribe, given that they're going to have the story content for free, and they haven't updated the game since they made the announcement. There's no new content to see...

    It's absolutely to offset subscriber numbers that were continuing to drop and shore up investor confidence. I'm sure if they didn't have an earnings call, they would have waited to announce the change until they had more details in place. But they needed something at the time and this was what they had to go with since it was likely the direction they were moving towards at the time anyways.




    Welcome to all F2P/freemium relaunches. There's an initial explosion of interest, with tons of people checking out the game and revenue skyrocketing (including subscriptions). However they then have to give people a reason to stay and pay a subscription or purchase things from the cash shop. They haven't been able to do that since launch, and while I'm really hoping they can for the freemium relaunch, I have my doubts.
    I completely agree with this entire statement. To the bolded point, if anything, it would make players unsubscribe (like myself). When I unsubbed, I told my wife that the bugs in the game were killing me along with the complete lack of new content and lack of dev communication. This was at the end of July, even after the mergers. I told her months ago that if the game went F2P I didn't want to play anymore. The day I unsubbed, I told her that I felt the game was transitioning to F2P. No joke, they announced their earnings call the next day along with the F2P announcement. Now, we've seen companies push out content after going F2P. AoC, LoTRO, DDO finally releasing an xpac, etc. But I have my reservations about TOR.

  4. #724
    Quote Originally Posted by notorious98 View Post
    I completely agree with this entire statement. To the bolded point, if anything, it would make players unsubscribe (like myself). When I unsubbed, I told my wife that the bugs in the game were killing me along with the complete lack of new content and lack of dev communication. This was at the end of July, even after the mergers. I told her months ago that if the game went F2P I didn't want to play anymore. The day I unsubbed, I told her that I felt the game was transitioning to F2P. No joke, they announced their earnings call the next day along with the F2P announcement. Now, we've seen companies push out content after going F2P. AoC, LoTRO, DDO finally releasing an xpac, etc. But I have my reservations about TOR.
    I suspect this is why they have been uncharacteristically chatty on the F2P issue just lately. They are emphasizing for anyone who'll listen that the subscribers will continue to have exactly the same experience. Personally I think that's a bit naïve: it's never quite the same experience when you're paying to play and the fellow next to you (stealing your node ) is not.

    Anyway, it's a rule of thumb that games lose some subs when they go F2P, and this line of reasoning is an example why. For me, having a Star Wars MMO (since it bumped off my previous one!) makes gritting my teeth and enduring F2P pretty much inevitable. I just hope it doesn't devolve into a ridiculous mess of tire kickers, cosmetic fluff and Pay-2-Buff.

    Still experimenting...

  5. #725
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    Anyway, it's a rule of thumb that games lose some subs when they go F2P
    That really isn't true. Off the top of my head, both City of Heroes and LOTRO gained a significant number of players when they went F2P.

  6. #726
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Istaril View Post
    That really isn't true. Off the top of my head, both City of Heroes and LOTRO gained a significant number of players when they went F2P.
    This is correct. Those companies offered subscribers very nice benefits that not only kept current subs strong, but enticed new people to take a sub as well. So far EA's actions and words seem to think their existing subscribers are puppies, ready to follow them into a money burning furnace if need be to keep playing this game.

  7. #727
    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    This is correct. Those companies offered subscribers very nice benefits that not only kept current subs strong, but enticed new people to take a sub as well. So far EA's actions and words seem to think their existing subscribers are puppies, ready to follow them into a money burning furnace if need be to keep playing this game.
    The cake and secret space project are a lie!
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  8. #728
    Elemental Lord Tekkommo's Avatar
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    The hero engine ruined this game!

  9. #729
    Quote Originally Posted by Istaril View Post
    That really isn't true. Off the top of my head, both City of Heroes and LOTRO gained a significant number of players when they went F2P.
    Players does not equal subscribers though.

    On that topic, I found it interesting that City of Heroes is closing down now, a game that in previous discussions on the subject was proclaimed as successful with a huge increase in it's revenue and player base, not only that but also claimed to get more and better content as a result of the transition.

  10. #730
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hk-51 View Post
    The cake and secret space project are a lie!
    ...you suck. Now I have to play portal(2) again today. I have so many other games...

  11. #731
    Scarab Lord Forsedar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tekkommo View Post
    The hero engine ruined this game!
    How? Care to elaborate?

    The Hero Engine allows adding content and changing things on the fly, thus adding world events and patches become easier and easier. Down time in this game is small, no matter how much people complain. The Hero Engine does need work, but that is how newly developed engines are.

  12. #732
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Tekkommo View Post
    The hero engine ruined this game!

    no let's blame it all on EA. The crappy railshooter, the hero engine, ugly armor, non customizable class ships... sure, all EAs fault, right..
    the truth is: bioware sucks, bioware made a bad game design, population has vanished.

    Infracted: Post constructively or not at all.
    Last edited by Forsedar; 2012-09-24 at 02:07 AM.

  13. #733
    Quote Originally Posted by Ketzer View Post
    no let's blame it all on EA. The crappy railshooter, the hero engine, ugly armor, non customizable class ships... sure, all EAs fault, right..
    the truth is: bioware sucks, bioware made a bad game design, population has vanished.
    How many times do you have to get banned for posting in this subforum?
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  14. #734
    Scarab Lord Forsedar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hk-51 View Post
    How many times do you have to get banned for posting in this subforum?
    Obviously not enough

  15. #735
    Lol. Well done at above ^

    Quote Originally Posted by Alyssa View Post
    Players does not equal subscribers though.

    On that topic, I found it interesting that City of Heroes is closing down now, a game that in previous discussions on the subject was proclaimed as successful with a huge increase in it's revenue and player base, not only that but also claimed to get more and better content as a result of the transition.
    D: have city of heroes players been migrating to DCUO now that it is f2p? what's up with the shutdown?

  16. #736
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celista View Post
    Lol. Well done at above ^


    D: have city of heroes players been migrating to DCUO now that it is f2p? what's up with the shutdown?
    The studio in charge of the game closed.

  17. #737
    Quote Originally Posted by shadowmatrix View Post
    The studio in charge of the game closed.
    That really sucks. It's been a while since I played but I enjoyed the game for what it was.

  18. #738
    My opinion on this is that f2p players should be able to do the first raids not the new ones

  19. #739
    Scarab Lord Forsedar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Valzi View Post
    My opinion on this is that f2p players should be able to do the first raids not the new ones
    That would actually be okay by me. Its not like they'd get current best gear but they would at least get a small taste of the raiding scene.

  20. #740
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Forsedar View Post
    That would actually be okay by me. Its not like they'd get current best gear but they would at least get a small taste of the raiding scene.
    Also would be fine with this. They would need to actually hire an art team to create different looking gear, but they need to do that anyways.

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