I think it probably should go F2P or B2P. But they wont do it. EA will milk it for every cent and then close it down before that happens.

Wasnt this site giving glowing so called " reviews" of this game just a few short months ago? My my how things change. New advertising dollars coming in eh?

Originally posted by elocke
At this point, with GW2 showing up everyone and not charging a sub fee, EVERY sub game should have a F2P option.  Hybrid F2P is the way to go anymore, IMO.  Plus, it makes it less painful to log into a game to check out a new patch just to realize it's not THAT big and you end up not playing for most of the month you just paid for.  This way at least, you can see the new content patches and decide from there whether to sub and get gold or premium access or to just keep it at silver or F2P access.   Everyone wins.

GW2 showing up everyone? Can you explain that?

If you mean that GW2 is making other games look bad... I must say I disagree. Most of the reviews I have read have pretty much summed up that this isn't the "game changer" folks were making it out to be. And besides, Guild Wars 2 being good and being B2P has nothing to do with TOR. Guild Wars 1 was good and B2P and it didn't really matter to sub based games. 

And again, I don't mind paying the sub fee for the work the developers are doing to the game. I'm seeing a lot of this entitlement and people thinking they shouldn't have to pay for a game, just because they personally don't like it. For everyone who doesn't like it, there's someone willing to pay a sub like me. Why should you get to check out new content for free?

The real question is not 'Should they?' but 'Can they?'

It takes a fair amount of planning and architecture to put in a cash shop system, design how it will interact with the game, etc.

I see no sign EA or Bioware have even considered it until now, so unless they have a very secret Plan B, they are stuck for quite some time.

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Originally posted by jdnewell
I think it probably should go F2P or B2P. But they wont do it. EA will milk it for every cent and then close it down before that happens.
Wasnt this site giving glowing so called " reviews" of this game just a few short months ago? My my how things change. New advertising dollars coming in eh?

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Its all about the GW2 now ;) Yeah, more and more hardcore SWTOR fans are starting to die out. And its not even been a year. EA is the death of games unfortunately :(

Originally posted by kevjards

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Originally posted by kevjards
as well as this not being worthy of a sub..i found one of the most stupid things in this game..and i could'nt beleive it..dont know what made me try it but here goes..i,m not a star wars fanatic so here goes..i mailed an item from an imperial to a republic,could'nt believe that it actually worked,,even the people in my guild were gobsmacked that it worked..dont remember that happening in any other mmo but there you go,try it and see wwhat happens..it maybe its designed that way,if it is its bloody stupid.

Interesting. I tried that several times and it didn't work.

 

As for F2P: it doesn't really matter to me, I'll play it either way.......once I have more time to play, that is.

it may have been corrected because i did bring it to there attention,but that is something that should not be happening in the first place.

Wow... Misconceptions abound. As of patch 1.2, you can send mail to any characters in your LEGACY regardless of their faction. No, you CANNOT send mail to your friend or a random person who is the opposite faction. The purpose of this change was to mitigate the feeling of alienation for cross-faction characters within the same Legacy. Bioware said they wanted any character within your Legacy to be linked to their counterparts as much as possible. Given I was circumventing this issue the same way I did in WoW (i.e., by posting my items I wanted to trade to the neutral GTN/auction house), I was relieved when I could finally send mail directly to my cross-faction characters.

I'll concede the fact that TOR is far from flawless, but I don't see this particular subject as warranting any b*tching.

On topic, I do think the game should and probably will transition to a F2P cash shop model at some point. Until then, I'll be playing it intermittently as I feel like it and slowly complete the class stories I haven't seen yet.

why pay for it since BW keeps throwing 30 days free over and over at former players (I've had 3 offers for 30 days free, the first was a week after I cancelled my sub)?  I went back for about 20 min during one of the free time offers and it was dead on Adraas so I logged off grumpy that I took the time to reinstall/patch.

I wouldn't go back for F2P.

I cancelled 2 subs in feb with 6 char's finished their storylines (3 on my account, 3 on my wife's).  I'm still paying for one sub because I bought a copy for my brother in law for xmas with the offer of paying a year as part of the gift.........he plays about once a weekend still.

So, how's it going with all the Chiss Jedi and Pureblood Smugglers?

For this discussion to make any sense whatsoever you would first have to establish that ToR isn't doing well with it's current model. For better or ill what hard evidence there is suggests it's doing very well indeed -- and frankly I'll take official EA numbers over the ravings of the armchair expert brigade any day of the week.

Second you would have to establish that going F2P is actually a successful model outside of the initial looky-loo bump. To date there is no such evidence. The best you can say is that the transition to F2P has allowed some games that might otherwise have shut down continue to limp along.

In short the question makes no sense. Should a game that is apparently doing quite well -- to the point of possibly being the second most successful Western MMO in history -- transition to a model that at best has mediocre -- and, honestly, if Turbine or Funcom were seeing huge revenue from their FtP games you can bet your arse you would be hearing about it -- results?

No, probably not.

The game should have been b2p not f2p. With updates that actually add content being purchaseable dlc.

I think the bigger question is considering the market and the lack of hype should The Secret World consider going b2p?

SWTOR, much like Tera is sorely lacking in MMORPG aspects.

Tera has the size of an MMORPG but is lacking in almost everything else in terms of depth and quality...SWTOR has size and story.

SWTOR plays like a single player RPG forced online with a few multi-player aspects...and the community acts like it, if you want to call it a community. im playing right now, been logged in for just over an hour and have seen one single person say something in chat and thats only because he cant solo the quest he wants to do.

Joy. Once im done with this 3rd characters story ark im out and even though I am having fun with the story I hate the fact that I have paid to play it, wont happen again. I will be playing GW2 until the new D&D game comes out, no more pay to play mediocre MMOs that dont bring anything to the genre for me.

I am 100% done with P2P MMOs and its 100% the fault of companies making piss poor quality games for "the masses".

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

The game should have been b2p not f2p. With updates that actually add content being purchaseable dlc.

I think the bigger question is considering the market and the lack of hype should The Secret World consider going b2p?

 Just LOL.. not going to happen, its p2p + cash shop for clothes and stuff

Like most said they should have been b2p from he beginning.

F2P conversion takes time and I am not sure how people would react ot it, as from hyped to f2pis a long fall.

For the MMO Genre I hope they keep it p2p and let it die when the time has come

I said I was not going to purchase it as I was waiting on D3 & GW2 but when those games got set back I thought why not give it a try.  Against my better judgment I purchased it.  I didnt last a month.  For such a highly anticipated game it was a big let down.  I would have rather gone back to WOW where I had unsubbed 1.5 years ago.  

Yes it should be B2P or F2P but I dont think that will happen at this moment as long as they have the subs that cover their expenses and turn a profit.  Until they start losing money in the "sub's" catagory it will still be a subscription game....but they will need to plan for that day as there are a lot of other games approaching that will draw people away.

Should they make it F2P? Well yes if subs are declining. F2P will bring in more cash, it's not like they would need to do much changes.

Every fun features is already shoehorsed into premium / collector / exclusiv x *****.
And they way Legacy currently works one rather get's a feeling it took them that long to rewrite it from real money to in game currency.

Would F2P make me come back? NO.
It's never been about the 15$ a month. I don't care about it. The question is, whenever the game is enough to be worth my time.

The bad designed classes, the poor story implementation and the lack of deep and freedom of character creation. (Armor restrictions, weapon restrictions, faction restrictions), dead empty areas, lackluster Graphics with an douchebag attitude about it, aside from heavy balancing issues -
won't make me come back.

This game is as good as any nameless clone korean grinder f2p game to me. 5 Minutes of Fun with Vette and SWTOR slapped over those....armor...aborminations won't change that.

Originally posted by Fluxii

Originally posted by MikeB

In this week's Star Wars: The Old Republic column we discuss whether or not SWTOR should make the switch to the free-to-play business model.

I’ve been knee-deep in the MMORPG.com community since I came on in June of 2009, but it feels like only yesterday when our community was up in arms over the notion of some Western game going free-to-play. While some of this sentiment still remains, it doesn’t take more than a cursory glance to notice that there’s been an overall attitude shift here, and this is likely due in part to the gradual trend towards free-to-play that has been going on since DDO made the extremely successful switch back in September of ’09. This apparent shift, at least to me, speaks volumes to where things are headed and it’s got me asking myself one question in particular as of late:

Should Star Wars: The Old Republic go Free-to-Play?

Read more of Michael Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic: Should SWTOR Go Free-to-Play?

As if there weren't enough threads for whiners and trolls we have community managers creating them now?  NICE!

 

Tera is gonna have people bitching in a month.

 

GW2 wil have people bitching a month after release.

 

TSW will have people bitching after release...

 

You see the trend?  It's all happened before... see the last 10 years on this forum...

 

You are right. It only shows that moderators are nothing better then rest of us. He is just throwing apples to hungry crowd. I think it is my last post on this site, it is just stupid to watch same spiting all the time. I go now to play because mmo players play games and boring old ladies write on forums all the time. Facebook generations all over the place

No way!

F2P only promotes low end players(10-20 yr old immature gamers), instant gratification gaming, more grinding for points to spend on crappy cosmetic/leveling gear and an overall underwelming gaming world.

If anything, I believe F2P games cause players to leave earlier for other games because the lack of time invested in the game makes it too easy to just quit from boredom/lack of content.

Pay the devs up front and you'll find the games to be done both professionally, creatively and worth their weight in gold(literally).

I wouldn't be playing TOR right now if it was free and neither would my wife. I guess we're just old school players.

Subscription models FTW!