I don't play ToR or care either way but aren't there enough threads like this without a staff writer making one. What's next, "Is GW2 worth a sub?"

Originally posted by Dreyder

Originally posted by Myria

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.

 

MMORPG.com writers have given in to the mob of idiots that haunt their forums...

These people are out of touch with reality... casking for server merges in games they don't even play when those servers show standard population on most nights.

I would be shocked if either of you still has a sub to SWTOR as you are clearly out of touch with the population issues this game has.  I unfortunately still have a sub (my wife still wants to log in once a week so I said I would play with her) and the population decline is shocking and a very big issue at this point.

I don't think this game should go F2P before they have the funds to create some alternate lvling paths...lol.  With one leveling path there isn't much to do for more than two months and thus I can't imagine that F2P would really help the game.  Not to mention it is nice to have at least one MMO left that doesn't have a cash shop.

Originally posted by Rhime

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!

 

+10 man, bye

Originally posted by Ryowulf
It can't go ftp. It cost a ton to make and they have to pay Lucus. The might do some sort of play free until lvl 10 or other crappy gimmick to get people interested in the game again, but its going to be awhile if ever before they can go ftp.

Agreed. I think I see them going the WoW route in that regard at some point, especially after this report from Gamespot a while back. It's kind of hard to estimate how many people are genuinely subscribed with the 30 free days (I have two accounts currently activated due to the 30 day giveaway for having a 50 on each one), and until the smoke clears from that deal, we won't have a very lucid picture of what's actually happening.

I do know that if the game was F2P, a few of my friends who left would at least come back to play the game with me on occasion. As it stands now, there are just a handful of people I know who still play. I'm looking forward to the upcoming free transfers so I can possibly move to a server with a higher population. It's very hard for me to find groups while leveling right now.

I think all sci-fi MMORPG are up against strong opposition with Eve Online on the market - CCP evolve their game.

Neither SWTOR or Eve Online were that great in the first few months, but SWTOR isn't even trying to adapt.

Originally posted by Cypt1 It's kind of hard to estimate how many people are genuinely subscribed with the 30 free days (I have two accounts currently activated due to the 30 day giveaway for having a 50 on each one), and until the smoke clears from that deal, we won't have a very lucid picture of what's actually happening.

I forsee the reactivations happening every time they have to show investors sub numbers.

Emperors new clothes situation for sure.

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...

         THis is why I dont think f2p is a bad thing....The trend is that people bitch after they pay money for these games....If you're playing for free and don't like the game, you just leave and move on to the next game......If you pay 60 bukcs for the box, then another 15 a month for a few months, then you feel cheated.....Also if gamers weren't so dumb they would simply wait a few months and play these games for a fraction of hte price that they do on launch day.....At some point SWTOR will most likely be f2p, and at that point  Iwill check it out.

Originally posted by Snikz

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

 Yeah I know...of course they won't. Doesn't mean they shouldn't consider it.

As proven all to often by these companies there are a lot of things they should consider and not write off so quickly. Many of them would have been better off if they had.

Originally posted by Mors.Magne

I think all sci-fi MMORPG are up against strong opposition with Eve Online on the market - CCP evolve their game.

Neither SWTOR or Eve Online were that great in the first few months, but SWTOR isn't even trying to adapt.

No offense against EVE or its playerbase but it is not even a contender for the sub numbers TOR wants & needs. EVE has its niche player base and overall has done pretty well. But TOR will probably be shut down if it drops enough subs to be at EVE subsciption numbers.

And the TOR fans are pretty much opposite in every way possible from EVE fans. Other than they are humans & are breathing.

Originally posted by jdnewell

And the TOR fans are pretty much opposite in every way possible from EVE fans. Other than they are humans & are breathing.

or dead accounts reactivated to show "sub numbers" to ppl without a clue

I agree that F2P is the way TOR will go soon enough.

We paid $150.00 for the CE version and got what for our money.... Not much.

I think the hype that Star Wars has in general was super High for this game and BW and the people that play it gave it far more hype then it was due.

The graphics are good for the game, FPS is bad...

I have un-subbed and will play something else. GW2 looks far to much like WoW and D3, is well... a let down.

They promise of the "Patch" is seen as a never ending story. Server transfers will be out some time this summer...?

That would be far to late, as they may not have many folks to transfer by that time......

Bio made many mistakes that should not have been. It is not like they were the First MMO.

They have had plenty others to look at and build from, yet they did not. Heck, they had SWG to model some parts after, yet they chose to, not include, a great many things that would have help make the game far better then it is.

Sad, because I an a huge fan of all things SW, and have played every game made. This is Not the first let down, nor will it be the last.

my personal thoughts on SWToR, and I stress personal, take it or leave it, I really don't care, is....

BW were looking at the mmo market and drooling over the possible revenue.  They decided to go for a sure thing for box sales and preorders and signed on with Lucas to make a SW mmo.  Sound logic.   Work on coding, figure out the how and when's of mmorpg's.  Guaranteed huge sales for their first mmo title by partnering with Lucas.  Their thoughts on the back burner were "and when we're done we'll have a name in the mmo scene and huge profits from presales, even after paying for the dev time, voice actores, etc and giving Lucas their cut....Then we can put out the Mass Effect MMO we're wanting to make and it will be sweet sweet profit".

I fully expect BW to pull pretty much all support to SWToR one year after release and then go full throttle on the ME MMO they've spoken about a few times.

Stale worlds, stale gameplay, the whole thing is on rails (I'd probably still play if there were even one optional area to hunt per level bracket to advance rather than starter world>DK>Balmorra>tatooine>NS>Taris>ETC-ETC-ETC over and over per character rails shooting...or pvp from 15 to 50).  Combining that, declining player base (my guild of 150 dropped to 48 char's [pretty much 6 of us and alts] before I pulled the plug on my account), and a general Been There Done That after my first character, and my thoughts on how the support for the game will go decided for me.

Originally posted by palulalula

Originally posted by Fluxii

 

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

 Lol...of all the people for you to make these types of accusations against. Hahahaha

I don't really see a way out for this game. Normally a ftp (ddo) lets people play their game for free but it has no bells and whistles. You pay for certain classes/races. You pay for quests, etc.

SWTOR can offer clothing and fluff, but all the races are human with different skin colors. I suppose they could charge to play the jedi classes, but I think that would cause an uproar. What's the point of charging for the go and fetch quests, because you can't charge for the main stroy line when that's pretty much the whole game?

Making new voice acted quests to buy will take to long and cost to much. Making text quests, when everthing else is voiced, seems dumb.

So how can this go ftp? Where do they make their money when the game revolves around one feature? It only been a few months and the game is struggling. They need to be doing a lot better to pay off their high costs then a year or two from now when the game sags (but has more content) they could go ftp.

See the problem? What do you do when a game isn't making the money it needs or was expected to? You start cutting. You take people off the project, drop servers, ect to save money. How does that help build enough new content to go ftp?

The old SWG is a good example of a game that could have gone ftp.

Originally posted by Praetalus

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?

I could care less about these so called "reviews" you read, which I haven't personally seen.  My BWE experience showed me a game changer.  GW1 was not an MMORPG so your point there is moot.

My main point here is GW2, whether you like it or not, has as much if not MORE content than a game like SWTOR and isn't going to charge you a monthly sub.  That's it.  It really makes WoW look bad, as well.  I think only Rift and the devs at Trion truly earn the monthly fee due to their very frequent content updates.

Has nothing to do with entitlement, it has to do with quality of the product.  When I hit 50 on one character and decided to roll an alt for a different experience, by the time I hit level 30 I realized I was doing 90% of the content I had already done.  That's not worth a monthly fee.  Ever.  That's usually an experience one recieves when playing single player RPGs on a console.

Why shouldn't I check out the new content for free? If it gives one an incentive to sub or pay both customer and game owner win/win.