???? ther is soooooo many better new mmo atm wth im gonna play this shit again?? f2p nahhh i like paying for quality game. f2p mean 40$ per month to get the same stuff as before well can said this game is a mmo

Originally posted by Z3R01

But wait... SWTOR was supposed to make Rift go F2p wasnt it?

 Nah, it was supposed to kill WoW...

I do support the so call "free to play", but I don't see this game is going anywhere.

EA just trying to grab the last penny in gamer's pocket from CS and they will shut the game down once the game is not profitable.

The title of this thread should rename to:

"

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Free to Play. This Fails"

It's amazing how many people are trying to pretend this isn't an indication that the the subscription only model is going out of style, but simply a referendum on TOR.  Almost every major MMO ever made goes through the exact same cycle.  Starts with a subscription, sees a lot of players initially, bleeds players for months or years (depending on the particular developer) until eventually adopting a Freemium model, which in every case where it has been adopted increased revenue from the game, and in many cases actually increased the number of people paying to subscribe.

What is actually different about TOR than these other games?  A larger budget, more players even now than most games have at any time past their first month of release, and a faster conversion to Freemium.  Which of these makes TOR a "failure?"  We don't have the numbers to know whether the game has already made back it's development costs, and anyone who claims to is just blowing smoke, so that element is pointless to discuss.  As for the fast conversion, once they made the decision that they would do it eventually, how is doing it sooner a bad thing?  Better to get the change made as quickly as possible than to arbitrarily draw it out waiting for subscriber numbers to drop further.

The market has changed.  Most players simply aren't willing to embrace the subscription only model anymore, not for any substantial length of time.  And, frankly, they shouldn't embrace it.  Every modern (themepark) MMO has large amounts of what is essentially single player content, and gamers shouldn't have to pay a monthly fee to play through the single player portion of a game.  The modular approach *should* be the new standard, where single player comes with the price of the box, and players have the option of only paying for those portions of the multiplayer content which they actually want to play, rather than paying a flat fee for access to all of the content, when much of it may not even interest them.  Choice is a good thing.  Long live Freemium gaming.

EAlouse.....was right.

Tenebrion...was absolutely right in his review. The only review put out on MMORPG that was correct and spot on. Too bad you canned him.

EA/BW I think did the following. They went the big box price and sub to get the raving fan bois to sign up for 1 year subs and payoff initial investment. Since one of the EA  Suits gave a speech at a GDC conference back in '09 or 10 about loving the F2P model and wanting to go that way exclusively, they planned this and wanted this from the beginning.

It wont save this trainwreck though.

Even a F2P option won't bring me back. I'm through with first time developers and their first mmo. I'll wait until they have 2 under their belt before I give any dev another try.

Originally posted by Dalmont

F2P i guess is the model for crap. Real games are subscription :P

QFT

I hope you didn't realise that just now.

If F2P was the better model, WOW would have been F2P ages ago...............but the fact they are still on subscription make me think they make more money this way

Developers know that, in fact the majority of MMOs start with a subscription model at launch, then after few months all of a sudden they switch to F2P, coincidentally when the subcription base collapse...........just saying.

Originally posted by ste2000

Originally posted by Dalmont

F2P i guess is the model for crap. Real games are subscription :P

QFT

I hope you didn't realise that just now.

If F2P was the better model, WOW would have been F2P ages ago...............but the fact they are still on subscription make me think they make more money this way

Developers know that, in fact the majority of MMOs start with a subscription model at launch, then after few months all of a sudden they switch to F2P, coincidentally when the subcription base collapse...........just saying.

If your standard for a "real" game is one that millions of people will pay a subscription for continuously over the course of multiple years, then the only real game is WoW.  I'll take the "fake" games, thank you very much.

Originally posted by CazNeerg

Originally posted by ste2000

Originally posted by Dalmont

F2P i guess is the model for crap. Real games are subscription :P

QFT

I hope you didn't realise that just now.

If F2P was the better model, WOW would have been F2P ages ago...............but the fact they are still on subscription make me think they make more money this way

Developers know that, in fact the majority of MMOs start with a subscription model at launch, then after few months all of a sudden they switch to F2P, coincidentally when the subcription base collapse...........just saying.

If your standard for a "real" game is one that millions of people will pay a subscription for continuously over the course of multiple years, then the only real game is WoW.  I'll take the "fake" games, thank you very much.

You say that like it's such a bad thing. Last I checked, many of the failed games on the market, such as SWTOR, all desperately want to be exactly like WoW.

Originally posted by Tenebrion

 

You say that like it's such a bad thing. Last I checked, many of the failed games on the market, such as SWTOR, all desperately want to be exactly like WoW.

They would like to make as much money, if they could manage it.  Not the same thing as wanting to be "exactly like WoW."  For people who prioritize story and narrative choice in their RPGs, TOR is almost nothing like WoW in the ways that matter.  But TOR's design is also clearly more focused on pleasing RPG fans than MMO fans, which is why the single player portion of the content should have had a subscription free option from day one, single player RPG fans tend not to like monthly fees for single player content.

Originally posted by cahenderson

This comes as a surprise to no one. What DOES come as a surprise is the sheer number of posts from people here at MMORPG.com.

 

I thought an overwhelming majority of you would be too busy engaging in orgiastic self-congratulatory behavior at having "called it months ago".

There is absolutely nothing fun about being "Right" on this one or "I called it!". This stinks for the entire genre.... that a major IP MMO could be this bad and go down the F2P crap sewer this fast... this sucks for all MMO fans whether they liked SWTOR or not. Future Investors will look at this and say to themselves...

"Look! We can at least rack in the cash for the Launch from Retail... Push out the next one, we don't care if it's finished or not! The 4th Quarter Report is Due!"

This is what SWTOR did to our genre.

Originally posted by Gardavsshade

Originally posted by cahenderson

This comes as a surprise to no one. What DOES come as a surprise is the sheer number of posts from people here at MMORPG.com.

 

I thought an overwhelming majority of you would be too busy engaging in orgiastic self-congratulatory behavior at having "called it months ago".

There is absolutely nothing fun about being "Right" on this one or "I called it!". This stinks for the entire genre.... that a major IP MMO could be this bad and go down the F2P crap sewer this fast... this sucks for all MMO fans whether they liked SWTOR or not. Future Investors will look at this and say to themselves...

"Look! We can at least rack in the cash for the Launch from Retail... Push out the next one, we don't care if it's finished or not! The 4th Quarter Report is Due!"

This is what SWTOR did to our genre.

It was already done.  EA just realized it a few months later than would have been optimal.  Sub-only is a failed model for new MMOs that want large numbers.  Everybody playing TSW who has a clue fully expects it to convert sooner rather than later to freemium as well.

Originally posted by Gardavsshade

Originally posted by cahenderson

This comes as a surprise to no one. What DOES come as a surprise is the sheer number of posts from people here at MMORPG.com.

 

I thought an overwhelming majority of you would be too busy engaging in orgiastic self-congratulatory behavior at having "called it months ago".

There is absolutely nothing fun about being "Right" on this one or "I called it!". This stinks for the entire genre.... that a major IP MMO could be this bad and go down the F2P crap sewer this fast... this sucks for all MMO fans whether they liked SWTOR or not. Future Investors will look at this and say to themselves...

"Look! We can at least rack in the cash for the Launch from Retail... Push out the next one, we don't care if it's finished or not! The 4th Quarter Report is Due!"

This is what SWTOR did to our genre.

No actualy, I rather suspect that the lesson future investors will take away from this is NOT to invest $200 Million in MMO's, period.

Doubtfull that TOR has even come close to recouping it's initial investment yet....let alone get a ROI sufficient to justify the money sunk into the project for an extended period of time.  No one's going to break even let alone get a decent return on launch with the kind of Development budgets that have been floating around the past few years...

... And frankly, as much as the big publishers and pundits may moan over it, THAT may be the best thing to happen to the HOBBY.

Big budgets haven't succedeed in producing good games....that much has been proven. Time for the hobby to get a little closer to it's roots. Smaller budgets, smaller games,  budgets and audiences. Games that are actualy designed by gamers, not suits. Companies that are closer to thier customers and treat them like human beings and not sheep.  Folks that understand the difference between FUN and  Fancy Cinematics.... and people actualy willing to try to inovate.

The only thing we have to lose is the $10 million movie quality cut-scenes.....and whoever cared for thar dreck in the first place?

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

 

The only thing we have to lose is the $10 million movie quality cut-scenes.....and whoever cared for thar dreck in the first place?

The thing is, for a lot of people it is hard to go back to a less complete experience after having a more complete one.  For people who really enjoy voiced characters, it can be very hard to get into a game that relies on text boxes.  For people who enjoy their character having his/her own story, it can be hard to return to soulless, story-less avatars.  For people who like cinematic presentation, the loss of cinematics can feel like going back in time.  Now if you have a particular game you enjoyed in the past which lacks modern RPG features, you may be able to still enjoy it because of the power of nostalgia, but it's hard to look at a modern game which lacks standard modern features and not feel a little disappointed.  Does an MMO need a 200 million budget to achieve the modern RPG feel?  I have no idea, I don't know how specifically TOR allocated it's money.  But it probably won't ever be cheap, and I for one would rather have a small number of quality attempts than a large number of mediocre ones.

2.4million+  sales - that was last time i checked - , could easily say less than 700k people left and falling badly and F2P in less than 8 months.

One f the greatest IP / universe backgrounds  in the world combined with one of the best teams in Bioware at storytelling and thanks to EA its now poodoo, never going to recover due to the sub loses, dont have the resources and money to expand as quick as they will want.

Originally posted by knighthammer

2.4million+  sales - that was last time i checked - , could easily say less than 700k people left and falling badly and F2P in less than 8 months.

One f the greatest IP / universe backgrounds  in the world combined with one of the best teams in Bioware at storytelling and thanks to EA its now poodoo, never going to recover due to the sub loses, dont have the resources and money to expand as quick as they will want.

Yeah yeah, EA blah blah bah...

• $200 milions to make the game (3 times rift, even more AoC, even much more LotRo)
• 6 years to build it (around 1.5x the time any MMO studio had)
• Buying a pre-made engine to develop faster
• A supposedly insane marketing budget and campain
• Giving BioWare a carte blanche to make the game
• Full support from LA

Originally posted by Deewe

 

The game would have been a failure anyway because the leads have no clue of how to make a great MMO nor manage such a large scale project.

 

They know exactly how to make a great RPG.  And they did.  And in all likelihood, the move to Freemium will in the long run make it an even better one.

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by knighthammer

2.4million+  sales - that was last time i checked - , could easily say less than 700k people left and falling badly and F2P in less than 8 months.

One f the greatest IP / universe backgrounds  in the world combined with one of the best teams in Bioware at storytelling and thanks to EA its now poodoo, never going to recover due to the sub loses, dont have the resources and money to expand as quick as they will want.

Yeah yeah, EA blah blah bah...

 

• $200 milions to make the game (3 times rift, even more AoC, even much more LotRo)
• 6 years to build it (around 1.5x the time any MMO studio had)
• Buying a pre-made engine to develop faster
• A supposedly insane marketing budget and campain
• Giving BioWare a carte blanche to make the game
• Full support from LA

 

And yet you guys keep blaming EA?

 

So what? They should have given BioWare even more $$$ and more time?

 

The game would have been a failure anyway because the leads have no clue of how to make a great MMO nor manage such a large scale project.

 

 

I think you nailed it.  It wasn't EA's fault the game failed.  It was Bioware's

I came back for the free five days and didn't last. Free to play does nothing for me because I find the game boring. Maybe they should have took more from SWG. :P