I don't believe SW:TOR's new F2P model will retain former subscribers.  It's one of those models which functions very well as an extended free trial, but it's too restrictive to enjoy the game at the level cap.  The F2P model should help make lower levels areas appear more active and EA should make some money out of the cash shop.  Beyond that, it's a wash.

Content updates have been too slow.  After the conversion to F2P, I do hope they can maintain their supposed update schedule, but they need to add more than new flashpoints and operations.  They need to add additional quest hubs, space missions, and features in addition to endgame content.

As for the number of people leaving, it's hard to believe there would be so many people leaving BioWare if the game met expectations; however, I don't believe that the game is as bad off as people say.  First of all, it's still one of the most popular MMORPGs on the market, and people are no longer leaving the game in droves.  The problem was that people had wild expectations for SW:TOR that BioWare failed to meet.  As a result, there are a lot of spurned MMO fans out there, and the tide of public opinion has turned against EA and BioWare.  It's now "cool" to hate on SW:TOR, and most of the people hating on the game don't even have legitimate arguments to raise against it.

I love all these games that go F2P when there are so many players who wouldn't play those games if they were paid to do it.

This guy lied all over the place about WARHAMMER, and was called out on it then.

He was a very disliked person in that community. Him and his loudmouthed counterpart English partner........

Enough is enough.....Stop with the damage control/backpeddling..........This game has been over for close to a year.......

Stop trying to make excuses for it Hickman........

What a elequently written apology letter that reads as an insult.

Don't tell me... this guy is going to be like Jay Wilson and give a big *F*ck that loser!* to the original BW devs that come out and say what are it's true failings.

It's only my opinion, but:

1. Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it. The story part is. The rest of it... as the others said, Lol.

2. The subscription requirement was driving away huge numbers of people who do not want to commit to paying monthly. It wasn't about commiting, a singleplayer game doesn't worth a monthly fee. Period.

3. The frequency of our Game Updates was way too slow. People were leaving because we were not releasing new content fast enough to keep up with the pace at which it was being consumed. True, way too slow updates.

And a +1

Our current plan is to wait for Free-to-Play to launch and see what the influx of new players does to the populations of these servers. LOL. New players? Everyone who were at least a bit interested in TOR already bought the box, or tried it with the unlimited lvl1-15 trial. You can see the numbers every day, how many of them subscribed. A very few from these group will return (I will for example, to finish the class quests, but none of my buddies plan to...)

But new ones? Who didn't saw the launch campaign, and later missed the unlimited trial, but now the restricted fp2 will catch his/her eyes, and willing to give it a shot? Again, Lol.

God! This guy makes Tasos from Darkfall look good! LMAO!

The subscription model was the cause of failure? Sure sure.... people leave because your game was crap! Not because of the subscription model.  Making it F2P won't bring me back! Especially not with the most idiotic restrictions I have ever seen.

Hundreds of QA staff?  Yeah right! Can he lie a bit more please? They don't even have that many people working in the entire studio! LOL!  /facepalm

Seriously! Does he really think we buy those stupid lies?

If he wants to earn back respect from the playerbase.... why not start speaking truth and be more realistic! /shrug

Originally posted by achesoma
Am I having deja vu?  Didn't SWG start a weekly "State of the Game" after the NGE?

wished they relaunched SWG, with the sandbox it started with....also the dungeons till it closed, warzones too.....and with swtor graphics....add a dungeon creator/storytellers like in other mmos.....think they might have a winner there.

lol, good lord.  I play the game with a friend and I'm having a great time, but wtf?

This guy can't be THAT out of touch.  At this point in a game, the only people that stay are those that love it (for star wars, bioware, ea, story, whatever reason).  99% of other people could care less.  Yet the game is "awesome"...lol wow..........

It's one thing to be optimistic about a game.  It's another to just cover your eyes ears and scream "AWESOME GAME"..

Now, people did leave because endgame was atrocious.  No rep to grind, no small things to do (outside of datacrons), no real pets to collect.  Raids were pushoevers.  You never felt like you NEEDED to be geared for dps races.  It just was way too easy or too bugged at the start.  Six weeks between patches would be good.  But they would need to push out more raid content, pvp content and balance.

Also..why did the OP delete his account?

I really don't understand *any* industry these days: people "in charge" are the same names that over the years failed more or less hardcore over and over and over (and I see exactly the same happening in the IT multinational I work for, and in all the multinationals that are our clients - ranging from finance, chemical, farmaceutical, aerospace etc)

No sign of redemption whatsoever, no "lesson learnt", no "a mistake is an opportunity to improve", no innovation, nothing. Nevertheless, even more clueless board directors or whatever keep giving them chances to make further damage.

This guy: "I designed expansions for daoc" -> translation: I am responsible for mass murdering daoc population with that abomination that was ToA and game never recovered for it.

"I created, launched, and operated warhammer". There's no need to translate anything there. Dude, you are a knight of apocalypse, the only person in the gaming industry more dangerous than you is your pal mark jakobs (he's probably spending his "golden handshake package" in Blackwater' bodyguards to protect himself from the rage of daoc/warhammer fans).

That being said: I dismissed swtor before launch cause I played the last phase of OB and it was so horrible in every possible way (for my standards) that I couldn't believe people paid 150$ (or whatever the overpriced cost of the CE was) for that steaming pile. Now after some changes and "unlimited trial" I gave it another go and I actually enjoy it: as a single player RPG about start wars with some occasional co-op option. Certainly not as an mmo worth playing, worth subbing or worth cash-shopping.

I don't know, maybe I should get married and have kids - leaving me absolutely no time to play online games. The way the industry is going, it's more and more difficult to keep my beloved hobby alive.

Originally posted by Deleted User

Here it is:

1. Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.

2. The subscription requirement was driving away huge numbers of people who do not want to commit to paying monthly.

3. The frequency of our Game Updates was way too slow. People were leaving because we were not releasing new content fast enough to keep up with the pace at which it was being consumed.

Jeff Hickman
Executive Producer

Worst band ____________ in the universe.

1.Our music is awesome.People love it and want to listen it.

2.Prize tag on records was driving away huge numbers of people who do not want to commit to paying for our records.

3.The freguency of our album releases was way too slow.People leaving because we were not releasing new songs fast enough to keep up with the pace at which it was being consumed.

Rocket "Aaaargeeee" Rockstar

Lead Singer of worst band in the universe.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Seriously hickman ,telling the truth would actually help this time.

---

Originally posted by samvenice

That being said: I dismissed swtor before launch cause I played the last phase of OB and it was so horrible in every possible way (for my standards) that I couldn't believe people paid 150$ (or whatever the overpriced cost of the CE was) for that steaming pile.

---

Give them some slack, some paid 150, for all the extras and the "star Wars" labeled on it, not for the "game". :)

I stopped reading at the picture of the retarded tatoo. "Ohh look at me and my cool tatoo!". What. The. Fuck. This guy is the Executive Producer? THAT explains a lot. Holy shit does it. If you can't make good life decisions without fucking that up permantly then I sure as hell can't see you making good decisions on anything business related. Jesus tits that is the most stupid thing I have ever seen a "professional" post online since Anthony Weiner and his... weiner went viral.

I still like the game though. Lost all respect for who runs it but they will still get my $15.

Fucking tatoo... what an idiot.

Originally posted by samvenice

I really don't understand *any* industry these days: people "in charge" are the same names that over the years failed more or less hardcore over and over and over (and I see exactly the same happening in the IT multinational I work for, and in all the multinationals that are our clients - ranging from finance, chemical, farmaceutical, aerospace etc)

No sign of redemption whatsoever, no "lesson learnt", no "a mistake is an opportunity to improve", no innovation, nothing. Nevertheless, even more clueless board directors or whatever keep giving them chances to make further damage.

This guy: "I designed expansions for daoc" -> translation: I am responsible for mass murdering daoc population with that abomination that was ToA and game never recovered for it.

"I created, launched, and operated warhammer". There's no need to translate anything there. Dude, you are a knight of apocalypse, the only person in the gaming industry more dangerous than you is your pal mark jakobs (he's probably spending his "golden handshake package" in Blackwater' bodyguards to protect himself from the rage of daoc/warhammer fans).

That being said: I dismissed swtor before launch cause I played the last phase of OB and it was so horrible in every possible way (for my standards) that I couldn't believe people paid 150$ (or whatever the overpriced cost of the CE was) for that steaming pile. Now after some changes and "unlimited trial" I gave it another go and I actually enjoy it: as a single player RPG about start wars with some occasional co-op option. Certainly not as an mmo worth playing, worth subbing or worth cash-shopping.

I don't know, maybe I should get married and have kids - leaving me absolutely no time to play online games. The way the industry is going, it's more and more difficult to keep my beloved hobby alive.

This is so true. I don't think there are many other industries where people can go from Fail to Fail to Fail and still be in a job.

If I rolled out a piece of software to the general public that completely bombed and was ridiculed I wouldn't expect to be getting another high paying job at the helm of another software launch.

The problem with the games industry like many other industries is that it's more about who you know than what you know for many people, the obvious exception that rule are the truly brilliant people, but then they don't work on constantly failing games.

Originally posted by bartoni33

I stopped reading at the picture of the retarded tatoo. "Ohh look at me and my cool tatoo!". What. The. Fuck. This guy is the Executive Producer? THAT explains a lot. Holy shit does it. If you can't make good life decisions without fucking that up permantly then I sure as hell can't see you making good decisions on anything business related. Jesus tits that is the most stupid thing I have ever seen a "professional" post online since Anthony Weiner and his... weiner went viral.

I still like the game though. Lost all respect for who runs it but they will still get my $15.

Fucking tatoo... what an idiot.

I have many tattoos as well, some relating to things I love like this guy obviously loves star wars, however I agree with you I don't really think a state of the game update is the place to be showing off mediocre tattoos as credentials for being a star wars fan. He shouldn't even need to mention he has tattoos, half the population has a tattoo now it doesn't make you special.

Originally posted by Swanea

Also..why did the OP delete his account?

Before the delete OP made a post about negative comments and something about stars and forum ranks... honestly I didn't understood because I don't know how the forum status / ranks works.

But I guess it's hard to stay on the positive side when this Hickman dude saying such funny statements :)

There is nothing planned to come at all - All he goes on about is Loss of Staff, Fixing bugs and Oceanic Low Populations, no mention of any content coming whatsoever

STO has way more stuff in their "State of the Game", mentioning loads of content to come, and no moans and excuses of the games short comings

The way Cryptic has done their State of the game, shows a future to STO. The way EA have done their state of the game, shows no future to SWTOR

What is coming in 1.6? Due before christmas or mid January?

I guess there will be no Winter or Anniversary event then?