Gamasutra takes the gloves of as they dont seem to like SW:TOR F2P conversion at all: http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/183525/the_burning_of_star_wars_the_old_.php

Personally I agree with them. F2P is never really Free to Play but in this case it is really difficult to keep playing and not paying unless you do the single player storylines and nothing else.

I honestly disagree. F2P in SWTOR does have stupid limitations, don't get me wrong, but I'm perfectly fine with the Freemium model. You SHOULD be willing to pay for stuff if your enjoying the game and want to play at the end. Possibly make it cost to unlock content individually if your that resistant to monthly payments but still its a small nagging point to me to bother with.

Just some limitations like WF or instances I feel is conterproductive, particularly for level up content.

He just said what we all think (and have said).

Originally posted by mikahr

He just said what we all think (and have said).

I was thinking what you were just thinking as well .. "I bet the author is part of the MMORPG.COM community.  This seems to cover everything discussed & presented before."

Not that there is anything wrong with that.  The author was very articulate in putting the ideas in a readable form that flowed well.

people that complain about the F2P model are the same people that hate the game anyway.

whats hilarious to me is people who say how bad this game is somehow expected it to be more enjoyable for them once it had a restricted F2P model.

i got news for you people, if you hate a game with all of its features, you are going to hate it more with a restricted F2P version of the game.

simply saving money or playing a free game doesn't make it more fun, which is why i always just sub to a game i want to play, instead of playing a gimped restricted version of a game.

but hey, that is just me i guess.

^^^^^

Which is basically what the article says - the F2P model as implemented does nothing to attract potential new players. It is a fail and as such the last nail in the coffin. Unlike the author (of the article) I think time has run out; there is no longer time for a relaunch. And after Christmas there will probably be even fewer people playing - and using this forum. All of which means less publicity.

Originally posted by mikahr

He just said what we all think (and have said).

Well pretty sure not "all" think that.  So what other "demo" allows a player to play from level 1 to max level?  What other "demo" allows players to play the entire story multiple times?  Yep pretty sure you cant come up with one.  This article is from a well know person who has been bias against TOR from day one.  And its clear that some on here are the same way.  I would go as far to say some have never played TOR. 

Originally posted by gervaise1

^^^^^

Which is basically what the article says - the F2P model as implemented does nothing to attract potential new players. It is a fail and as such the last nail in the coffin. Unlike the author (of the article) I think time has run out; there is no longer time for a relaunch. And after Christmas there will probably be even fewer people playing - and using this forum. All of which means less publicity.

This is completely inaccurate but nice try I guess. 

Here is a tid bit of an article about f2p from SWTOR.

Schubert concurred, and he also mentioned that the numbers support BioWare's current position. "Almost every conceivable metric is better. The numbers have blown away our expectations, which means good things for the players and the game," he said.

The author of this "article" is about as bias against TOR as a lot of the people that post on a lot of the TOR posts. 

Originally posted by Maxima1979

Originally posted by gervaise1

^^^^^

Which is basically what the article says - the F2P model as implemented does nothing to attract potential new players. It is a fail and as such the last nail in the coffin. Unlike the author (of the article) I think time has run out; there is no longer time for a relaunch. And after Christmas there will probably be even fewer people playing - and using this forum. All of which means less publicity.

This is completely inaccurate but nice try I guess. 

 

Here is a tid bit of an article about f2p from SWTOR.

Schubert concurred, and he also mentioned that the numbers support BioWare's current position. "Almost every conceivable metric is better. The numbers have blown away our expectations, which means good things for the players and the game," he said.

 

The author of this "article" is about as bias against TOR as a lot of the people that post on a lot of the TOR posts. 

What did you expect he will say? We failed miserably? Maybe their expectations were so low they were blown away with 3 new subscribers? I dont know, who can tell from such unspecific comment. 

What carries more weight is that almost every other forum ive seen has people sharing disappointment with their f2p model. 

Originally posted by SanHor

Originally posted by Maxima1979

Originally posted by gervaise1

^^^^^

Which is basically what the article says - the F2P model as implemented does nothing to attract potential new players. It is a fail and as such the last nail in the coffin. Unlike the author (of the article) I think time has run out; there is no longer time for a relaunch. And after Christmas there will probably be even fewer people playing - and using this forum. All of which means less publicity.

This is completely inaccurate but nice try I guess. 

 

Here is a tid bit of an article about f2p from SWTOR.

Schubert concurred, and he also mentioned that the numbers support BioWare's current position. "Almost every conceivable metric is better. The numbers have blown away our expectations, which means good things for the players and the game," he said.

 

The author of this "article" is about as bias against TOR as a lot of the people that post on a lot of the TOR posts. 

What did you expect he will say? We failed miserably? Maybe their expectations were so low they were blown away with 3 new subscribers? I dont know, who can tell from such unspecific comment. 

What carries more weight is that almost every other forum ive seen has people sharing disappointment with their f2p model. 

The problem with this freemium model is it is too restrictive, which is what we have all been saying. 

Now the point of a freemium model is to let players join the game and help more people stay consitently. Then later they should subscribe. Now the thing with this is the new players will get frustrated with the lack of freedom that they have with this game which means that they are not getting new subscribers. 

All i am going to say is i loved the StarWars aspect of the game yes i was a SWG refugee. But the issue was they did not fix bugs with the game big one XALEK IS STILL BROKEN!!!!!! This has been there since launch no fix. They dont seem to listen to the community that often. But lets get back to their model.

THIS IS THE WORST FREEMIUM MODEL IN ANY GAME THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN. 

 The restrict how many quickbars you can have who thought of that? It is soo stupid.

You can only do 5 warzones A WEEK. That is dumb 

YOU CANT USE ARTIFACT GEAR. So the whole point of doing warzones and flashpoints is now gone due to that.

One of the biggest killers for me is the fact that you get no Customer Support whatsoever if you do not subscribe. All you get is access to read the support knowledge base / FAQs on the website however you can not submit any tickets ingame or on the website regarding game issues at all... You can call them regarding billing issues but thats it.

I was a fulltime closed beta tester for nearly a year and subbed for many months after launch who wanted to return to the game recently, and was actually having a good bit of fun regardless of the numerous extreme restrictions placed on f2p players even with preferred accounts. I was even having enough fun again I was seriously considering subscribing once again until it all came to a crashing halt.

Being preferred f2p and only limited to 2 character slots I finally deleted all but one so that I could create a new imperial character to play a class story I had not seen yet as well as finish the hk-51 quest line (bought sector x access on my republic main i didnt delete) but guess what. I encountered the "you are maxxed on characters and must delete one more to create a new one" bug and thus can not create any new characters at all. The kicker is I can not submit ingame tickets, or tickets on the website, or even post on the forums, to report or try and get the issue fixed simply because I am not subscribed... Been almost 2 weeks now and the bug is still present so yeah, guess I won't be returning after all.

Altogether I think the whole list of f2p restrictions all combined together in one big batch  of "subscribe or we could care less about you" is way over the top, but this one alone is by far simply ridiculous lol. I've never played a f2p game that won't let you report  game breaking bugs like this and potentially get them fixed.

Anyways it really is quite a fun game, if you can deal with the extreme f2p restrictions, just be warned if you don't sub and encounter any game breaking bugs like I have then your simply screwed :\

Originally posted by kyssari

One of the biggest killers for me is the fact that you get no Customer Support whatsoever if you do not subscribe. All you get is access to read the support knowledge base / FAQs on the website however you can not submit any tickets ingame or on the website regarding game issues at all... You can call them regarding billing issues but thats it.

I was a fulltime closed beta tester for nearly a year and subbed for many months after launch who wanted to return to the game recently, and was actually having a good bit of fun regardless of the numerous extreme restrictions placed on f2p players even with preferred accounts. I was even having enough fun again I was seriously considering subscribing once again until it all came to a crashing halt.

Being preferred f2p and only limited to 2 character slots I finally deleted all but one so that I could create a new imperial character to play a class story I had not seen yet as well as finish the hk-51 quest line (bought sector x access on my republic main i didnt delete) but guess what. I encountered the "you are maxxed on characters and must delete one more to create a new one" bug and thus can not create any new characters at all. The kicker is I can not submit ingame tickets, or tickets on the website, or even post on the forums, to report or try and get the issue fixed simply because I am not subscribed... Been almost 2 weeks now and the bug is still present so yeah, guess I won't be returning after all.

Altogether I think the whole list of f2p restrictions all combined together in one big batch  of "subscribe or we could care less about you" is way over the top, but this one alone is by far simply ridiculous lol. I've never played a f2p game that won't let you report  game breaking bugs like this and potentially get them fixed.

Anyways it really is quite a fun game, if you can deal with the extreme f2p restrictions, just be warned if you don't sub and encounter any game breaking bugs like I have then your simply screwed :\

This was brought up as well on a recent episode of Gamebreaker's The Republic show.  Larry (Massively) / Justin (Darth Hater) used F2P accounts to see what it was like to be "free".  Oddly, even if you rent only portions of the game Ala Carte (like weekly WZ unlocks), then you still don't get customer support.  Even though you are technically supporting SWTOR / EA.  They thought it was strange, and I'd have to agree.

The counter-argument is simply, "just subscribe then!" .. but that defeats the purpose of paying for only you want, sort of.  From a business standpoint, EA should provide customer support to everyone, because in the end they would want as few people as possible to have a bad experience.  Whether they pay a lot or just a little .. or nothing.  Because even those paying a little or nothing might eventually upgrade their account.

One thing I've learned from being in a business dependent on customer revenue: "Give a customer great service and they might tell another person about it.  Give a customer bad service and they will tell 10 other people about it."  It's generally independent of how much they actually spend.

Originally posted by Karteli

Originally posted by kyssari

One of the biggest killers for me is the fact that you get no Customer Support whatsoever if you do not subscribe. All you get is access to read the support knowledge base / FAQs on the website however you can not submit any tickets ingame or on the website regarding game issues at all... You can call them regarding billing issues but thats it.

I was a fulltime closed beta tester for nearly a year and subbed for many months after launch who wanted to return to the game recently, and was actually having a good bit of fun regardless of the numerous extreme restrictions placed on f2p players even with preferred accounts. I was even having enough fun again I was seriously considering subscribing once again until it all came to a crashing halt.

Being preferred f2p and only limited to 2 character slots I finally deleted all but one so that I could create a new imperial character to play a class story I had not seen yet as well as finish the hk-51 quest line (bought sector x access on my republic main i didnt delete) but guess what. I encountered the "you are maxxed on characters and must delete one more to create a new one" bug and thus can not create any new characters at all. The kicker is I can not submit ingame tickets, or tickets on the website, or even post on the forums, to report or try and get the issue fixed simply because I am not subscribed... Been almost 2 weeks now and the bug is still present so yeah, guess I won't be returning after all.

Altogether I think the whole list of f2p restrictions all combined together in one big batch  of "subscribe or we could care less about you" is way over the top, but this one alone is by far simply ridiculous lol. I've never played a f2p game that won't let you report  game breaking bugs like this and potentially get them fixed.

Anyways it really is quite a fun game, if you can deal with the extreme f2p restrictions, just be warned if you don't sub and encounter any game breaking bugs like I have then your simply screwed :\

This was brought up as well on a recent episode of Gamebreaker's The Republic show.  Larry (Massively) / Justin (Darth Hater) used F2P accounts to see what it was like to be "free".  Oddly, even if you rent only portions of the game Ala Carte (like weekly WZ unlocks), then you still don't get customer support.  Even though you are technically supporting SWTOR / EA.  They thought it was strange, and I'd have to agree.

 

The counter-argument is simply, "just subscribe then!" .. but that defeats the purpose of paying for only you want, sort of.  From a business standpoint, EA should provide customer support to everyone, because in the end they would want as few people as possible to have a bad experience.  Whether they pay a lot or just a little .. or nothing.  Because even those paying a little or nothing might eventually upgrade their account.

 

One thing I've learned from being in a business dependent on customer revenue: "Give a customer great service and they might tell another person about it.  Give a customer bad service and they will tell 10 other people about it."  It's generally independent of how much they actually spend.

 

 

The only issue I have with this arguement is who needs customer support for these games?  I have been playing MMO's for about six years now.  I have contacted customer support maybe 2 times, both were billing.  If you not being billed why do you need to contact them?  What would be a reason to contact them when you are playing?  To me this is just another reason for those who have never played TOR and come to every single post and bash the game.  This to me is not ground breaking in the least, because truth be told if they did get customer support these same people would be pouting it took too long. 

The only way to implement proper F2P is to have mostly cosmetical items in there with a few boosts to exp, gold etc but these boosts needs to be in proportion so not to allow insta leveling to cap.

Everything else such as items, potions etc must be able to be found by just playing the game. If not the people who does not want to spend an arm and a leg for a video game will feel they are second class citizens and will quit.

SW:TOR goes as far as limiting what you can do which is even worse and other games like Planetside 2 allows you to get better guns, much faster than other people and this is fail too.

Originally posted by Yamota

The only way to implement proper F2P is to have mostly cosmetical items in there with a few boosts to exp, gold etc but these boosts needs to be in proportion so not to allow insta leveling to cap.

Everything else such as items, potions etc must be able to be found by just playing the game. If not the people who does not want to spend an arm and a leg for a video game will feel they are second class citizens and will quit.

SW:TOR goes as far as limiting what you can do which is even worse and other games like Planetside 2 allows you to get better guns, much faster than other people and this is fail too.

Yeah this makes absolutely no sense at all.  What are you actually trying to say?

  How do people who don't spend money in the cartel market feel like second class citizens?  So these second hand citizens are running around in Columi gear, Black hole gear and Rakata gear hmm thats kind of funny.  You see you can't buy any of that in the cartel market.  TOR goes as far as limiting what you can do? Oh yeah you can play from level 1-50, you can do multiple stories, you can run flashpoints, you can pvp yep those are some exteme limits.

Originally posted by Maxima1979

Yeah this makes absolutely no sense at all.  What are you actually trying to say?

 

  How do people who don't spend money in the cartel market feel like second class citizens?  So these second hand citizens are running around in Columi gear, Black hole gear and Rakata gear hmm thats kind of funny.  You see you can't buy any of that in the cartel market.  TOR goes as far as limiting what you can do? Oh yeah you can play from level 1-50, you can do multiple stories, you can run flashpoints, you can pvp yep those are some exteme limits.

Well, game wouldnt fail if so many like you claim like it. YOur opinion has been kikcked by 2,3m+.. Sorry to burst your bubble.

SWTORs extended trial is awful. Even a lot of subscribers think so. Nice try though.

Originally posted by Maxima1979

Originally posted by gervaise1

^^^^^

Which is basically what the article says - the F2P model as implemented does nothing to attract potential new players. It is a fail and as such the last nail in the coffin. Unlike the author (of the article) I think time has run out; there is no longer time for a relaunch. And after Christmas there will probably be even fewer people playing - and using this forum. All of which means less publicity.

This is completely inaccurate but nice try I guess. 

 

Here is a tid bit of an article about f2p from SWTOR.

Schubert concurred, and he also mentioned that the numbers support BioWare's current position. "Almost every conceivable metric is better. The numbers have blown away our expectations, which means good things for the players and the game," he said.

 

The author of this "article" is about as bias against TOR as a lot of the people that post on a lot of the TOR posts. 

Whether the fremium model is good or bad according to Schubert doesn't come into it, the author of the article believes it is a bad model.

And what is Schubert saying? Things are so good that SWTOR now has - at best - as many players as it had when they optimised the servers? If that blew away their expectations then all I can say is that they were very limited. Reopening the other 230 servers - well that would have been something. Remember - EA's expectations were "blown away" last January, February and even in May. The cold hard facts however failed to support what they were saying. So the track record ..... well it doesn't lend much faith to Schubert.

Remember: the game is now F2P!

F2P games "work" by having lots and lots and lots of players all paying a little bit. And they cease to work when people leave and you have to get more people in to replace them. Find any article about Zynga's trials and tribulations - only 3-5% pay. Other companies report the same thing - which is hardly a surprise. So no new servers ... fail.

And the point the article is making is that if - as EA said - people are not prepared to pay $15 then they are not going to pay for this F2P model.

And player numbers are only part of the equation. Average revenue per customer is the other; churn is the third key metric as a month 1 customer usually pays more than a month 2, 3 etc. customer.