Ok, so first off this isnt directly MMO related, but i personally believe that it has to do with the dismal failure that is SWTOR.

Apparently now if you pre-order Mass Effect 3, they will give you a free copy of Battlefield 3:

http://bf3blog.com/2012/02/preorder-mass-effect-3-get-battlefield-3-free/

The Mass Effect series is EA's primary cash cow.  This shows that they basically have no faith in it performing well since they're bundling the one actually properly made, quality game that has been released under EA in many years.

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Ok, so first off this isnt directly MMO related, but i personally believe that it has to do with the dismal failure that is SWTOR.

Apparently now if you pre-order Mass Effect 3, they will give you a free copy of Battlefield 3:

http://bf3blog.com/2012/02/preorder-mass-effect-3-get-battlefield-3-free/

 

The Mass Effect series is EA's primary cash cow.  This shows that they basically have no faith in it performing well since they're bundling the one actually properly made, quality game that has been released under EA in many years.

When did that happen? servers closing down or something?

Hmm, still a lot of people playing swtor on my server, most of the people I talk to are still enjoying it, pre ordered collectors edition of Mass effect 3 ages ago, not really seeing much desperation in EA atm.

 This isn’t the first time Origin is having this type of promotion.

got that from the blog itself.

i want to say the Madden Series is one of if not the best selling video game franchise in history.  I dont think EA is hurting for money.  Also, companies that are hurting for money, dont just give things away. 

I fail to see how a cool promotion explains a publisher failing. EA still shits money, like it or not.

If stuff like this is happening, it might well be pointing to Lucas raging at how SWTOR has turned out and that it's currently bleeding subs, making it the 2nd failure under the Star Wars brand.

Will SWTOR become F2P?

If the official forums are anything to go by with how disenchanted the consumers are, I doubt it'll get that far and may well see the plug pulled before it makes it to it's first aniversary.

Bioware need to really pull something special out of the bag in there next few major patches or they could be facing a financial burden and Lucas isn't known to be exactly "patient" when it comes to his cut.

Originally posted by brody71

i want to say the Madden Series is one of if not the best selling video game franchise in history.  I dont think EA is hurting for money.  Also, companies that are hurting for money, dont just give things away. 

Well, they do actually...

And EA han't been doing a well financially for years as you probably assume.

Originally posted by AvsRock21

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Ok, so first off this isnt directly MMO related, but i personally believe that it has to do with the dismal failure that is SWTOR.

Apparently now if you pre-order Mass Effect 3, they will give you a free copy of Battlefield 3:

http://bf3blog.com/2012/02/preorder-mass-effect-3-get-battlefield-3-free/

 

The Mass Effect series is EA's primary cash cow.  This shows that they basically have no faith in it performing well since they're bundling the one actually properly made, quality game that has been released under EA in many years.

 

[Mod Edit]

This is probably because more and more players are getting fed up of how little SWTOR has to offer in the endgame and if they are not an "altaholic" or willing to put up with poorly balanced and heavily exploitable PvP they will come here to complain simply because Bioware heavily mods there own forums to remove anything negative said about the game.

Originally posted by Zarthorn

If stuff like this is happening, it might well be pointing to Lucas raging at how SWTOR has turned out and that it's currently bleeding subs, making it the 2nd failure under the Star Wars brand.

Will SWTOR become F2P?

If the official forums are anything to go by with how disenchanted the consumers are, I doubt it'll get that far and may well see the plug pulled before it makes it to it's first aniversary.

Bioware need to really pull something special out of the bag in there next few major patches or they could be facing a financial burden and Lucas isn't known to be exactly "patient" when it comes to his cut.

[Mod Edit]

Anyways good deal, I think Ill pick it up. Also EA's sports games net them far more cash than anything else has. This is far less about EA being desperate, and EA seeing a golden opportunity to drive up sales through Origin. They will most likely make more money off of people buying directly from Origin, then they will lose on the cost of BF3. 

Remember on any mmo atleast 90% of the people on the forum are unhappy with the game BUT all those happy with the game are IN the game enjoying themselves, the vocal minority on the forums are just that, people who may or will leave, those masses in game enjoying the game never visit the forums.

And every time I log onto the server I play on in swtor there is huge numbers :)

(Star Wars: The Old Republic has received generally positive reviews from critics, with a score of 85 on Metacritic and a 84.46% on Gamerankings.

G4TV gave a review of 5/5 and praised the game for "Top notch music and voice acting" and "hundreds of hours of content."

PC Gamer gave a 93/100, praising the story, voice acting, and the amount of content available.

Gamespy gave a review of 4/5, praising the story lines and companion system but criticising the "standard kill and fetch" quests.

GameSpot gave the game 8.0/10, saying "SWTOR isn't the next step in online role-playing games. Instead, it's a highly entertaining refinement of what has come before it."

The game has received a 9.0/10 "Amazing" rating from IGN.com.

MSNBC awarded Star Wars: The Old Republic as game of the year.)

Estimated at 1.7 Million subscribers earlier this month. Over 2 million copies sold.

Whether you like it or not, that is not a dismal failure of any sort. I understand it's not for everyone, stfu with the doom and gloom plox.

Originally posted by Autorock

(Star Wars: The Old Republic has received generally positive reviews from critics, with a score of 85 on Metacritic and a 84.46% on Gamerankings.

G4TV gave a review of 5/5 and praised the game for "Top notch music and voice acting" and "hundreds of hours of content."

PC Gamer gave a 93/100, praising the story, voice acting, and the amount of content available.

Gamespy gave a review of 4/5, praising the story lines and companion system but criticising the "standard kill and fetch" quests.

GameSpot gave the game 8.0/10, saying "SWTOR isn't the next step in online role-playing games. Instead, it's a highly entertaining refinement of what has come before it."

The game has received a 9.0/10 "Amazing" rating from IGN.com.

MSNBC awarded Star Wars: The Old Republic as game of the year.)

Estimated at 1.7 Million subscribers earlier this month. Over 2 million copies sold.

Whether you like it or not, that is not a dismal failure or any sort. I understand it's not for everyone, stfu with the doom and gloom plox.

But..but they have all been paid by EA to give high scores.

*chuckles*

Effective immediately, the Mass Effect 3 promotion that included a bonus copy of Battlefield 3 is ending. All customers who pre-ordered Mass Effect 3 during the promotion until now will receive a code to download their bonus copy of Battlefield 3 via email by March 8th. Going forward, customers who pre-order Mass Effect 3 from Origin will still receive the M55 Argus Assault Rifle and Origin Exclusive AT12 Raider Shotgun.

Copied from:

http://help.ea.com/article/Free-Battlefield-3-with-Mass-Effect-3-pre-order-offer-has-concluded

Guess I just missed it, damn. 

Most of the people that are going to buy BF3 have already bought it. 

The fact that EA is bundling BF3 with ME3 points toward some really nice patches comming for BF3 soon. 

It's all geared toward making Origin a well user supported platform. And from all the work that has been done to Battlelog I think EA is starting to get its act together. Future BF3 patches will tell all.

Originally posted by Autorock

(Star Wars: The Old Republic has received generally positive reviews from critics, with a score of 85 on Metacritic and a 84.46% on Gamerankings.

G4TV gave a review of 5/5 and praised the game for "Top notch music and voice acting" and "hundreds of hours of content."

PC Gamer gave a 93/100, praising the story, voice acting, and the amount of content available.

Gamespy gave a review of 4/5, praising the story lines and companion system but criticising the "standard kill and fetch" quests.

GameSpot gave the game 8.0/10, saying "SWTOR isn't the next step in online role-playing games. Instead, it's a highly entertaining refinement of what has come before it."

The game has received a 9.0/10 "Amazing" rating from IGN.com.

MSNBC awarded Star Wars: The Old Republic as game of the year.)

Estimated at 1.7 Million subscribers earlier this month. Over 2 million copies sold.

Whether you like it or not, that is not a dismal failure of any sort. I understand it's not for everyone, stfu with the doom and gloom plox.

People that reviewed the game and give it high scores of 8+/10 if given the chance again would now rate the game a 6 or lower.  The qoutes can be found if you look for them not going to dig up one of them actually from a review on this  site.  SWTOR is an 9/10 game for the first couple weeks and they you just want to get rid of it like a summer fling that is now clinging to you asking for a commitment.

It's now 7:13 EST and there's 1 SWTOR server on heavy.    2million sold. 1.7million subs. 85% of players still playing? 1 heavy server primetime east coast?  Something does not add up.

Well this is for Origin to gather more users.

Besides I am sure BF3 bundled with ME3 is bare-bone version without any additional maps (like Karakand ,etc) so those who will get 'attached' to BF3 will 'have' to spend money anyway.

Originally posted by calranthe

Remember on any mmo atleast 90% of the people on the forum are unhappy with the game BUT all those happy with the game are IN the game enjoying themselves, the vocal minority on the forums are just that, people who may or will leave, those masses in game enjoying the game never visit the forums.

And every time I log onto the server I play on in swtor there is huge numbers :)

I don't think I've ever seen less than 90% of forum users that were unhappy with any MMO to ever exist.

Originally posted by Zarthorn

 Sorry couldn't remember my old account access for this site and all that.

 

But yes I actually cancelled today because I got fed up of it and tired of Biowares clear apathy.

 

I won't deny, I definatley got my moneys worth (2 level 50's a mid 30's and a 24) and had a blast up until endgame, but there really is nothing in the game to hold a players interest for more than a couple of months at the most, the replayability goes so far but in the end it falls into the same trap that all the new gen MMO's fall into...a massive lack of polished endgame that can captivate you.

The game has exploits, the game has gamebreaking bugs, glaring class and even factional imbalances...yet you try to bring any of this up on the forums:

factional imbalances are based on server and because its a 2 faction game getting a perfect balance is probably harder then many ppl can imagine. I personally think this is why having a third faction is always important for games serious about pvp. Oh well with GW2 and TSW coming up pvp should get interesting once again...hiopefully.

1. thread gets locked and you get warned/infracted for being "rude" despite there being threads full of players generally being horrible to each other and even some posts telling others I quote..."To go die somewhere" that are still around.

well i know they delete posts when players post explanations on how to duplicate bugs/exploits but every offcial forum would do the same thing.

2. Threads gets flamed/trolled by fanboi's and becomes yet another fanboi's vs haters discussion.

 happens all in every MMO

The community seems to have inherited the bad portion of the old WoW community, the devs are apathetic and seem to be doing very little outside "promo plugging" can you honestly blame players for being angry and feeling the need to vent about it?

Originally posted by fenistil

Well this is for Origin to gather more users.

 

Besides I am sure BF3 bundled with ME3 is bare-bone version without any additional maps (like Karakand ,etc) so those who will get 'attached' to BF3 will 'have' to spend money anyway.

This.  Nothing is ever 'free" it aways a gimmick to make more money.   Just like pre-order gifts and "beta" access, or 12 months of WoW for Diablo 3.  The reason they do this is it works.

As to the SWTOR reviews and population at this point in the game:

Warhammer had similar reviews...they also have 1.2 million or so customers at launch "enjoying the game" around this same period of time.