F2P Launches November 15Follow

Link

The sheer level of delusion in that blog post is frankly alarming. But yeah, F2P launches the 15th.

For example:


So, what's your saying, is that you did not feel it was very important to thank all your subscribers for being members of the TOR community, and you most certainly aren't rewarding "all" aof us, nor are you granting coins to every prior subscriber.

I hate to say it, but I don't think the F2P option is going to succeed. There's just way too much greed in that cartel store. I'll at least finish my Jedi Knight story, but I honestly don't know if I'll do more than that. This whole transition has left such a bad taste in my mouth.

I just don't understand. Well, I do, they HAVE to spin it this way--I doubt the devs had any real say in the whole process, from pricing to what would be on the market itself.

Which really sucks, because they're being forced to pretend like they thought it was a great idea. They have to take the blame for what has EA written all over it.

What's sad is that they would have been far more succesful without holding back the cartel coins in terms of looking greedy. Because it's just so clear that it is nothing more than a ploy to get people to sub.

You don't get to pretend like you're doing us a favor by ringing us dry. It's a competitive market, and cheap, quality games are PLENTIFUL. I have 40 games in my steam library all of which I got for under $5 and each promises hours of gaming pleasure. I spent the same on Skyrim as I did TOR, and that has given me well over a hundred hours of fun, and probably that much again in the future.

I have tens of hours in GW2 for the purchase price of TOR, itgives me access to everything, and I'm not expected to pay more.

And, to be blunt, you can get all of WoW for super cheap now, and the $12 a month ultimately has a greater return for someone new to MMO.


Plus, F2P launches in a week and I haven't seen much of anything advertising it. All that Disney news last week? PERFECT time to attract new people with the IP, and I saw nothing.

I think TOR has value in the larger narrative of the MMO genre development. It definitely proved that you can provide an awesome story experience without sacrificing the MMO aspect. I don't think the execution was perfect, but the combination of your individual story line with the planet lines with the dungeon lines really worked to give you a whole slew of story content across both solo and group play.

Imo, the next "huge" MMO is really going to have to match that.

Also, I don't think the next "huge" MMO is going to be what WoW was. I think it's going to be a long time before anything is what WoW was. And I don't think that's a problem.

When you look at the last two years or so, a few MMOs pop out. Maybe not because of popularity, but because of ingenuity.

Secret World provided amazing customization potential for players. TERA proved that you can adapt typical MMO gameplay to be active and enjoyable. GW2 has proved that you can make a successful game without sacrificing any of those areas (though I don't think they'll be the exemplar of doing so). GW2 is also likely to set the stage for future F2P RMT systems, imo. It's going to be hard to justify paid content to players when your competitors are limiting RMT transactions to peripheral quality of life systems alone.

Example: TOR is limiting their players by: Restricting F2P to 1 crew skill slot, no cargo hold, very limited inventory space.

In GW2, you have 2 active crafts at a time, and switching them is a very small game currency fee. But your progress is saved in all crafts, so you can take every single one to cap on any character without any hassle at all. You only have 30 bank slots by default, and they are account wide, but you get a MASSIVE amount of raw material storage--every single raw material has a slot in your "collections" tab which will hold up to 250 of them. You can deposit all of these from anywhere in the world by the click of a button. You get your main backpack plus 4 bag slots by default (I feel like 10 slot bags are the largest right now), which actually is plenty of space because you never need to store the crafting mats you are picking up. Plus, you can carry salvage kits around to break down gear drops you don't want, then deposit those directly to your collections tab.

It's not hard to see which one is more generous. By a landslide.


Elder Scrolls Online is already shaping up to learn from those lessons. While I'm disappointed in the game from the point of the view of its IP, I'm liking what I see about the game separate from that. It just isn't an Elder Scrolls game--you won't be gallivanting around the world chasing butterflies and arbitrarily killing whoever the hell you want.

What they are promising, however, is complete customization freedom with regards to weapons and skills. They're promising combat that isn't about watching keybars, but rather more like the ES games now (left click for your main hand, right click for off hand, double click off hand to interrupt, etc.). Allegedly those keybar skills are more like TOR's heroic moment stuff. You won't use them every fight, and they're meant for something big. IIRC, they actually spend a resource you earn independently of combat mechancs (like completely quest objectives or killing enemies), but I can't really remember and it's not important enough for me to go looking.

If they can deliver on a story that's at least within sight of TOR's, then I expect the game will do great (assuming they don't: A. Go for a sub system and B. Go the TOR route of F2P). They could do well with subs, but it's just so much harder, particularly in this economy. When you aren't rolling in dough, It's HARD to rectify spending $150 a year to pay a single video game you already bought for $60. Especially when you have great F2P options available.


So, in this kind of sense, TOR was successful. It proved something about what an MMO can be with regards to story content. If they had been more adventurous with their systems, if they had launched F2P with something in the ballpark of GW2's generosity, if they re-imagined any typical MMO systems (or hell, any one of these things) they would have done way better.

We get a preferred player status.... which anyone who spends more than $5 also gets.

Definitely leaves a bad taste in your mouth. You spend $60 on the game, then your monthly for however many you pay, and because you weren't a subscriber on Nov 15th, you get no coins and just the preferred player status (extra quickslot bar, bank access, extra crew skills lot, early access to sprint, iirc)

So then a brand new player downloads the client for free, spends $5 on an inventory upgrade or something, gets the preferred player status... and now has more unlocked than you. Their $5 has a higher weight than your $90.

It's ridiculous.

But, of course, I could start out ahead, with enough coins for a whole TWO inventory slots... if I just toss them $15 more.

Yeah, it's the ~ key.

1-5 for weapons, 6 for healing, 7-9 for utility, 0 for elite.

I'll probably rebind these in time, particularly because I'm getting so used to ignore my >5 skills.

English!

Rebound is the past tense of rebind.

Rebound is the present tense for the verb that means "springing back".

The past tense of that verb is rebounded.

Rebound is also a noun, meaning to be in the act of rebounding...

I have a Naga as well, and I had been using those, but I had to stop. My scroll click just stopped working, and I have no clue why, so I rebound auto-run to Num 4 so it would be equally easy to toggle.

Considering you have to purchase an unlock for just about everything potentially useful in game, I imagine their sales of all cosmetic items are going to be EXCEEDINGLY poor.

I honestly don't see many subscribers though.

TOR is having trouble keeping subscribers now. That's going to be much worse when there is a free option, particularly when the free option mean the quality of the subscription goes down (and I don't mean bang for the buck).

Warzones are going to be a headache now. 1 quickslot bar, no purple gear, and a limit of 5 per week means that most of the people you play with are going to be under-geared and not using any of their CC. They're also going to be inexperienced (5 per week is really not enough to build skill at a meaningful rate).

FPs are going to similarly suffer. Under-geared players only using a fraction of their skills. CC isn't going to be a priority for the average joe, particularly not when the F2P option is going to try to bring in people on the SW IP, not target MMO gamers. And it's going to seriously restrict role fluidity. Before endgame, there's really no good reason for your healers not to do damage, for instance. That's going to change when they can't even have damaging skills on their bar.

Not to mention queue issues. 5 WZ means getting into a game outside of primetime is going to be hella annoying.

There's no longer a market for your crew skills, since most people can't use the goods, so having full access doesn't really mean much.

Honestly, the only thing that doesn't get worse is the single player content.... which is exactly what you can access completely without subbing.

I'll honestly be amazed if their sub numbers don't plummet. Hell, I'll be amazed if they don't end up forced to do a big "upgrade" of all players to up the WZ/FP limitations by quite a bit, remove the purple restriction, at the very least. I just don't see how the quality of the game could do anything but plummet while those are in place.

It's going to be a single player game now. A good one, sure. But there's no reason to sub when that is the free content.

I guess part of what I worry about is transference--that a sucky F2P option is going to make people view the game negatively. I don't really envision F2P people bumbing up to a sub because of how much it offers, I see them playing the game, struggling against the limitations so much they don't have fun, and ultimately judging the game as unworthy as a result.

Same with existing sub players. They have been looking forward to the F2P leap as a chance to change things up. Maybe they didn't intend to go to the F2P model, but I'm betting a lot of them expected a much better community and multiplayer opportunities as a result of it. I'm guessing that won't really happen, and the perceived negativity of not having things get better (even if they don't get worse), combined with how crappy the drop to a F2P account would be, means they'll just quit altogether.

Honestly, I can't help but feel that "Free to play" is a little untruthful. Yes, the game is going F2P--but honestly I would call this system P2E--pay to enjoy.

I'd guess population is up for two reasons.

1. The F2P launch has subscribers thinking about it more, meaning they want to play more. Especially before the game is invaded by a legion of new people.

2. There are old subscribers re-subbing for their coins.

So, um, how are the Cartel Coins calculated? Just got an e-mail saying I'd received 100 Cartel Coins, which seems fairly underwhelming considering I bought the game back in December. Granted, I've canceled my subscription once or twice since, but all in all, I've paid for seven or eight months of game time.

Would've canceled my subscription earlier had I known I'd get a big fat nothing out of it.

Anyone know when the servers are coming back up? I can't find any info on why they're still down =(

Looks like the mail was messed up. I received 1850 CC, not 100. That's more like it.

As for server downtime, people are reporting issues with lag.

Let my subscription run out so I could check the severity of the F2P restrictions. My conclusion is that this game is going to die. Fast.

There are way too many nonsensical restrictions in the game. I can spend the first $50 unlocking simple stuff like titles, legacy names, hide head slot, unify colors, extra action bars (I have more abilities than quick slots now), inventory space and all that sh*t. And F2P players can't write on the forums, which is going to kill what little community was left there.

It's silly. They did the exact opposite of what they were supposed to do. They were supposed to lure people in and have them pay for quality of life upgrades, but what they did was shred the game and force people to pay ridiculous amounts of money to put it back together again.

I said I was going to play the storyline on my characters and dump the game, but this completely killed my desire to do anything in that game anymore. It's just not enjoyable when you have to pick and choose which abilities you want on your action bars and you can't hide your ugly ass helmet because you didn't buy the unlock.

They should have just pulled the damn plug and walked away. This is going to completely ruin their chances of making a comeback. I like BioWare, but I hope Disney tells EA to piss off next time they want to use LucasArts property in a video game.

Yes, I'm bitter, and I know I shouldn't be, because I'm expecting a full game without subscription, but this isn't F2P, it's freemium. You can level to 50, sure, but several core features, including the number of abilities you can access via hotkeys, require premium. That's freemium, not free to play.

Edited, Nov 23rd 2012 3:46am by Mazra

While I've never played the game and don't know what a quick bar is, I decided to look it up. Looks like you gain more slots to put actions in which I think is really odd as that's a personal preference and hinders game mechanics if you want to use more action bars because of money. I really despise stuff like move faster, equip better gear, gain access to all mechanics if you decide to pay and I guess the more you pay the stronger you become. That's pay to win in a nutshell and I don't feel like paying more money just to beat someone else in what's already an unfair fight. Just looking at those prices and all the options to buy stuff like gear and being able to be resurrected (I guess?) alienates me enough to not play this game.

If free to play with facebook involved somehow is indeed the future and I'm stuck playing games like that with no other option, then I think I can finally quit playing video games (I think, maybe).

BioWare is hilarious. They make a blog article on how F2P feedback is important to them, suggesting players discuss the article in a linked thread. Great idea, except, F2P players can't post in the forums...

I swear, whoever came up with this F2P model was a @#%^ing idiot. I've played a lot of F2P games and this is the worst execution of that model I have ever seen. Not only limiting core game features to subscribers, but preventing the free players from giving feedback, except for making tickets in-game.





Yeah, but I already paid for the game once, plus six months of subscription, which is another game right there. Now I have to pay more money - equivalent to a third game - just to unlock stuff that I've paid for over the last six months. And even then, the F2P experience is crap. So many limitations that you can't buy your way out of, or have to spend outrageous sums on. Why do I have to pay for a helmet hide unlock? Seriously?

And still no bug fixes in sight for all the issues that have been around since launch. Companions still can't sheathe their weapons correctly and Vette's slave collar bug is back.

Edited, Dec 5th 2012 12:26pm by Mazra