Star Wars: The Old Republic - Now Free to Play

[Mr Bean]

Bah, nothing makes you guys happy. Granted, I still sub, so have no idea what the in's and out's of F2P are, but I went through the same thing with LOTRO. F2P is to either get you to spend bucks in the store and give up and resub. If it's not for you it's not for you.

BW (is it even BW anymore? They fired half the original team and didn't their founder retire?) has gone a route that will almost certainly leave a bad taste in the mouth of anyone trying out the game. The people just now willing to try SWTOR for the first time are not likely big Star Wars fans, so the IP won't carry them into the game. What demographic will the F2P system bring into the fold? Masochists?

People with to much time on their hands and they have already played EQ to death.
The Old Republic is a lot of traveling around moderate sized planets mostly because...

1. Mounts move slowly (Comparatively)
2. Mounts take awhile to acquire
3. You can get knocked off your mount and forced into combat by mobs
4. Mobs in their 20s will still attack 50s
5. Some mob abilities are never miss and auto-knock you off your mount
6. Every quest requires a lot of travel time.

Something the Sith Warrior spoils you on the number of your quests which involve traveling to instance areas which is two loading screens and bam your fighting something. While the Trooper is required to report in person all the time the SW gets to call home 95% of the time.

[TheFeniX]

People with to much time on their hands and they have already played EQ to death.

I'm not seeing it. What's the EQ F2P model and why wouldn't those people go back or go over to something like STO when they play SWTOR and find that, on top of all the issues the game has which are numerous, the F2P system will gimp them even further? Yea, there is likely going to be a jump in people playing SWTOR since it's F2P, but I don't see them holding onto that increase. Not with the system originally talked about in Summer and definitely not with the system I see people talking about in this thread.

[Lagmonster]

The people just now willing to try SWTOR for the first time are not likely big Star Wars fans, so the IP won't carry them into the game. What demographic will the F2P system bring into the fold? Masochists?

That's not really a reasonable assumption. Certainly there are people who are risk-averse, or on a budget, who might be fans of the IP but unwilling to commit money to subscriptions.

Besides which, I think SWTOR's approach to F2P isn't illogical; it shows that they know what makes you feel like the rewards aren't coming fast enough and gives you a reason to pay up.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

BW (is it even BW anymore? They fired half the original team and didn't their founder retire?)

Yeah. Both of the doctors retired to become... Professional Money Magicians.

(i am not joking)

[Mr Bean]

People with to much time on their hands and they have already played EQ to death.

I'm not seeing it. What's the EQ F2P model and why wouldn't those people go back or go over to something like STO when they play SWTOR and find that, on top of all the issues the game has which are numerous, the F2P system will gimp them even further? Yea, there is likely going to be a jump in people playing SWTOR since it's F2P, but I don't see them holding onto that increase. Not with the system originally talked about in Summer and definitely not with the system I see people talking about in this thread.

Okay out of context joke. The original Everquest had twenty four hour timers on bosses as standard and ganking fights was par for the course. This changed over the long history over Everquest but it was an old joke from the heyday that Everquest was for people who had so much time that Anarchy Online and Ultima online was not enough to fill it.

[RogueIce]

In general chat someone told me that the Trooper story involves a lot of back-and-forth to Coruscant. Which will be fucking asinine if true. Especially if it ends up going Coruscant -> Fleet -> Mission Planet -> Doing Mission/Side Missions -> Fleet -> Coruscant -> Repeat. Which would appear to be the case.

I played a Trooper to ~36. Yea, it's pretty annoying, but the Jedi Knight isn't much better what with the trips to Tython. Combined with all the loading screens, the game just drags on. I wouldn't be surprised if travel times (lacking combat or any actual mission objectives along the way) account for over half the playtime for each class.

I can't remember the specific mission, but there was one that was like "Come to Tython, we need to talk." Then you get there and it's like "This is an emergency, people are dieing, you have to get to X planet ASAP." So, why the fuck didn't they just send me a text or something?

Yeah, it's pretty annoying. And they're using goddamn holograms, so you can do your cutscenes with those! And just holo-project your image into the Jedi Council chambers or whatever. We know they can do it, I've seen this even in game.

You know, paragraphs in text with maybe some VO narration may not be hugely exciting in STO, but at least I can pick up and turn in my missions wherever I damn well please instead of flying halfway around the galaxy just to go right back where I was for the next one. Seriously what fucking competent organization would make you do that?

And speaking of the credit cap and raised prices and event reward restrictions, I wonder how badly this will affect your ability to get late game gear. Not for PVPs or whatever but just for story content. Because from what I remember hearing some of those late-story boss fights are a motherfucker, and if the limits keep you from getting gear (I hear around level 30 it could get problematic) will you really be able to finish the missions without lots of agony and pain? I mean they may say you can play to 50 and that may technically be true, but I'm wondering if some of these caps could make those late-game missions more trouble than you're worth, kinda forcing you to spend money to survive.

I hope I'm wrong on that one, I really am. Because it'd be amazingly bullshit if true. But I don't know if any pure F2Pers have gotten so far yet so I don't know if it's been seen in practice or if it's just theory at this point.

[Stark]

Look, I don't think this can be anything but deliberate given a) all the successful F2P games that do it properly and b) ME3's F2P multiplayer which does it properly. They just want an excuse to fire all the staff.

I mean, if fucking Age of Conan can do F2P better than a SW licence... well.

[Vendetta]

Besides which, I think SWTOR's approach to F2P isn't illogical; it shows that they know what makes you feel like the rewards aren't coming fast enough and gives you a reason to pay up.

The trouble is if you make your F2P players feel like second class citizens they don't pay up, they fuck off and play other games.

The point of F2P is to convince people that your game is fun enough to spend money on, convincing them that it's not fun will not convince them to spend money.

[Stark]

It's especially poor for a game that went F2P because it lost players. You draw in new players by letting them play the game and dangling really cheap hats and bonus xp potions at them, not by crippling the game unless you pay.

[Flagg]

They just want an excuse to fire all the staff.

This. Especially now that Lucasfilm is going to be going in a new direction with SW.

[RogueIce]

So, I thought this would be like DDO where you get two characters per server, but nope. That's two characters per account instead. So, eight class stories...two character slots. And I don't even see an option to expand that in the store, meaning if you ever want more than two characters, sub up or shut up apparently. Fuck you, BioWare/EA/LucasArts.

[Civil War Man]

That's two characters per account instead. So, eight class stories...two character slots. And I don't even see an option to expand that in the store, meaning if you ever want more than two characters, sub up or shut up apparently. Fuck you, BioWare/EA/LucasArts.

Really? I didn't see anything about restricting the number of characters for f2p. That's absurd.

[Stark]

It's WAY less objectionable than most of the other stuff they're selling, and it only affects people who want to 'experience' more than two 'stories'. Most F2P games have limited slots and nobody cares, because you don't have to pay to run.

[bilateralrope]

So, I thought this would be like DDO where you get two characters per server, but nope. That's two characters per account instead. So, eight class stories...two character slots. And I don't even see an option to expand that in the store, meaning if you ever want more than two characters, sub up or shut up apparently. Fuck you, BioWare/EA/LucasArts.

Can you delete one character once you have finished with its story to make room for the next ?

If you aren't going to pay after completing one story, and you can't delete characters, what's stopping you from creating a new account for the next two stories ?

[PREDATOR490]

Bioware have effectively gutted the game down to bare bones functionality inorder to find SOMETHING they can sell back to the players at every turn.

When your literally taking out quickslot bars just to sell them... that is desperation on a horrific level.

Completing a character story is going to be a massive uphill struggle with the hole they dug and dumped F2P into. Your chances of getting gear are fucked, your ability to do stuff is fucked... oh and your ability to actually play is fucked.

So naturally the bullshit Biofan wankers = Freebooters should be lucky you get that much... go play another game if you dont like it
If only those cunts realised WHY Bioware HAD to switch to F2P in the first place... they might realise this is NOT a winning strategy and fucks themselves royally.

STO has been an utter clusterfuck of annoyance with its fall into increasing store gimicks but Bioware have successfully managed to crash and burn in spectacular style that makes STO look fantastic. Even STO had me playing for at least a year and I find myself going back now that TOR has went to shit. I could barely stand TOR after 2 months and now I cant even stand logging in to see my choices are: Dont pay and be gimped or pay and be fucked in the same position I was after 2 months.

As far as I am concerned, TOR might as well shut down because its dead, the friends and guilds I was in have jumped ship and the only guys left are gonna be the new folks that look at the game and think its awesome even as a free player because they have no idea how screwed they are or the fanboys that argue "Its Star Wars" thus Bioware could shit in a box, charge for it and still be beyond reproach.

Hey... if you think all those other Free Play MMOs are so good then go play them, this is Star Wars and Bioware so bend over and take it or fuck off !
...
I cant find anyone to run heroics or dailies with... what the fuck is going on.... helloooo ?

[CaptHawkeye]

I think it's funny that The Old Republic was supposed to replace Galaxies, and ended up being a lot worse. Which is saying something because SWG was pretty fucking bad.

At least Galaxies was designed during an era when MMOs were not tried-and-true. So basically doing anything meant you made a game people would probably play. TOR's mechanics are just too god damn archaic for the game to be at all interesting. It was just a blatant attempt to ape World of Warcraft from the get go.

[Darksider]

When i'm doing quests and stuff in the game i'm usually having fun, and Flashpoints are interesting the first time you do them, but I keep saying to myself, "why did they make this an MMO?."

If they'd just done the character class story lines and packaged it as KoTOR 3, This would've been an uber-successful 10/10 ZOMG game of the year. With MMOs, you need ways to keep people playing after they finish the main storyline, which they've completely failed at.

[Vendetta]

When i'm doing quests and stuff in the game i'm usually having fun, and Flashpoints are interesting the first time you do them, but I keep saying to myself, "why did they make this an MMO?."

Because WoW still has 10 million or so paid subscribers, and EA wanted to have the next WoW.

But it's not going to happen for them, or anyone else. A good number of WoW's subscribers aren't even playing it for the game content, they're playing it because that's where their guild is and therefore all their pretend internet friends.

Making a game with the same gameplay doesn't attract those people, because none of their pretend internet friends are playing it, so they just go back to WoW, even if they've already done everything in WoW and they don't even like the actual game any more.

There isn't going to be a "next WoW", what there is is League of Legends and World of Tanks. Different online games with massive playerbases (40 million accounts each, about a million daily active users each) and different monetisation schemes.

But as we see, EA are too greedy to make a proper free to play game, and even if they had, the WoW gameplay would only attract WoW people, and they're all playing WoW with their pretend internet friends, who are more valuable to them than the gameplay. So they won't play your game. Even for free, but especially not if you make it annoying.

[Stark]

Yeah, thats why new MMOs in the WoW mould sell big because everyone wants in on the ground floor for the next big thing ... but when it turns out to basically just be WoW (and generally just WoW only inferior, because it takes a year of sucking for an MMO to get into a decent state) they go back to WoW, which is where their pretend internet friends are.

To succeed you have to be different. You have to offer something WoW doesn't, and be EVE or LoL or WoT. Its similar to how Counterstrike dominated online shooters for ages - it just had the critical mass of population, and despite other games existing that might have been better, the game with the most players was always CS (and now, it's COD). Chasing the leader like this is always a losing proposition, because you either topple them and steal all their players permanently (which is generally the plan) or you don't and your userbase collapses inside 18m and you go F2P (or start making players pay to rent servers, lol).

[Darksider]

But as we see, EA are too greedy to make a proper free to play game,

It does really seem like that. I haven't canceled my sub and tried F2P yet, but a couple people in the guild I just joined are freepers, and they say the restrictions are almost crippling. I mean, paying for on-site revives? What the fuck kind of business model is that?

It's obvious that F2P in it's current form is going to fail pretty goddamn spectacularly, the only question is whether EA will adopt a more successful F2P model where you just pay for hats and shit, or let the game collapse completely. I've said it before, and i'll say it again. I'm rushing as hard as I can to get what I want done in the game, because I honestly don't think it'll be around this time next year.

[CaptHawkeye]

I don't think anyone is saying F2P is going to fail, what they're saying is the way EA went about handling F2P is basically the worst possible way you could do it.

[TheFeniX]

Because from what I remember hearing some of those late-story boss fights are a motherfucker, and if the limits keep you from getting gear (I hear around level 30 it could get problematic) will you really be able to finish the missions without lots of agony and pain? I mean they may say you can play to 50 and that may technically be true, but I'm wondering if some of these caps could make those late-game missions more trouble than you're worth, kinda forcing you to spend money to survive.

From Tatooine on with my Jedi Knight, about every boss fight required the use of every single cooldown I had available and I made it a point to keep up with my gear. With 10 quick slots.... no way, I'd have to group with a level 50 to do them. By level 40 or so, I had 20 abilities bound and I still had to click medpacks. Then again, JKs are fucking murder to level.

So naturally the bullshit Biofan wankers = Freebooters should be lucky you get that much... go play another game if you dont like it
If only those cunts realised WHY Bioware HAD to switch to F2P in the first place... they might realise this is NOT a winning strategy and fucks themselves royally.

They won't realize anything. There's a group of posters on the forum that are now towing the line that "BW always meant for SWTOR to go F2P from the very beginning." There's some real 1984 shit going on with those guys and they go ballistic on anyone who tries to even have an intelligent discussion about where SWTOR is going.

[Mr Bean]

From Tatooine on with my Jedi Knight, about every boss fight required the use of every single cooldown I had available and I made it a point to keep up with my gear. With 10 quick slots.... no way, I'd have to group with a level 50 to do them. By level 40 or so, I had 20 abilities bound and I still had to click medpacks. Then again, JKs are fucking murder to level.

Jedi Sentinel/Sith Maruader are classes that bloom late made worse by the healer being gotten late in the game for both classes. As well both classes have some of the worst/Best PVE bosses. IE Bosses with actual mechanics and phases and things to do other than spam attacks until the next cut scene.

A Sith Inquistor (Assassin or Sorc) or Jedi Sage/Shadow can take on content two levels higher than them with ease. Troopers/Bounty Hunters have the occasional issue or did until the Powertech/Vanguard got interrupts and Agents/Smugglers are some of the easiest fights in the game along with having excellent skills.

[TheFeniX]

The Jedi Knight class starts out pretty strong. Then get exponentially weaker as the game goes on unless you're speccing into DPS. Then they just level off. The difference is that when the class starts getting weaker as mob strength increases, Sents and Maruaders start getting their massive upfront damage and arguably stronger defensive cooldowns than the Guardian. Talking to Sents in our guild, using your Jedi DPS Pet and attempting to burst down boss mobs while swapping aggro was a viable tactic. If you plan to tank and stupidly went into the Defense tree like I did, your damage never really increases while you're basically speccing into resource management which any decent Tank doesn't need.

If you went the Vig/Def hybrid that was broken later on, you could do much better. But any tank class in TOR basically got screwed because BW never offered you any kind of small heal to keep groups of mobs from wearing you down. And since you couldn't resist a lot of the big hits put on by boss mobs, you were better off with the flat damage reductions offered by the vigilance tree and the ability to do 3-4 times the damage of a defense specced tank. This screws you into getting your healer Pet and never using anything else. For Troopers, it isn't a big deal because Whats Her Face was a decent character if not a bit of an ice-queen. However, "Doc" for the Jedi Knight was acquired way late in the game and is so terribly annoying. Until then, I had to use the "Ship Bot" decked out by my cybertech buddy. But he was even more annoying than Doc and would engage in melee combat at any opportunity and get himself AOEd to death.

Trooper are all kinds of broken. A Vanguard specced into DPS but running Ion Cell with the healer pet is a 4-button force to be reckoned with. I only died when I just got lazy or tried to pull an entire room.

[RogueIce]

So that XP cap? I've read it's losing 75% of what you'd normally get. So F2P players will earn mission XP at 25% the rate of subs. Hope you like grinding overworld mobs! Lots and lots of mobs...

You know, if that is true (I don't even know how to compare in game), then you combine that with the loot restrictions, credit cap and reward restrictions, and the whole "but you can play to level 50!" is so much bullshit. I mean, you can but it'll be one bullshit restriction after another making it harder and harder to get there. So sadly it sounds like they want a Pay 2 Win not so much in terms of PVP or anything like that, but even just to solo your way through story content.

It's WAY less objectionable than most of the other stuff they're selling, and it only affects people who want to 'experience' more than two 'stories'. Most F2P games have limited slots and nobody cares, because you don't have to pay to run.

True, it is way less objectionable than most of the other restrictions. I just think it's (yet another, as if we needed more) an example of how utterly moronic they've been about this. Even the One Thing that supposedly sets them apart from WoW or any other MMO, all those class stories, they've gimped your ability to play through them all.

And the really sad thing? They don't even let you buy more character slots in the cash shop, which every other F2P game I've seen with limited slots will let you do. I mean seriously, did they not know that was an option? Or are they just that dumb?

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised since being a sad copy of other MMOs seems to define this game already.