SWTOR Going fully F2P this fall

[forthegloryofkazadekrund]

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...This-Fall.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ea-exp...190900648.html


BioWare™, a Label of Electronic Arts (EA), announced today that it will be expanding the story-driven, massively multiplayer online game Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ by adding a new Free-to-Play option this fall. This option will give players access to each of the eight iconic Star Wars character class storylines, all the way up to level 50, with certain restrictions*. Unlimited game access, including new higher-level game content and new features, will be made available through individual purchases or through a subscription option.

“Players want flexibility and choice. The subscription-only model presented a major barrier for a lot of people who wanted to become part of The Old Republic™ universe,” said Matthew Bromberg, GM of BioWare Austin.

Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic added, “Since launch, we’ve been listening to feedback from our fans and adding new content and refining The Old Republic at a breakneck pace. We believe we are in a position to help improve the service even more, not only by continuing to add new content, but also by expanding the game to many more Star Wars fans, increasing the populations on worlds and the vibrancy of the community.”

Starting this fall, there will be two different ways to play Star Wars: The Old Republic:
•Subscription – A service designed for players who want unrestricted access to all the game features via ongoing subscription or by redeeming a Game Time Card. In addition to gaining access to all game content as our current subscribers do now, subscribers will receive ongoing monthly grants of Cartel Coins, the new virtual currency that will be introduced later this fall. Cartel Coins can be used to purchase valuable in-game items including customizable gear and convenience features that will enhance the game play experience.
•Free-To-Play – The first 50 levels will be Free-to-Play, with restrictions on access to new content and advanced player features. Some restrictions can be “unlocked” with Cartel Coins.

As the first step towards adding the new Free-to-Play option this fall, Star Wars: The Old Republic will go on sale in August for $14.99 USD, including one-month of free subscription.

Current and former players will also find additional benefits as part of this program. BioWare will be increasing the frequency of game content updates, with the first of many new releases coming in August. In addition, current subscribers will receive Cartel Coin grants and qualify for access to special in-game items. Even former players who re-activate now will qualify for special benefits. To learn more about these rewards, please visit www.StarWarstheOldRepublic.com/FREE.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the most critically acclaimed MMOs of all time, having won MSNBC’s “Game of the Year” award in 2011, “Editor’s Choice” awards from IGN, PC Gamer and “Best MMO of 2011” awards from Game Informer, GameSpy, AOL Massively, Ten Ton Hammer and more. The game is set thousands of years before the classic Star Wars movies, with the Galactic Republic and Sith Empire locked in the middle of an epic, galactic war. Players choose one of eight iconic Star Wars character classes, including the Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Smuggler, Trooper, Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter and Imperial Agent, becoming the hero or villain of their own personal Star Wars saga.

[Urgat]

Mmh. Is there a list of the "advanced player feature" restrictions? Might make me want to try it, at least a solo run to lvl 50 for some mindless SW fun.

[Commodus Leitdorf]

It is a fun game and worth playing but...I just wish developers would realize that the MMO market is over saturated and when people play an MMO..they play an MMO. They are invested in the game and their character and don't move on to other games on a whim like they would with, say, Call of Duty.

Going FTP might make me instal it again and finish my journey up to level 50 with my Jedi Guardian.

[forthegloryofkazadekrund]

Mmh. Is there a list of the "advanced player feature" restrictions? Might make me want to try it, at least a solo run to lvl 50 for some mindless SW fun.

http://www.swtor.com/free/features

[Yodhrin]

One of the main issues people had which drove them to leave was that the big hoopla that Bioware made about having eight cool unique stories to play was a load of rubbish, because the class quests alone are not enough to level up, which meant that each new character had to slog through exactly the same planetary questlines as you'd already finished. So what does Bioware do? Go F2P in an attempt to claw back some of their hemorrhaging playerbase, and manage to design a F2P system which not only doesn't address that issue, it actually makes it worse by cutting off or drastically limiting access to sources of secondary XP which let you skip at least a couple of the optional planet quests each time through.

That's Blackadder-esque incompetence right there.

So, that's all the old greats of RTS design gone, and it seems Bioware is either going to get Westwood'ed by EA or just putter out into irrelevance, and I think that's the last of the old great RPG devs. Congratulations games industry, you have managed to repeat the exact same mistakes as the movie industry in half the time

[eldargal]

The 'main issue' with SWTOR varies depending which group of whiners you listen to at any given time, that one is particularly nonsensical. BW never promised you would be able to level up on class stories alone, and they did provide 8 interesting, unique stories. If you were unhappy with that then you're just being petulent or had some absurd expectations about what would SWTOR would provide.

I think this makes sense for them, they milked the pre-order/subscription/regular game sales for as long as they could, now they are going to milk microsales as much as they can. Personally I'll keep paying a monthly fee 'cos I love SWTOR.

[Col. Dash]

I was highly disappointed in the game. Here you have the Star Wars universe with its hundreds of documented species and unlimited options on things to do, and they restrict you to 8 less than interesting classes and a handful of species, none of which are very exciting and some either made up or arent discovered until long after this time period. Galaxies was a far better game pre-combat upgrade. The best part of Star Wars is the star fighter combat and they didnt even include that, hello 2012, the age of limited games is long over, the technology exists and has been tested, use it and quit copying WoW. No, FTP is nothing more than a last gasp of a dying game that was poorly thought out and expecting SW players to jump in in mindless droves just because it has the SW label.

[eldargal]

Look, I played SWG from launch 'til the CU, and the fact is it was rubbish. It got along for a while on glimmers of brilliance and lots of potential but it was never capitalised on. SWTOR is a different beast entirely, the only thing the two have in common is the Star Wars name. To say SWG was better is simply delusional, it was buggy, unbalanced (TKM/Jedi > All) and was a catastrophic dissapointment. JTL was good, I'll give you that. But I'll take relatively balanced, story driven gameplay and rail shooter space missions over the box of failure that was SWG.

[Charax]

This was so very predictable, it's the reason I held off on signing up when it started

it'll go nicely alongside my F2P Star Trek Online account

[Urgat]

The best part of Star Wars is the star fighter combat and they didnt even include that, hello 2012, the age of limited games is long over, the technology exists and has been tested, use it and quit copying WoW.

That's funny now, WoW got tank combat (in both PVE and PVP) and even some dogfights, sadly only in PVE for now (well, sadly for the PVP crowd). SO in that case, maybe they should have copied WoW, you mean?

No, FTP is nothing more than a last gasp of a dying game that was poorly thought out and expecting SW players to jump in in mindless droves just because it has the SW label.

No, F2P is pretty much the only viable formula for MMO now. There's games that have been saved by going F2P with cash shop (D&D, LotR), and some that were already doing ok (Aion) or fine (Lineage 2) compared to their targeted audience that still went F2P, because it's certainly better in the long run. WoW gets away with it because it has always been an anomaly, it's a freak success that, no matter how much others will try, nobody will achieve again. I'm sure not even blizzard will be able to pull it twice, even if they released a Starcraft MMO or whatnot. F2P is the future of MMO, and certainly that this SW game moves to it so fast is a smart idea, unlike, say, Warhammer Online which is slowly dying out.
For instance, I like the SW movies alright, but the SW universe in itself is not really my cup of tea, I'd never try it if it didn't go F2P. Now I know I won't stick with it coz I'm already too busy with Vindictus and my missus wants to go back to WoW (and so I'll play with her), but I would have considered it otherwise if I liked it.

[TheBigBadWolf]

Might give it a go, just gotten into WoW, only taken me this long

[Voss]

No, F2P is pretty much the only viable formula for MMO now. There's games that have been saved by going F2P with cash shop (D&D, LotR), and some that were already doing ok (Aion) or fine (Lineage 2) compared to their targeted audience that still went F2P, because it's certainly better in the long run. WoW gets away with it because it has always been an anomaly, it's a freak success that, no matter how much others will try, nobody will achieve again. I'm sure not even blizzard will be able to pull it twice, even if they released a Starcraft MMO or whatnot. F2P is the future of MMO, and certainly that this SW game moves to it so fast is a smart idea, unlike, say, Warhammer Online which is slowly dying out.

You are largely correct about FtP in general, but in this specific case, it looks like a case of 'FtP because the game is bad', even if it isn't. Announcing a shift to FtP alongside an announcement that subs have continued to drop (and are half of the initial subs when the game was new, just 9 months after launch) gives them impression that the game is dying, and this was the only way they could think of to save it.

Now personally, I enjoyed the low level story content (for the most part- Smuggler was the only Republic story I'd consider good, and the knight and warrior were both cliche ridden messes. The trooper story was so incoherent I wanted to send the writer a nasty email, and the counsellor story gave me absolutely no reason to care about the major npc, which was the main thing pushing that story along); but past the first story arc the game largely fell apart. The content felt front loaded and really lacking past Alderaan. What confuses _me_ about the FtP announcement is that you are free to play the good bits of the game, but have to pay from the really boring, grindy bits. That is... a weird business model. If I get really bored I could see logging on to finish the inquisitor, agent and bounty hunter stories, but I'd just be a leech, not contributing one jot to their bottom line. Which is good for me, but bad for their business.

[paspinall]

Except they have been looking at F2P for some time, since almost launch, so it can hardly be a response to the continued drop can it.

[Grey Seer Kwokka]

Except they have been looking at F2P for some time, since almost launch, so it can hardly be a response to the continued drop can it.

Uhh, yes it can? Why wouldn't the move be in response to stop the drops? The subscription model clearly isn't sustainable for them.

[Voss]

Except they have been looking at F2P for some time, since almost launch, so it can hardly be a response to the continued drop can it.

That is an interesting assertion. Care to share where it comes from?

[Charax]

Except they have been looking at F2P for some time, since almost launch, so it can hardly be a response to the continued drop can it.

If the result of their initial analysis of the F2P model was "It's less profitable than the subscription model while we have more than X subscribers" and they've now dipped below X, it can of course be in response to the drop

[Killgore]

Why are people complaining? people can game for free and there will be an influx of new expanded content for the forseeable future, much more then what you would expect if it was sub only

[Commodus Leitdorf]

People like to rag on MMO's that aren't their MMO's. Which just goes to prove my belief that when someone gets into an MMO they get into it and jumping into a new one is not something people do. Which in turn is worsened by the fact the MMO market is over-saturated and the player base, across the board, is thinned out.

Really the only reason I stopped playing is because I didn't play often enough to warrant the 15 bucks a month. Now? I'll grab my disk and re-install it as I can then play casually enough to make it worth it! When WoW came out I played alot...but I was in school then and now I have a life (and a job)...I can't spend 28 hours in a 36 hour Alterac valley match anymore (you know...back when Alterac valley was fun )

[Yodhrin]

The 'main issue' with SWTOR varies depending which group of whiners you listen to at any given time, that one is particularly nonsensical. BW never promised you would be able to level up on class stories alone, and they did provide 8 interesting, unique stories. If you were unhappy with that then you're just being petulent or had some absurd expectations about what would SWTOR would provide.

I think this makes sense for them, they milked the pre-order/subscription/regular game sales for as long as they could, now they are going to milk microsales as much as they can. Personally I'll keep paying a monthly fee 'cos I love SWTOR.

Petulant? I know Bioware fanbois are usually rabid, but seriously get a grip mate. And actually, that's exactly what they stated in pre-launch interviews, several times, that you would be able to create eight characters and have an entirely unique experience with all of them, which is a crock. At best, you got two unique story experiences, one Imperial one Republic, and thereafter you get one unique quest every ten levels or so, while everything else is a carbon-copy of the previous runs.

And that's why SWTOR has tanked even faster than Warhammer Online did, which is quite the achievement.

[eldargal]

Really? I have:

Sith Inqisitor with unique story.
Sith Marauder with unique story.
Smuggler with unique story.
Jedi Knight with unique story.

These are just the clases I've levelled to 50.

All at 50 levels each with quite different endings and completely different story arcs. Certainly in terms of planetary quests they are all the same but each class DOES have its own, unique story and to suggest otherwise is ignorant at best or duplicitous at worst. It is just wrong.

Regarding subscription numbers, Warhammer Online strted with 750k, peaked at 800k and was down to 300k after six months.

SWTOR started at around one million, peaked at 1.7 million then dropped 400k to 1.3 million which is the last information we have.

So losing around 25% of its subscribers over 6 months is tanking even faster than WAR which lost around 60% in the same time period? Right.

You say BW fabois are rabid, and perhaps they are. But can you blame them when people pos completely inaccurate nonsense like you've just done?