Well folks, looks like it finally happened… SWTOR is going Free To Play (F2P)! (this fall)
I can’t say that I’m exactly excited about this move. Albeit inevitable, I have a lot of worries about what happens to games when they go from subscription to free. Mainly, the balancing act. In a subs type game, balance is a HUGE issue, they spend countless hours and are always updating the game to make sure each class has a chance to shine, especially when it comes to PvP. However, in the F2P model, this tends to be overshadowed by “buy the fancy golden sword of justice and smite all your foes… for 3 easy payments of $19.95″. You see scams like this where they substitute a subscription for cashshop epics, many of which give an unfair advantage over other users. The other thing they like to do is little items that you need for various things, worst of which are things that cause grave annoyances, like the death penalty items. I’ve seen the whole gamut of these and most of them either repair your gear (for cash) or reduce time spent dead (for cash) or remove stat reductions from death (for, oh well you get the idea).
The other problem is the decline in quality. With subscriptions, you get the benefits of constant content updates. (Though this highly depends on the company, cause some F2P games really set the bar high with their perks… but not all of them do it) Also, constant in-game annoyances like “come get the sale for a pet yoda!” bleh! And of course… there’s those dang dirty personal shops! Perfect World and various PW based games, let you set up a shop and just leave it there… think I played all of 5min of Perfect World before getting sick of seeing all of them littering the place.
But I guess there’s a lot of issues with the subscription model as well… Pretty much the model as a whole is dead. People really don’t want to pay for a game, like $60 kinda pay, and be told you need to keep paying $15/month thereafter. After 4 months, you should have basically new content equal to a NEW game. Usually you get a patch in that time and it’s usually just a few neat things, but not a full game’s worth of content.
I wonder though, how much longer can the market really support such a payment structure. But what will replace it? Pay once and forget it like Guild Wars 2? Free To Play/Cashshop? Or like Diablo 3 with pay auction houses? I’m not sure, but the path we’re seeing now does not bode well for the mmo genre.
What says y’alls?
Source: SWTOR
HOLY MUCKERFUCKING TIDDY SHIT ON BREAD THIS IS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *screams head off and runs around outside*
ruin your day too? I’m kind of on the fence with it for now (until I see what their cash shop is going to be), but having played a lot of F2P, I’m leaning a bit to the “fffffuuuuu” side. >\
sad? NO FUCKING WAY! THIS IS GREAT!!!!!! I MEAN where in a economic ressison right now and I did some more resurch and you Only have to pay for the endgame content and muliplayer and some cosmedic stuff. other than THAT the leveling is FREE and that means the storyline and leveling is FREE
and ATOP that I told some of my freinds and they where EXCITED AS WELL! THIS SI AWSOME!!!!!!!!!
also I like it becase you pay for the parts YOU want… like if you only PVP at endgame you can only pay for PVP
and I think that for F2P or SUBS they shoudl keep both like WOW is so big and so popular it would die if it was F2P, but for FORSAKEN WORLD it can only be F2P
so IT really depends on the game and both sides have their pros and cons. like WOW is fun so you feel like your getting your moneys worth. but if its a game you casualy play even month or so then subs not worth it. like I said really depends and their are pros and cons
And ANOTHER THING! the leveling experce in SWTOR was the core of the game and the most fun part if anything the multiplayer is what was lacking so THat good and it will take a long time to get to level 50 and getting there is so much fun. that it will be worth it. I on the fence about limitign transportaion but other than that this is not a perfect idea but Im happy about it!
oh I forgo to mention That for player that already played and payed for the game and for each month you subscibed you get A ton of the new real-money currency!
You know, I cancelled my subscription about 2 months in just because I was enjoying the single player aspect far more than the MultiPlayer, so essentially I was paying $15/month for a single player game. I told myself I might play again once it was F2P (I knew it was coming) so I will at least attempt it.
But then again, I’m a little weird. I actually still enjoy the D3 experience…
yeah, it definitely had a single player vibe… wow did too when leveling though. same as champions online, but I think forsaken world(s) was pretty darn integrated with the community. not too much questing that wasn’t dailies, but most of your xp came from group events, so you had to go into dungeons to level.
Have you actualy read what they say about it? It will be effectively F2P just for running 1-50… seems that WITHOUT LEGACY, and it seems you will be unable to run NEW content unless you pay…
(and well they are promissing greater frequency of updates.)
So if you won´t pay you truly can not reach engame content anyway. So no F2P person can actualy hope to get best gear anyway.
ah, ok I read the Forbes report (READ IT HERE) which has much more info than the actual swtor website… amazing isnt it…
anyways, yeah, it seems to be still a subscription game with the OPTION for free to play. this is an interesting mix I don’t think anyone’s done before. I think this might be a good solution really… level up for free but do the last few levels and raiding on a subscription. would save a ton of cashollah that way, plus give tons of people reason to try it out… I guess it’s more or less an extension of their “play the first 15 lvls for free” deal. (or was that wow? )
Well… I bought thegame 6 day ago with one game card… little self indulgence after I sucesfully managed to finish exam from generalized function calculus on university… over years on 9th attempt fortunately I did not have it mandatory in banchelor degree,)
But well fortunately this will make sure I get access to all the content avaiable when it goes F2P.
Personallu, I think Sub-based games are not really appealing anymore. Sure it was popular with WoW but as the time pass, with the burnt out feeling from the game…. I don’t see the mentality of paying to play a game EVERY month or so. That way, games tend to become ”Bills” you pay.
That’s why games like Guild Wars ( Buy once, don’t pay again ) or the Free-2-Play games tend to bring more players to the fold. Lets face it, not everyone can afford to add another ”bill” to their monthy expenses and that DOES hurt MMOs immensely. An MMO with low population is doomed to fail ( just look a month or so before the new SWTOR Patch or server combination for free and you will understand )
If you have the numbers, then the MMO will survive and endure. Just look at WoW and tell me why it is still popular ? Is it become it has epic gameplay ? Amazing Graphics ? No, it has nostalgia and many years of commitment. Most players played it for 5-6 years ( like me ). Some moved on ( again like me ) but most stay because they don’t want their expenses over the years to be a ”waste” by leaving their chars behind.
When you are competing against such a big title, you have to do EVERYTHING to get more people on your game or it will fail by it’s population because ,like it or not, MMOs are only enjoyable with Many People. SWTOR had a satisfying Singleplayer experience through leveling but when number of players started to fail, the end-game, and the reason for people to stay in the game faltered.
So yes, I see this Free-To-Play transition to be the right decision. There are of course negative effects of this but I prefer them over the game being turned into a lifeless wasteland where you have to look for an hour to find a simple Flashpoint or group content.
Like it or not, Free-to-play or Pay to Play ( with no subs ) are the future and Subscribtions are becoming a thing of the past. Hell I am expecting something new from WoW’s system as well since if MoP expension flops or won’t do as much as they liked because of the more promising MMOs in the horizon like GW2 , Planetside 2 ( again, with the new popular styles ) we can see WoW becoming more and more free over time.
Here is my 2 cents.
I’m not so much of a fan of the subs thing anymore. Unless it’s a full new game every 4 months, it’s not really giving you much worth.
yeah, I’m starting to think the subs model isn’t the way to go and probably the F2P will be what’s in. but I’m weary if they follow the current plans that many other F2Ps use… maybe there’s something inbetween or a totally different model nobody’s thought of… I guess time will tell what works and what doesnt.
The Problem with the Item shops in those f2p games I played is that to be competetive in pvp ypu need to usually pay more than 15€ a month. And of corse the resources of the opponents cannot be limited by ingame means the moment a cashshop hands out gear.
I think for any serious pvp game a subscription based model or a no pvp gear shop only are the only ways to funktion.
There are games out there where the users really want the subscription model.
really, the cash shop for be for cosmetics and cool trinkets and mounts and other cool unique things… but for stuff that’s absolute necessities to win or advance… not as cool.
maybe it depends on the game and genre though. >\
Awwww, come on, REALLY?
My favorit MMO outthere and now its going to be f2p? mhm
I think f2p is good, but just not for MMOs, for other games its k, but in MMOs you can just buy all the big swords, and axes etc, that just dont feels right :(
well… seems like it’s half free to play? so, maybe it’ll be ok?
there’s an interesting concept coming out now… you can play from a list of games through a client and it will pump out some mad advertisements before you get to play. maybe advertised gaming isn’t a bad idea!
or the cloud gaming thing… like you pay a subscription and get to play whatever game you want all online and streamed. it’s a little rough and unforgiving on your connection speed, but still a solid idea.
I hope so, but well, we will see.
I like the idea of the GW2 style. Where you buy once, and then cosmetics are ALL you worry about. Because people spend another 50 or so to look like a unique snowflake, which is enough to keep the company going. and then there is expansion packs. I really hope it will work, because 15$ a month for the privilege to play a game you already payed for is incredibly annoying for me.
me too… for $60, it should be free thereafter! extra tidbits like what wow did, are ok for sales as long as they don’t interfere with competitiveness.
things like extra maps or content are even ok, again, as long as it doesn’t mess with competitiveness (champions online does this).
hell, for $15/month you could get a gamefly account and have like 2-3 games delivered to you at a time and play/keep as many as you want!
The subscription fee is misunderstood. You are not paying for a “new” game. You´re paying for the infrastructure, custumer support and ongoing developement work on the game.
It´s like you purchased a garden. You still need the personel to cut gras/plants and set up/clean your barbecue places.
Have you ever heard “Lord of the ring online” it went to free to play a while ago. It’s not pay to win, most of the stuff in the store seem to be stuff to just change the way you look. Sure there are some things like carfting items and xp boosters. However neither of them you really need. So I’m not worried the game going free to play will ruin the game. The interlude after the third chapter did already by preventing me from finishing the last two chapter, and with clear way to continue (grrrrrrrrr).
I have indeed! not sure what it was about it that bugged the heck out of me, but I couldn’t put in more than a few hours before deleting it.
This is sad. I’m with the “not so happy” camp, like yourself oh coffinshaker provider, i feel it declines the quality of the game by too much. City of heroes, champions online. its now like pay 5 quid and have awesome cool down stuff. every day. with a subscription model, it seems to spur the company on to make more stuff. With champions online/city of heroes they seemed to stop making extra content when they went F2P. Now the temptation is to compare World Of Warcraft for instance. HOwever i would be the first to agree that this sub model has long delays, but at least they do keep patching in some new stuff. Its obviously popular enough to keep 8 million+ subscribers.
Star wars did not seem to launch spectacularly on a sub model, there was plenty of game fun don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t seem to attract enough people evidentally as its going free to play in the autumn. (fall. sorry im british :P) which is a shame as it has a lot of potential. But we may be looking at the negative points too much, who knows. Bioware may pull it off yet!
for me at least, swtor seemed to be too much like kotor that it was a single player game that they slapped a multi player into. still think you need to design mmorpgs backwards! figure out the multiplayer/endgame aspect first then leveling/questing.