Hello everyone, I've just re-subscribed to SWTOR after not playing for the last year. I took a break shortly after release to let the game progress, with the intention of coming back in the future once it was more developed. I'm a fan of Star Wars and I've been playing MMO's for a long time and I wanted to share my views of the current state of SWTOR and shed some light on the future of this MMO.
Free to Play/Subscription Business model:
Many people have negative things to say about the f2p system in SWTOR. It ranges from the f2p system being a failure, to it being 'pay to win' or a rip off. Either of those claims are absolutely ridiculous and simply incorrect. As a customer and a gamer that enjoys playing triple A MMO's, I expect to pay a subscription fee to ANY MMO that is really worth playing.
The reason for this, is that a triple A MMO is extremely expensive to maintain and continue to create/release content for. Meaning that without a subscription, you're relying on the initial purchase (if there is one) and then on some kind of micro transaction market system to profit. This means that you lack the large monthly cash injection that you would normally get by having a large base of subscribers. That monthly cash injection is needed not only to profit, but to cover all expenses, including the production of new content. As a customer, if the game is of triple A status and something I personally find enjoyable, I have no problem paying a monthly subscription.
To the people that complain about SWTOR's free to play system, first of all, if subscribers did not get a significant advantage over free to play users, than what would be the point of having a subscription based system at all? Also, being a free to play user most likely means you downloaded this game FOR NOTHING. Meaning you get access to BIOWARE status RPG stories, multiple stories, in the STARWARS universe for literally 0 dollars. How can anyone complain about something that was literally GIVEN TO THEM FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Being a free to play user means that you are not contributing ANYTHING to the game or the developers to keep maintaining and releasing content for the game. If you are unable to enjoy the free to play system in SWTOR, than you should probably subscribe, if you can't afford to subscribe to something that costs $15 dollars a month, which realistically is a very little amount of money, than perhaps you should be looking for a job, rather than complaining about FREE GAMES on the internet.
Now, GW2 will probably come to mind as a triple A MMO that is also F2P. Explaining in detail as to why GW2 is over hyped and why their business model will not carry them through past ESO's release would be too long for this post. However, I can tell you that I played it extensively with a very good competitive guild and its flaws are a combination of game philosophy, which is actually a philosophy they created so they don't have to create content very often because they are free to play. So the fact that they have 0 subscribers, means they most likely will not survive past ESO's release. Meaning they will drop to a small 200,000ish size population of dedicated GW2 fans. Within the months/year following the release of ESO in spring-summer 2014.
Premature release problems, but where are we now:
Frankly speaking, EA pushed Bioware to release SWTOR probably six months to a year earlier than they should have. EA made this choice for a number of reasons, one of which was to get out and 'hopefully' get a large following before other triple A MMO's were released and because they invested between 200 - 250 MILLION dollars to develop SWTOR. That means the people at EA who invested that money had to wait 5+ YEARS before they could see a DIME return. MMO development normally takes a long time, ranging from 3-6 years, SWTOR to this day is the MOST EXPENSIVE GAME EVER MADE.
Could they of waited 6 more months before releasing? Probably. Do they regret releasing so early? Probably. Did releasing earlier than they should of hurt the game community and their overall profit potential? Yes. Did releasing so early cause the game to be a failure and doom it forever? Absolutely not.
The IDEA they had behind releasing SWTOR as early as they did with almost NO endgame content, was that since there were literally thousands of cut scenes, they expected players to take a MUCH longer time to rip through the games content. So they expected to have plenty of time to create endgame content BEFORE players reached ENDGAME. They probably should of KNOWN that people go bat **** crazy when new MMO's come out and most hardcore MMO players will become shut-in's playing 40+ hours a week until they hit max level.
What HAPPENED when players reached end game and realized there was not much there waiting for them? Players started leaving by the thousands, this caused mass panic at EA and Bioware, but MORE IMPORTANTLY this allowed competitors to take advantage of the situation and ATTEMPT a KILLING BLOW against SWTOR by encouraging the consistent SWTOR HATE parade we've seen over the last year. No one really had to do anything, besides allow or encourage the bad mouthing of SWTOR. If you don't understand this aspect of the situation, you don't understand business. The general public were happy to join the hate parade and thus the premature release did horrific damage to the SWTOR community. The damage overall to the community is actually far greater than the financial damage taken.
EA and BIOWARE jumped into action and were forced to go to their F2P model much earlier than was expected. This was literally the ONLY move they could of made and seeing as their F2P model is as good as you could expect from a triple A MMO, it has saved them from what could of been certain doom.
Now currently, without the pressure of a release.. and with the viewpoint that the worst is behind them, the devs at BIOWARE can run the game and actively create new content to be released due to the still large and now GROWING number of subscribers.
Many people compare SWTOR to WoW, but keep in mind WoW has been out for 10 years. They have had so much time to refine their own system and create an enormous amount of game content. I imagine in ten years SWTOR will have a just as impressive amount of game content as well. Personally, WoW is too old for me to enjoy and I dislike its overly modded combat system that pretty much is just reading things like 'TRINKET POPPED' and hitting very obvious timings.
SWTOR has a number of WARZONES that are all pretty interesting and fun to play. Ranked Warzones give more competitive teams and guilds a place to strive for greatness and the end game operations serve as exciting raid experiences for guilds. Due to higher level contested planets, its possible to have unique and fun PvP encounters while leveling. Also, there is ONLY MORE to come because of the already large subscription base.
BIOWARE recently made cuts to their SWTOR dev team and this was regarded largely as a 'bad' thing. But honestly at this stage in an MMO, its not the amount of people you have working on it, its the passion and skill that goes into creating new and upcoming content.
The Future of SWTOR:
Currently, I believe that SWTOR is on the path to becoming and remaining one of the greatest MMO's ever made. First of all, ITS STAR WARS, I'm not ashamed to say, but I absolutely love star wars and its the perfect setting for an MMO. Finding and eliminating Sith scum on my infiltrator spec, Jedi Shadw while leveling, is truly an awesome experience. As I said previously, with the large and growing subscriber base, new content will continuously be added to the game and thus make the game better and better as months go on.
Obviously, because this is a Star Wars based game, there will ALWAYS be a dedicated following of players, regardless of what other MMO's are released. However, there are some upcoming MMO's that pose a serious threat to SWTOR. Actually, there is just one and that is quiet obviously the Elder Scrolls Online.
Now, ESO looks like it is really going to be an amazing game. It will most likely be subscription based and will also most likely NOT suffer from a premature release, meaning if it HITS HARD when it comes out, its not going to slow down.
Most MMO gamers will not subscribe to multiple MMO's at once. It is good that SWTOR has the f2p option, because they WILL see a massive reduction in subscribers for at least the first few months of ESO's release.
Personally, I am excited for ESO's release, however I enjoy SWTOR so much right now and have such high hopes for it's future that I kind of hope ESO is not the next show stopper and its hype/time comes and goes. But also, I am a competitive gamer and will play the best game that is currently out regardless of how much I love being a Jedi. ESO will not be released until spring - summer 2014 which means SWTOR has a full year to continue growing until that point.
Honestly speaking, if SWTOR is on the track to becoming as good as I think it will be, than WoW and GW2 will take the largest hit from ESO's release and two full years from today, ESO and SWTOR will be the top MMO's being played.
Well, that's about it. I don't have anything more to say and frankly, I'm sick of typing. Hope whoever reads this found it interesting and I'm sure I'll find some interesting responses later.
GL HF.
