F2P up to Level 15.

[Laforet]

Before SWTOR i played WoW for like 4 years.

 

The reason i started playing that game was that they let me play thru level 10 for free to taste the game.

 

I did enjoy that and stayed for 4 years.

 

This effect might be bigger in SWTOR because of the compelling storylines.

 

They should have done it sooner with the material they have IMO.

[DarthWoad]

So let me get this straight. WoW went Free to Play up to level 20 (I think that is the cap) because it is doing so poor? No? Then why do you say this game is F2P up to 15 because IT IS doing poor?

 

You guys cannot say BW is doing this because the game is doing bad, because WoW did it and they still have over 8 times the subscribers this game has.

 

As far as I know, WoW is still the most successful MMO. They went F2P up to a level cap too.

 

This does not mean the game is doing bad.

 

This is the new way MMOs do game demos. What else would you have them do? Have you wait for a special free to play weekend? Have the demo timed so you can only play for 3 hours? This is a PERFECT demo for MMOs. They gave you to level 15 because, I am sure, most people will experience all the stuff leading to the more open environment (you get your ship and that is when your trials ends or something).

 

Well, they may have not put in the level 15 f2p for the reason that this game is doing poor, but the game is doing poor anyway.

[KennethHoover]

Frankly? As a person who likes the game (although I don't have as much time as I would like to play) this move disappoints me a lot.

[svartalfimposter]

Nothing is industry standard, until it is. It's a smart way to let people test the game out and I'm all for it, you could have 20 million lvl15s running around and it wouldn't affect my gameplay negatively at this point in *any* way. The only thing that would change is more peeps in starter planets, that's a good thing.

 

As for subs, the problem isn't that the game isn't selling. It sold like no other. The problem is the longevity. You wouldn't pay a monthly fee to watch the same movie over and over again and what TOR lacks is meaningful and permanent content. I'm not saying it should be a sandbox game, but it needs SOME sand in it. Something for the players to work towards as a guild, concurrently. What we have now is 8 singleplayer games. Once you've geared up you have 0 reason to log on anymore. There is nothing to use that gear with, everything can be done without it. PvP is the same thing, you get gear and then what? PvP some more? The problem with static warzones is that... they are static. Within the first 2 minutes of the game you, usually, know exactly what the outcome is. It's fun for awhile but not months, certainly not YEARS.

 

It takes 5 days played to reach 50, roughly, if you keep playing the game and not idling in fleet. 5 days. That's 120 hours. How many months do you need for that? Then, let's say you start doing operations, that's 2h/pop and you can gear yourself in 2-3 weeks unless you're really unlucky. After that, you can make a new char, which most do not wish to do or you can unsub. That's the problem of TOR. The core problem. It just doesn't have enough of a time sink to warrant long-term subscriptions.

 

Then let's look at the casual players, shall we? Obviously, it will take longer for them to reach lvl50 but what happens when they do? If the raid/guild leaders have already stopped playing, who will organize the raids/flashpoints/WZ groups? They log on, ask in general and no one is looking for more because those that take the initiative and want/can lead groups are gone. You can see it even during leveling process. Then they can try to look for a guild but what happens? You only have those ragtag guilds where the leadership hasn't logged on in weeks, no one is organizing anything and people just log on to do space or dailies and log off without saying anything.

 

The remaining raid/guild leaders are SW fans, which is the only reason many of the stick around, and that they still see promise in this game. However, if they will just keep adding operations/falshpoints that people clear in 2 weeks, people will get tired of waiting around.

 

QFT.

 

The game lacks any kind of persistent area, where things have the potential to change on a pseudo-permanent (i.e. until other players change the status of them) basis.

 

IMHO there should be a contested area, just a simple map with an objective or two and people will be happy for ages, you don't have to make any crazy cinematic or anything fancy at all (like in Warhammer and DAoC).

Edited June 5, 2012 by svartalfimposter

[Nazban]

Overall, I think it's a positive approach for Bioware, but it remains to be seen how invasive the push to "Buy Now" is from EA. If they sit back and just let the game sell itself without restrictions other than a level 15 cap, then great. That'll work out just fine, but if they start heaping artificial restrictions on the F2P players that could frustrate and drive more potential customers away than it would attract. I don't think Bioware would do something like this, but EA certainly would.

 

Some of the things I would be concerned over, if I were coming in to it as an F2P sub-15 account is:

 

No /tells

No crafting

No guilding

No friends list

Species limitation beyond what a new subscribed account gets.

Class limitation beyond what a new subscribed account gets.

Big invasive "Buy it now!" buttons popping up on the screen.

 

I'm guessing they would set it as the friends 7-day trial. My friend got up to 15, but he wasn't allowed to access his ship, so stuck to the home world and faction world. Friends list should be alright to have IMO, but general chat i doubt will be allowed, it wasn't on the friend's trial, chances are it will not be in this model either.

I don't think they would give any species or class limitations.

[Emeda]

I'm glad.

 

More people trying the game free = some new people buying the game that wouldn't have.

 

Then alot more people on the forums saying they are quitting because this game sucks once you hit 50.

 

This is a good move for EA to make money though. Level 1-15 is the best part of the game and after that it just gets worse. So people that can only play to level 15 will think its good from what they have seen and then pay for the game and find out that the only good part of the game they got for free.

[Wayshuba]

Timing is excellent for inflated the player numbers by the end of Q2 - just about the time a lot more of the paying subs are dropping off.

[Ngamok]

How do you feel about this?

 

Personally, I'm disappointed that the game hasn't been doing that well to the point where they have to do more free trials, but hopefully this will bring in more fans.

 

Warhammer did it and has had tons of people playing the game at that level. WoW does it and has people who just play in that level. It's one way to get people to play and see how they feel about the game without having to purchase it right away.

[ForsakenKing]

I personally like this change. the only reason I started playing this game was because the starter planet story for the smuggler and knight where so good compared to any story in other mmo's. also showed me that i wouldnt feel the grind. hopefully it will convince others to play this game aswell.

[Hyryu]

The fact that it took other MMO's a long time to do this and SWTOR did it soon means sqaut about success. Everyone complains about features that WOW or RIft had and SWTOR didn't but then complains about SWTOR bringing one of those features over.

 

I have a mat with conclusions that you can jump to for sale if you are interested.

[DarkerMatter]

I think it is a VERY good way to get people interested in the game and potential subs

 

The game is going to start taking off this year and growing. This...is just the beginning!!

 

Your optimism is sicking, and is also blinding you to the truth. WoW the game this game tries to emulate, as stated by the BioWare founders, also went F2P till level 20 6 years after it came out not 6 months. Comparing this to WoW's F2P is idiotic, WoW is still a viable MMO that has MIllions of susbscribers. TOR recently lost 400K subscribers, out of the 1.7 million it had , 25% of its paying customers left. That number was as of may and by the end of June that number will go up even more as 6 month subscribers un-sub.This also does not take into account the free week ends EA/Bio has been using to pad thier numbers for investors.... It amazes me that the "this is a great thing" crowd doesn't get it. Even Rift, a game I see bashed constantly on these forums lasted for a year before doing this.

 

Bottom line is this game is dying, and Legacy perks are not gonna help it, nor will the promised ranked Warzones in 1.2 that are still not in 1.3..... People are not buying the "Soon" crap any longer

[Hyryu]

Your optimism is sicking

 

I can't say that I have heard heard that before (I assume you mean sickening). Are you telling someone to not like the game because you don't?

[Ooloi]

Boo! Boo! BOOOO! Yes, bow down, bow down to the queen of garbage!

 

F2P was the beginning of the end of what had previously been a lovely experience for me in LOTRO. Log into LOTRO today and what you see is THE STORE everywhere you go. THE STORE dominates the game there, beyond all other experiences.

 

I don't mind letting people have 1 month of free trial to play a game. But I like playing a game where my subscription takes me everywhere, and there are no cursed micro-transactions. I hope to goodness this isn't a first pawn move to shift this game to that awful model. I've left other games that moved to a micro-transaction model, left LOTRO, and I'll leave this one in a heart beat the first time it happens. I'm not gonna play on for well over a year again watching an enjoyable fun experience go down the drain.

[Evironrage]

To be safe, make it just past getting your ship so you could walk onto it and thus the carrot does it's job.

[Encima]

I'm pretty sure it means the sky is falling, what with my doctorate in interwebs and all :|

[Gunarson]

Can be viewed as the glass is half full or half empty.

 

At release I wanted to give a friend a guest pass but I couldn't, so BW clearly wasn't keen on letting people play for free. Now 5 months after release they don't really have a choice but try to get more players in.

 

If this gaming was blooming, this wouldn't be nescessary and people would just subscribe as who wouldn't want to be part of the biggest success since WoW. Unfortunately it never came to that.

 

This won't solve the fundamental flaws in game design to make this a modern long term playable MMO game though. That's the main problem.

[Lethemback]

Please, stop with the F2P thing already. As I explained, it's just a trial, not a F2P. You're just confusing other people.

 

The game has enough problems already without us creating an artificial and non-existing one.

 

Cheers.

[Vicrodhe]

While you may not have all your skills, the bolster is based off of how good your gear is compared to your level. If you have the best gear you can have with all purple mods and with augs, even at lvl 15 you can pump out some great damage. Granted this is only true for some classes. Sniper/gunslinger I believe will probably be the AC of choice for twinkies.

 

aha tnx for the info.

[oredith]

This won't solve the fundamental flaws in game design to make this a modern long term playable MMO game though. That's the main problem.

it's a bit deeper than that. MMO all have their ups and downs. Developers know this, which is why they have expansions. when the game gets to a lull, they push expansions. The reason is to re-excite their player base.

 

Bioware currently suffers from a lack of excitement from the base... actually, i take that back. there's still a fair amount of excitement, as seen by quite a few posts here (let's be fair, a lot of people ARE excited about the announcement from E3 yesterday. the fact that I do not share the excitement is a non-factor), the problem is that the excitement level is nowhere matching the pre-launch excitement for the game.

 

the game is bleeding people, because on a day-to-day basis, people are not enjoying the game more - with more to look forward to.

 

back on topic though, F2P to 15 is probably a good move on BW's part. They KNOW they're bleeding subs, so even though they know that the limited F2P is a bad sign among MMOs, it is still better than the alternative, of not being able to attract potential players to the game.

 

however, i have to wonder if it's too little, too late (story of SWTOR). come July, other MMOs are going to be right on the cusp of release. will people be willing to get attached to a game that they're likely to abandon?

[Vicrodhe]

A trial/demo is a limited version of a paid game (be it by time or by content) that you can play for free. F2P is an intelligently limited free game where you can (and many times have to) get the extra stuff through several RMTs. There's a difference.

 

As far as I know, SWTOR's trial will be limited to level 15, and it will have the chat capped. If you want to experience the full game, you just have to buy it and pay the sub. Looks like a trial, not a F2P.

 

Cheers.

 

They even said in the video that it is FREE TO PLAY not a trial. They did not say we are going to let players trial the game upto level 15 they said player can play for FREE hence FREE TO PLAY.

 

This is the trial.

 

http://www.swtor.com/info/friends?intcmp=eaint709

Edited June 5, 2012 by Vicrodhe

[Mithros]

Between the "F2P" games that are out there and the fact that WoW has F2P up to level 20(?), they have to compete on that level.

 

Sure, the F2P stuff may require someone to pay to get past a certain level, but it doesn't stop anyone from playing what they can for free (and then rolling a new class if it is a class based game and repeating the process) and then moving on to another F2P game and another and another, always having something to play around with for however long it interests them.

 

At this point in time, given the selection of 'free' games out there, it is the best way to convince someone to pay for the product.

 

I mean, people that might never try it because they do not want to buy the game and then pay $15/month on top of that might give it a try and if they enjoy their experience, they might decide to pay for some time beyond level 15.

[Rafaman]

I can't say that I have heard heard that before (I assume you mean sickening). Are you telling someone to not like the game because you don't?

 

Look at his sig. Pessimism is a way of life for him or her... To each his own. Give me an optimist. Success is not a lucky happenstance.

[Limedust]

Easy to say TOR has fallen when you want it to fail, for those of us that play the game and still enjoy the experience it just means this wasn't what you were looking for, and instead of trying to improve the game you resort to bashing it on the forums. I don't mean Shankos specifically but all the people who do nothing but rail against this game are contributing nothing to the solution, only compounding the problem. You want better PVP? New content? Better customization? Game engine improvements? More community? Give feedback to the devs and give support to the game, don't just sit at your keyboards harping at BW/EA and trolling the forums making fun of the people who do actually want this game to flourish.

 

TL;DR version: If you like the game, play it and give support...if not, I wish you luck with the next game and please move on.

 

Done a thousand times. Has it made a difference? No. And I'll move on when I am goddamn good and ready to.

[Lethemback]

They even said in the video that it is FREE TO PLAY not a trial. They did not say we are going to let players trial the game upto level 15 they said player can play for FREE hence FREE TO PLAY.

 

This is the trial.

 

http://www.swtor.com/info/friends?intcmp=eaint709

They say "play for free up to level 15" literally, and the link provided says "freetrial". That exactly means what it means, that you can play a small part of the game without buying it. F2P (Free 2 Play) is used, as I explained, for those games that you have to pay for pieces of content and features, and that doesn't happen here. That's why I say that you're confusing people. Anyways, I agree that they could have worded it better like "try it for free", but well...

 

The link that you provide is the "Friends Trial" program. It means that you need someone that is already playing the game to be able to get said trial. What they're doing is opening it for everyone and, by definition, it's still a trial and far from a F2P (and it's negative connotations).

 

Cheers.

Edited June 5, 2012 by Lethemback

[NasherUK]

They should do something unique and give power to guilds to recruit new players.

 

Like give guilds the power to invite people for a free month or something. Where they automatically get invited to the guild and get to hang around for a bit while they decide to pay for the full game. People are more likely to join if they jump straight in to an active guild than if they have to struggle on their own. This way it can't be abused by goldsellers etc either.

Edited June 5, 2012 by NasherUK