10 predictions for F2P

[Zyrious]

Ooooh, beat me to it!

 

Just imagine all the stuff they can jam into lock boxes!

 

SW Episode I-VI armor

Speeders

Custom Spaceships

Custom Lightsaber hilts

Uber Weapons, Mods, etc.

Special Companions

 

The list goes on and on.

 

And every item they jam into a lockbox...will likely have started as a suggestion, request or demand on this very forum!

 

Mark my words, all our feedback will now be used against us, as items are pushed full speed into the MT store.

 

I have seen this...with STO...but atleast STO invented a way where you can earn ALL cash shop items and even cash shop points through ingame activities, similar to how if you are rich in EVE you can play totally for free forever. That doesnt mean i like it though...i'm willing to bet, given this is EA we are talking about, that most all cash shop items have no in-game way to attain, and they'll start off as pure cosmetic, but slowly grow in importance.

 

First armor and pets, then ships and ship customizations, then companions, then tons more cool stuff BUT, only available through "Lockboxes" which have a random chance to be anything from HK-47 to a green lightsaber, and you need to buy the key to unlock the lockboxes and lockboxes are random drops, or you can buy both a lockbox and a key from the cashshop...

 

Oh my...we're doomed..

[Staavis_SC]

I have seen this...with STO...

 

You have seen what I have seen, and you know EXACTLY where I am coming from.

 

Year of Fail Veteran are you?

 

Sure, people can point to how awesome LOTRO is in F2P, but conversely guys like you and me can point to STO and show just how horrible it can be.

 

Hopefully, we'll see more LOTRO and no STO. But, I can't help but think that WON'T be the case.

[supafreak]

Im still paying per month, the F2P doesnt affect me at all. My 14.99 will still be the same. I would have been paying it no matter the subscription model options. If you want the full game dont go F2P. If you want F2P dont complain about missing content

[Zyrious]

You have seen what I have seen, and you know EXACTLY where I am coming from.

 

Year of Fail Veteran are you?

 

Sure, people can point to how awesome LOTRO is in F2P, but conversely guys like you and me can point to STO and show just how horrible it can be.

 

Hopefully, we'll see more LOTRO and no STO. But, I can't help but think that WON'T be the case.

 

I was there when it went FTP, and...WOW...For those wondering, almost every item, even non cashshop loot is in lockboxes. Most of what you loot is lockboxes, and you need to buy keys to unlock those lockboxes, which only have a small chance of actually giving you something you want or dont already have. Sure, you can grind for things and thats how they keep you hooked, but its a looooong grind and you're blasted by actual ads for cash shop items and lockboxes the entire time, the launcher is one giant cash shop ad i kid you not.

 

EA will top that, this is EAWare we're talking about. Our ships are going to have streaming ads on viewscreens of the cashshop, and the droid will be a cash shop vendor.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Zyrious

[Emohawk]

I have seen this...with STO...but atleast STO invented a way where you can earn ALL cash shop items and even cash shop points through ingame activities, similar to how if you are rich in EVE you can play totally for free forever. That doesnt mean i like it though...i'm willing to bet, given this is EA we are talking about, that most all cash shop items have no in-game way to attain, and they'll start off as pure cosmetic, but slowly grow in importance.

 

First armor and pets, then ships and ship customizations, then companions, then tons more cool stuff BUT, only available through "Lockboxes" which have a random chance to be anything from HK-47 to a green lightsaber, and you need to buy the key to unlock the lockboxes and lockboxes are random drops, or you can buy both a lockbox and a key from the cashshop...

 

Oh my...we're doomed..

Problem is you get more lock boxes that you can afford to buy keys for, hence more lock boxes = real money to buy keys after you have used up your allocated cartel tokens.

[Shingara]

You have seen what I have seen, and you know EXACTLY where I am coming from.

 

Year of Fail Veteran are you?

 

Sure, people can point to how awesome LOTRO is in F2P, but conversely guys like you and me can point to STO and show just how horrible it can be.

 

Hopefully, we'll see more LOTRO and no STO. But, I can't help but think that WON'T be the case.

 

If you were in sto you might know me, i was blackheart on the kdf side. And sto failed long before it went f2p as that was a one sided game and the best ships on the kdf side you HAD to buy and you couldnt get the speciel ship unlocks unless you played fed. We didnt have diplomacy and no access to bulk of space and next to no missions.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Shingara

[Zyrious]

Problem is you get more lock boxes that you can afford to buy keys for, hence more lock boxes = real money to buy keys after you have used up your allocated cartel tokens.

 

Exactly what i was saying, they try to keep you hooked with the potential grind as an "in game" method to get things, but you really cant get everything, and lockboxes are RANDOM, you could get something you dont want or already have. STO really, really, REAAAALLY milks it like you would not believe. Almost ALL NEW CONTENT for STO is either in lockboxes or in the cash shop in some form, and even though subscribers get a stipend, since a lot of that stuff is in lockboxes you may well end up wasting said stipend "gambling" for cash shop items. Welcome to the modern MMO!

[Zyrious]

If you were in sto you might know me, i was blackheart on the kdf side. And sto failed long before it went f2p as that was a one sided game and the best ships on the kdf side you HAD to buy and you couldnt get the speciel ship unlocks unless you played fed. We didnt have diplomacy and no access to bulk of space and next to no missions.

 

It wasnt just that, but that played a big part, it had a huge lack of content to begin with, part of the problem was they pumped it out in less than a year, Cryptic was trying to sell to atari a "Fire and forget" method of development where they use the same engine for everything pumping out MMO's every year and it flopped horribly which is why cryptic ended up with 3 devs, a salad bar and lots of debt until it got bought up by an asian cash shop company.

[Talosred]

Want to do a flashpoint and get good gear cash shop or pay!

 

How bad do people think this will get out of wondering? And can someone give me a model to look at it?

 

This is my first mmo after a 6 year break from them.

[JaggedOne]

My predictions.

 

General filled constantly with F2P noobs spamming WTS because they have very limited GTN access.

 

Au contraire...my prediction is that F2Ps won't be allowed to sell on the GTN *or* trade with other players...

[Shingara]

It wasnt just that, but that played a big part, it had a huge lack of content to begin with, part of the problem was they pumped it out in less than a year, Cryptic was trying to sell to atari a "Fire and forget" method of development where they use the same engine for everything pumping out MMO's every year and it flopped horribly which is why cryptic ended up with 3 devs, a salad bar and lots of debt until it got bought up by an asian cash shop company.

 

The combat in space pvp in sto was amazing, a few times the devs even came into the pvp zone to try and kill me and failed, i held the position of never being beaten 1v1 or 2v1 against me in space. even got to a point where the feds were using me as a tank against the borg cubes cos they would just pop cos they were so used to sit and pew pew or do little circles and fire of all phasers at full power and then they wondered why there shields would pop in 10 seconds flat.

 

But when they started firing of c-store ships one after the other after the other and special models only for feds because they thought we were 'op' when the real fact was we wernt op but we were forced to level in pvp only was the end for me. It should have been called the fed shop not the c-store. And you remember the on launch talk, we are going to give the kdf there content at the 45 day mark its just behind and we got something like 6 missions pfft.

 

so really the f2p was never going to really help sto, they had already neglected one faction way to much.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Shingara

[Staavis_SC]

If you were in sto you might know me, i was blackheart on the kdf side.

 

Indeed I know the name. I held two names in STO. My original was CaptMattSchwab, but it drew a ban after a particularly heated forum exchange, and then it became C_Carmichael in the F2P transition.

 

And sto failed long before it went f2p as that was a one sided game and the best ships on the kdf side you HAD to buy and you couldnt get the speciel ship unlocks unless you played fed. We didnt have diplomacy and no access to bulk of space and next to no missions.

 

STO I would say failed on Day 1, right out of the gate, and never looked back.

 

All F2P did was make the fail more public, and as I accused Cryptic of during the transition period, the F2P was nothing more than a way to siphon a few more dollars out of people's pockets before the inevitable implosion. If you look at STO right now, it's all about the lockboxes, and has been for at least 6 months. They have found a scheme that will maximize their dollar on the backs of the inane few that HAVE to have that one unique item they always wanted. But, the lockbox scheme will not work forever, and when the negative slide begins on the profit scale, STO is done for, because they have nothing left.

 

We will see SWTOR do the same thing. They will bank as much money as they can out of the pockets of die hard fans that will buy ever little piece of crap in the store, and once those fans no longer have a dime to spend on it, or they tire of spending on frills, while having no content to play, or they won't abide Real Money purchased advantages, then Bioware/EA will pull the plug, and that will be the end of it.

 

Just like STO.

 

Both are franchise games, based on niche fans and franchise fans. We are an exploitable resource, to use up before moving on.

[todorovh]

LOL manage it well? Its 6 months in and going F2P.... Pretty obvious that its not going to be all unicorns and rainbows.

 

ooh i have more to add .. does being "managed well" also include the major exploits in 1.1 and the delays of 1.2 ( which practically killed the game ).

 

In terms of predictions ? The economy and community will practically be non existent, I am definitely not paying for what will be an inferior service.

[leathfuil]

Lord of the Rings online saw an increase in revenue and player base after they went f2p.

There were many postings like yours in the months leading up to f2p there.

Their community survived, and is rock-solid to this day. Yes, their item store is annoying, but you don't have to spend money if you don't want to.

You still have to buy expansions there as they come out, you can do so via their website OR their item store, whichever you prefer. Same price

 

First off, the expansions are far more expensive in the LotRO store than from the website. Rise of Isengard ranged from $20 to $70 on the website, depending on which edition one purchased, whereas it costs about $70 worth of Turbine points in the LotRO store, for the equivalent of the basic edition from the website.

 

Second, the game was redesigned to make the store attractive. For example, relic-removal from deconstructing legendaries is now available ONLY by purchasing a $5 scroll from the store, where previously players automatically got those relics back. The relic grind was also made far more lengthy and grueling in the transition to f2p, making top end relics require MONTHS to achieve.

 

It's also worth pointing out that, although people often talk of points as a $0.01 to 1 point ration, that is almost never the case. Points generally cost more than a cent, and point bundles are provided in ways that a player ALWAYS ends up paying more for something they want than the actual number of points would indicate.

 

For example, when the Excelsior was released into the STO store by Cryptic, it obstensibly cost 1,600 Cryptic points; however, the smallest point bundle one could purchase that would cover that amount was 2,000 points for $25.

 

It's also apparent that as time wears on, the power of the items in the game store creeps up as game developers must find new ways to entice people to spend money there. And let's also not forget that the latest LotRO expansion, RIders of Rohan, initially was going to release with no new instance cluster; that cluster was going to be added to the store after launch, except - this time - there were enough people arguing that the expansion wasn't worth the $70 Turbine wants for it without the cluster.

 

Free-to-play may (initially) be good for the accounting department, but it wreaks havoc with the game itself.

[Evil_Santa]

First off, the expansions are far more expensive in the LotRO store than from the website. Rise of Isengard ranged from $20 to $70 on the website, depending on which edition one purchased, whereas it costs about $70 worth of Turbine points in the LotRO store, for the equivalent of the basic edition from the website.

 

Second, the game was redesigned to make the store attractive. For example, relic-removal from deconstructing legendaries is now available ONLY by purchasing a $5 scroll from the store, where previously players automatically got those relics back. The relic grind was also made far more lengthy and grueling in the transition to f2p, making top end relics require MONTHS to achieve.

 

It's also worth pointing out that, although people often talk of points as a $0.01 to 1 point ration, that is almost never the case. Points generally cost more than a cent, and point bundles are provided in ways that a player ALWAYS ends up paying more for something they want than the actual number of points would indicate.

 

For example, when the Excelsior was released into the STO store by Cryptic, it obstensibly cost 1,600 Cryptic points; however, the smallest point bundle one could purchase that would cover that amount was 2,000 points for $25.

 

It's also apparent that as time wears on, the power of the items in the game store creeps up as game developers must find new ways to entice people to spend money there. And let's also not forget that the latest LotRO expansion, RIders of Rohan, initially was going to release with no new instance cluster; that cluster was going to be added to the store after launch, except - this time - there were enough people arguing that the expansion wasn't worth the $70 Turbine wants for it without the cluster.

 

Free-to-play may (initially) be good for the accounting department, but it wreaks havoc with the game itself.

 

This is up on my wall ( http://i.imgur.com/IOKXg.jpg ) which I earned during LOTRO's beta. They invited me to the F2P beta and i spent 2hrs in-game until it became apparent that the game's focus had shifted from a PvE game to a Item-centric game.

 

Logged out, deleted my character and sold my lifetime sub account to a coworker.

[LUCASCASADEIS]

for the people who pay 15 dolars everything is free

we don't nee dpay

[CaptRavenous]

First off, the expansions are far more expensive in the LotRO store than from the website. Rise of Isengard ranged from $20 to $70 on the website, depending on which edition one purchased, whereas it costs about $70 worth of Turbine points in the LotRO store, for the equivalent of the basic edition from the website.

 

Second, the game was redesigned to make the store attractive. For example, relic-removal from deconstructing legendaries is now available ONLY by purchasing a $5 scroll from the store, where previously players automatically got those relics back. The relic grind was also made far more lengthy and grueling in the transition to f2p, making top end relics require MONTHS to achieve.

 

It's also worth pointing out that, although people often talk of points as a $0.01 to 1 point ration, that is almost never the case. Points generally cost more than a cent, and point bundles are provided in ways that a player ALWAYS ends up paying more for something they want than the actual number of points would indicate.

 

For example, when the Excelsior was released into the STO store by Cryptic, it obstensibly cost 1,600 Cryptic points; however, the smallest point bundle one could purchase that would cover that amount was 2,000 points for $25.

 

It's also apparent that as time wears on, the power of the items in the game store creeps up as game developers must find new ways to entice people to spend money there. And let's also not forget that the latest LotRO expansion, RIders of Rohan, initially was going to release with no new instance cluster; that cluster was going to be added to the store after launch, except - this time - there were enough people arguing that the expansion wasn't worth the $70 Turbine wants for it without the cluster.

 

Free-to-play may (initially) be good for the accounting department, but it wreaks havoc with the game itself.

 

There were three types of the expansions you could buy, one was the basic expansion, second was the expansion with your choice of Rohan gear & horse, the third expansion choice gave you all Rohan gear and horses (3 sets of gear and 3 horses).

 

All three were available on the website thru account management, or on the LotrO store, where I purchased the second expansion option for 50$.

 

All three options for the expansion were the same price on the website that they were on the Lotro store. I know, I was playing during the time of development of the expansion, and purchased it myself thru the store.

 

If they changed things since I left in December, I would be very suprised, but I doubt they have in such a short time.

 

Relic-removal scrolls were also random drops in Moria, last time I was playing. Or available thru the store.

 

If you want to be all doom and gloom about SW:TOR going f2p, go ahead. Many games have, and are still online.

 

They are taking nothing away from subscribers, and are merely adding a f2p option, which will attract more players.

 

Warcraft will be forced to go f2p one day as well, as their player-base declines, and they are forced to do what they can to attract more players.

 

I plan to keep subscribing here, this game has everything my family and I were looking for in an MMO. Sure, it has its faults, but so does every MMO currently online.

 

SW:TOR will go f2p. Some people will leave, some will stay, and some will pick up this game for the first time after it goes f2p.

 

As pointed out, games such as Star Trek: Online are still going, and that game was a piece of crap from day 1, as well as Champions Online, both developed by Cryptic Studios. Worst MMOs I'd ever had the misfortune of playing. They were both released incomplete and buggy, with poor support by Cryptic. I will never touch another Cryptic game as a result. They REALLY don't care about their customers there.

 

So far, the only things broken here, are the PvP (but PvP is always broken in every MMO according to PvP players) and certain bugs that have plagued the game since launch. Not suprising, every MMO has its bugs, even after being online for 10 years, some games still have them.

 

Star Wars will stay online for some years to come. Yes, it didn't do as well as it could have thanks to EA corporate politics, but there are enough fans of it now to keep it going, and most MMOs see improvements over time, so I'm optimistic. Time will tell, not predictions.

Edited August 1, 2012 by CaptRavenous

[Rafkin]

The armor thing was my biggest complaint about EQ2's store. I always picture this scenario:

 

Artist: "Here are the 10 new armor sets you asked for."

 

Marketing Dept Guy: "Ok, these 3 are really good. I want those for the cash shop and put the other 7 in-game."

[Staavis_SC]

The armor thing was my biggest complaint about EQ2's store. I always picture this scenario:

 

Artist: "Here are the 10 new armor sets you asked for."

 

Marketing Dept Guy: "Ok, these 3 are really good. I want those for the cash shop and put the other 7 in-game."

 

Yes, exactly!

 

Remember how big the blowup was over the 1.2 armor models, and all the promises of "we'll do better" and "we'll make better armor, but it's going to take time..."

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it was all one big master plan from day one, and the intent was to put the "cool" armor in the MT store where they can make money on it, since they know how disgusted most of us are with the existing armor situation.

 

A case of Bioware using our own feedback against us for monetary gain.

[Goretzu]

1. We've been asking for "cooler" armor. We'll get it...in the Cash Shop.

 

2. People who asked about all the armor that was removed from the game just prior to launch? You'll see it again! In the Cash Shop.

 

3. Been asking for the Hood Up / Hood Down toggle for robes? We won't need it. The Cash Shop will be the solution, via hoodless robes...for real money.

 

4. Companion "Match to Chest" feature? Not gonna happen. We'll instead get "cool" companion gear sets....in the Cash Shop.

 

5. Say goodbye to playable content as we know it. Say hello to the GRIND...coming soon to a star system near you.

 

6. Content will be defined as ANYTHING added to the game....including the Cash Shop.

 

7. Want to consolidate your characters on one server? Cash Shop transaction, guarenteed!

 

8. Enjoy the new OP they announced. It could be your last.

 

9. If they do make new OPs and Flashpoints, we might be buying keys....in the Cash Shop.

 

10. Expect to hear the word Cash Shop alot....it's the sole future for this game.

 

 

I wouldn't bet against any of those........... lets put it that way.

[Kubernetic]

It's gonna tank hard - the good content with the storylines is free and the crappy content, namely the bad ops and the imbalanced pvp is gonna be pay2play.

 

Why pay for pvp in Swtor when another free pvp game is about to launch in 3 weeks ??

 

Because I like my wizards to be carrying lightsabers, and my warriors to be carrying assault cannons. And GW2 doesn't have any starships or droids.

 

But please, by all means. Enjoy your new game!