Announcing a Free-to-Play Option

[Smailien]

As long as I don't see a store icon popping up all over my UI I think I'll be okay with this. Just don't "LOTRO" it up, because LOTRO was incredible until F2P came out, they changed their development directions and that is what made the game suffer. Just keep making the game like you have been please

[Yukonjack]

I seldom post, being an older player (will admit to being over 60) I really like the more adult like players on SWTOR.

 

But it is after a business that provide us with a game to have fun with. For the most part I love the game, some things I am not crazy about in the game, but oh well. But I would like to point out a few things:

 

First about those that complain about the $15, some of whom do so after buying their daily $5 fancy joe at Starbucks.

$15 a month is cheap fun, compared to almost everything today. Even if you play only one hr a day that works out to 50 cents an hour. I gladly pay my sub fee just to keep the rift raft out. I really had enough of whining give me everything now and free, my last few months on WoW.

 

But since they said they will go F2P, I will look at how it goes.

 

But in the F2P models, I have done (mostly LothR), they have lowered the sub rate by a good amount. Also the currency they use (cartel coins for SWTOR) are used to buy real in games items that can help you in game. If you are a sub and have enough coins, I see nothing wrong with buying a piece of top end gear (ops or pvp). Make it the same but a different color if you want, to show it was bought. If BW does a good enough job with that, people might even buy some cartel coins on top of their subscription.

 

In order to keep its subscribers BW (EA) must give us value for our dollars. As they understand the business model, they give us value we stay, they don't we go or some will just do F2P. BW - EA is the first one I know of to change to a F2P before at least a year. Please amaze all of us by doing it right, but if you do error, please make sure its on the side of all your loyal subscribers.

[hillerbees]

Why is the Sub remaining $15 when 50% of the game is free?

 

If I buy a Big Mac and Fries and the Fries are F2P I'm only going to pay for the Big Mac right?

 

What benefits does a subscription give? Full WZ and Ops is not worth $15 a month. Even less so with the obvious slowing of patches due to focus on maintaining F2P players.

 

Fully agree - was paying €13 per month for full game play, now what....paying €13 effectively for perks/privilges.

 

The Cartel Coins immediately make me think of Facebook/Farmville.

 

How long before even these new restrictions are removed for F2P players?

 

I can see a huge shift to players going for the free option and therefore the GTN will die like it did when people unsubscribed and also it will once again be hard to get groups together for Ops, Ranked Warzones etc.

 

Could Bioware not have chosen instead to keep the Free to Lvl 15 and just halve the subscribtion price?

 

Anything that brings the cost of gaming down is good but having a two tier system like this looks dodgy to me.

 

By the way I do love the game and I hope I am proven wrong that this is all a bad mistake.

[lornalove]

 

That is all.

[Beezzy]

F2P is going to kill whatever hope this game has. I've been a sub since Month 1 and was hoping it would be a good competitor to WoW. Guess not. =/ There goes the idea of actual Expansions coming out for the game. Super lame!

[llonger]

Dejavu? I bought week ago new speedster Cannondale supersix. Nice road bike without subscription without blaster.

New story : How Peter Sagan killed SWTOR.

[Jakarn]

" To that end, I am proud to say that we have a lot of great new content coming your way, and that it will be coming more frequently"

 

I just got a deja vu...

 

And people wonder why they don't comunicate with us, everything they say gets pulled apart.

[Philbe]

I would like to see something special given to the VIP purchasers of the game who missed the opportunity to get the Collector's Edition. I'm unclear as to what the differences really will be between paying subscribers and F2Pers...

 

That said, I love this game and continue to love it. Just give us chairs to sit in...

[Sir_Raston]

My disappointment at this news cannot be conveyed with words.

 

This is my sentiment exactly. I've been down this road with LotRO and EQ2, I won't go down it with SWTOR. Sad too, as the game recently became fun again (decided to try the other side for a while).

 

I'm disappointed, not terribly, but still... Though I wish I could said I'm surprised, alas, I am not.

[exileyourself]

F2P till level 50?.

 

Congrats you've just killed swtor.

 

I totally agree with that, bioware has just f'ed up there first mmo.

[Britishbulldog]

No impact on gameplay? "Vanity" items are just as much gameplay items as anything else. Or are the social outfits currently in the game not actually real?

 

if you sub then everything should be available cartel coins items should drop in OPs then people would have a more of a reason to sub vanity items are a huge reason to play swtor. As soon as the Vanity item's become available they will look the best and all new armours will continue to look crap to swindle you to spend more on those items. boosts are for play to win in war zones and pike i think the majority of people know what that means for war zones and pvp severs.

 

free to play mmos. Now its soon to be free to play it will be 80-95% of the player base and in a resection only the rich will spend more then they need too lets hope there a plenty of them out there playing swtor:D.

 

I stopped my sub because I had no content left to play that I wanted to. Im now happy that I can now play the few little story lines left for free then move on since there is no real reason to pay for this game for a year or two if it lasts that long.

 

This and dragon age 2 (I still enjoyed mass effect 3 though it didn't feel it was as good as the last two) has now put me off bioware for good. I shall now borrow bioware games of friends (if they are good) until EA put a stop to it which is in the making.

[AlexanderFett]

If it is free till level 50, and stuff can unlocked with coin, what is point of paying SWTOR sub?

I do not get it!!

Then some people wasted their money?

I do not think this is great idea. Now I start to feel like I wasted money!

[ClavisN]

Deja Vu.

 

Having come here from Star Trek Online (STO), I've seen that all.

 

Frankly, Jeff, you don't have the moral spine to see this through successfully. And by "you" I don't mean you personally - I mean Bioware and I mean EA. Especially EA.

 

F2P means essentially one thing - separating your free players from their cash in other ways. And since some are pretty resistant to that, you need to to milk those willing to play more than average.

 

There are basically 2 approaches to get money from players - fluff and grind. The Fluff way is the nice one - you produce nice shining vanity stuff folks are willing to spend money on. Since these are not competitive/required for gameplay, there is no pressure to buy them. But having them is nice. Relaxed pleasure spending. And it makes everyone happy - whenever you come with the new goodies, all smile and laughter.

 

There's one problem though with fluff - your take home it will not be enough to butter your bread. Pleasure spending only goes so far.

 

Which gets us to the other option: grind. Gaming company inside literature usually calls it different names - stuff like "convenience purchases". or some such But the idea is the same - you put certain things players need out of reach for them unless they either exceptionally grind or pay for it. Zynga and most of the asian MMO F2P hosues are experts in that. They have refined psychological models about just how mean you can be to players that they pony up the cash but don't leave. This model necessaryly - and usually very quickly - branches into a pay2win scenario.

 

This is the ugly side of the Free2Play world.

 

Now we get to the hybrid. You plan a hybrid - do you? Only very few companies really have the long term wisdom to value their subscribers enough to keep the bilkers away from them. Usually, we paying subscribers are promised "nothing changes". But every marketing guy needing to calculate his business case green, every bean-counter who is in danger of missing a target , every fooking mover and shaker in your company will constantly stare at those paying subscribers and imagine how he could bilk those for more cash, too. In the end, short term revenue projection will trump long term customer relation.

 

You will start targeting and bilking and harassing us paying subscribers, too. And that will be the beginning of the end.

Edited August 1, 2012 by ClavisN

[Urantia]

Well damn....looks like it is time to start looking for another game to play. That or it is simply time to stop playing these games in general. Pay to win here we come. Have you put in a lot of time an effort up to now? Worked hard to be the best you could be? That will be trivialized over night.

 

I will, like some, wait to be sure....but we can be sure no matter how it starts out, it will degrade into to same BS F2P they always do. P2W, class warefare, etc. I would by lying if I said I had any desire to even bother playing now....as no matter what I do going forward it will be a waste of time.

 

I really liked this game....and would by lying if I never suspected a future F2P, but i sincerely hoped it would not happen. What a total let down :-(.

[exileyourself]

Wow you are really going ahead with this well i'm saying this now you have just lossed so many subscribers by making this f2p your proving to all the haters and WoW haters that this game is not doing well and you have to make it f2p you do this, i can ensure you that you will loose more people than you gain so...

[Sir_Raston]

Show me one game that has gone under since it has gone Free to Play or has less payers then before it was Free to Play, you cant, can you? Because none exist. Free to Play is the new industry standard, if you dont like it, go play checkers because in 2 years you wont fine a single MMO that is still 100% sub based.

 

Then I'll be playing checkers, because FtP or rather, shall we call it what it is, Pay to Win, sucks and if it is the future of MMOs, then MMOs are a thing of the past for me.

[PlayLoud]

I'm having fun in SWTOR, and I have no problem paying $15/month to play. While I would rather keep the game subscription only (higher quality players IMHO), I understand that the game has to go f2p to generate more revenue. More revenue means more content can be created.

 

I love SWTOR, and I want whatever it takes to bring me more story. I'm waiting for Chapter 4 on my Trooper. I am working on my Agent. I have many other classes to play. When I get them all through Chapter 3, I am going to want to continue on. This requires that the game is making money. If f2p will help that happen, so be it.

 

However, if the game ever becomes Pay to Win, forget it.

[Darramouss]

Well done Bioware you just killed the game. Now you can go back to making terrible sequels to good games.

[Corpselight]

For go the banner and give deluxe players the 1000 cartel coins.

 

So the Digital Deluxe people get screwed then? Collectors get 1000 Cartel Coins & a Banner, while those who purchased Digital Deluxe get jack diddly?

 

 

JJ

[Marick_von]

Well I was going to post an opinion about this but I can't. I'm just stunned.. I will say I don't think it's a good day for gamers.

[Corpselight]

Welcome to perfect world international! This game will now offically die a slow and boring death as it turns itself in to buy sell rares to purchases coins game. The SWTOR economy is officially wrecked!

 

New news items (pun intended) .. EA/BW just releashed info about an option to use Cartel Coins to buy/sell on the AH also. In some way creating an real money AH.

 

 

jk, but doesn't seem to far fetched after BW is actually going f2p on a game of theirs. BW, you guys where one of my childhood heroes when it was about real quality games ... Grats on reaching a new low.

 

/cancelled. (but seeing how excited you all are about this, you probably think thats great news ... )

[Jedi_Tyran]

Who the hell is Jeff Hickman?

 

Where are the doctors?

 

F2P will kill this game. All the remaining players who really cared and would have stayed will be driven to quit by the worst of the internet denizens who will make chat channels useless to anyone with a brain. You have over 500K subs? You're gonna have barely 50K soon. Good going on screwing over your best supporters. You might make more money with the a la carte system but the game is dead. You'll get cheap transient players for 2 months. No community, no commited players, nothing. Just reddit swtor style.

Edited August 1, 2012 by Jedi_Tyran

[Corpselight]

Let me guess gambling boxes and anniversary boxes?

So did I.. not in a good way either.

[Marick_von]

Well I was going to post an opinion about this but I can't. I'm just stunned.. I will say I don't think it's a good day for gamers.

 

ON second thought. I shell'd out 45 U.S dollars for this game and paying 15 a month? No way, I want the money back that I had to pay to down load this game. It's not my style but I for see a class action suit in the making.

[mwuhaha]

so wait, by f2p does that mean it's ALL free? do you still need to physically purchase the game itself and then the monthly fee is removed?