What's the point now?

[Galbatorrix]

Honestly, this is the same feeling I get with all F2P games. Now, you can either play F2P and be restricted or, you can pay a monthly fee and play with a slew of others that are restricted. Nothing like finding a great tank or healer, asking them if they want to do another FP and them telling you "No, this is the last one I can do for the week". Or something like that. How many ranked matches are you going to get in when half your normal team goes to the F2P model?

 

Sure, F2P will give EA more money in the bank (if other, lesser games are anything to go by), but what's the point now for us players? Honestly, when I try to play Lotro, DND, etc, I always get that same feeling. That "what's the point?" feeling. Now, since the announcement, I get the same feeling with SWTOR already. All drive to get through my Sorcerer's main quest, or level up my Scoundrel healer just disappeared. At this point, I may not even come back for F2P to finish some of the class stories. Just like with the other F2P games, the drawing power of an active, civil community just goes out the window. Heck, I fired up DnD for the first time ever, had some guy try to invite me to his guide about 8 times in a row, kept calling me a noob and I had to put him on ignore. F2P games are troll bait. Good luck to all fighting said trolls while trying to level their characters in the future....

[SNCommand]

Perhaps, but I have the feeling such people exist already if not in the same quantities, in group finder there's always the under geared guy who keeps trying to Heal as a DPS, not trolling but still annoying, and a few times I have got messages from people who ask me to join their group or join their guild, and if I refuse they call me an arsehole

[Galbatorrix]

Perhaps, but I have the feeling such people exist already if not in the same quantities, in group finder there's always the under geared guy who keeps trying to Heal as a DPS, not trolling but still annoying, and a few times I have got messages from people who ask me to join their group or join their guild, and if I refuse they call me an arsehole

 

People always said that the group finder just HAD to stay single server due to accountability. They didn't want to lose the "community" feeling. Heck, Bioware themselves said this same thing! My how things change. Now, community will be all but gone and group finder being single server won't matter at all. That guy who can only play 3 FPs a week? What's his incentive to pass on that piece of gear he can't use?

[vandana_]

People are already leaving the game because they feel the same.

[Valkirus]

Honestly, this is the same feeling I get with all F2P games. Now, you can either play F2P and be restricted or, you can pay a monthly fee and play with a slew of others that are restricted. Nothing like finding a great tank or healer, asking them if they want to do another FP and them telling you "No, this is the last one I can do for the week". Or something like that. How many ranked matches are you going to get in when half your normal team goes to the F2P model?

 

Sure, F2P will give EA more money in the bank (if other, lesser games are anything to go by), but what's the point now for us players? Honestly, when I try to play Lotro, DND, etc, I always get that same feeling. That "what's the point?" feeling. Now, since the announcement, I get the same feeling with SWTOR already. All drive to get through my Sorcerer's main quest, or level up my Scoundrel healer just disappeared. At this point, I may not even come back for F2P to finish some of the class stories. Just like with the other F2P games, the drawing power of an active, civil community just goes out the window. Heck, I fired up DnD for the first time ever, had some guy try to invite me to his guide about 8 times in a row, kept calling me a noob and I had to put him on ignore. F2P games are troll bait. Good luck to all fighting said trolls while trying to level their characters in the future....

 

Same things can happen in any game. FTP or not. Happens in WoW now..lol. I would'nt worry about it. Use the ignore button and run only with friends and guildies. The point is..." do you enjoy playing the game?" if yeah, then enough said. I have unsubbed for none of the reasons you have mentioned because I was not enjoying the game. Only reason to sub and keep playing is because you enjoy playing it. Do not let some punks around you interfer with that enjoyment.

[Galbatorrix]

I just went ahead and unsubbed. I may play again once F2P hits (just to play the class quests... I won't spend a dime in the cash shop). But, I'm officially done with the MMO part of this game. It's sad really. I played WOW for 6 years and I though I finally found a replacement. I'll go back to WOW for my MMO needs and play this one as a single player game once F2P hits.

[Valkirus]

I just went ahead and unsubbed. I may play again once F2P hits (just to play the class quests... I won't spend a dime in the cash shop). But, I'm officially done with the MMO part of this game. It's sad really. I played WOW for 6 years and I though I finally found a replacement. I'll go back to WOW for my MMO needs and play this one as a single player game once F2P hits.

 

I may do the same thing. Depends on how they do the FTP and what restrictions they will have on the pre-subbers. See..not all who will do the FTP will be jerk punks.

[LaVolpex]

Perhaps, but I have the feeling such people exist already if not in the same quantities, in group finder there's always the under geared guy who keeps trying to Heal as a DPS, not trolling but still annoying, and a few times I have got messages from people who ask me to join their group or join their guild, and if I refuse they call me an arsehole

 

 

perhaps this is also true.....but currently , there is accountabilty for your actions, and getting banned costs you...

once f2p hits...accountability goes out the window and its open season for trolls and griefers...

 

they may be here, but they are behaving (mostly) , wich wont be the case when they can just open a new account to troll with...

thats not even taking into acount the farmers and gold / credit spammers

[Gokkus]

I must say I have great difficulty predicting what the effect of F2P will be on my gaming experience. For now I think it might not have such a great impact. The price of the game stays the same for me but the content will likely grow faster, which is good.

 

It may mean I will have to report more people which is dissapointing but I do not see accountability as such as issue. No one likes to lose their character, whether they can make a new one for free or not. So I don't think high level FPs, OPs will be affected much.

 

Yeah there will be people which cant do FPs/OPs with me, but thats what the LFG tool is for.

[BadOrb]

I just went ahead and unsubbed. I may play again once F2P hits (just to play the class quests... I won't spend a dime in the cash shop). But, I'm officially done with the MMO part of this game. It's sad really. I played WOW for 6 years and I though I finally found a replacement. I'll go back to WOW for my MMO needs and play this one as a single player game once F2P hits.

 

I don't get why you have unsubbed , F2P doesn't begin until November so you have 3 months to finish off your class quests. You sound like you don't like F2P games so why leave now surely its best to leave when the F2P crowd join ?

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

[Galbatorrix]

I don't get why you have unsubbed , F2P doesn't begin until November so you have 3 months to finish off your class quests. You sound like you don't like F2P games so why leave now surely its best to leave when the F2P crowd join ?

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

 

 

Why pay now for what I can do for free in a few months? The whole reason I pay for MMOs is for the complete experience. I have 5 level 85 characters in WOW and the other 5 are levels 70-84. I love leveling alts and I love gearing them up. It's the reason I normally don't mind paying. But, I normally do it while getting to know the community, making friends that I can raid with along the way, etc. With F2P, good luck with any of that. You'll be just as likely to run into F2P trolls that just want to loot ninja everything and wipe the group as run into people you want to add to your friends list. And because Bioware decided to lump everyone on to the same servers, there's no getting away from these people. So, as far as I'm concerned, the MMO part of this game is about to die. I won't pay them more money after doing that to the game.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Galbatorrix

[DarthTHC]

I kind of hit this wall, too. I wanted to see how a few more of the story-lines played out, but since the F2P news hit and I know that I won't be playing past about August 15, I lost all desire to see those stories. Part of it might be that I'd have to grind through the same planetary and side quests yet again to survive some of the fights.

[ripster]

I don't see it. These types of players have been common in MMOs since the beginning and not only have no problem paying a monthly sub, they don't mind buying a new copy of the game when they get banned. You know, I don't think I've seen any of that kind of behaviour in WoW, nope not at all.

 

You know, it is fine to just admit you are not entertained enough by a game and just quit, you don't need to publicly blame it on some other group of people.

[Lt_Latency]

I am thinking it's to help keep server populations up.

 

They now know if server populations drop too low it's extremely bad. This will at least keep them populated.

[aristein]

Yes, it is hard to take a f2p game seriously...let alone make any serious investment into one. The news hit me like a gut punch. I wasn't able to play when the game came out, so I just started 3 weeks ago and was really having a blast and thinking this is the mmo I will be playing for the next few years. But the f2p news really turned swtor into a single player game for me. If you don't already have good friends and guildies then you are unlikely to find them after the game goes f2p. I just don't like f2p players. They range from permanent noobs to flakey to griefers.

 

I'll play thought the stories and will wait and see how it turns out. But it is really hard to take seriously statements from EA/BW saying f2p will allow them to add more content when they are laying off big chucks of their team. They can't manage to fix the bugs and improve the game as it is with the team they got, but now they are going to do that AND develop meaningful expansions with less people?!? That sounds like a magic trick to me. The wise man listens to a person's actions over their words; and their actions say they are just cost cutting and focusing on making money using the game as nothing more than a platform for a cash vanity store with their skeleton crew. "more content" just seems like their code word for more items developed for the cash store...what else could the few people left be able to do? It seems very clear to me that the "F2P business model" they are switching to means a low cost small team capable of only making cookie cutter expansions with lots of cash store items to sell.

 

After seeing how Diablo 3 was developed as nothing more than a platform to try and force people to use the Real Money Auction, I am discusted with any developers that have real money stores as any part of their game (because it ALWAYS becames the whole point of the game...ALWAYS). It seems while BW tried to do it right, EA is now making them switch to this model too: the game just being a platform to try and suck as much money from players as possible by targeting their impulse control.

Edited August 6, 2012 by aristein

[pocketthesaurus]

I'm just going to keep buying game cards and playing like I have been. If I get some cartel coins out of it and can do anything neat with them, cool.

[Galbatorrix]

I don't see it. These types of players have been common in MMOs since the beginning and not only have no problem paying a monthly sub, they don't mind buying a new copy of the game when they get banned. You know, I don't think I've seen any of that kind of behaviour in WoW, nope not at all.

 

You know, it is fine to just admit you are not entertained enough by a game and just quit, you don't need to publicly blame it on some other group of people.

 

Up until the announcement, I was still having fun with the game. Since then, every time I log in, I play for 20 minutes and lose all interest. Before, it's like I had a long term goal I was playing for. Now, this game has the same feeling LOTRO has when I play it. It just feels.... temporary. Like I know deep down that there is no actual goal anymore and that I won't be playing for long anyway. Again, that whole "what's the point" feeling. Again, I'm not saying that it should be like this for everyone. It's just how I personally feel about F2P games.

 

 

Still though... the class story lines are the best part of the game. If we get to play those for free, I don't see why anyone would continue subbing.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Galbatorrix

[Jeyten]

I understand the "change = sky falling" instinct, but I don't agree with the assessments here. I still play several games that I loved as subscription games that have since gone FTP, in particular LOTRO and City of Heroes. In both of those games, the community (and the games at large) improved upon going FTP. I'd throw Star Trek Online in that category as well, though it's still kind of a crappy game by comparison to some others.

 

Now, if the only community of players with which you interact are general chat trolls, then I suppose you will see an influx of them. A large number of players will come back or try the game for the first time, and a certain predictable proportion of them will be idiots, there's no question. I submit, however, that if you are playing an MMO, you ought to understand that in fact, the best community for you is a good guild. Islands of non-idiots exist out there, and will continue to grow as the game's player base grows. If you don't like the "community" of people that babble in general chat, then the game offers you several excellent ways to eliminate that problem completely, from editing your chat tab settings up through simply toggling the chat window off or ignoring players.

 

The subscription model is pretty much dead. Blizzard continues to have success with it, but if EA and BioWare, with their resources, couldn't make it work, then I doubt anyone else will ever be able to convince their investors to let them try.

 

Besides, all FTP means is that you only have to pay for what you want. New content comes out, you're interested in it, so you give them a few bucks when you want to try it. You finish it up and you're bored with the game for a while? Great, take a few months off and go resub to Wow while you wait for something new to come out. In the meantime, TOR's still there waiting for you...and you have the convenience of not having to say "Hmm, playing my BH for a couple hours today would be fun, but not $14.99 worth of fun."

 

Personally I love FTP, and I'm glad TOR went to it. Means the game's not going to get mothballed, like that other Star Wars game that still gives some of us mental pains when we think about it.

[TUXs]

I just went ahead and unsubbed. I may play again once F2P hits (just to play the class quests... I won't spend a dime in the cash shop). But, I'm officially done with the MMO part of this game. It's sad really. I played WOW for 6 years and I though I finally found a replacement. I'll go back to WOW for my MMO needs and play this one as a single player game once F2P hits.

 

You?! Why wouldn't you sub just to support this massive super secret space project you so vehemently believe is just around the corner?!

[KeepMe]

This isn't a flame, it really isn't. But I don't understand, why are or were people pissed that they're going F2P. If You were or are already subbed it doesn't hurt or effect us in anyway. So what if people who never played the game get to play it for free (after they buy it for $15) we're the one's that get the full game with everything F2P people are the one's who need to pay out of pocket to get what we have.

 

I think once it goes F2P and people start finding out that it's gonna cost them more then the the $15 a month to get what the subs have, they will sub. They will never really get to play for free because every bit of content that comes out even if it is minor they have to pay for it. From what I've read there will be a TON of restrictions for F2P and I think it's gonna cost them a small fortune in the long run to get what subs have and will get in the coming months.. Just my thoughts......

Edited August 6, 2012 by KeepMe

[Galbatorrix]

You?! Why wouldn't you sub just to support this massive super secret space project you so vehemently believe is just around the corner?!

 

I realize I was always "Ra Ra, goooo SWTOR!!", but I'm afraid I never was a big "secret space project" guy. You have me confused on that part. Still, the fact that I was always so pro-SWTOR should tell you something. I was very much a "in for the long haul" person before this announcement. Now, I just don't care anymore.

[Galbatorrix]

This isn't a flame, it really isn't. But I don't understand, why are or were people pissed that they're going F2P. If You were or are already subbed it doesn't hurt or effect us in anyway. So what if people who never played the game get to play it for free (after they buy it for $15) we're the one's that get the full game with everything F2P people are the one's who need to pay out of pocket to get what we have.

 

I think once it goes F2P and people start finding out that it's gonna cost them more then the the $15 a month to get what the subs have, they will sub. They will never really get to play for free because every bit of content that comes out even if it is minor they have to pay for it. From what I've read there will be a TON of restrictions for F2P and I think it's gonna cost them a small fortune in the long run to get what subs have and will get in the coming months.. Just my thoughts......

 

First off, the fact that the best part of the game (class stories) are going to be free when we've all had to pay $150+ to play them IS BS. Secondly, that's not even the real reason I don't like this. Sure, the server pop will "look" good, but will it help make GF queues shorter? Nope. Will it make Ops group pop faster? Absolutely not. In fact, it may make these queues even longer due to people dropping their subs to go to the F2P model. All F2P is really going to do for subscribers is make it impossible to do quests. With so many getting to do them for free, you'll be paying to fight free players for nodes and objectives. Which is fine for them... they're playing free of charge. You on the other hand.....

[ZORG]

perhaps this is also true.....but currently , there is accountabilty for your actions, and getting banned costs you...

once f2p hits...accountability goes out the window and its open season for trolls and griefers...

 

they may be here, but they are behaving (mostly) , wich wont be the case when they can just open a new account to troll with...

thats not even taking into acount the farmers and gold / credit spammers

 

Perhaps the account creation software will be changed to look at your computers MAC ADDRESS when creating it. So when you create it it will be unique. Cause now its tied to credit card number. Or perhaps they could use the same tech microsoft uses to setup a machine unique identifier when you activate windows. If you login from another computer it only gives you x amount of hours to play without updating your *HOME* Machine.

If you try to make a new account after being banned from same mac address it will know and not let you...

[KeepMe]

First off, the fact that the best part of the game (class stories) are going to be free when we've all had to pay $150+ to play them IS BS. Secondly, that's not even the real reason I don't like this. Sure, the server pop will "look" good, but will it help make GF queues shorter? Nope. Will it make Ops group pop faster? Absolutely not. In fact, it may make these queues even longer due to people dropping their subs to go to the F2P model. All F2P is really going to do for subscribers is make it impossible to do quests. With so many getting to do them for free, you'll be paying to fight free players for nodes and objectives. Which is fine for them... they're playing free of charge. You on the other hand.....

 

I hear what you're saying but wouldn't it be that way if they didn't go F2P and they had like 2-3 million subs like they thought they would. Are the crowds the real reason ppl are pissed. Again they will have to pay and keep paying to get what subs have and will get with their sub fee.

[MasterKayote]

I don't get why you have unsubbed , F2P doesn't begin until November so you have 3 months to finish off your class quests. You sound like you don't like F2P games so why leave now surely its best to leave when the F2P crowd join ?

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

 

Because like he said, many of us feek the game is going down the drain in November. "Whats the point?"

 

Im on the same boat actually. Canceled my sub and am back to WoW (though surprisingly enjoying it after such a long time away). Looking forward to MoP even. I planned to give it another month while I finish the last 2 stories I hadnt done yet and say farewell to guildies but ive kinda lost almost all motivation and ambition towards this game and am signing on a quarter of the time now.