Stupid F2P Restrictions

[heechJunzi]

You must be confused. The f2p store is supposed to have limited/no appeal to subscribers. Instead, it's for those who intend to play the game very sparingly (one level a week?).

[Sarfux]

But I also think the free to play will maybe make this game take off. I think so, but still.

 

doh..I keep forgetting it has a sub option. OMG...long day sorry

[TrakonBazzaak]

Same, he fails on understanding it's the same for all ingame store.

 

Interesting point, except I can find tons of highly profitable in game stores that offer things that im enticed to buy.

 

This store is offering armor models that we already have access to, in game features that border on punishing people who do not subscribe, and a couple in game pets/legacy unlocks.

 

You dont punish f2p players into subscribing. Thats a nub move on the part of EA.

 

Entice them into subbing with content unlocks, and entice premium players into actually buying stuff from the cash shop.

 

I am not enticed to buy a damn thing from their shop as it sits, so what am I supposed to do with this shop when f2p comes along? How can I support the game any further than I already do? ALso, just because im an idiot and subscribe to the game out of misplaced consumer loyalty (definitely not fun content) doesnt mean others will in droves.

 

I was hoping this f2p model could save the game. What it seems like is a parachute for investors to POSSIBLY recoup a TINY bit of money from a FEW people.

 

I would spend hundreds of dollars per month on this game if they would give me a reason to do so.

 

I would buy any of the content I mentioned ABOVE AND BEYOND my normal sub, and so would many many other players. Heck, I might even be excited for the future of the game.

 

As it sits now, based on the pts shop..

 

D-

 

Future uncertain.

[LetoAtreidesII]

The oddest part of their f2p model is for someone who isn't 50 and doesn't run warzones/flashpoints, there's no reason to spend any money on the game. For those people that are 50 who grow tired of the game, there's little reason to stay stubbed and spend money on the f2p options.

 

On top of that, they keep piling more sub features on when those features should be 1 time microtransactions.

 

Agreed. As I said before and as the OP stated here, it appears that they're giving away the best part of their game for free (their class stories). The primary incentives to spend money under their F2P model seem to be for endgame players. But for those only interested in playing the class stories, F2P restrictions are only minor nuisances that one can easily do without.

 

This is completely unlike other successful F2P MMO's, like LOTRO, in which you CANNOT effectively play the "story" to level cap without spending money, unless you want to do some major grinding. In LOTRO, only the "epic story" is free, a relatively small part of that game. All the regular quests in the game, which are required to level without grinding, except those in low level zones, must be purchased as part of quest packs. And there is no PVP in LOTRO until endgame and no space combat to help with XP. Also, you cannot fully trait (spec) your character in LOTRO without purchasing some unlocks. SWTOR F2P might be successful if it effectively copies the LOTRO F2P model, and on the surface they look similar, but as I've explained, this is not the case.

[heechJunzi]

You are SO far in the extreme minority, you're not even in the same state as the ballpark.

 

People would raise unholy hell if, as subscribers, they were "expected" to spend any more money. Maybe that's what you were hoping for, but I'm very confident the vast majority of subscribers would not want to feel like they were missing out unless they were spending more money. The subscription is supposed to be the "all you can eat" option.

[TrakonBazzaak]

You are SO far in the extreme minority, you're not even in the same state as the ballpark.

 

People would raise unholy hell if, as subscribers, they were "expected" to spend any more money. Maybe that's what you were hoping for, but I'm very confident the vast majority of subscribers would not want to feel like they were missing out unless they were spending more money. The subscription is supposed to be the "all you can eat" option.

 

Im pretty bored with this restaurant, and with the cash shop, I figured they were adding new things to the menu.

 

My mistake for having any faith in the developers.

[Matelos]

Should see EQ2 F2P. Can't wear certain types of armor unless you buy unlocks, can't use abilities above a certain quality, can only have 18 platinum, can't use the broker and tons of other stuff. But I will say their shop has some really awesome fluff and mounts that you can buy.

 

Hopefully they will add things to the cartel shop, cause i would spend money there if i had a reason. But if its the same crap that I can already get, what a waste.

 

I am hoping for a manta speeder.

[Merex]

EA's goal is clearly to make free to play (basically trial) players suffer as much as possible. Literally everything outside of leveling, including basically every quality of life perk is stripped away or severely limited. I don't care since I'm a subscriber, but I don't think it's the best way to get people to subscribe with their game. Personally, I'd get frustrated and not even play. Edited October 23, 2012 by Merex

[Gokkus]

It seems a lot of you are thinking this game goes F2P so BW makes less money...thats not it.

 

They want you to buy stuff so they give you as much incentive as possible. Most F2P MMO's end up being more expensive than the subbed based ones. That is what every F2P MMO publisher hopes for. I mean, you must have heard to stories of people spending thousands of dollars/euro's on a F2P game...

[harpuax]

I don't WANT to have to buy ANYTHING from the cash shop. If I'm paying a sub, I better NOT have to. I should be able to use the allotted cartel coins I get every month to buy stuff. I don't want to spend extra money on anything at all...

 

I used to think this too and it seems right at first. Then I thought about it. The price for a game sub has been 15$ for over 15 years. It has not gone up 1 cent in that time. Meanwhile the costs for development and maintenance have gone up, just as the price for almost everything you buy has gone up over the past 15 years. How are they expected to keep up without charging more? I believe this is why the sub model has been in decline over the past years, there is no way to increase revenue for higher production costs. Would you want to make the same wage for 15 years but be required to produce continually better products with higher production costs? Now they have chosen a way to increase revenue with the bare minimum impact on your game experience (for a subscriber), by having a cash shop with QOL and vanity items in it only (so far). Yes it's sucks we have to pay more money, but it sucks gas prices rise too, that's just life unfortunately.

[Nemmar]

Yeah i know that but you shouldn't have to pay cartel coins to unlock abilities, thats pretty much game breaking.

 

I cant read the whole thread so i dunno if this has been adressed... but geez talk about dramatizing. Its GAME BREAKING... that you have to lvl until lvl 14 or something like that to get sprint. OMG, its GAME BREAKING! The twinks are gonna get so OP when they realise this.... cmon... get down to earth.

 

The only thing that for me looks very weird is having to buy a license to equip purple gear. I dont know how exactly that is gonna work, but it sounds very annoying.

Edited October 23, 2012 by Nemmar

[Kendaric]

The only thing that for me looks very weird is having to buy a license to equip purple gear. I dont know how exactly that is gonna work, but it sounds very annoying.

 

It depends on how they handle it...

 

EQ2 has similiar restriction in place for free players that prevents you from equipping "fabled" or higher quality gear. Buying the ability in their marketplace allows you to select 5 items in your inventory for which the restriction is removed, which means it's basically worthless for someone still leveling there.

[GratuaCuun]

There's an easy way to deal with these restrictions... pay for the game

 

That's what I've been doing since I got early access lol never looked back

Edited October 23, 2012 by GratuaCuun

[JimG]

There's an easy way to deal with these restrictions... pay for the game

 

Yep, agreed. Obviously, the f2p players will want everything free, but that would be ridiculous. There HAS to be some benefit to subscribing.

[Chaffery]

Relax, F2P restrictions will be softened. EA still hoping storm MMO market, just give some time.

[OwenHeyes]

I was actually looking forward to being able to try SWTOR out again and see what has changed since I last played but these restrictions are seriously stupid, I don't even want to try a game that is that restricted, free or not. I'd much rather prefer a free to level 20 game that isn't restricted at all(except chat maybe for spamming and mail) at least I'd be able to try the actual GAME the way it is supposed to be and sub then.

 

Have you even read some of these restrictions? They are absurdly stupid I wouldn't want to pay people to run this game if these are what they decide to entice new players even if I enjoyed the game, I probably would unsub if I was still playing tbh.

 

Only one crew skill, ridiculous, I want to try the game, one crew skill is useless, that can't be done, how am I supposed to gather to level the crew skill? You may as well take that away completely.

 

Higher prices on respecs(limiting my class and stopping me from experiencing my class completely, I am not going to sub to try out a different spec) Higher vendor prices making it even harder for me to try my class fully and higher costs to remove mods/augments? WHAT, I already don't have access to 2 crew skills to potentially make currency there, I can only create 2 auctions at once to make money.

 

You're also reducing xp for f2p players, SO I only have 2 characters slots and there is essentially 8 classes, I'd have to find a class/specialization I like otherwise why would I sub? Doing all this whilst under reduced xp and with higher costs for respecs, I also can't send mail from any of the characters that I will have to inevitably delete to try others so their currency is wasted and they're also gone if I do decide to sub so I'd have to level them again.

 

There is also limited warzone/operations for f2p so I won't be able to test how each class works in a group situation or in PvP unless I just stop playing for a week or purchase more but that defeats the point of f2p.

 

Finally there is also f2p guilds, whywhywhywhy, this is just going to separate the community and cause friction between two types of players, I've already read subscribers harassing anyone that has said they're going to try f2p and calling them scrubs for not subbing and saying they won't allow anyone that is f2p into their guilds, very nice idea to create this kind of separation between players.

 

Sorry for the long post but I was actually looking forward to trying the game again and seeing what has changed but as stated before I don't even want to try a game this way even if it is f2p. You really need to rethink your "f2p" model those kind of restrictions are just plain stupid and people know, whether they think they're fair or not for a trial you're only trying to justify your sub or blindly defending the game and its creators.

Edited November 15, 2012 by OwenHeyes

[Synxos]

"Sprint at level 1 disabled?"

What a great way to welcome new F2P users....that's going to give them a great impression of the game.

 

Seriously though, It's like EAware was like "forget about making a good F2P system, let's make the entire system a giant attempt to milk them dry."

There's a difference between encouraging people to subscribe, and what they are doing. New users aren't going to like the blatant nickel and diming being done.

[TheTropheus]

It is stupid to only allow 2 characters to people who actually purchased this game originally...

 

Now I cannot make a new char because I had like 10 previously.

 

Seriously 2 character limit? I really dislike you EA, you are cash grappers in every game I have of yours.

Edited November 15, 2012 by TheTropheus

[Synxos]

It depends on how they handle it...

 

EQ2 has similiar restriction in place for free players that prevents you from equipping "fabled" or higher quality gear. Buying the ability in their marketplace allows you to select 5 items in your inventory for which the restriction is removed, which means it's basically worthless for someone still leveling there.

There's a difference.......

EQ2 was a great game, amazing, one of my favorite MMOs.....they even had intricate player housing at launch...imagine that.....an 8 year old game with awesome player housing at launch. Player housing is just one example.

EQ2 went F2P after YEARS.

 

Now this game on the other hand was losing subscriptions left and right. It's just not a great game. The people left will deny it hand and foot, but the million or so people who left, did so for a reason.

This game went F2P in under 1 YEAR.

 

Do you see the difference? Do you see why it was ok for EQ2 to have some restrictions that this game shouldn't have? Do you understand that even as it is this game has 100000 more restrictions than EQ2 has?

EQ2 never had restrictions that made you walk slower for crying out loud.

[Synxos]

I cant read the whole thread so i dunno if this has been adressed... but geez talk about dramatizing. Its GAME BREAKING... that you have to lvl until lvl 14 or something like that to get sprint. OMG, its GAME BREAKING! The twinks are gonna get so OP when they realise this.... cmon... get down to earth.

 

The only thing that for me looks very weird is having to buy a license to equip purple gear. I dont know how exactly that is gonna work, but it sounds very annoying.

It's not about balance....it's about giving a good first impression to new comers....

making them pay for sprint at level 1 is incredibly dumb.

[iamnuff]

so...

 

 

prefered players can only hold 350k credits,

 

 

what happens when my sub runs out then? the rest of it gets stolen from me?

 

 

i know there has to be restrictions, but seriously, 2 character slots?

 

 

thats on preferred player too

 

hell, preferred players should get ALL the unlocks, (but you only get preferred player if you were subbed for more than 2 months or something)

 

but making us PAY for our freaking hotbars back?

 

and dont even get me started on the cargo hold or the crew skills

 

 

not cool bioware

 

seriously, im not even a free player, i was planning to resub when i ran out, but i just changed my mind

 

 

 

i seriously dont want to give you my money, just on general principle.

Edited November 15, 2012 by iamnuff

[Rooky]

This is seriously bad. I have put enough money into the game to desire quickbars and hide headgear!

I bought the game new at £45 under a year ago, played for 5 months (on and off again) yet have to pay for baiscs?

I understand the need to have restrictions but returning players shouldn't have basics they have been used to taken away, people of whom kept this game alive in the first place (I know barly alive).

I was planning on playing every now and then, buying coins if I saw something cool for my toons to use or maybe a new race if you added one for cartel coins but now? Now i'm not bothering. Without these basics the game feels weird and its tedious to go into ability and select speeder, my headgear always looked dumb so I hid it. Also EXP is slower so why the hell should I bother.

 

One more customer lost. Well done Ea. Well done Bioware.

[Onyxus]

Delete this post. Edited November 16, 2012 by Onyxus

[Gerandar]

You can blame this crap more on EA than bioware. EA has stuff like this in a lot of there games.

 

you do understand SWTOR was the first EA MMO to go F2P so what other MMO's that EA owns have these options?

 

also as a free player you should be restricted from everything other then PVE questing from levels 1-50, if you want to do warzones/FP's/OP's get a sub going.

[Crabbits]

Yeah a few I'd like to point out that I've not seen in other F2P games before.

 

A restriction on Death for F2P users, this isn't going to go down well, after 5 deaths you have to purchase a license to stop dying at the nearest point.

 

Sprint at level 1 disabled?

 

Purchase a weekly pass for flash points, nobody does flash points enough for you to provide it as a weekly pass?

 

Emergency fleet pass restrictions, gotta pay money to get an 18 hour cool down, good luck with that.

 

You might as well start charging people 50 cartel coins to login, or 50 cartel coins to buy an item from a vendor or to be able to sell.

 

Some of the features are stupid and you will get nothing but public out roar over it. Yes, I'm well aware some people can live without these features.

 

But i don't like it and im paying user who's been subscribed since release and i think some of these free to play changes are ridiculous, it's gotten to the point that the cash shop won't just be a content / cosmetic feature, but you people at Bioware will force new players to pay for most of the ground up features that are free in other games, so good luck with this plan because if you go through with it, it will most likely fail.

 

I pay for all of those things....sub up or buy cartel coins if you don't like it...you stupid *****.