Pay to Win

[Andryah]

Ah, the old "I can't actually prove my claims so I'll just call everyone who disagrees with me a fanboy".

 

In all seriousness, if you really want to give EA feedback on where they've gone wrong, the best way to do so is with your wallet. EA isn't really going to care if F2Pers feel there are too many restrictions if they continue to spend money. The only time they will start showing interest is if they lose a significant number of paying customers over it.

 

qft

[Propane]

EA isn't really going to care if F2Pers feel there are too many restrictions if they continue to spend money. The only time they will start showing interest is if they lose a significant number of paying customers over it.

 

And that is what I'm trying to say.

[WSRB]

ah, the old "i can't actually prove my claims so i'll just call everyone who disagrees with me a fanboy".

 

in all seriousness, if you really want to give ea feedback on where they've gone wrong, the best way to do so is with your wallet. Ea isn't really going to care if f2pers feel there are too many restrictions if they continue to spend money. The only time they will start showing interest is if they lose a significant number of paying customers over it.

 

testify!!!

[Obviousenuendo]

My views on Free to play, paying, and subscribing. Who really pays and who wins:

 

The thing is that when this game went free to play, nothing really changed for the subscribers. Other than getting some cartel coins each month and that was it. Here, free to play is so restrictive that there are features that should not be so. The conciseness from word of mouth is from all the MMORPG's that have a free to play option, SWTOR has one of the worst free to play models today. There is no debate about it. Most of the restrictions are asinine. It is a fact. It almost feels like everyone outside looking in is laughing at Bioware right now. Once more, subscriptions in other MMO's that have both models give more to their subscribers than just cash shop currency. They make it much more advantageous and attractive to subscribe while their free to play model is far less restrictive. Even a one time purchase of the game entitles you to even less restrictions still. Everybody's happy. But here, we have basically nothing extra for subscribing, still have to pay for the barbershop feature and extra for newly added hairstyles etc. Holiday purchases? No event? Not even a little something?! Ah ok, fireworks. gotcha... Our $15 per month should pay for all the small extra features added. The one and only time this has happened was with the first attempt for the HK quest. Once complete, it could be purchased through Legacy. So I don't know how I feel about that. But I suppose you can look at it like an in game unlock.

 

However, the huge problem with this game is the greed from Bioware and EA. It sours everything. Just because they couldn't hold on to subscribers and sustain a profitable income from subscriptions alone, they used a band-aid in the form of a Cartel Market to keep things going. Fine, its not shutting down for now, great. But the problems that caused the mass exodus has not been resolved and I doubt it ever will be. This project had dozens of awfully bad decisions made during development. And for that, we'll always pay extra for it. It's unfortunate, but this game will continue to stay on life support with no change in sight. That is until players get tired of forking over hundreds of dollars extra on top of their subscription every month. But then again, the man in charge of the Cartel Market will always have some new candy in his van for you. I love Star Wars. I couldn't get into SWG. It just wasn't for me. Now, with all the greed Bioware and EA are emanating from this game, it makes it very difficult to support them. Such a shame... This project had such potential but they all simply stopped caring.

 

 

this, and...

 

Trying to show the truth to you all is like trying to tell the truth to an Xbox One buyer, they always gotta have a slip-around.

 

this, is all I have to say about this thread

/end

[Epixxxx]

The Cartel Market isn't - the restrictions are.

 

I'm sorry if you expect to play a 200 million dollar MMO with all perks for free.

[Pietrastor]

I'm sorry if you expect to play a 200 million dollar MMO with all perks for free.

But the artifact gear restriction simply is P2W area. Hide Head Slot isn't, credit cap isn't, even the unability to do Ops (without Weekly Pass) isn't but artifact gear, yeah, it is.

[Andryah]

But the artifact gear restriction simply is P2W area.

 

Nonsense.

 

All it does is give subscribes automatic rights to wear artifact gear. Non-subs must unlock the ability to do so, just like they have to unlock a number of things that subscribers have automatic access to.

 

THEN.. they have to actually go inside the game an acquire the actual artifact gear.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Andryah

[Jetreaperz]

this isn't EVE online. $15 shouldn't be much, if it is then the last thing you should be doing is PC games

[Propane]

this isn't EVE online. $15 shouldn't be much, if it is then the last thing you should be doing is PC games

 

No, this isn't about that the subscription is 15 dollars. No it isn't much. The point is the restrictions of being a free players makes it pay to win/pay to enjoy.

[Andryah]

No, this isn't about that the subscription is 15 dollars. No it isn't much. The point is the restrictions of being a free players makes it pay to win/pay to enjoy.

 

Dude...it's pay-2-play-unrestricted. Just like very other Freemium MMO.

 

You can pay via a subscription, or you can pay to unlock the subscription only features one by one.

 

Winning.. is completely on you the player.

 

If you want to prosecute the game on the way it's business model enables play.. fine. But please just stop with the "win" nonsense.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Andryah

[Propane]

Dude...it's pay-2-play-unrestricted. Just like very other Freemium MMO.

 

You can pay via a subscription, or you can pay to unlock the subscription only features one by one.

 

Winning.. is completely on you the player.

 

If you want to prosecute the game on the way it's business model enables play.. fine. But please just stop with the "win" nonsense.

 

Pay to Enjoy*

[Propane]

Dude...it's pay-2-play-unrestricted. Just like very other Freemium MMO.

 

You can pay via a subscription, or you can pay to unlock the subscription only features one by one.

 

Winning.. is completely on you the player.

 

If you want to prosecute the game on the way it's business model enables play.. fine. But please just stop with the "win" nonsense.

 

Other "Freemium" MMOs you can go to max level without worries, they don't leave main parts like PVP and Raids out of the free to play experience. Now in swtor, all of the fun parts about the game are restrictive. Now it is pay to enjoy. Now we move on to why it is pay to win. Not even counting all of the best high lvl armor is restricted to the free players, you have to PAY to be ABLE to USE the HIGH lvl ARMOR - making it 100% pay to win. And there are low level purple armor that are only allowed to those who have PAID.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Propane

[chuixupu]

Other "Freemium" MMOs you can go to max level without worries, they don't leave main parts like PVP and Raids out of the free to play experience. Now in swtor, all of the fun parts about the game are restrictive. Now it is pay to enjoy. Now we move on to why it is pay to win. Not even counting all of the best high lvl armor is restricted to the free players, you have to PAY to be ABLE to USE the HIGH lvl ARMOR - making it 100% pay to win. And there are low level purple armor that are only allowed to those who have PAID.

 

So again, all games that have a subscription are pay to win. This game was pay to win at launch. World of Warcraft is Pay to Win. EVE is Pay to Win.

Not sure which other free games you have played, but most of the ones I have seen do very similar things. You pay to unlock the ability to wear certain armor, you pay to unlock certain areas of content; if you found a game you really love and you can do everything you want to do for free, then that's your game.

 

Sorry, your weird definition of pay to win doesn't hold water. If you don't like the restrictions, fine, but it's not pay to win by a long shot.

[Tsillah]

No, this isn't about that the subscription is 15 dollars. No it isn't much. The point is the restrictions of being a free players makes it pay to win/pay to enjoy.

 

The whole problem is that you make a false comparison. SWTOR is a sub game with a f2p option. It's not a f2p game. Because of this you cannot compare f2p players with subs. It's just a wrong comparison.

 

Companies need to make money. This is a given. So everything in that sense is pay to win.

 

This game was set up to get the full enjoyment of the game for people who buy the game and pay a sub. The f2p option gives you less and yes you have to pay to fully participate. This is not pay to win. You made a completely false conclusion there.

 

If a game is pay to win depends on whether people who have a sub need to buy stuff off the cartel market to win. The truth is they don't. Pay to win is a concept that came from the f2p games where if you wanted to compete in pvp or endgame you needed to pay for it and at outrageous prices for that matter. Now, in a f2p game, where the standard of accounts is a f2p account, then yes you can speak of pay to win.

 

SWTOR is simply NOT a f2p game. This is the foundation of your incorrect conclusions. It's a sub game with a f2p optionthat is intended to get people interested in the game. WoW has it too but goes till level 20 or something I believe. The main point of the f2p option is to get people in the game and give them a chance to see if this game is worth it to them to play long term. A sub is ideal but you can unlock a few things as f2p and you are fine as well. Really, artifact authorisation is about the only thing you need to level the playing field on gear as it is, so it's not a big investment as those f2p games as it is.

 

If you are not willing to pay a sub, then you are not entitled to fully participate. When leveling to 50, you can fully participate in everything. I never really use artifact gear for characters before level 50 because orange gear with blue mods is just fine and because of bolster you can do fine as well in pvp.

 

It's when you get to 50 when things change and rightfully so. It's called pay to play not pay to win.

[GuruVII]

All the unlocks can be found on the GTN, so people can use in game credits to buy these unlocks... true someone else had to put it there, but if you have the credits you can easily quite close to subscribers as far as the features go, without spending a single unit of a currency.

[Propane]

All the unlocks can be found on the GTN, so people can use in game credits to buy these unlocks... true someone else had to put it there, but if you have the credits you can easily quite close to subscribers as far as the features go, without spending a single unit of a currency.

 

Then that goes to another restrictions, f2p players can only hold 200k.

[Propane]

Page 10 of people trying to protect all mighty EA.

[JPryde]

Page 10 of people trying to protect all mighty EA.

Page 10 of people trying to smack every bit of a great game with made up flaws.

[Never_Hesitate]

Other "Freemium" MMOs you can go to max level without worries, they don't leave main parts like PVP and Raids out of the free to play experience. Now in swtor, all of the fun parts about the game are restrictive.

 

The story-heavy MMO SWTOR lets the F2P players enjoy the class story up to level 50 for free, so please tell me more about leaving out main parts of the experience.

 

Just because you don't enjoy the story, doesn't mean it isn't (one of the) the biggest part(s) of SWTOR

[AlexDougherty]

Page 10 of people trying to protect all mighty EA.

 

Page 10 of you not getting that you are in the wrong.

Ten pages and you've yet to even come close to winning this arguement.

 

A subscription is not pay to win, free to players can get to level 50 without buying anything, and after they buy the expansion they can get to level 55 without buying anything else. They can get the gear to compete in PVP and PVE, and if they do want to equip artifacts or artifact level equipment, they can buy the authorisation off GTN.

 

The game needs money coming in to run the servers the game plays off, and most MMO's either require a sub, or encourage you to buy stuff off them to complete the game.

 

This is a summary of the ten pages so far, you are not going to win this debate, or even come close.

*Edit fixed the buying the expension line*

Edited July 22, 2013 by AlexDougherty

[chuuuuucky]

A subscription is not pay to win, free to players can get to level 50 without buying anything, and after they buy the expansion they can get to level 55 without buying anything..

 

Buy something without buying anything?

Just kidding bu i agree with what you said. Subscription is not P2W.

[GuruVII]

Then that goes to another restrictions, f2p players can only hold 200k.

I did say that you can easily quite close to subscribers, so clearly there are restrictions... credit limit isn't amongst them, since you can buy escrow unlocks, which increase the amount of credits you can hold.

 

But most importantly f2p players can buy the artifact unlock solely with credits, as long as put it on the GTN.

Edited July 22, 2013 by GuruVII

[Propane]

My views on Free to play, paying, and subscribing. Who really pays and who wins:

 

The thing is that when this game went free to play, nothing really changed for the subscribers. Other than getting some cartel coins each month and that was it. Here, free to play is so restrictive that there are features that should not be so. The conciseness from word of mouth is from all the MMORPG's that have a free to play option, SWTOR has one of the worst free to play models today. There is no debate about it. Most of the restrictions are asinine. It is a fact. It almost feels like everyone outside looking in is laughing at Bioware right now. Once more, subscriptions in other MMO's that have both models give more to their subscribers than just cash shop currency. They make it much more advantageous and attractive to subscribe while their free to play model is far less restrictive. Even a one time purchase of the game entitles you to even less restrictions still. Everybody's happy. But here, we have basically nothing extra for subscribing, still have to pay for the barbershop feature and extra for newly added hairstyles etc. Holiday purchases? No event? Not even a little something?! Ah ok, fireworks. gotcha... Our $15 per month should pay for all the small extra features added. The one and only time this has happened was with the first attempt for the HK quest. Once complete, it could be purchased through Legacy. So I don't know how I feel about that. But I suppose you can look at it like an in game unlock.

 

However, the huge problem with this game is the greed from Bioware and EA. It sours everything. Just because they couldn't hold on to subscribers and sustain a profitable income from subscriptions alone, they used a band-aid in the form of a Cartel Market to keep things going. Fine, its not shutting down for now, great. But the problems that caused the mass exodus has not been resolved and I doubt it ever will be. This project had dozens of awfully bad decisions made during development. And for that, we'll always pay extra for it. It's unfortunate, but this game will continue to stay on life support with no change in sight. That is until players get tired of forking over hundreds of dollars extra on top of their subscription every month. But then again, the man in charge of the Cartel Market will always have some new candy in his van for you. I love Star Wars. I couldn't get into SWG. It just wasn't for me. Now, with all the greed Bioware and EA are emanating from this game, it makes it very difficult to support them. Such a shame... This project had such potential but they all simply stopped caring.

 

^ This.

 

At least some here aren't blinded by fandom.

[Propane]

No I do not think SWTOR is a bad game, its quite the opposite - I think swtor is one of the best MMO to come out in years. Just their practices of their f2p model are so outrageously greedy to the point that it is unplayable unless you spend money or ingame credits to re-leave yourself of some of these restrictions.

 

I'm providing criticisms that free players would say, but can't say on these forums. Many here are not going to agree here because they are already supporting this system.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Propane

[JPryde]

Other "Freemium" MMOs you can go to max level without worries, they don't leave main parts like PVP and Raids out of the free to play experience.

Could you name at least 2 MMOs, where you can indeed go to max level without worries and be as effective as a subscriber in terms of combat without paying a thing. I might want to check them out.