Star Wars: The Old Republic will kill WoW - outsourced to Broadsword

[Angthoron]

Well it's only slightly worse than that abortion of a model by Turbine. It's just been made EAXTREEEEME.

 

[Average Manatee]

Whether TOR makes the investment back is irrelevant compared to this

 

[toro]

Whether TOR makes the investment back is irrelevant compared to this

Nice eulogy.

 

[Jarpie]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/30/bioware-force-tweaks-swtors-f2p-restrictions/

“One of our golden rules is that the Free-to-Play experience should not cheapen the experience for paying subscribers. If it turns out that the Free-to-Play conversion results in a degraded Warzone experience once we go live for subscribers, you can rest assured that we will quickly make adjustments to the system to ensure that subscribers have an optimal experience.”

“That being said, it is important conversely that the subscription offers subscribers strong, tangible benefits over the Free-to-Play experience. We value our subscribers greatly, and they are crucial to the success of Star Wars: the Old Republic.”

Translation: "Fuck you Freeloaders!"

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/30/bioware-force-tweaks-swtors-f2p-restrictions/

“One of our golden rules is that the Free-to-Play experience should not cheapen the experience for paying subscribers. If it turns out that the Free-to-Play conversion results in a degraded Warzone experience once we go live for subscribers, you can rest assured that we will quickly make adjustments to the system to ensure that subscribers have an optimal experience.”

“That being said, it is important conversely that the subscription offers subscribers strong, tangible benefits over the Free-to-Play experience. We value our subscribers greatly, and they are crucial to the success of Star Wars: the Old Republic.”

Translation: "Fuck you Freeloaders!"

An interesting part is that you usually end up with sub-tards cheering them on like a bunch of monkeys due to being treated as "special", instead of looking what it will more likely mean for the game's future.

 

[Rahdulan]

State of the Game or "how to make excuses for our massive failure 101" penned by none other but Jeff Hickman himself.
http://www.swtor.com/blog/star-wars-old-republic-–-state-game

1. Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.

 

[ohWOW]

State of the Game or "how to make excuses for our massive failure 101" penned by none other but Jeff Hickman himself.
http://www.swtor.com/blog/star-wars-old-republic-–-state-game

1. Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.

I had a shitty day today.



I love codex for a such antidepressant stuff.

 

[RK47]

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

1. Our game is awesome. People love it and want to play it.

 

[Angthoron]

EAware moves in for the kill by modifying the F2P deal: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5395251

according to this post the small print has changed witin the last month, as small print #1 originally read (and I saw it read exactly as such):
1 OFFER VALID FOR ACTIVE OR FORMER PAYING SUBSCRIBERS OF Star Wars™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™ (“SWTOR”) AS OF JULY 31, 2012 AT 11:59PM CDT / JULY 31, 2012 AT 4:59AM GMT. OFFER MAY NOT BE SUBSTITUTED, EXCHANGED, SOLD OR REDEEMED FOR CASH OR OTHER GOODS OR SERVICES. MAY NOT BE COMBINED WITH ANY OTHER OFFER, GIFT CARD, REBATE OR DISCOUNT COUPON. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED, TAXED OR RESTRICTED BY LAW. LIMIT ONE OFFER PER ACCOUNT. AWARD OF CARTEL COINS SUBJECT TO DIGITAL SERVICES AGREEMENT AND APPLIED IN-GAME TO USER ACCOUNT.

now it reads (with the bit underlined added in):
1 OFFER VALID FOR ACTIVE OR FORMER PAYING SUBSCRIBERS OF Star Wars™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™ (“SWTOR”) AS OF JULY 31, 2012 AT 11:59PM CDT / JULY 31, 2012 AT 4:59AM GMT WITH ACTIVE PAYING SUBSCRIPTION ON DATE OF FREE-TO-PLAY SERVICE LAUNCH. OFFER MAY NOT BE SUBSTITUTED, EXCHANGED, SOLD OR REDEEMED FOR CASH OR OTHER GOODS OR SERVICES. MAY NOT BE COMBINED WITH ANY OTHER OFFER, GIFT CARD, REBATE OR DISCOUNT COUPON. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED, TAXED OR RESTRICTED BY LAW. LIMIT ONE OFFER PER ACCOUNT. NOT VALID FOR COMPLIMENTARY OR PROMOTIONAL TIME GRANTS. AWARD OF CARTEL COINS SUBJECT TO DIGITAL SERVICES AGREEMENT AND APPLIED IN-GAME TO USER ACCOUNT.
which can be read at http://www.swtor.com/free/
So they initially intended for people to get coins without being subbed at F2P, but I guess not many people did stay subbed after announcing F2P, so changed their minds and made it mandatory.

The only way to receive your cartel coins is to be a subscriber when the game launches. If you are even unsubscribed for the very first day of F2P, you will lose all of your Cartel Coins you been 'earning' this whole time. They made that nifty change a couple of months ago without telling anyone. Pretty damn convenient.

- http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1212265-Subscription-Vs-F2P?p=18998524&viewfull=1#post18998524

 

[Infinitron]

Holy shit.

 

[GreatPretender]

Wonder if Disney will close this now.

 

[Average Manatee]

EAware moves in for the kill by altering the deal.

Fixed. Come on, this was too obvious.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

EAware moves in for the kill by altering the deal.

Fixed. Come on, this was too obvious.

 

[sea]

Holy fucking shit.

So it turns out that free players have arbitrary time limits on how often they can send chat messages. They also added the "can't sprint until level 15" thing again for them, and most high-level content and new stuff being added is available only to subscribers.

Can someone please tell me why EA/BioWare thought it would be a good idea to turn their F2P option into yet another extended demo designed to heavily encourage subscriptions, even though the entire reason the game failed was because nobody wanted to subscribe in the first place and existing subscribers got bored?

Ahahahahah, fuck you assholes.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Rahdulan]

Holy fucking shit.

So it turns out that free players have arbitrary time limits on how often they can send chat messages. They also added the "can't sprint until level 15" thing again for them, and most high-level content and new stuff being added is available only to subscribers.

Can someone please tell me why EA/BioWare thought it would be a good idea to turn their F2P option into yet another extended demo designed to heavily encourage subscriptions, even though the entire reason the game failed was because nobody wanted to subscribe in the first place and existing subscribers got bored?

Ahahahahah, fuck you assholes.

Because it's actually Freemium and not F2P. I know, bullshit terms just keep cropping up to explain greed. On a related note, Sprint ability was actually available at level 10 or something back in beta days. I think FAR worse offenders are having only 2 quickbars, and having to buy more, along with the fact that you can't really permanently unlock a lot of things but only buy week long passes. Oh, and you have to buy the ability to hide your helmet.

If you have any passing interest in the game as a "free" player you basically have to fork out $4,99 in order to get the Preferred status.

 

[RK47]

 

[roll-a-die]

What's even better than that, they've locked out certain emotes even for subscribers into a pack you have to buy, THAT ISN'T EVEN ON SALE YET.


Also I think that chat message time limit is only until level 10 to prevent gold spammers.

 

[Captain Shrek]

F2P is the new corporate buzzword for MBA's with no idea how the niche market actually works.

 

[sea]

What's even better than that, they've locked out certain emotes even for subscribers into a pack you have to buy, THAT ISN'T EVEN ON SALE YET.

Also I think that chat message time limit is only until level 10 to prevent gold spammers.

Fair enough about the chat timer, that actually makes sense.

But...

http://www.swtor.com/free/features

Does this?

 

[roll-a-die]

What's even better than that, they've locked out certain emotes even for subscribers into a pack you have to buy, THAT ISN'T EVEN ON SALE YET.

Also I think that chat message time limit is only until level 10 to prevent gold spammers.

Fair enough about the chat timer, that actually makes sense.

But...

http://www.swtor.com/free/features

Does this?

Not arguing that it's a good F2P model, in fact, it's the shitiest one I've seen so far. None of it really makes any sense. And it's purely designed to nickle and dime people out of money.

 

[Angthoron]

What's even better than that, they've locked out certain emotes even for subscribers into a pack you have to buy, THAT ISN'T EVEN ON SALE YET.

Also I think that chat message time limit is only until level 10 to prevent gold spammers.

Fair enough about the chat timer, that actually makes sense.

But...

http://www.swtor.com/free/features

Does this?

Took me a moment to realize I need to mouseover to see the details. Still, no customer support for F2P/Preferred? Nicey.

 

[Weierstraß]

I thought free to play was a to get lower the barrier to people starting and continuing to play the game in hope that the larger number of willing players buying additional content would be larger than the money from subscriptions, but EA is really daring here, they're not trying to do that, so clearly this is a new and exciting experimental model they want to try. Or they're just idiots.

 

[mikaelis]

All the EA bullshit aside, is it worth checking it just for single player experience, now that it is for free? Does it even resemble KOTOR? Or is it completely worthless?

Note, that I am not interested in MMO aspect in the slightest.