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[Column] Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Burden of Freedom

245

Comments

  • ArakaneArakane Member UncommonPosts: 204

     

     I wish I did not have to agree with the article but I do.

  • AhnogAhnog Member UncommonPosts: 240
    Originally posted by Elevenb4

    I have never in my life seen so much hate towards a game. People don't just talk bad about it once or twice, but keep beating the dead horse. Why? Not only do they talk bad about the game, but flame and troll, to no end, the people that actually enjoy it. Other than the official forums, I mention SWTOR anywhere, and the thread usually fills up with flame after flame. Surpasses what I would define as online bullying.

    Blows my mind. Leave the game alone and let people enjoy it ffs.

    Applaud

    Ahnog

    Hokey religions are no replacement for a good blaster at your side.

  • IixiaIixia Member UncommonPosts: 34
    I think the worst part for me in the free to play version is the credits jips. Come on, I do the quest and over and over again they till me "you'll get your credits" " heres your credits" then your quest complete pops up and on no you dont get credits you have to subscribe for that feature. I would say about 80 % of quest give you a credit reward and you feel like something is getting taken from you everytime. It's really unbearable ....
  • erictlewiserictlewis Member UncommonPosts: 3,022
    Originally posted by superniceguy
    Originally posted by Elevenb4

    I have never in my life seen so much hate towards a game. People don't just talk bad about it once or twice, but keep beating the dead horse. Why? Not only do they talk bad about the game, but flame and troll, to no end, the people that actually enjoy it. Other than the official forums, I mention SWTOR anywhere, and the thread usually fills up with flame after flame. Surpasses what I would define as online bullying.

    Blows my mind. Leave the game alone and let people enjoy it ffs.

    The official forums still have negativity, and any real bad stuff gets deleted, whereas some of it here is tolerated.

    If people leave the game alone, then  nothing will change and the game will die faster, as BW will think they everything is fine, and have no clue on what to remedy the constant decline.

    It seems to make no difference EA just seems to do everything to crush the game further, pushing more people away, because the game has failed, and they just want to get rid of it and move on to something else.

    Forget what has been said, and look at the facts - Over 75% people did not want anything to do with SWTOR after a few months. Not many people like SWTOR, and not enough to make it a viable venture

    Unless each person playing and actually loving SWTOR is willing to put millions of dollars into the cash shop each month, then there is not much future for this game.

     

    ^^^^ this 

    All I have to say is folks have to buy stuff in the shop for the game to be vailble including the folks who have subs.  Otherwise this game will just continue to flounder. 

    I personally will not be going back for free to play,  or in my terms pay to play one way or another.  I am not giving those folks over at ea any of my cash, period end fo story, unless they fix the game instead of these small and booring content patches. 

    I got to agree with the op this game is doing more to chase of folks than to keep them around. 

  • Cameron27Cameron27 Member Posts: 142
    All I ever wanted was to play the story for free...Bioware made my dreams come true way sooner than I expected. Plus I made all my characters under the free trial so I dodged all the race restrictions. F2P seems fine to me...the hotbars seem a bit worrying but I will find out once I get higher level.

    "I will not play it nor any other MMO until they make it possible to obtain the best gear without forcing people to group up to do so." SwampRob

  • superniceguysuperniceguy Member UncommonPosts: 2,278
    Originally posted by Sevenstar61
    Originally posted by n3v3rriv3r
    Originally posted by Sevenstar61
    Originally posted by Elevenb4
    Originally posted by zomard100
    Strange i see full servers and  fleet station. Only WOW  have more players for now. It is still best mmorpg today after wow, at least you have something to do and not only 4 buttons to push on bar like some new titles. I know, i know everything is fail when you watch forum allo day long :)

    I agree with this wholeheartedly.

    Agree. Servers are full of players. And not much complaining in general  chat comparing to this forum.  I guess people just enjoy the game.

    You know, I still remember not long ago, sentences like yours were repeated again and again...oh yes many full servers then ...
    .... and then they announced server merge. Rmemeber?

    Yep. But like somebody else said it's a new "normal" now for MMOS. Content locusts coming and going. SWTOR population will come and go as content comes and goes. I hope they will deliver it now more frequently, so the popultion stabilizes.

    All they have been doing for months is sitting on content. If the game was a success then then everything that has been put in game, and what has yet to come, would already be in game. The content coming is not new stuff, and being held back to string you along.

    The game is not expanding / enhancing with new features, just getting more content of what the game has

    STO has the right idea - "MMOs are wonderful because everything can change and there is almost always a way to improve things. We will continue to grow and evolve."

    It is not only words but the game has expanded / enhanced since launch, and not just added in more story type content, they have added in more game features. I would say that SWTOR is a more solid game than STO, but STO has more hope for improvements than SWTOR is getting. STO is evolving, and the devs keep it fresh, but SWTOR just gets more stale.

    If they wanted to show more commitment and more hope to SWTORs survival, they should have put in content before doing F2P.

    The servers are full now, due to the F2P, but the game has not improved any, so will drop back down again over the months / year. Then there will be nothing they can do to get that back, as they have now played the F2P card.

  • RyowulfRyowulf Member UncommonPosts: 664

    One reason to have a good ftp model is for the long term growth and success of the product.

    This is clearly just a money grab.  The game is going to close(or be sold)  sooner rather than later, so every effort is being made to cash in and have good player numbers for a few months.

  • ForumPvPForumPvP Member Posts: 871

    Soon at the dealers near you.

    WTS free2play SWTOR accounts  2 extra hotbars ,7 bankslots etc..

     

    Let's internet

  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 31,892

    That's the problem right there, I suppose. Free-to-play is about convenience, and instead of monetizing convenience, SWTOR monetizes the removal of inconveniences they've purposely added to drive otherwise rational-thinking folk insane.

    I had to laugh at that paragraph because it was a bit of what I was thinking when I finally logged in last night.

    Came back from Thanksgiving with the g'friend and noticed my SWToR download was FINALLY finished.

    "ok, now to jump in and see where i left off!"

    I log in and see my character wearing some god awful helmet. Hmmm, don't remember ever having that, let's see if I can turn it off.

    As a point of note, I'm generally all for "not" having to turn off a helmet and if one doesn't want one then they just do without. But since aesthetics are important to me and since SWToR has a feature where I can turn off their horrible outfit design for the head; I must have taken advantage of that feature early on as I never remembered my character with headgear.

    And then it started my search to turn this thing off. "I remember being able to do this? I must have been able to do this as I don't ever remember wearing head gear".

    It turns out that I must spend coins (or whatever their currency is) in order to hide my head gear. To remove the inconvenience of looking atrocious.

    I dont' recall anyone from star wars wearing a helmet other than Darth Vader and Boba Fett so I'm pretty adamant about not having it. "Can I do without the helmet or do I really need one as it will be the make or break piece of gear for insured success?"

    It's a very silly point and really minor in the scheme of things and I'm probably the only person who is bothered by this but I really hate that head gear.

    I can't wait to experience the frustration of adding a hot bar!!!!

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  • AxiosImmortalAxiosImmortal Member UncommonPosts: 645
    Originally posted by Grakulen

    I cannot in good faith recommend SW:TOR's free to play option to anyone.

    The great Grakulen agrees.

    Looking at: The Repopulation
    Preordering: None
    Playing: Random Games

  • blackravenukblackravenuk Member UncommonPosts: 18

    I havent read any of the above comment's and i don't need to.

     

    all i want to say is i've subbed for this game since pre-launch an the f2p version is the biggest load of B.S ive seen in a while. i quote from the F2P video " now players can experiance the game from lvls 1-50 " yeah a guild member of mine said to me he doesnt get near as much xp as a sub-player would no resting xp you have to unlock everything i mean everything bank access artifact unlock for ( purple gear ) limited use to operations an flashpoints how is this promoting the game ??? theres some choice words i will leave out but i will say this i'm disapointed with BW on this one it blows, so get off your @sses asn figure out the problem & if the penny doesnt drop then look at the advise of the players after all you used to listen you dont seem to wanna know now we get it you got this obviously * not!!! *

  • barezzbarezz Member UncommonPosts: 146
    Originally posted by zomard100
    Strange i see full servers and  fleet station. Only WOW  have more players for now. It is still best mmorpg today after wow, at least you have something to do and not only 4 buttons to push on bar like some new titles. I know, i know everything is fail when you watch forum allo day long :)

    Well in fairness, F2P launched last week.  People get caught up in the hype of these things.  Let us see how it looks in 2 months.

    I about gagged when I read Bioware's "State of the Game" letter garbage.  First of all, because the first of three BIG things they learned in the F2P process is that "Our game is AWESOME and people want to play it".

    Really?  That's #1.  Ok fine, I guess if I worked at Bioware i would be desperate to feel good about myself too.

    The letter makes a HUGE deal out of how $15 a month is SUCH a HUGE barrier.  So going F2P will just open the flood gates for all of those people to play the game.  The problem isn't that TOR has a $15 sub, it is that the game isn't built to sustain value in a $15 sub.  Once you level 1 character to 50 on each faction you have blown through 75% of the game content, with only a class story as the new bits.  Well news flash, Balmorra is still Balmorra the second time around.  And beyond the "OMG STORY" aspect of the game, everything else is second class.  Crafting, RP support, Housing, the Economy...everything.  THAT is why the game struggles with $15 a month.

    What amazes me though is that F2P in TOR is more of an exercise to get people to Sub and pay that "super expensive and such a barrier" $15 a month.  Like the article pointed out, you have to pay or sub for BASIC things like being able to hide your helmet.  The free expereince is designed to frustrate at every turn.  So on one hand they tell us that subbing is a barrier, on the other they devise a system that tries to get you to do what they say is bad at every turn. 

    You would hope that after the issues they had after launch that Bioware would have learned, would stop this "Bioware knows best" crap where they tell us BS and then try and tell us why we should like it.  Right now things may look good with lots of players there...but I am pretty sure that will be only tempoary.  Right now you are seeing a bunch of former subscribers coming back to get "free coins".  You also have a lot of people REALLY hoping that the game has gotten better because they want the game to be everything they wanted it to be.

    Well unless Bioware has some super cool things planned very soon, they will lose any momentum that F2P gets.   Age of Conan did "super great" after it went F2P as well, and look at it now.

     

  • EmeraqEmeraq Member UncommonPosts: 1,061
    Don't get me wrong, I think the reward and skill bar locks are silly, but it seems a bit overboard to grumble about F2P IF it's not up to your individual ideals of what should/should not be locked?  It damn near seems to me that players expectly only aesthetic/appearance restrictions in a F2P game.
  • ThumbtackJThumbtackJ Member UncommonPosts: 669
    Originally posted by Emeraq
    It damn near seems to me that players expectly only aesthetic/appearance restrictions in a F2P game.

    You'd be surprised how much money could be made selling really cool looking cosmetic things. Mounts, cosmetic gear, mini-pets, "toys", boosts, etc. etc. etc. Hell, WoW is a P2P game, and Blizzard still manages to make a shitload off of mounts and pets. I can't help but feel that players would be more inclined to spend money without a monthly fee and restrictions (at least in the case of SWTOR, considering what little the game has to offer).

     

    See, instead of spending my money on a bunch of cool cosmetic stuff, I'd need to spend money on unlocks for the UI, medical droids, EXP, etc. instead, and that's a major turn off. I suppose I could just subscribe, but I don't feel the game is worth the $15/month fee (that's not to say that it's a BAD game, just not good enough to justify the monthly price).

  • L0C0ManL0C0Man Member UncommonPosts: 1,065
    Originally posted by Sovrath

    That's the problem right there, I suppose. Free-to-play is about convenience, and instead of monetizing convenience, SWTOR monetizes the removal of inconveniences they've purposely added to drive otherwise rational-thinking folk insane.

    I had to laugh at that paragraph because it was a bit of what I was thinking when I finally logged in last night.

    Came back from Thanksgiving with the g'friend and noticed my SWToR download was FINALLY finished.

    "ok, now to jump in and see where i left off!"

    I log in and see my character wearing some god awful helmet. Hmmm, don't remember ever having that, let's see if I can turn it off.

    As a point of note, I'm generally all for "not" having to turn off a helmet and if one doesn't want one then they just do without. But since aesthetics are important to me and since SWToR has a feature where I can turn off their horrible outfit design for the head; I must have taken advantage of that feature early on as I never remembered my character with headgear.

    And then it started my search to turn this thing off. "I remember being able to do this? I must have been able to do this as I don't ever remember wearing head gear".

    It turns out that I must spend coins (or whatever their currency is) in order to hide my head gear. To remove the inconvenience of looking atrocious.

    I dont' recall anyone from star wars wearing a helmet other than Darth Vader and Boba Fett so I'm pretty adamant about not having it. "Can I do without the helmet or do I really need one as it will be the make or break piece of gear for insured success?"

    It's a very silly point and really minor in the scheme of things and I'm probably the only person who is bothered by this but I really hate that head gear.

    I can't wait to experience the frustration of adding a hot bar!!!!

    And the stormtroopers... and the imperial gunners (those guys with the huge goofy looking helmets that were around the Death Star)... and the TIE pilots (wore stormtrooper looking helmets but black)... and severla bounty hunters (and by extension Leia and Lando when they disguised themselves as bounty hunters in RotJ... but yeah, I do agree with your point of it being lame to have to pay for the option to hide helmets.. :)

    What can men do against such reckless hate?

  • MMOGamer71MMOGamer71 Member UncommonPosts: 1,988
    Article is pretty dead on correct.
  • SuraknarSuraknar Member UncommonPosts: 852
    What a sad story this game has been from the begining...

     

    - Duke Suraknar -
    Order of the Silver Star, OSS

    ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
  • crack_foxcrack_fox Member UncommonPosts: 399
    Originally posted by Suraknar
    What a sad story this game has been from the begining...

     

    On the contrary, it's been massively entertaining. A wonderful blend of drama and farce, loyalty and betrayal, love and hate. I laughed so hard when I read about the F2P helmet restrictions that I snorted tea up my nostril. Bioware are simply peerless. They are so good at storytelling that they've made the story of the game as compelling as the stories in the game.  And best of all, you don't even have to download the client to enjoy it. 

     

  • ZloduhZloduh Member UncommonPosts: 3

    HI all, i read all this and figure i give it my 2 cents.

    I am a working dad and sole provider for my small but never the less needy family. I LOVE playing games. Before i got married i played wow and payd for it and now when i calculate the money i throw at blizz i feel bad, couse i could use it to sweeaten my kids and wifes life a bit. I dont earn much, but its enouf for us, tho 15$ translated into Euro's is kinda sticking me in the eye. I chose to play f2p games since i play casual, spend more time with my son and am not a hc raider/pvper anymore. I played SWTOR from my friends account while he was abroad for a few months, didnt cost me a nothing but time and i enjoyed the game. I couldnt wait for this f2p to come out. 

    I didnt mind 20 gb download at a limited speed for a free account (it was not over 200kbps tho my net is 20Mbit) 

    I didnt mind only 2 char slots, only 2 action bars, the fact that half of my q rewards were locked away, the fact that i cant customise my companion and sooo much more crap that is locked away under sub.

    It didnt mind couse i just have enouff time to play not to be bothered with it.

    WHen swtor came out first i read that everyone complained that they outgrew the zones in lvl so fast that final quests that yeald the best items were too low lvl.

    Now that wont happen as f2p gains xp slower and i like that.

    The limit for fast traver is 2 hours, where is the rush... i can do a lot of quests in 2 hours and my companion can sell crap for me, i wont lvl that  fast that i have to run for skills every 30 mins.

    and i can if i want get every 2 -3 monts if i want to play that long a few cartel crap.

    tbh it is just a marketing move but there are players that really pay no attention to it.

    I just see a chance to play a star wars game i like for free, maybe i wont get to end game so fast and on a shiny mount as paying players, but ill get there at my pace and ill enjoy every step of it, if not i can delete it and care even less couse i didnt pay for it.

    just my thoughts on free games. Keep playing guys

    Z.

  • PurutzilPurutzil Member UncommonPosts: 3,048
    The storyline is nice, not single player rpg worth of much but nice... but the restrictions really hamper it and only help to emphasize the flaws with the game that much more with limitations.
  • Methos12Methos12 Member UncommonPosts: 1,244


    Originally posted by blackravenuk I havent read any of the above comment's and i don't need to.   all i want to say is i've subbed for this game since pre-launch an the f2p version is the biggest load of B.S ive seen in a while. i quote from the F2P video " now players can experiance the game from lvls 1-50 " yeah a guild member of mine said to me he doesnt get near as much xp as a sub-player would no resting xp you have to unlock everything i mean everything bank access artifact unlock for ( purple gear ) limited use to operations an flashpoints how is this promoting the game ??? theres some choice words i will leave out but i will say this i'm disapointed with BW on this one it blows, so get off your @sses asn figure out the problem & if the penny doesnt drop then look at the advise of the players after all you used to listen you dont seem to wanna know now we get it you got this obviously * not!!! *
    I think their approach wasn't really to make a crappy F2P experience but to actually avoid devaluing the subscriber status. Current F2P only came out as a result of that after which they proceeded to nickle and dime the game. After all, if you give F2P players too much what's stopping your subscribers to stop paying monthly, spend some money on unlocks instead and be happy with that?
    Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
  • defector1968defector1968 Member UncommonPosts: 469

    the restrictions will be good if cartel coins can be purchased via ingame content, with triple+ time maybe but to be possible

    gain them only with real money is crap (so far i didnt see any CC via in-game mechanics)

    and then is the issue of the huge class unbalance...

    fan of SWG, XCOM, Defiance, Global Agenda, Need For Speed, all Star Wars single player games. And waiting the darn STAR CITIZEN
  • eddieg50eddieg50 Member UncommonPosts: 1,809
    Yea I do not think much of the f2P model so I resubbed for one month and then it is back to TSW
  • CalerxesCalerxes Member UncommonPosts: 1,641
    Originally posted by Sovrath

    That's the problem right there, I suppose. Free-to-play is about convenience, and instead of monetizing convenience, SWTOR monetizes the removal of inconveniences they've purposely added to drive otherwise rational-thinking folk insane.

    I had to laugh at that paragraph because it was a bit of what I was thinking when I finally logged in last night.

    Came back from Thanksgiving with the g'friend and noticed my SWToR download was FINALLY finished.

    "ok, now to jump in and see where i left off!"

    I log in and see my character wearing some god awful helmet. Hmmm, don't remember ever having that, let's see if I can turn it off.

    As a point of note, I'm generally all for "not" having to turn off a helmet and if one doesn't want one then they just do without. But since aesthetics are important to me and since SWToR has a feature where I can turn off their horrible outfit design for the head; I must have taken advantage of that feature early on as I never remembered my character with headgear.

    And then it started my search to turn this thing off. "I remember being able to do this? I must have been able to do this as I don't ever remember wearing head gear".

    It turns out that I must spend coins (or whatever their currency is) in order to hide my head gear. To remove the inconvenience of looking atrocious.

    I dont' recall anyone from star wars wearing a helmet other than Darth Vader and Boba Fett so I'm pretty adamant about not having it. "Can I do without the helmet or do I really need one as it will be the make or break piece of gear for insured success?"

    It's a very silly point and really minor in the scheme of things and I'm probably the only person who is bothered by this but I really hate that head gear.

    I can't wait to experience the frustration of adding a hot bar!!!!

     

    Its not a silly point at all Sovrath it just highlights within 30 seconds of playing the game how much this is not Free2play. My personal peeve was the hotbar & cartel coins, I logged in and thought I'd play my level 45 Jedi Knight and then saw my two hotbars full up and I still had another 10+ skills that I would be using so I thought I could use my free cartel coins and thats when I found out I had to sub to get the bloody things, steam came out of my ears and my hair flipped up in disgust, so I said goodbye to my guild and logged out. And I thought SOE missed the point of F2P, lol.

    This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up™ the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.

  • UkiahUkiah Member Posts: 273

    I think Victor said it about 38 separate times in his article but it states all that needs to said about SWTOR and what has been true since the release of the game nearly a year ago:

     

    you have failed consumers.

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