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Do you believe SWTOR is a failure for becoming "F2P"?

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  • WarmakerWarmaker Member UncommonPosts: 2,246

    I don't think SWTOR going F2P makes it a failure.

    Personally, I thought SWTOR was already a failure before that.  A failure in what an MMORPG is about.  It seems BioWare didn't get the memo on what the "Massive Multiplayer" means in an MMORPG.  And for me, the space combat is a total joke.

    SWTOR would have made a fine single player RPG like KOTOR 1 & 2.  It would have been epic.  But as an MMORPG?  It falls hard in its design as an MMORPG, straight to the bowels of the Sarlaac Pit to suffer for a thousand years.

    After all this money, all this time, and utilizing the world recognized "Star Wars" name, you have SWTOR.

    "I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)

  • superniceguysuperniceguy Member UncommonPosts: 2,278
    Originally posted by erictlewis

     

    The real question is will free to play pull the rabit out of the hat and save SWTOR.

    If they can keep up with adding content worth buying it may, but if they could not do that while it was P2P, and while they had more staff, I do not see it working in F2P.

    I saw  a post somewhere saying BIoware have no intention on adding more story to your characters progression, which I would be interested in. All they seem to be doing is more Flashpoints Operations etc which is what I am not interested in.

    If you have to just pay for content already in game then I do not see SWTOR being saved, as people who quit have already done it, and people who have not, did not because it wasn't worth paying for. If there was enough content to last for years people would still be in game doing it, but most were all done with it within 3 months, so in the end P2P could end up being cheaper - $45 could be less than whatever it costs to buy all the content separately in F2P

    STO is working well-ish as they are not only still adding content, but also continuing to expand/enhance the game too, which Bioware seems to be reluctant or unable to do with SWTOR.

     

  • IsturiIsturi Member Posts: 1,509
    This is got to be a very stupid question. Be like asking if every F2P game is a failure for becoming F2P I mean if you are going to be fair about. Cant belive people are even conteplating this question.

    image

  • WarmakerWarmaker Member UncommonPosts: 2,246
    Originally posted by Isturi
    This is got to be a very stupid question. Be like asking if every F2P game is a failure for becoming F2P I mean if you are going to be fair about. Cant belive people are even conteplating this question.

    If an MMORPG's design was based on a F2P model and it follows it, that's one thing.  But it's another if a game struggles so much that it switches from its original business model.

    SWTOR's struggles cannot be hidden.  For it to switch from P2P to F2P, that is just another symptom to its myriad of problems.

    If it's doing so great, then why are resources being shifted away from SWTOR and the switch to F2P?

    "I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)

  • KakkzookaKakkzooka Member Posts: 591
    Originally posted by OG_Zorvan

    The game was already a failure a few months past launch.

    The F2P announcement itself was just salt in the wound.

    This objectively sums up the scenario succinctly.

    Re: SWTOR

    "Remember, remember - Kakk says 'December.'"

  • superniceguysuperniceguy Member UncommonPosts: 2,278
    Originally posted by Isturi
    This is got to be a very stupid question. Be like asking if every F2P game is a failure for becoming F2P I mean if you are going to be fair about. Cant belive people are even conteplating this question.

    Not every MMO loses about 70% population in about 6 months, and each case is different, so is a good question.

    LOTRO started it all, and seemed to go F2P to match DDOs payment structure, and it received quite a lot of awards, so not a failure

    DCUO did not do well, but all SOE games are now F2P, so could be due to failure or that SOE changing completely to F2P. I think it was mainly down to SOE changing to F2P. Vanguard has been dead for years and they never switched it to F2P, so if Smedley did not think F2P was a good idea, DCUO and all SOE games would still be P2P

    STO could have gone F2P because Perfect World was taking over, and they are a F2P company too

    If SWTOR did not need 500k subs to break even, then it probably will not be going F2P. It probably has more subs atm than Rift, although still declining rapidly, so soon could be less.

    EA/Bioware keep looking at other companies all the time, and thinking what they do will work with SWTOR. They wanted subscriptions, and they wanted the WOW success. They not getting that, so then see what then keeps a game alive - F2P, but it is all happening sooner than they think, and I do not see F2P working either

    SWTOR is the only MMO blatanty going F2P due it being a failure. 2 mill sales down to about 500k subs or less already speaks volumes

  • ZaphaZapha Member Posts: 6

                                 I'm glad in being patient for this very reason! Already going F2P?....That tells me plenty!  The data is stacking that this game..... is a waist of money! Having to wait for more and/or better content, like STO where you play for a week or two and have to wait 3 months for more content, is not worth my time. Its an MMO and if Star Wars geeks are turning away, then i dont need to be in an empty game to see if its right for me....it's AN MMO, there should be lots of people there to make an MMO!

     This game is a failure to me. It's only my opinion, but its my money and time..... I'll wait for something else.  Here is a nice little peice from Forbes Paul Tassi that sums things up for me : http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/08/01/five-lessons-learned-as-swtor-surrenders/

  • FrodoFraginsFrodoFragins Member EpicPosts: 5,898
    Nah.  They declared F2P after it failed.
  • GruugGruug Member RarePosts: 1,789

    I have yet to see ANY so-called "f2p" model MMOs that I would ever call a "success". F2P is only embraced by those people that really are trying to get something for nothing (freeloaders) or by companies that are willing to mislead people that their game is somehow actually free. That last, it couldn't be truely free or the companies would go out of business. So what they do is put up a slick marketing scheme that "suggests" that the company is giving away their game when in fact they are depending on as many people as possible to spend on inflated items from their game stores. Content suffers in favor of store items. Sub paying players are short changed because they are partially paying for their own content AND the content of freeloaders. The only people that win are the companies pushing that scheme.

    Now, I have seen all the statements about how this or that game went f2p and the company said they were making 4 to 7 times more revenue. Really? Maybe. But did those companies post what they were making before and then post those new figures. Who held those statements to some form of credibility? Was it just hype put forward by the companies marketing folks that might have been shading the truth but not exactly true? We don't know because no figures have ever been posted.

    Now, after going through the above I will have to go back to the premise of this thread's topic. My answer is going to have to be that SWTOR IS a failure once it changes over to so-called f2p.

    Let's party like it is 1863!

  • GamefunGamefun Member Posts: 290
    Star Wars The Old Republic has been a failure since closed beta. I knew it would fail before release even came out, I openly expressed this many times to the developers on the boards, they didn't listen to people and so the game failed and took its last breath.
  • RaysheRayshe Member UncommonPosts: 1,279

    The game was disappointing. id likely be playing it right now if they didnt remove what i loved from the beta.

     

    a game going F2P isn't a failure. Lets face it F2P is more common than P2P. i wouldnt be suprised if Bioware intended to start off with a sub. make cost back on the game and then turn F2P after, it makes sense. After you make cost its profit. Wages and Servers can be optimized to push profit. so really now that cost has been made they are being quite successful.

    Because i can.
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  • tiefighter25tiefighter25 Member Posts: 937
    Saying SWTOR switching to ftp isn't a failure is like saying the Soviet Union transformed into the Russian Federation because communism was working so swell.
  • JobeArthurJobeArthur Member UncommonPosts: 41

    The game going FTP is very much viewed as a failure in my eyes and many others.

    I think the only reason the industry thinks FTP is the future is the abundant of poorly developed games past, present.

    In SWG i ran 4 accounts and in EVE I ran 8 active accounts although 2 of them I often payed with ETC's, So paying up to $100 bucks a month is not that big of deal for me, in fact most people I know  would gladly pay $20 to $40 a month for a great immersive game and some of them including me would pay up to $60 without a thought and maybe even more if it was an amazing game.  I think most gamers spend around $20 to $60 bucks a month on new games on steam or whatever anyway, and if we had a game that took care of our wants as a gamer and i was spending all my free time in that game I dont see a problem giving them my monthly gaming budget.

    I am not rich or have a bunch of extra cash laying around doing nothing but for the last 20 years or so i prefer playing games as my number one form of entertainment when i have that extra time to waste. I dont think its very much compared to the last time i went to a bar and dropped $120 bucks on dinner and drinks or the $50 i spent at the movies last weekend.

     

     

  • matraquematraque Member Posts: 1,431

    Here's how i see it.  Like it or not, SWTOR has and still have the best way to tell you a story in a MMO to date.  Even if you don't like the game as a whole, it would be stupid to not agree on that.

    It has all of the "classic" mmo features you can expect from a game of that age.  Gear progression, dungeons (FP), raids (operation), crafting, group finder and arena.

    F2P is going to surprise most of us i'm afraid.  It's going to be a big hit.  They are working on a new tv commercial (that will be release when they switch model) and they will stick to that "new things every 6 weeks".

    Do not underestimate the F2P models.  I believe that the game will be MORE profitable with this model that it currently is... And i believe with f2p, they will be able to deliver free content every 6 weeks and some cool DLC (5 to 10$ a pop).

    eqnext.wikia.com

  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,435
    Originally posted by matraque

    Here's how i see it.  Like it or not, SWTOR has and still have the best way to tell you a story in a MMO to date.  Even if you don't like the game as a whole, it would be stupid to not agree on that.

    It has all of the "classic" mmo features you can expect from a game of that age.  Gear progression, dungeons (FP), raids (operation), crafting, group finder and arena.

    F2P is going to surprise most of us i'm afraid.  It's going to be a big hit.  They are working on a new tv commercial (that will be release when they switch model) and they will stick to that "new things every 6 weeks".

    Do not underestimate the F2P models.  I believe that the game will be MORE profitable with this model that it currently is... And i believe with f2p, they will be able to deliver free content every 6 weeks and some cool DLC (5 to 10$ a pop).

    Ah, but that's where the failure is, MMORPG's aren't supposed to tell you a story, the players are supposed to make their own stories, that's what keeps them playing and paying.

    Otherwise you get a throw away experience, just like a book or a movie, once you finish reading the story, you put it away, rarely to ever return.

    It may have all the classic features of the modern theme park MMORPG, but it's pretty obvious that model fails to retain subs over the long haul unless you happen to be a developer named Blizzard.

    They had the money and time to make a truely amazing MMORPG experience, and instead they delivered up something that was mostly average outside of its story telling.

    For that alone I consider the title a failure, and F2P is just the inevitable result to bring life into a flagging title.

     

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  • dariuszpdariuszp Member Posts: 182

    SWTOR is not a failure because it's going F2P. SWTOR is a failure because it's bad game and people are leaving with speed of light.

    F2P is just another way to milk players once they refused paying sub for this game. They are hoping that some people stay and pay for anything just to get $$. Trick is - they giving for free ONLY thing in this game that have some value (story). Everything else is just bad and not worth a peny. Story itself is also just avarage. 

  • KeyloggerKeylogger Member Posts: 250

    Themeparks are an excuse for lazy developers to produce just one or two paths through a game-world.


    In closing, yes, SWTOR is the most hilariously tragic failure of the decade - given it's budget.

  • GwapoJoshGwapoJosh Member UncommonPosts: 1,030
    Originally posted by TobiasGrey
    Originally posted by Kopogero
    SWTOR is a failure because it didn't copy the SWG-Pre CU model. Themeparks in generals been failure over the last 5 years with the exception of WOW.

    Try the last 8 years. There hasn't been a single successful themepark. Rift came the closest but even they were merging servers almost right away.

     

     

    Posts like these are amazingly stupid..  No one would be making MMOs if WoW was the only successful one. You don't need 9 million subs to be a success.

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  • AcvivmAcvivm Member UncommonPosts: 323

    I don't see SWTOR as becoming a failure for going F2P at all, If anything it will only make it better since there won't be any financial hurdles to continuing playing (unless of course they design a system that makes endgame unplayable to non subscribers). I never found the game to be all that bad, sure its a WoW clone and plays similar but I don't feel that is a negative at all. The fact that it is a Star Wars game alone is going to interest people but hearing its F2P I can see the game having a much larger player base then it ever could have as a sub game.

     

    I feel the game failed due to them not releasing more content in a timely manner which has become expected post Rift, if they can manage to get their act together and provide more content it will only get better. The transition to F2P is going to happen to every game at some point, even WoW so I see this more as a change in the genre overall and not just games that are losing players.

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  • matraquematraque Member Posts: 1,431
    Originally posted by Kyleran
    Originally posted by matraque

    Here's how i see it.  Like it or not, SWTOR has and still have the best way to tell you a story in a MMO to date.  Even if you don't like the game as a whole, it would be stupid to not agree on that.

    It has all of the "classic" mmo features you can expect from a game of that age.  Gear progression, dungeons (FP), raids (operation), crafting, group finder and arena.

    F2P is going to surprise most of us i'm afraid.  It's going to be a big hit.  They are working on a new tv commercial (that will be release when they switch model) and they will stick to that "new things every 6 weeks".

    Do not underestimate the F2P models.  I believe that the game will be MORE profitable with this model that it currently is... And i believe with f2p, they will be able to deliver free content every 6 weeks and some cool DLC (5 to 10$ a pop).

    Ah, but that's where the failure is, MMORPG's aren't supposed to tell you a story, the players are supposed to make their own stories, that's what keeps them playing and paying.

    Otherwise you get a throw away experience, just like a book or a movie, once you finish reading the story, you put it away, rarely to ever return.

    It may have all the classic features of the modern theme park MMORPG, but it's pretty obvious that model fails to retain subs over the long haul unless you happen to be a developer named Blizzard.

    They had the money and time to make a truely amazing MMORPG experience, and instead they delivered up something that was mostly average outside of its story telling.

    For that alone I consider the title a failure, and F2P is just the inevitable result to bring life into a flagging title.

     

    Where does it says MMORPG's aren't suppose to tell you a story?  They ALL tell you a story... it's the way of delivering it that is different.

    It is not a thrown away experience if they keep adding and delivering new chapters (that remains to be seen).

     

    eqnext.wikia.com

  • f0dell54f0dell54 Member CommonPosts: 329

    I just like reading threads like this because it reminds of how the majority of you where praising this game back in Dec./Jan. time frame. I find it funny how fast most of you can defend something so much then just turn your back and like it never happened.

     

    The mmorpg.com community is a funny bunch

  • KareliaKarelia Member Posts: 668
    yes it is
  • lugallugal Member UncommonPosts: 671
    Being F2P is not a failure. Having to convert to F2P as a result of failure to provide a good game that is worth subscribing for, yes it is a failure.

    Roses are red
    Violets are blue
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    Which means his opinion is skewed
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  • superniceguysuperniceguy Member UncommonPosts: 2,278
    Originally posted by Acvivm

    I don't see SWTOR as becoming a failure for going F2P at all, If anything it will only make it better since there won't be any financial hurdles to continuing playing (unless of course they design a system that makes endgame unplayable to non subscribers). I never found the game to be all that bad, sure its a WoW clone and plays similar but I don't feel that is a negative at all. The fact that it is a Star Wars game alone is going to interest people but hearing its F2P I can see the game having a much larger player base then it ever could have as a sub game.

     

    I feel the game failed due to them not releasing more content in a timely manner which has become expected post Rift, if they can manage to get their act together and provide more content it will only get better. The transition to F2P is going to happen to every game at some point, even WoW so I see this more as a change in the genre overall and not just games that are losing players.

    The game needs 500K subs to break even. If the game has 10 million players and none buy anything from the store then it will be a failure for EA and SWTOR will close, as they will not be making any money to make it better. There may not be financial hurdles for players but there still is for EA!

    The last bit is a bit contradictory - If WOW becomes F2P, then it will be because they lost players, there is no way they will make it F2P when they have millions of subs.

    If SWTOR sustained at lest 1 million subs and did not get down to 500K subs then it too would not be F2P now. With 2 million sales, and it not being a failure, then it would have maintained more people. When people bought the game they knew it cost $15 per month, and it was not F2P. Even if it sustained 1 million subs it would have been just OK. For it to be a success it would have needed to grow in subs, and then maybe drop down again after about a year, like what SWG did

    There have been loads of layoffs, SWTOR now less priority for EA, no expansions announced yet, just free updates, which only happened to SWG after the NGE. SWG never went F2P, therefore SWG was more success than SWTOR

  • davchadavcha Member UncommonPosts: 130
    In my eyes, SWTOR is a failure because I've stopped playing it because I was bored.
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