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Gamasutra takes the gloves of as they dont seem to like SW:TOR F2P conversion at all: http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/183525/the_burning_of_star_wars_the_old_.php
Personally I agree with them. F2P is never really Free to Play but in this case it is really difficult to keep playing and not paying unless you do the single player storylines and nothing else.
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I honestly disagree. F2P in SWTOR does have stupid limitations, don't get me wrong, but I'm perfectly fine with the Freemium model. You SHOULD be willing to pay for stuff if your enjoying the game and want to play at the end. Possibly make it cost to unlock content individually if your that resistant to monthly payments but still its a small nagging point to me to bother with.
Just some limitations like WF or instances I feel is conterproductive, particularly for level up content.
He just said what we all think (and have said).
I was thinking what you were just thinking as well .. "I bet the author is part of the MMORPG.COM community. This seems to cover everything discussed & presented before."
Not that there is anything wrong with that. The author was very articulate in putting the ideas in a readable form that flowed well.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
people that complain about the F2P model are the same people that hate the game anyway.
whats hilarious to me is people who say how bad this game is somehow expected it to be more enjoyable for them once it had a restricted F2P model.
i got news for you people, if you hate a game with all of its features, you are going to hate it more with a restricted F2P version of the game.
simply saving money or playing a free game doesn't make it more fun, which is why i always just sub to a game i want to play, instead of playing a gimped restricted version of a game.
but hey, that is just me i guess.
^^^^^
Which is basically what the article says - the F2P model as implemented does nothing to attract potential new players. It is a fail and as such the last nail in the coffin. Unlike the author (of the article) I think time has run out; there is no longer time for a relaunch. And after Christmas there will probably be even fewer people playing - and using this forum. All of which means less publicity.
Well pretty sure not "all" think that. So what other "demo" allows a player to play from level 1 to max level? What other "demo" allows players to play the entire story multiple times? Yep pretty sure you cant come up with one. This article is from a well know person who has been bias against TOR from day one. And its clear that some on here are the same way. I would go as far to say some have never played TOR.
This is completely inaccurate but nice try I guess.
Here is a tid bit of an article about f2p from SWTOR.
Schubert concurred, and he also mentioned that the numbers support BioWare's current position. "Almost every conceivable metric is better. The numbers have blown away our expectations, which means good things for the players and the game," he said.
The author of this "article" is about as bias against TOR as a lot of the people that post on a lot of the TOR posts.
What did you expect he will say? We failed miserably? Maybe their expectations were so low they were blown away with 3 new subscribers? I dont know, who can tell from such unspecific comment.
What carries more weight is that almost every other forum ive seen has people sharing disappointment with their f2p model.
This is completely inaccurate but nice try I guess.
Here is a tid bit of an article about f2p from SWTOR.
Schubert concurred, and he also mentioned that the numbers support BioWare's current position. "Almost every conceivable metric is better. The numbers have blown away our expectations, which means good things for the players and the game," he said.
The author of this "article" is about as bias against TOR as a lot of the people that post on a lot of the TOR posts.
What did you expect he will say? We failed miserably? Maybe their expectations were so low they were blown away with 3 new subscribers? I dont know, who can tell from such unspecific comment.
What carries more weight is that almost every other forum ive seen has people sharing disappointment with their f2p model.
Well if you played the game you would know way more than 3 people joined since F2p. Its understandable that those bias against TOR and those who have spent so much time bashing this game cant comprehend that fact a lot of people enjoy this game. A lot of people on these forums cant comprehend that because they may not enjoy this game and expect others need to have their same view. So they come on forums post lies, false facts, quotes out of context, quotes they just make up saying its what ea said , post articles from well known bias author's, and come to every single post just to bash swtor even though they have never played. The issue with this site is those who try to correct those who lie, misquote, fake quote, wrong facts get banned. And most who enjoy their game play their game not come on here and post lies.
The problem with this freemium model is it is too restrictive, which is what we have all been saying.
Now the point of a freemium model is to let players join the game and help more people stay consitently. Then later they should subscribe. Now the thing with this is the new players will get frustrated with the lack of freedom that they have with this game which means that they are not getting new subscribers.
All i am going to say is i loved the StarWars aspect of the game yes i was a SWG refugee. But the issue was they did not fix bugs with the game big one XALEK IS STILL BROKEN!!!!!! This has been there since launch no fix. They dont seem to listen to the community that often. But lets get back to their model.
THIS IS THE WORST FREEMIUM MODEL IN ANY GAME THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN.
The restrict how many quickbars you can have who thought of that? It is soo stupid.
You can only do 5 warzones A WEEK. That is dumb
YOU CANT USE ARTIFACT GEAR. So the whole point of doing warzones and flashpoints is now gone due to that.
The Arcade Corner
The Daily Exposition
This was brought up as well on a recent episode of Gamebreaker's The Republic show. Larry (Massively) / Justin (Darth Hater) used F2P accounts to see what it was like to be "free". Oddly, even if you rent only portions of the game Ala Carte (like weekly WZ unlocks), then you still don't get customer support. Even though you are technically supporting SWTOR / EA. They thought it was strange, and I'd have to agree.
The counter-argument is simply, "just subscribe then!" .. but that defeats the purpose of paying for only you want, sort of. From a business standpoint, EA should provide customer support to everyone, because in the end they would want as few people as possible to have a bad experience. Whether they pay a lot or just a little .. or nothing. Because even those paying a little or nothing might eventually upgrade their account.
One thing I've learned from being in a business dependent on customer revenue: "Give a customer great service and they might tell another person about it. Give a customer bad service and they will tell 10 other people about it." It's generally independent of how much they actually spend.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
The only issue I have with this arguement is who needs customer support for these games? I have been playing MMO's for about six years now. I have contacted customer support maybe 2 times, both were billing. If you not being billed why do you need to contact them? What would be a reason to contact them when you are playing? To me this is just another reason for those who have never played TOR and come to every single post and bash the game. This to me is not ground breaking in the least, because truth be told if they did get customer support these same people would be pouting it took too long.
The only way to implement proper F2P is to have mostly cosmetical items in there with a few boosts to exp, gold etc but these boosts needs to be in proportion so not to allow insta leveling to cap.
Everything else such as items, potions etc must be able to be found by just playing the game. If not the people who does not want to spend an arm and a leg for a video game will feel they are second class citizens and will quit.
SW:TOR goes as far as limiting what you can do which is even worse and other games like Planetside 2 allows you to get better guns, much faster than other people and this is fail too.
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Yeah this makes absolutely no sense at all. What are you actually trying to say?
How do people who don't spend money in the cartel market feel like second class citizens? So these second hand citizens are running around in Columi gear, Black hole gear and Rakata gear hmm thats kind of funny. You see you can't buy any of that in the cartel market. TOR goes as far as limiting what you can do? Oh yeah you can play from level 1-50, you can do multiple stories, you can run flashpoints, you can pvp yep those are some exteme limits.
Well, game wouldnt fail if so many like you claim like it. YOur opinion has been kikcked by 2,3m+.. Sorry to burst your bubble.
SWTORs extended trial is awful. Even a lot of subscribers think so. Nice try though.
Whether the fremium model is good or bad according to Schubert doesn't come into it, the author of the article believes it is a bad model.
And what is Schubert saying? Things are so good that SWTOR now has - at best - as many players as it had when they optimised the servers? If that blew away their expectations then all I can say is that they were very limited. Reopening the other 230 servers - well that would have been something. Remember - EA's expectations were "blown away" last January, February and even in May. The cold hard facts however failed to support what they were saying. So the track record ..... well it doesn't lend much faith to Schubert.
Remember: the game is now F2P!
F2P games "work" by having lots and lots and lots of players all paying a little bit. And they cease to work when people leave and you have to get more people in to replace them. Find any article about Zynga's trials and tribulations - only 3-5% pay. Other companies report the same thing - which is hardly a surprise. So no new servers ... fail.
And the point the article is making is that if - as EA said - people are not prepared to pay $15 then they are not going to pay for this F2P model.
And player numbers are only part of the equation. Average revenue per customer is the other; churn is the third key metric as a month 1 customer usually pays more than a month 2, 3 etc. customer.
Karteli nailed it on the head there.
Maxima, as I clearly stated in my post I encountered a bug that literally made the game unplayable. That kind of warrants the need for some customer support but as I am a F2P Player now I am not worthy of said customer support therefore I am apparently not worthy of playing the game at all unless I pay. That pretty much completely contradicts the meaning of F2P if you ask me lol.
On another note when trying to find a way to report/fix the issue at first I was able to read numerous posts of subscribers having the same issue, only difference being their $$ made them worthy of customer support which was able to eventually fix the issue for them.
Interesting article. In fact it points at most of the issues.
However I strongly disagree with the premium pricing for some stuff.
Ex: 100$ for a new space ship or even $20 for each player to have access to guild halls.
Prices have to be cheap, so many player will open their wallet and also they won't feel milked doing so.
Meaning they will be more eager to spend and spread how "cheap" is TOR.
Finally, in essence, the article is saying that they might indeed be making money, but in the long term they are hurting themselves and would make much more cash with a good F2P model.
You wish some top managers at EA would read that article and ask for some answers..
BioWare exchanged deadline for getteing cartel coins:
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This is a copy of what I posted on the Darth Hater forums about the REAL problems with the free to play model of SWTOR. Thought I would also post it here as it is completely related to this topic. I added a poll at the bottom here about my points.
As a player who is now in the high 40's levels in game, these have been my findings on the 'preferred' model. I could love this game, but I will not rent content.
Here is my (almost) complete thoughts on the current F2P model issues... The things that I have already (or know I will, soon) experience(d). I think it should make a lot of sense to everyone here.
Sorry that this is such a long post, but so much needs to be said.
Credit Caps:
After hitting levels 40+ (especially) I have found the caps to be quite an issue. I know endgame will be much much worse.
The credit cap in the 40's+ levels will be a big issue, even as preferred. 350k is not enough to buy most unlocks or items you would want from the GTN (and even vendors). Never will be. It is also much less then a 'reasonable' GTN price for people wanting to purchase and sell unlocks to these new players. This hurts everybody!
I find myself having to return to fleet just to buy crap (that I don't even want - because anything I would want, I will never be able to afford) off the GTN all the time so as to not waste as much money I grinded for disapearing into the 'escrow' abyss.
There will be quite a lot of stuff you can NEVER get.
Comendation Caps:
Comendation caps are also a very annoying issue. You are going to have to waste a lot of time travelling back from quest zones to buy stuff with commendation points before returning to your quests, or, missing out on good gear because of the inconvenience of a cap of 20. Yet another example of how this is simply a 'free to trial' system... and I have not even hit endgame yet.
Those caps are too low to buy a lot of gear throughout the game.
There will be quite a lot of stuff you can NEVER get.
Endgame:
There basicly is NONE, unless you sub or rent *lol* weekly passes for them. Yet another joke and reason this is nothing more then a 'free to trial' system.
A simple permanent unlock of either each type of endgame activity, or each level range of op/fp/wz/etc, or of each op/fp/wz/etc separately, would fix this and still make BW/EA good money - like any real F2P model does.
Why would people who did not choose to sub, instead go and rent weekly passes? It makes no sense... BW/EA should look to Dungeons & Dragons Online for a working model. I was happy to spend over $300 in a year on DDO content and unlocks and a guild ship (again, nerfing F2P guilds??? really? What a waste of a source of long term revinue) - much more then they would have made from a sub.
Forum/Ticket Access:
As for forum access (and tickets). It's a joke. I can't even get support for faulty CM purchases. A basic legal right.
My GTN unlock *clearly* stated "10 >>>additional<<< slots". I recieved 5. Clearly not what I paid for.
Artifact Equipment Unlock:
I purchased this, and now I am wonderring why. With no endgame content, and the fact that I could nearly as easy do the levelling process with all basic (even white) gear makes it sorta pointless.
There will be quite a lot of stuff you can NEVER get.
Unavailable Quest Rewards:
All I can say is WTF!?!?!!? Who thought this was a good idea?
My Recommendations:
I would suggest simply not spending any money on the game until they fix the F2P model. Don't let them think being treated like a second class citizen for your choice of payment methods is good enough. It is not. They can make plenty (more) money by doing it properly.
As a 'preferred' player, you will always be a second class citizen under the current F2P model. Don't make my mistake and spend real money other then the basic 'preferred' status, or you will regret it (unless they finally get a clue and realize that a real model would actually make them more money then the sub model - as many other companies have found).
If BW/EA are serious about F2P then things need to change. The current system is NEVER going to work as it nothing but a (single player) trial (for an MMO???). It does not offer permanent unlocks for any of the important restrictions... an easy fix if they really wanted this model - they don't, they simply want to make you waste money thinking it will be playable only to find out late in the game that it is in fact completely pointless to continue playing unless you sub.
The few things they *cough* fixed (or are soon to) are (petty, but not game breaking - at least early on) action bars (which I had already unlocked permanently - no issue doing that - as long as I have the option), and character slots (why couldn't I simply purchase slots? - and why focus on the single player part of the game if you want long term players (endgame/guild affiliated)?).
They are not even mentioning the real issues (permanent unlocks of ops/fp/wz/etc), and the subs (who can talk on the forums about F2P while we can't) also are not mentioning them, or simply telling people to sub. That is a very, very, short term solution. The fluff is irrelevant if it can be unlocked, and yet this is what they are changing.
A smart company, and smart subscribers, should be looking at the long term picture and trying to make this model retain players over the long term. Active worlds and queues (and new players actually being able to get experience/gear in fp/wz/op/etc instead of not being able to play them enough and ruining the experience for others due to lack of experience/gear) are good for everyone.
Potential 'preferred' players, I urge you, don't sub and don't spend more then you have to for the most basic features. Tell them this is a bad model, and pledge to purchase if they fix it instead. If they want to call this a F2P model, then they better damn well make it a viable alternative payment method... otherwise I and many others will be gone and not spending another cent very soon.
Those are my experiences as a 'premium' player who spend $70 if the first week, thinking I could make this game playable under this model. Don't support it as it is!
I hate to sound so negative, but my experience has been negitive in comparison to *any* other F2P MMO I have played. I absolutely love the game, but completely hate the F2P model. It has been done nearly completely wrong (I believe very much due to the lack of actual F2P player feedback, because we can't communicate to them).
You don't need to take my word for these things, look into it and come to your own conclusions. It is your choice after all, all I can do is warn you about the major issues that I have come across.
Long term: Fix the game = Fix F2P! --- BW/EA have a chance here to make a lot of money with a fair system, which in turn has been proven by other games to permanently increase the player base if they can just stand back and look at the over-all picture. The current system seems to be marketing F2P as a single player game - which is a really dumb (short sighted) move for any MMO.
We badly need an advocate for us on the official forums (as well as podcasters) to get this messed up system addressed properly, and the F2P model turned into a true alternative payment system, not a 'glorified???' trial system. BW missed the point of F2P models.
Please don't forget your F2P brothers. Help us to help you in the long term!
And this was their BIG mistake - thinking of the F2P model as a trial instead of an alternative payment method.
hmm my poll was not well described, it should have been more like "What would be a successful long term F2P model?"
And this was their BIG mistake - thinking of the F2P model as a trial instead of an alternative payment method.
My #1 beef with the free to play model is that when I went to log on to my account (preferred status), I wanted to experience a new class story. But, to do that I was limited to just 2 characters....well, I had 5 and was told to delete characters in order to make new ones. WTF? I'm not going to delete my old characters just to make a new character. I even tried to make a new character on a new server, but the limitation was account-wide. That's insane!
So, I had to create a completely new account, thus I don't have preferred status. Several abilities I've never trained because I don't have enough room on my 2 quickbars.
The 5-rez limit is also super annoying. The 25% XP reduction becomes a problem around level 30 if you're playing to experience the class stories, as you start to easily finish the quests and still be underleveled relative to your class quest.
But, there's not much incentive to pay. The removal of penalties doesn't prompt me to resub or pay cartel coins. There should be a feature that unlocks something I do want to sub for, but the game doesn't have it. I don't know what the right model is, but the "removal of penalties" doesn't really do it.
The are only 2 disadvantages to being F2P, such as being unable to trade and send mail/items/credits. Everything else is unlockable and buyable. People who tell you in this thread that you'll NEVER be able to buy some item from the GTN are making stuff up.
The biggest problem are horrible lag spikes in warzones and over-populated areas like the fleet. I can totally understand why people would unsubscribe when they have 60000 ms lag and then it's DISCOnnect TIME and you get 0 valor and 0 comms.