Wow thay actually had customer support phone up people to make an apology to a player and his guild for reporting that a GM had threatened them ingame with bans of thier accounts
With the new mega-servers we may actually have a better idea of how many subs they actually have
I find it interesting if you read the whole list of SWToR CS responses:
- First it's "we have found this claim to be fraudulent and the account making this claim has been actioned against.
- Then (after more players in that Players guild speak out across the internet - bring more proof of the violation - followed by a CS response of "okay, we TREALLY looked into this and found it actuall happened...it didn't in the initial investigation, and we don't know why...honest...sorry."
Sounds like they took a play out of the CCP{/EVE Online CS playbook: Deny, deny, deny - until you can't anymore.
Quite sad; but just gopes to show what type of company EA really is in the end.
"How can we get more people to try this game?"
"Offer them a free trial."
"k."
The only problem is that trials are now called F2P trials. The actual thing hasn't changed much.
Now Tera... They did some renewing by offering it on a cloud service.
hmm... does TOR have a micro transaction / DLC store by now?
I hope so.
I'm already rubbing in this free trial thingy in a friends face.
A MT store would be like... Cherry on top.
Technically that pre-order store or whatever it was fall into that category. They payed extra to access a store in game. Of course it might be semantics.
hmm... does TOR have a micro transaction / DLC store by now?
No, it doesn't, give it time though. EA is a money hungry vampire, they won't stop with sub fees. I see this as a desperate grab for players after the massive layoffs EA imposed on Bioware. I never renewed my sub after 6 months of playing and buying the CE. Waste of money. At this point I would welcome SWGs back, there was always something to do.
I hope so.
I'm already rubbing in this free trial thingy in a friends face.
A MT store would be like... Cherry on top.
Technically that pre-order store or whatever it was fall into that category. They payed extra to access a store in game. Of course it might be semantics.
The store at least doesn't cost real-world money. Yet.
I for one am not surprised. I predict by the end of the year, they will be full on F2P, or in the process of crossing over to F2P. The game lacks a huge amount of content, especially for end gamers, and it is extremely repetitive. There is nothing exciting about the game, and after the wonder of playing a Jedi/Sith/Bounty Hunter wears off, you are left with a shell of a game that lacks substance and imagination. I would rather play KOTOR and KOTOR 2 over again, then deal with the garbage that is SWTOR. This is the first time I have ever been disappointed in BioWare, but I guess that is to be expected since they are now owned by EA, voted the worst company in America last year (http://consumerist.com/2012/04/congratulations-ea-you-are-the-worst-company-in-america-for-2012.html)
I have already unsubbed from the game, after giving it 6 months of my life, and I don't expect to return anytime soon.
I'm gonna wait til they go full F2P so I can go play that, hopefully this game will have something for me to do round Season 7, since Season 6 is all about the fleet starbases I won't ever get to experience :mad:
But SW:ToR rocks, it's sad playing that game and realising just how much content and polish STO is lacking.
I'm laying down my Starfleet issue phaser and donning a lightsabre when Dec 15th hits (got my preorder early access) :-)
The supposed Polish is only on the surface. I played the game for nearly 6 months, and was bored out of my mind near the end. After the wonder of playing a jedi/sith/bounty hunter wears off, you start to realize that the game lacks substance and imagination. Each of the worlds are basically just cookie cutters of each other, with an overlay of a particular flavor they want that world to have. (I don't know how many times I was walking through a cave or factory or any other dungeon and felt as if I had already been there before.) All the costume designs are boring, or just down right horrible (look at the war hero/campaign set that came out with 1.2), and choosing light or dark side has no last effects except on story. If you a dark side jedi, you don't get sith powers, nor are you banned from the jedi (as would normally happen) and if you are light side sith, you don't get jedi powers) PvP is absolutely boring, with only 4 maps, and playing out the same scenarios. Endgame content is extremely lacking and repetitive, with no style and no real worthy challenge. (hard mode and nightmare mode aren't even worth spending time to beat, as the rewards are minimal).
I have heard that come 1.3, SWTOR will be F2P for the first 15 levels. I predict that by the end of the year, it will be either full F2P, or in the process of crossing over to F2P, with at least a micro-transaction system already in place.
Polish? I would rather take the substance and imagination of STO over the "polish" of SWTOR.
Info on transfers, looks like you may not be able to join your friends, keep your name in some cases ect
For guild members and masters, you will not be able to transfer your guild as a whole to your new server; instead you will need to reform it. If you have a guild bank, it will be re-granted to your new guild on your destination server by Customer Service.
If your transferred characters name conflicts with an existing name on a destination server, you will be asked to rename your character - understandable on that one
and others may be anxious to move to a specific server to be with friends. With the restrictions of this initial service, that may not be possible. We still believe that you will enjoy playing on a higher population server and hope you'll take advantage of the service
Info on transfers, looks like you may not be able to join your friends, keep your name in some cases ect
For guild members and masters, you will not be able to transfer your guild as a whole to your new server; instead you will need to reform it. If you have a guild bank, it will be re-granted to your new guild on your destination server by Customer Service.
If your transferred characters name conflicts with an existing name on a destination server, you will be asked to rename your character - understandable on that one
and others may be anxious to move to a specific server to be with friends. With the restrictions of this initial service, that may not be possible. We still believe that you will enjoy playing on a higher population server and hope you'll take advantage of the service
Character Transfers are not going to save this game at this point.
As anticipated, EA is opening up its portfolio for free gamers. According to a recent news feed from Reuters, EA is planning to offer at least 15 levels (from July) of its magnum opus, Star Wars: Old Republic for free to play. The company expects that this free offering will boost its dwindling subscriber base going forward. EA lost approximately 400K subscribers in the fiscal fourth quarter. EA expects to earn significant revenue from additional features and through micro-transactions by selling in-game based items http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ea-showcase-games-e3-143015708.html
Well things have just hit the roof on the TOR forums, its a wonder the rage explosion was not heard from here
If the article is correct then theres a lot of people looking at leaving as in there words "its a slippery slope, just look at TF2 and STO"
Well things have just hit the roof on the TOR forums, its a wonder the rage explosion was not heard from here
I didn't mind the STO f2p transition at all. We got more players and more content out of it. Granted, all the new content comes in the form of lockbox plague.... :rolleyes:
I didn't mind the STO f2p transition at all. We got more players and more content out of it. Granted, all the new content comes in the form of lockbox plague.... :rolleyes:
But Horty! If the Loffpack was as big of a success as I think it was, perhaps we will be getting more stuff like that instead of lockboxes! Then we can move on to C-Store Items! Won't that be wonderful?
But Horty! If the Loffpack was as big of a success as I think it was, perhaps we will be getting more stuff like that instead of lockboxes! Then we can move on to C-Store Items! Won't that be wonderful?
Forget a loftpack, I want a dancing hologirl that I can clickie any time I want! Even in space! :cool:
"Fire up the modified holoship device."
"Sir, it's still on cooldown. She'll fly apart."
"Fly her apart, then!"
Or something like that.
Then again I was in beta and one of the survey they had me fill out ad a couple too many questions about free to play. A fact I posted in these forums some where about when ToR launched.
Hey Grand Nagus did you see my coverage at E3 on SWTOR patch 1.3 and Star Wars 1313? The lead producer said they are implementing free trial up to level 15 in July but the F2P thing is a business model that is not in the cards for a while.
"We're going to be in the business from a long term standpoint so absolutely we're going to embrace free access, free trial, ultimately some day we can move in and embrace that model. It's all a matter of timing and thinking things through. We have a great business right now and we're not looking to make any abrupt changes. We made some good announcements in terms of giving you the first few levels free, because our telemetry told us that if we can get you to around level 8 or 9, you stick with us for the long term. So really the strategy right now is about opening up the funnel at the top so we can acquire more customers who are interested in Star Wars who perhaps aren't ready to pay the full price," Gibeau continued.
Comments
I find it interesting if you read the whole list of SWToR CS responses:
- First it's "we have found this claim to be fraudulent and the account making this claim has been actioned against.
- Then (after more players in that Players guild speak out across the internet - bring more proof of the violation - followed by a CS response of "okay, we TREALLY looked into this and found it actuall happened...it didn't in the initial investigation, and we don't know why...honest...sorry."
Sounds like they took a play out of the CCP{/EVE Online CS playbook: Deny, deny, deny - until you can't anymore.
Quite sad; but just gopes to show what type of company EA really is in the end.
yah i know... *demo 'till lvl 15 is not real F2P* yada yada
but i find it fascinating that BioWare is are ALREADY using the term F2P for TOR at all, so early in the Games life.
*not a TOR player, just observing it's progress*
@DEV's can we bring the STO Lightsaber Bat'Leths and Lirpas back when TOR goes full F2P ? *hrrhrr*
/discuss
"Offer them a free trial."
"k."
The only problem is that trials are now called F2P trials. The actual thing hasn't changed much.
Now Tera... They did some renewing by offering it on a cloud service.
I'm already rubbing in this free trial thingy in a friends face.
A MT store would be like... Cherry on top.
Technically that pre-order store or whatever it was fall into that category. They payed extra to access a store in game. Of course it might be semantics.
No, it doesn't, give it time though. EA is a money hungry vampire, they won't stop with sub fees. I see this as a desperate grab for players after the massive layoffs EA imposed on Bioware. I never renewed my sub after 6 months of playing and buying the CE. Waste of money. At this point I would welcome SWGs back, there was always something to do.
I have already unsubbed from the game, after giving it 6 months of my life, and I don't expect to return anytime soon.
I'm gonna wait til they go full F2P so I can go play that, hopefully this game will have something for me to do round Season 7, since Season 6 is all about the fleet starbases I won't ever get to experience :mad:
The supposed Polish is only on the surface. I played the game for nearly 6 months, and was bored out of my mind near the end. After the wonder of playing a jedi/sith/bounty hunter wears off, you start to realize that the game lacks substance and imagination. Each of the worlds are basically just cookie cutters of each other, with an overlay of a particular flavor they want that world to have. (I don't know how many times I was walking through a cave or factory or any other dungeon and felt as if I had already been there before.) All the costume designs are boring, or just down right horrible (look at the war hero/campaign set that came out with 1.2), and choosing light or dark side has no last effects except on story. If you a dark side jedi, you don't get sith powers, nor are you banned from the jedi (as would normally happen) and if you are light side sith, you don't get jedi powers) PvP is absolutely boring, with only 4 maps, and playing out the same scenarios. Endgame content is extremely lacking and repetitive, with no style and no real worthy challenge. (hard mode and nightmare mode aren't even worth spending time to beat, as the rewards are minimal).
I have heard that come 1.3, SWTOR will be F2P for the first 15 levels. I predict that by the end of the year, it will be either full F2P, or in the process of crossing over to F2P, with at least a micro-transaction system already in place.
Polish? I would rather take the substance and imagination of STO over the "polish" of SWTOR.
Info on transfers, looks like you may not be able to join your friends, keep your name in some cases ect
For guild members and masters, you will not be able to transfer your guild as a whole to your new server; instead you will need to reform it. If you have a guild bank, it will be re-granted to your new guild on your destination server by Customer Service.
If your transferred characters name conflicts with an existing name on a destination server, you will be asked to rename your character - understandable on that one
and others may be anxious to move to a specific server to be with friends. With the restrictions of this initial service, that may not be possible. We still believe that you will enjoy playing on a higher population server and hope you'll take advantage of the service
Character Transfers are not going to save this game at this point.
As anticipated, EA is opening up its portfolio for free gamers. According to a recent news feed from Reuters, EA is planning to offer at least 15 levels (from July) of its magnum opus, Star Wars: Old Republic for free to play. The company expects that this free offering will boost its dwindling subscriber base going forward. EA lost approximately 400K subscribers in the fiscal fourth quarter. EA expects to earn significant revenue from additional features and through micro-transactions by selling in-game based items
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ea-showcase-games-e3-143015708.html
Well things have just hit the roof on the TOR forums, its a wonder the rage explosion was not heard from here
If the article is correct then theres a lot of people looking at leaving as in there words "its a slippery slope, just look at TF2 and STO"
I didn't mind the STO f2p transition at all. We got more players and more content out of it. Granted, all the new content comes in the form of lockbox plague.... :rolleyes:
But Horty! If the Loffpack was as big of a success as I think it was, perhaps we will be getting more stuff like that instead of lockboxes! Then we can move on to C-Store Items! Won't that be wonderful?
Forget a loftpack, I want a dancing hologirl that I can clickie any time I want! Even in space! :cool:
"Fire up the modified holoship device."
"Sir, it's still on cooldown. She'll fly apart."
"Fly her apart, then!"
Or something like that.
I play it way more than STO.
Wait, all the MMOs I choose seem to go F2P. Correlation? LOL
Obviously, you need to stop playing my MMo's!
Erm... I mean... j/k
-J
Edit: By the way, if you're still in need of AuxSIF III, as your sig suggests, I can check. I'm pretty sure I have one laying around somewhere.
Edit 2: Yep, I have an AUX III Boff with your name on it if you need it. Just send me a shout if you do.
All I get on that link is an error 404 message
It seems the article has been removed :eek:
Oh well, see this one:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/15/bioware-considering-free-to-play-for-star-wars-the-old-republic/
F2P is probably at least 6 months to a year away at least (an estimate), even with a large dev team it's probably going to be a long process
Maybe not as long as you might think:
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Grand_Nagus/062012/23326_Was-F2P-always-the-plan-for-TOR
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/15/ea-boss-swtor-absolutely-going-to-embrace-free-model/
Then again I was in beta and one of the survey they had me fill out ad a couple too many questions about free to play. A fact I posted in these forums some where about when ToR launched.
Let me know what you think... www.holonetradio.com
And then this.