LOL, hey guys, remember when we were all worried about what our characters would lose in Gold to Silver "conversion" process? (FYI for any new players, this didn't end up happening at all. EC limits had a hiccup, but the stipend covered the EC unlock.)
Well here's the official TOR line:
What happens if I decide to change from being a subscription player to a Free-to-Play member? What will happen to my credits, inventory, bank items, and characters?
Your account will automatically be downgraded and it will operate under the Free player restrictions. You will need to choose what items to keep with you within the restriction levels of the free access. Furthermore, you will be able to see, but not use, your excess credits, inventory slots, bank tabs, and extra characters.
Soooo... yeah, good luck with that. I think DCUO had something similar?
=/\=Transwarp 10.0 Victory Achieved on 26-July-2012, Six Months After F2P =/\=
A friend of mine tried to tell me this game was failing for going F2P after two years and that games don't go free unless they are failing, he was also telling me to un-sub from here to join them on Tor. I get a perverse sense of pleasure thinking that our game with its smaller base has done better in that regard to a game as (over)hyped as Tor.
Gonna have to disagree with that part.
It's just called BW was getting more and more nervous after the 400k loss and decided to "F#%^ it...lets just go F2P hybrid to prevent more..."
Gotta imagine though...TOR just did it right away, while STO dragged its limbs for some time. I still consider profit and player numbers a key part of an MMO "failing" or not; on both those categories TOR > STO . PWE could only dream of the 500k+ subs TOR had haha. But at least TOR seems to be taking small steps with their F2P unlike STO's P2W and P2G.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] EXPLORE.
Dec '07 Account I EARNED 1000 days...I didn't BUY it! New LTS=Death to Vet.System: 10/10/12 Never Forget Something should be done for those who cared enough to have a 1000+ day sub.
Anyone know what the race restrictions are? If they restrict my favorite races, I am not going to play.
I am working under the assumption that free players will not be able to use cross-faction races when they get to level 50. That will probably be reserved for Subscribers; but beyond that I don't think you'll see any particular race restrictions.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
As long as they give me the option to purchase the features I want, I'll be happy. But if anything significant is walled off behind the subscription, then theres really no point in even doing F2P because if I felt like the game was good enough to pay a sub for every month I'd be playing now.
As long as they give me the option to purchase the features I want, I'll be happy. But if anything significant is walled off behind the subscription, then theres really no point in even doing F2P because if I felt like the game was good enough to pay a sub for every month I'd be playing now.
Don't know if you consider Forum Posting significant, but the plans are that F2P'ers won't get access to post according to the dev Tracker
[Which is WAY more draconian than Cryptic/PWE was with their forums as once you make a (was Cpoints, is now) Zen points purchase. Also I think EA/BioWare is setting themselves up for a disappointment in charging for most new quest/mission content as Cryptic tried it and found it just puts a barrier to grouping (when some potential members find they don't have it). Cryptic tried it in Champions Online and already abandoned the practice.
It's seems BioWare/EA wants to ignore a big aspect of what keeps people playing an MMO for the long haul - and that's the friendships they form in game with other players (that probably kept me playing WoW about 2 years longer than I would have if not for the friends in my old WoW Guild.)
SWToR had elements that seemed to actively discourage grouping and even when players asked for better grouping and group finding tools, EA/Bioware was (and still is) slow to respond on that area. <--- IMO this hastened SWToR's decline as much as any of it's other issues.
And for those of you who find Cryptic's/PWE's F2P model greedy and a money grab - given the way EA handles the DLCs and cash shops in some of it's other offerings; you'll all have a stroke once you see how EA tries to fleece it's SWToR playerbase after the F2P conversion. Their model comes across as very similar to Age of Conan's and even if you were once a subscriber, you keep nothing from your subscriber days if you decide to got F2P in SWToR (based on their current matrix and F2P FAQ.)
There's a reason EA was voted worst company is the U.S. by consumers.
It's also interesting how much the SWToR Dev's position has changed on the F2P model as back in December 2011 as the SWToR launch began, they were saying:
"You look at the online space in general and it's fragmenting into all these different areas, but the core still works. The subscription model still works," Zeschuk said. "We know a lot of people say, 'Oh, everything's just going free-to-play.' But that's just one slice. There's one slice that's free-to-play, there's one slice that's social, there's traditional subscription still going." He was also quick to point out that, "it's obviously been the free-to-play guys trumpeting this," though his own company certainly isn't above working in the free-to-play space, as evidenced by Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes.
"I'm not saying it's better or worse. It just doesn't supplant the other things. 'Cause we can do some things no one else can," Zeschuk added. In his eyes, a free-to-play dev isn't able to throw the same amount of resources and time at an MMO project, and that marks a big differentiation between the two business models. "The free-to-play people can't invest to the level we can invest, and can't create something of the size and scale of something we can create," he said. The idea that free-to-play will take over all other MMO business models, he said is, "from a business perspective, ridiculous."
Yet as of the SWToR F2P launch announcement, it's:
STAFFING AND CONTENT OUTPUT AS F2P?
I didn't ask the guys directly about layoffs, as it's a bit of a tough subject, but indirectly I asked how the transition to a F2P hybrid model is going to affect their staffing and their content output. Are they equipped to meet a seemingly more aggressive content push? Their answer was simple: any shift in staff they've made over the past few months has been to sort of rebuild the studio for this new F2P venture. They have more focused content teams in place now than they did before, and they're more confident now that they can meet their goals with this altered approach.
DOES BIOWARE THINK F2P IS THE FUTURE?
I then asked Jeff and Matt if they knew now, what they had known then about the MMO market in the West, would SWTOR have been built as a F2P game to begin with? Their answer, in so many words was yes. They freely admitted that hindsight is 20/20, and that they were wrong in predicting the sub model would be perfect for SWTOR, because such things are difficult to gauge over the long multi-year pre-launch lifespan of a project as massive as an MMORPG. Both gentlemen agreed that they see the F2P and hybrid models as the way the market is going, and they feel that this change for SWTOR is reactive and timely to change now rather than later. Matt said, "We're reacting because the players want it this way. There are folks who have been telling us they want it F2P since trying it, since buying it, and they see the subscription as a needless barrier... and we agree. In general, consumers today want flexibility and we're going to give it to them."
Sorry, I just find it interesting that at launch they said they could do more under a subscription model then an F2P model - yet 7 months later, they can 'get a more aggressive update schedule" \going because they're now shifting to F2P and even better the:
I then asked Jeff and Matt if they knew now, what they had known then about the MMO market in the West, would SWTOR have been built as a F2P game to begin with? Their answer, in so many words was yes.
comment. But again, this is why nobody likes or trusts EA, and a major reason it's seem as the 'Dev Killer' as years ago, it did to Origin what it's now done to BioWare
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
[Which is WAY more draconian than Cryptic/PWE was with their forums as once you make a (was Cpoints, is now) Zen points purchase. Also I think EA/BioWare is setting themselves up for a disappointment in charging for most new quest/mission content as Cryptic tried it and found it just puts a barrier to grouping (when some potential members find they don't have it). Cryptic tried it in Champions Online and already abandoned the practice.
I'm personally of a different mindset as I prefer how LotRO handles things between Gold and Silver, and SWTOR seems to be emulating that - and I think most of us originally believed that STO would too until the STO FTP Matrix was released.
I bought a bunch of EA stock yesterday after the FTP announcement was made - and the stock dipped below $11.00 as everyone reacted to that. Just as with LotRO and DDO, I think SWTOR's FTP model is going to do well - and that the stock will rise because of it.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
SWTOR will make a great F2P game. The base upon which it is built is much stronger than most converted games. Plus they are taking the interesting step of doing this transition before the game has really lost popularity (under 1 million subscribers?! This game wasn't even breaking 50k when it went F2P).
I am definitely looking forward to getting back in now that a sub isn't required.
Kobayashi Maru
Join Date: Sept 2008
"Holographic tissue paper for the holographic runny nose. Don't give them to patients." - The Doctor
SWTOR will make a great F2P game. The base upon which it is built is much stronger than most converted games. Plus they are taking the interesting step of doing this transition before the game has really lost popularity (under 1 million subscribers?! This game wasn't even breaking 50k when it went F2P).
I am definitely looking forward to getting back in now that a sub isn't required.
SWTOR will make a great F2P game. The base upon which it is built is much stronger than most converted games. Plus they are taking the interesting step of doing this transition before the game has really lost popularity (under 1 million subscribers?! This game wasn't even breaking 50k when it went F2P).
I am definitely looking forward to getting back in now that a sub isn't required.
From the looks of it, TOR has the same problems as STO in addition to bigger ones. Space combat looks bland, as bad as PWE is, EA is much much worse, and anyone who says that Freemium isn't Pay to Win is a massive hypocrite. -_-
Unfortunately, the forum update now makes it very difficult to locate the exact post where this is discussed. But if the links still work, you can review it and do your own estimations.
However, after thinking about it I believe I stand corrected. The total number of subs across all Cryptic games was around 100k or less.
Kobayashi Maru
Join Date: Sept 2008
"Holographic tissue paper for the holographic runny nose. Don't give them to patients." - The Doctor
Unfortunately, the forum update now makes it very difficult to locate the exact post where this is discussed. But if the links still work, you can review it and do your own estimations.
However, after thinking about it I believe I stand corrected. The total number of subs across all Cryptic games was around 100k or less.
Yeah, I saw some thread that had some bogus chart with all the subs of the MMOs on the old STO forums.
And I read through all of the annual reports and the quarterly reports from Atari's corporate releases, they make no mention of subscription numbers. That lawsuit though, lol patent trolls.
Nothing substantive still. Good on them for making money off a relatively small number of people.
EA must be pissed. Could have bought a lot gold plated whipping canes on all the money they burned on TOR. Now they'll just have to settle for gold plated belts to woop Bioware employees with.
From the looks of it, TOR has the same problems as STO in addition to bigger ones. Space combat looks bland, as bad as PWE is, EA is much much worse, and anyone who says that Freemium isn't Pay to Win is a massive hypocrite. -_-
You mean like paying for the .5 ships here? Yep, P2W may as well be the initials of PWE.
Or lockboxes?
___________________
"There is no problem in the universe that can't be solved with a bribe, a paid assassin, or an overpowered fighter." - Chubain from Jumpgate Evolution
One of the issues Bioware has/had was actually some of the community members. STO should know this all too well because they did the same thing.
People voice what needs/needed to be improved and the fanbois rush in saying the same thing. "You don't like it then leave". And too many people took their advice to the point that in order to continue to survive, a game had to go P2W.
I said it in both places along with DCUO: Don't tell people to leave or they might just do that and you'll be left holding the TRIBBLE.
___________________
"There is no problem in the universe that can't be solved with a bribe, a paid assassin, or an overpowered fighter." - Chubain from Jumpgate Evolution
I guess I have to explain it real slow to you. How much they make P2W their model, it should be used as an abbreviation for them. Or do you think every abbreviation on the stock market actually is their true abbreviation?
___________________
"There is no problem in the universe that can't be solved with a bribe, a paid assassin, or an overpowered fighter." - Chubain from Jumpgate Evolution
I guess I have to explain it real slow to you. How much they make P2W their model, it should be used as an abbreviation for them. Or do you think every abbreviation on the stock market actually is their true abbreviation?
Your sorry attempt at witty stock symbol wordplay has generated 0 interest from the New York Times.
Your second sentence being brutally awkward to read has foiled your attempt at sounding like Professor Sarcastic Q. Knowitall.
Better luck next time Jeff Albertson, the key is to breathe through your nose.
Sorry if the P2W mentality of this game's owners offends you so.
Your half hearted attempt at soothing my neutral feelings is appreciated but not necessary. Perfect World and Cryptic's choice of business model or state of mind is in no way offensive to me at all.
Anything else?
How about a subscription to the Wall Street Journal? A box set of Whose Line Is It Anyways?
Comments
Well here's the official TOR line:
Soooo... yeah, good luck with that. I think DCUO had something similar?
Gonna have to disagree with that part.
It's just called BW was getting more and more nervous after the 400k loss and decided to "F#%^ it...lets just go F2P hybrid to prevent more..."
Gotta imagine though...TOR just did it right away, while STO dragged its limbs for some time. I still consider profit and player numbers a key part of an MMO "failing" or not; on both those categories TOR > STO . PWE could only dream of the 500k+ subs TOR had haha. But at least TOR seems to be taking small steps with their F2P unlike STO's P2W and P2G.
Dec '07 Account
I EARNED 1000 days...I didn't BUY it! New LTS=Death to Vet.System: 10/10/12 Never Forget
Something should be done for those who cared enough to have a 1000+ day sub.
Its in the feature matrix.
{UFP}Thomas45 - Thomas Nixon U.S.S. Majesty Unbound
Don't know if you consider Forum Posting significant, but the plans are that F2P'ers won't get access to post according to the dev Tracker
It not that much of a change, right now only people who are subbed can post on the TOR forumns.
Anyways I'm staying Subbed to TOR, I like the game, plus its the only way to get post level 50 content.
As long as you get access after making a purchase I'm fine with that.
Well, that ain't gonna happen on the new SWToR forums as "Free Player" is considered anyone who isn't paying the subscription fee:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4946889#post4946889
[Which is WAY more draconian than Cryptic/PWE was with their forums as once you make a (was Cpoints, is now) Zen points purchase. Also I think EA/BioWare is setting themselves up for a disappointment in charging for most new quest/mission content as Cryptic tried it and found it just puts a barrier to grouping (when some potential members find they don't have it). Cryptic tried it in Champions Online and already abandoned the practice.
It's seems BioWare/EA wants to ignore a big aspect of what keeps people playing an MMO for the long haul - and that's the friendships they form in game with other players (that probably kept me playing WoW about 2 years longer than I would have if not for the friends in my old WoW Guild.)
SWToR had elements that seemed to actively discourage grouping and even when players asked for better grouping and group finding tools, EA/Bioware was (and still is) slow to respond on that area. <--- IMO this hastened SWToR's decline as much as any of it's other issues.
And for those of you who find Cryptic's/PWE's F2P model greedy and a money grab - given the way EA handles the DLCs and cash shops in some of it's other offerings; you'll all have a stroke once you see how EA tries to fleece it's SWToR playerbase after the F2P conversion. Their model comes across as very similar to Age of Conan's and even if you were once a subscriber, you keep nothing from your subscriber days if you decide to got F2P in SWToR (based on their current matrix and F2P FAQ.)
There's a reason EA was voted worst company is the U.S. by consumers.
It's also interesting how much the SWToR Dev's position has changed on the F2P model as back in December 2011 as the SWToR launch began, they were saying:
(from this article (link))
Yet as of the SWToR F2P launch announcement, it's:
(From this article (link))
Sorry, I just find it interesting that at launch they said they could do more under a subscription model then an F2P model - yet 7 months later, they can 'get a more aggressive update schedule" \going because they're now shifting to F2P and even better the:
comment. But again, this is why nobody likes or trusts EA, and a major reason it's seem as the 'Dev Killer' as years ago, it did to Origin what it's now done to BioWare
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I bought a bunch of EA stock yesterday after the FTP announcement was made - and the stock dipped below $11.00 as everyone reacted to that. Just as with LotRO and DDO, I think SWTOR's FTP model is going to do well - and that the stock will rise because of it.
I am definitely looking forward to getting back in now that a sub isn't required.
Join Date: Sept 2008
"Holographic tissue paper for the holographic runny nose. Don't give them to patients." - The Doctor
It's lost 1 million subs since release.
{UFP}Thomas45 - Thomas Nixon U.S.S. Majesty Unbound
Thats never been substantiated with a fact.
I disagree
LAUREN RULZ !!!!!!!!
I disagree
LAUREN RULZ !!!!!!!!
It was substantiated with Atari's quarterly earnings report.
Join Date: Sept 2008
"Holographic tissue paper for the holographic runny nose. Don't give them to patients." - The Doctor
Which one?
From the looks of it, TOR has the same problems as STO in addition to bigger ones. Space combat looks bland, as bad as PWE is, EA is much much worse, and anyone who says that Freemium isn't Pay to Win is a massive hypocrite. -_-
The answer is somewhere in this threadnought:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=215666
Unfortunately, the forum update now makes it very difficult to locate the exact post where this is discussed. But if the links still work, you can review it and do your own estimations.
However, after thinking about it I believe I stand corrected. The total number of subs across all Cryptic games was around 100k or less.
Join Date: Sept 2008
"Holographic tissue paper for the holographic runny nose. Don't give them to patients." - The Doctor
Yeah, I saw some thread that had some bogus chart with all the subs of the MMOs on the old STO forums.
And I read through all of the annual reports and the quarterly reports from Atari's corporate releases, they make no mention of subscription numbers. That lawsuit though, lol patent trolls.
Nothing substantive still. Good on them for making money off a relatively small number of people.
EA must be pissed. Could have bought a lot gold plated whipping canes on all the money they burned on TOR. Now they'll just have to settle for gold plated belts to woop Bioware employees with.
You mean like paying for the .5 ships here? Yep, P2W may as well be the initials of PWE.
Or lockboxes?
"There is no problem in the universe that can't be solved with a bribe, a paid assassin, or an overpowered fighter." - Chubain from Jumpgate Evolution
Perfect 2 World? That makes .5 sense.
People voice what needs/needed to be improved and the fanbois rush in saying the same thing. "You don't like it then leave". And too many people took their advice to the point that in order to continue to survive, a game had to go P2W.
I said it in both places along with DCUO: Don't tell people to leave or they might just do that and you'll be left holding the TRIBBLE.
"There is no problem in the universe that can't be solved with a bribe, a paid assassin, or an overpowered fighter." - Chubain from Jumpgate Evolution
I guess I have to explain it real slow to you. How much they make P2W their model, it should be used as an abbreviation for them. Or do you think every abbreviation on the stock market actually is their true abbreviation?
"There is no problem in the universe that can't be solved with a bribe, a paid assassin, or an overpowered fighter." - Chubain from Jumpgate Evolution
Your sorry attempt at witty stock symbol wordplay has generated 0 interest from the New York Times.
Your second sentence being brutally awkward to read has foiled your attempt at sounding like Professor Sarcastic Q. Knowitall.
Better luck next time Jeff Albertson, the key is to breathe through your nose.
May the force be with you.
"There is no problem in the universe that can't be solved with a bribe, a paid assassin, or an overpowered fighter." - Chubain from Jumpgate Evolution
Your half hearted attempt at soothing my neutral feelings is appreciated but not necessary. Perfect World and Cryptic's choice of business model or state of mind is in no way offensive to me at all.
Anything else?
How about a subscription to the Wall Street Journal? A box set of Whose Line Is It Anyways?