BioWare Considers Free-to-Play For The Old Republic

VanBasten

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Perhaps they should go one step further and re-release it, but this time as a single player game.
 

Kiardras

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I picked up TOR on some mates reccomendation and a free trial weekend, and I really like it. The game content for levels 1-40 is great fun, some unique story lines and some great story telling.

Past 40 though, its just boring. Takes forever to level up, and there is no endgame content except running the same flashpoints each week for gear.
 

Redratson

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draythefingerless said:
Paragon Fury said:
We all called it.

You can't charge a subscription for an MMO that is in every way inferior to WoW and expect it to work.

If it wasn't for the Star Wars brand, TOR would've been F2P 2-3 months ago.

GW2 could possibly get away with it, but part of their plan is to not have subscriptions anyway. TERA could last using a subscription model too, if they sort out their PvP and a couple other minor/important issues soon.
The WoW subscriptions will most likely slowly leak into one of these 3 overtime, and the tiranny of WoW over the market is on its twilight.
We shall see with its expansion coming out and how GW2 and Secret World fair in te market.
 

Nami nom noms

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Honestly I don't think it's Swtor's fault that people aren't playing... I just think people are completely burned out on the standard MMO by now.

And I'm still subbed :p
 

Not G. Ivingname

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rcs619 said:
That's why I've stuck with EVE Online myself. For all of it's flaws, and occaisional annoyances, it has legitimately tried to do its own thing, and not conform to the common rules and norms of nearly every other MMO out there. It doesn't have millions upon millions of subscribers, sure, but the player-base is generally passionate and the devs work closely with their players to provide regular patches and the twice-yearly free expansions.

OT: I wonder what model they accept? Free accounts but payed ones get more content, microtransactions, or both?
 

immortalfrieza

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"BioWare Considers Free-to-Play For The Old Republic"

I wouldn't start jumping for joy everybody, in PR talk this^ means that they'll take as long as they possibly can before they'll actually F2P. It'll be months before they'll actually do it.
 

zacattack14

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I've come to the conclusion that the only game capable of holding out a subscription based service in the mmo space at this point is WOW,and even they allow free-to-play up to a certain level now if I'm correct. I don't see this as a bad thing, but I do feel that Free-To-Play is going to become standard for most mmo's in the future.
 

Quiotu

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zacattack14 said:
I've come to the conclusion that the only game capable of holding out a subscription based service in the mmo space at this point is WOW,and even they allow free-to-play up to a certain level now if I'm correct. I don't see this as a bad thing, but I do feel that Free-To-Play is going to become standard for most mmo's in the future.
For starters, and I'll say this until someone proves me wrong, but WoW is successful and as popular as it is... because people gold farm. Period. I think if you looked at who's playing the game, 1/3 are actually playing the game... maybe... and the other 2/3+ are farming.

Second, do people not remember that at E3 they already announced that the first 15 levels would be free starting in July? Basically the prologue of the game up until you get your ship will be F2P. Yes it's copying WoW, and that pretty much all but guarantees you won't hear talk of TOR going completely F2P for a long time. Worst case scenario is you might see it go F2P after the first major expansion at the end of the year... and that's not happening.
 

toapat

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Paragon Fury said:
We all called it.

You can't charge a subscription for an MMO that is in every way inferior to WoW and expect it to work.

If it wasn't for the Star Wars brand, TOR would've been F2P 2-3 months ago.

GW2 could possibly get away with it, but part of their plan is to not have subscriptions anyway. TERA could last using a subscription model too, if they sort out their PvP and a couple other minor/important issues soon.
the problem with Pay to Play is that you have to have the volume of content of Skyrim, With the Quality of TBC WoW, and you need the Perfect Storm. there is a game that will have all of that. That will be BLizzard's TITAN, whatever the hell that IP is. Otherwise, you have to have something original and a way to get people in. Guildwars does that, Tera doesnt, and there are inherent problems with GW2 that will cripple it till they are oblitorated. Tera may be highly sucessful, but it has its own problems, namely a high bandwidth requirement
 

Noxogz

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toapat said:
Tera may be highly sucessful, but it has its own problems, namely a high bandwidth requirement
Except TERA is not highly successful at all, bandwith requirement or not.

As I said before in this same thread, TERA barley sold 200k copies and that's counting both NA and EU sales.

Hell Rift has more subscribers than TERA has sold copies and Rift barley has enough subscribers to not be forced to go F2P.

Unless TERA gets a huge influx of people right the fuck now, it's gonna go F2P sooner rather than later.
 

toapat

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PercyBoleyn said:
toapat said:
the problem with Pay to Play is that you have to have the volume of content of Skyrim, With the Quality of TBC WoW, and you need the Perfect Storm. there is a game that will have all of that. That will be BLizzard's TITAN, whatever the hell that IP is.
Yeah, I wouldn't bet to much on Titan considering Blizzard's decision to casualize World of Warcraft to the point where it had to offer free copies of Diablo 3 just to curb the number of players leaving.
Blizzard dug themselves into a hole after TBC, the stats became too high, the challenges were lessened, and systems that worked for 70 levels turned sour. Sure, balance is better in WotLK and Cata, but that came at the cost of enjoyability. Without the challenge, the game simply becomes the same bore that every other MMO is, and with too much it becomes EQ, and if everyone is playing the same build, then the devs failed at justifying a spred of classes. MMOs all fall appart, but we wont know if blizzard can even keep its elephant from imploding until better data on Mists comes out.

Noxogz said:
toapat said:
Tera may be highly sucessful, but it has its own problems, namely a high bandwidth requirement
Except TERA is not highly successful at all, bandwith requirement or not.

As I said before in this same thread, TERA barley sold 200k copies and that's counting both NA and EU sales.

Hell Rift has more subscribers than TERA has sold copies and Rift barley has enough subscribers to not be forced to go F2P.

Unless TERA gets a huge influx of people right the fuck now, it's gonna go F2P sooner rather than later.
i was factoring in the fact that Tera's playerbase couldnt fill a respectable thimble because of how badly anyone expected people to be able to enjoy a twitch game as an MMO
 

zombiesinc

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Maybe now that they're considering going free-to-play I'll consider buying it.

The problem isn't so much that I can't justify the monthly cost, but more that I've got too many other games (and interests) that fill my free time, leaving the cost vs. value really lopsided.
 

Darkmantle

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Capitano Segnaposto said:
Waaghpowa said:
As much as I enjoy SWTOR and continue to play it, the whole MMO genre is getting tiresome. I can't even find enjoyment from WoW anymore, and this is coming from someone who has played the same character on the same server since the original release day.

Monthly subs in general really need to go, or at least reduce the cost.
I have yet to find one game that does "Free-To-Play" right. It always ends up as "Free-To-Pay" instead. Even LOTRO or D&D didn't do it right. I don't want to pay to get the good stuff, or have to pay to unlock certain areas. I want to pay a set amount each month for EVERYTHING. Not have content stripped away to have to pay for.

waaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttt....

don't you just want a subscription then? Isn't that the definition of a subscription? Paying every month for everything? And if so, you can buy a DDO subscription that does give you access to everything. DDO is hybridized that way.
 

bobmd13

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SWTOR just had something missing.

To this day I do not know what it is,but there is just something not right with the game. Its not just me who feels like this but I have a few associates from Lotro who feel the same.

I cancelled my sub this month.

In relation to Lotro and DDo, I feel that Turbine have probably made the most successful transfer from the monthly sub to F2P of all companies.

The major problem that they had in Europe it seems was the lifetime membership. In my kin, I would say that 90% of the members had a lifetime membership and this appeared to be the norm across the server populace.

So the game was paid for but the monthly revenue was low and that causes problems. With transferring to a F2P model they have enticed in new players by allowing them to try a wonderful PvE MMO for nothing and reasonable prices if they do spend some money.

Also being one of the few games to run in DX11, Lotro can look spectacular.
 

zehydra

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Capitano Segnaposto said:
Waaghpowa said:
As much as I enjoy SWTOR and continue to play it, the whole MMO genre is getting tiresome. I can't even find enjoyment from WoW anymore, and this is coming from someone who has played the same character on the same server since the original release day.

Monthly subs in general really need to go, or at least reduce the cost.
I have yet to find one game that does "Free-To-Play" right. It always ends up as "Free-To-Pay" instead. Even LOTRO or D&D didn't do it right. I don't want to pay to get the good stuff, or have to pay to unlock certain areas. I want to pay a set amount each month for EVERYTHING. Not have content stripped away to have to pay for.
I feel like TF2 does a good job in that department. Most of what players spend money on is purely cosmetic.
 

00slash00

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this makes me happy and yet very very sad. i mean i never planned to do raiding or shit like that because i was never really that in to it. my plan had always pretty much just been to do the stories and then be done so in that sense, this is exactly what i had always hoped for. on the other hand, i know a lot of work went in to this game and it makes me sad that a fairly new game is already thinking of going free to play
 

Do4600

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When will the gaming industry learn that safe bets in an established genre will never outsell the current exemplar of that genre. You can't out "World of Warcraft" World of Warcraft. You can't do Call of Duty better than Call of Duty, the only thing you might get is a small percentage of sales, a flash in a pan compared to a long dependable flow of sales. MMORPG's are not cheap, I get this, but until you bite the bullet and actually apply your talents to INNOVATION instead of IMITATION your companies products will fail to meet expectations. Stop developing "stand n' cast" MMORPGs.