Star Wars: The Old Republic Goes Free In One Week

[Starke]

quest reward (they will irretrievably disappear if you haven't purchased access to them)

This is the first I've heard of this one. You know where you saw it originally?

I saw it on their public test server as I have a friend who still plays. It was a couple of weeks ago, though, so its possible they changed it. But this was after they acquiesced on the 2nd hotbar and I haven't heard about any changes since then.

How it works is basically any quest reward that is purple and/or a lockbox (could be others but that is all I am aware of) will show up in the quest reward window with a little icon on it saying you don't have access to it without paying. But once you complete the quest, you don't get the item so that if you purchase access later you can use it, the locked item simply never appears in your inventory. It's gone forever. And some quests simply don't offer a free access item.

There are other really punitive things in there too that seem almost spiteful. From what I can see, the F2P is just not an enjoyable experience. It seems entirely tailored to annoy you into subbing rather than making unlocks and small purchases appealing.

Talking to that friend, he spent his entire allowance of cartel coins on the PTS just to get the game into a state where it didn't frustrate him. Now admittedly, he is used to being a subscriber with no restrictions, but that still doesn't seem like the right way to approach F2P.

Wow... yeah, that fuckin' floors me. The not being able to equip orange items without a $30 unlock was crazy, the whole "Sector X access isn't automatically available to subscribers", okay, that could have actually just been a tool tip bug, but, this is just fuckin' insane.

The thing that absolutely floored me was the restriction on hotbars.

Seriously. Fuckin hotbars need to be bought?

Treatin your future customers like shit and givin them the shittiest experience possible in the hopes that they'll get pissed off enough at the shitty system to throw money at you to make it less terrible is an awful awful idea.

What could a system like that possibly gain other than resentment form its customers?

The possibility of some petulant little shit who was ordered to by higher ups, to point and say "see, I told you this was the wrong approach for our game, but you didn't believe me, well, look at it now" maybe? I'm speculating here. It's just stupid enough that it's in the slightly plausible range.

 

[Starke]

If my recollection is correct, I think this is the second quickest conversion from subscription to F2P in MMO history. DCUO still claims that dubious honor. I hope they'll put some dev time and money in to the actual "game" after they make this change instead of pumping millions in to the story that people played once before they dropped the game to head back to WoW.

I could of swore champions online bit the dust faster than DCUO...... city of heros slayer my ass.

This whole thing is a joke, the content wont be any better than when we paid for it, the only difference is that there will be swarms of morons that no longer worry about getting banned for being complete fuckwads in chat and you'll be restricted from playing the worst parts of the game. Actually its not a joke, because its not even amusing, just pathetic.

Champions made it well past their first anniversary as a Subscription game, DCUO... didn't make it that far.

To be fair, Champions did go F2P before DCUO did, but Champions was already over a year old when DCUO launched. Champions launched in September '09, and went F2P in February '11, so 17 months. DCUO launched in January '11, and went F2P in... I think October '11, so 10 months? I'm not completely certain on the DC numbers and those are both off the top of my head so I could be a little off...

I know DCUO was F2P before their first Halloween event, because I actually participated in that, and my recollection is their first anniversary event was in January this year. Champions just had their third anniversary back in September, and I think they went F2P in February, I know I missed the first anniversary because I hadn't maintained my sub, but I was there for their second, which was after it had gone F2P.

 

[Mike Fang]

You know, I'd been waiting for this opportunity and thought maybe I'd pick this game up again and play it on and off. But what I'm hearing here in these comments is VERY discouraging. It sounds like they're locking out even core, basic game features from non-paying players. Hotbars, the bank (i.e. the hold in this case), quest rewards, and more, all being cut off unless you pay for them? There's limiting luxuries, and then there's just ruining the experience.

 

[Baresark]

Did they ever put those PVP tiers that should have been present from day one? I subbed for two months and then that turned me off. PVP is a grind for any character lower than level 50 without tiers. Not that I will go back and play it at this point. I'm a forward thinking guy, and once a game has lost my interest, I generally don't go back to it. That is one of my very human tendencies, first impressions count a whole lot.

 

[Kyrinn]

So I bought the game long with 2 months of sub time. Now I'm treated as if I never paid a cent except for these "Cartel Coins", which I have to reactivate my sub and pay more money in order to be able to use.
What?
Also from what I've been reading the F2P experence is extremely anoying to the point where it seems like they are trying to anger you into cashing out; rather than inticing the players with an awesome exerience that could be enhanced if they wish.
Captcha: Loyal...lol
...never again EA/bioware

 

[Chunko]

I can't wait, from what I've played of the free trial, this is a great game!

 

[Tragedy's Rebellion]

It's a pretty boring game, really. I couldn't get to lvl 15 in the trial version from boredom. The story is nowhere near interesting enough for it to be worth a torturous experience with everything else. The F2P model is just exploitative and trying to frustrate you to sub than anything else.

 

[Kefo]

The F2P model that they are rolling out for this screams to me that they have no faith in their game and are simply trying to get as much money as fast as they can before they shut the servers down for good.

As many have said before a proper way to do a F2P game is to have a great game as a base and then introduce items in a cash shop. The change is so slow and the items so cheaply priced that you dont even realize that you spent 20-30 dollars in the cash shop over the month.

What EA is doing is bullying you into paying for a sub, realizing that nothing much has changed or it is still broken and then you jump ship again feeling like you were used and tossed onto the street corner.

I personally have no issue with a F2P model. I've played a few games that do this and have even bought items from the cash shop cause I really enjoyed the game. Intentionally pissing me off by making the gameplay as restrictive as possible is just a goddamn terrible idea and will not get me to spend any amount of money.