By Alec Meer on July 31st, 2012 at 8:49 pm.
Well, that took all of about a fortnight. Pretty much everyone called this one, given the age of the expensive monthly subscription game seems to be over, bar a few very particular exceptions. So it is that the struggling juggernaut that is EA/Bioware’s MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic is to join the rapidly-swelling ranks of free to play. They’ve just announced that play up to level 50 will be gratis and open to all as of this Fall Autumn. That’s no moon – it’s a fully-armed and operational new business model.*
All eight classes will be available, “with some restrictions on access to new content and advanced player features. Some restrictions can be “unlocked” with Cartel Coins.” The subscription model will continue in tandem with the F2P one, but renamed to ‘Premium Players’ who will be given a monthly allowance of ‘Cartel Coins’, which appear to be the new currency for microtransactions.
Honestly, there’s a million catty things I could say about this, but I’m going to settle on ‘told you so.’ Because honestly, SWTOR was at least two years too late as a subscription game, and the MMO itself pulled way too many punches when it finally released after all those years and all that money EA spent on it.
“Players want flexibility and choice. The subscription-only model presented a major barrier for a lot of people who wanted to become part of The Old Republic universe,” said Matthew Bromberg, GM of BioWare Austin. If it were me, I’d say “people simply didn’t want to spend that much every month on a very familiar experience.” But it’s not me. It’s Matthew Bromberg, GM of BioWare Austin.
More details on the F2P move here and specifically on planned content updates here. It’s not due until “this Fall”, but the base game will be discounted to $15 next month ahead of that. You should probably wait until Fall Autumn, though. Free, see.
TOLD YOU SO NAH-NAH, NAH-NAH
*Yes I know I mangled together quotes from two different films. It’s post-modern, probably.
31/07/2012 at 20:52 JackDandy says:
It was only a matter of time, I guess.
When will you learn, EA?
31/07/2012 at 20:55 djbriandamage says:
EA will learn when they team up with Bioware to make an MMO with every intention of transitioning to the F2P model.
Oh wait, that happened. They learned.
This is transpiring exactly as Bioware anticipated. They planned to transition to F2P from the very beginning.
31/07/2012 at 21:27 Keirley says:
I think you may be right. By going subscription-based first they got a bunch of initial purchases and a good few months of subscriptions – that’s got to add up to a hell of a lot of money by anyone’s standards. Now that they’re going free-to-play they get a big marketing boost. Maybe it was all just poor management on EA and Bioware’s part, but I really wouldn’t be surprised if they saw this coming from miles away.
31/07/2012 at 22:46 Wreckdum says:
Yeah, maybe it got them out of the 300 million dollar development hole they were in. Now that they broke even they can start to make money on a shitty item shop. =D
31/07/2012 at 23:26 Grygus says:
I don’t know whether you even care, but that $300 million number is completely made-up.
31/07/2012 at 23:36 Wreckdum says:
Whatever the actual number is, it’s far higher than any other MMO spent for development. Except for maybe Age of Conan. They are paying more off the top just to get their license. And we all know George Lucas. Guaranteed it wasn’t cheap.
P.S. The game is terrible.
01/08/2012 at 00:00 DrSlek says:
I’ve heard some analyst estimates go as high as $500 million. The sad thing is, most of that would probably be advertising.
01/08/2012 at 00:11 woodsey says:
$10 million is added each time the figure is guessed at. By Christmas it’ll no doubt be at a neat $1 billion.
01/08/2012 at 04:25 lazxncnb says:
Quick, someone round up all the statements EA made that make them look dumb in light of this development!
http://www.swtor.com/free
31/07/2012 at 21:36 Shuck says:
Yeah, you simply wouldn’t make a subscription MMO these days without a plan to move to F2P when subscriptions drop. (That way you maximize revenue.) I’m absolutely certain even WoW has a F2P future mapped out.
31/07/2012 at 22:57 Jay says:
You’d think that if you were planning on using a F2P model for most of your game’s lifespan, having a near 30 gig client download might not be the way to go.
31/07/2012 at 23:26 BooleanBob says:
This is an excellent point.
01/08/2012 at 21:51 Cooper says:
Except that fewer MMOs now need to download all of the game files to be able to launch.
My betting is on a 2-3GB requirement to get going whilst the rest downloads as you play…
31/07/2012 at 23:27 fenrif says:
Counterpoint: No. You are mistaken.
31/07/2012 at 23:57 exogen says:
Except not. The large file size is the first piece of evidence against your thin arguement.
The second is, EA was banking on this rivaling WoW in terms of subscriptions.
Third is, initial resistance to the idea. I can’t be assed to dig the quote out now, but EA didn’t want this for SWTOR.
so, in conclusion:
lol u stupid.
fanboy
01/08/2012 at 01:00 Revisor says:
Please be nice to others. We all share a common interest.
01/08/2012 at 04:21 Shodex says:
Which is ragging on EA, Blizzard, Ubisoft and all the great evil powers of the gaming industry,
01/08/2012 at 04:14 SkittleDiddler says:
“They planned to transition to F2P from the very beginning.”
I doubt that very, very much.
01/08/2012 at 16:31 Shuck says:
They’d be idiots not to have done so. (And no, the entire organization isn’t made up of idiots.) I suspect they didn’t expect it to happen so soon, however.
01/08/2012 at 11:11 DuddBudda says:
VGTW
31/07/2012 at 20:53 Gundato says:
Well, this is depressing, but totally expected.
Ah well, if it means more content (I like this post 50 content, especially if it is story-based) then I suppose this is a good thing.
But yeah, TOR has not done too well this past year.
31/07/2012 at 21:03 mouton says:
Depressing? Naah, it was too obvious. And its not shutting down, it just might get better/new content or whatnot. Wouldn’t know – never played it.
31/07/2012 at 21:05 caddyB says:
Indeed. It worked for several games, it might make the game better.
31/07/2012 at 21:17 dawnmane says:
Agreed. If LOTRO, DDO and DCUO are any indication, this will mean the game will be way more succesful, and more fun to play.
31/07/2012 at 22:53 Phantoon says:
I think he meant it was depressing it wasn’t getting shut down.
31/07/2012 at 23:38 Wreckdum says:
LOL
31/07/2012 at 20:53 Iskariot says:
I am a real Star Wars fan from the early days. I collected the Movies, the games, Concept Art books etc. etc., but still this free to play is not enough to convince me to play this MMO.
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The reason I think this MMO business does not work in the long run is that I and many other SW fans want to experience a personal adventure in the Star Wars universe without encountering dozens of jedi’s all going on about that special white, purple or green-blue light saber they found, etc. It is so immersion destroying to see them running and hopping around etc. It’s like being in an amusement park with the kids instead of truly feeling immersed in a Star Wars adventure.
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For me MMO breaks the spell and makes me want to puke.
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Just give me a true open world Star Wars RPG/action game. I want to be able to immerse myself. I don’t want to play the universe-saving-hero. I want to be like an average bloke on Tatooine or Corruscant or whatever. I want to be able to earn money to buy my first second hand ship and finally be able to get of the planet. Do a little trading, a bit of smuggling. I want to encounter my first Star Destroyer and marvel at it’s detail, it’s power, it’s beauty. I want Imperial customs to board my ship and check my papers and search for contraband. I want to get involved in bounty hunting. Make a name for myself etc. etc. etc.
31/07/2012 at 21:36 Montavious says:
Star Wars Galaxies was much like you are saying. But then they butchered the game with a lot of unneeded content and basically made it a kids game. I really miss SWG, i think it would still be going strong right now if they didnt destroy the game.
31/07/2012 at 22:02 Jay says:
Didn’t some fans start their own server recently, bringing back the ‘classic’ Galaxies gameplay systems? You should look into that maybe.
31/07/2012 at 23:18 USER47 says:
Do you have a link?
/nevermind, found it
http://www.swgemu.com
31/07/2012 at 23:42 TillEulenspiegel says:
Making a sandbox MMO is hard. To make a really good one, you have to solve a number of sticky problems that have never been dealt with truly well by anybody. Making a simple WoW-like MMO, while it is an enormous undertaking, is also a well-understood problem with little risk.
It’s a business, and MMOs are a large investment. You try to minimize risk.
Someone, someday, will take the spirit of Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies and do much better than them. I just worry that it’ll be a long, long time before that happens.
01/08/2012 at 09:51 Iskariot says:
I understand how hard it is to create a good MMO.
But the point I really tried to make is more fundamental. My point is that MMO will always fail as far as true immersion in a gameworld is concerned. The nature of MMO is by definition gamey and this is caused by the fact it’s gameworld is supposed to contain the masses instead of creating a believable immersive world for a single player.
There is no gaming genre in which these words of Sartre are more true: L’enfer, c’est les autres (Hell is other people.)
That is why I am disgusted by MMO. It is the presence of all those others that is killing the immersion. MMO is fine if you just are in it for some mindless leveling, or for wanting to find the best loot, or for socializing, or for shooting stuff. But it is not fine if you want to immerse yourself in a cool believable Star Wars universe.
01/08/2012 at 04:02 equatorian says:
Most people are into doing awesome things and being cool and watching special effect in a highly dramatised situation. The desire to roleplay an average bloke (regardless of level of roleplaying, light, heavy, etc) is seen as inherently silly and childish.
Unfortunately for them. And unfortunately for us. I want nothing more than to pretend to be a trader who complains about imperial customs and how the rebels are menacing trade routes and would everyone just leave me alone, dammit.
As long as the people who wants a gamey game where they can bash things outnumber people who wants immersion (a state of mankind, we’ve been this way since our apes days) and both of us sees the other as childish and wanting to have nothing to do with each other (again, a state of mankind), we’ll always be stuck with this lament I’m afraid.
01/08/2012 at 14:47 Just Endless says:
Aren’t there ‘role-playing’ servers on WoW? Is that a common thing across MMO’s, a place where one must do that?
31/07/2012 at 20:54 db1331 says:
“TOLD YOU SO NAH-NAH, NAH-NAH”
I find your lack of humility disturbing.
31/07/2012 at 21:00 Vorphalack says:
Enough of this! db1331, release him!
31/07/2012 at 22:54 Phantoon says:
We’re talking about Bioware, the same company that calls any of its fans that don’t like a single detail of the games “entitled”.
You really think the caustic bitchslapping wasn’t a two way street the entire time?
31/07/2012 at 20:55 Slinkyboy says:
I was about to jump into this but I think they want you to install Origin, right? Forget it man :)
31/07/2012 at 21:08 Tuor says:
You don’t have to have Origin installed to play SW:TOR. It has its own launcher.
01/08/2012 at 09:00 Llewyn says:
Isn’t this effectively Origin with different branding? Or did they develop and maintain two fundamentally different content delivery mechanisms?
01/08/2012 at 20:18 RatherDashing says:
…no? The launcher is no different than any MMO’s launcher. You start it up, it handles login/patching. No friends list/etc features. The Origin version of the game just starts up this launcher from within Origin.
01/08/2012 at 20:27 Tuor says:
As RatherDashing said, the launcher is a standard MMO launcher and not Origin with different clothes on.
31/07/2012 at 20:57 tlarn says:
If I don’t have to create an account for and install Origin, I’ll think about it.
01/08/2012 at 20:21 RatherDashing says:
You don’t have to install Origin. When you create your account you are effectively “Making” an Origin account(it will link the purchase and the email and if you ever log into Origin you’ll have it there), but it’s not something you have to ever install or see.
31/07/2012 at 20:58 sonofsanta says:
Between this and the Ubisoft DRM balls up, it’s Predictable News Gaming Week really isn’t it?
Next we’ll have an analyst declaring that he expects the next COD game to be the fastest selling game ever, someone else declaring that PC gaming is dead, and then finally something to make John cry.
31/07/2012 at 21:19 RedViv says:
Sprinkle that with Cobbett puns and we have a deal.
31/07/2012 at 22:07 dysphemism says:
Ah, but where then is our frivolous trademark lawsuit? Or did I miss it?
01/08/2012 at 08:03 bear912 says:
Perhaps this is relevant.
01/08/2012 at 12:53 qrter says:
Only points 2 and 6 seem actually RPS-related, the rest work for any gaming site that regurgitates news.
(And number 8 seems kind of un-RPS-y, even.)
31/07/2012 at 20:59 skymt says:
Hypothetically, if a KOTOR fan wanted to solo the various story campaigns while ignoring most of the MMO trappings, would the cap at level 50 be a show-stopper?
31/07/2012 at 21:04 RandomEsa says:
From what I have gathered the story takes a deep dive at around lvl 20. Even for those classes that have a decent story.
You’re better off just replaying kotor 1 and 2 and forget that TOR exists.
31/07/2012 at 21:08 caddyB says:
It’s an alright game for whatever many hours you spend getting to end of the class stories. Of course, after doing the 1-50 once, only different thing with other characters is different dialogue ( that essentially says the same thing but it’s still nice ) and the class quests. Rest is all the same, so it gets mind-numbingly boring by the 3rd character.
I will pick my sub back up when they continue the class stories, play them and go back to waiting for more.
31/07/2012 at 22:51 Azradesh says:
Only with in the some faction, if you play two classes, one on either faction, then everything is new.
31/07/2012 at 21:12 Dolphan says:
That’s not my experience of the Jedi Knight at all – a lot of the better class story stuff was later on – and it doesn’t particularly match what I’ve heard about other classes (i.e. their best beats vary in timing). The 50 cap shouldn’t be a problem at all, since it’s the level cap at present – I finished the class story at 48. The story was pretty self-contained, I doubt you’d wind up feeling like you had to pay for later content to get closure.
31/07/2012 at 21:31 gunny1993 says:
There a great story missions and story lines, unfortuantly they are interspersed between mind numignly boring and pointless gathering mission, just doesnt work for pacing. Also all the lvl 50 missions are about FUCKING RAKGHOULS
01/08/2012 at 09:22 thezirk says:
Wow. I was almost interested in trying it out now that it’s F2P. Is the bestiality really that prevalent?
01/08/2012 at 12:55 qrter says:
That actually made me laugh. Oh dear.
31/07/2012 at 21:30 RaytraceRat says:
it really depends how you like your story to be served. If you like it like this:
- Here is an interesting plot hook!
- now, go and kill 20 of those, because… because I say so
- Ok, you killed it, so, here is a bit more of that plot
- Now, someone completly unrelated needs your help! Fly there and collect 10 of something
- Ok… you did it… so, here is a bit more of that story
- Now… you should go and kill 20 of those other things, but first you should level up a bit or it will be a pain in the a…
then you might enjoy SW MMO experience.
31/07/2012 at 21:51 Obc says:
this, this so many many times.
i played a bounty hunter and it was quite frustrating when on coruscant i had to do so many tedious fetch/kill rat quests just to progress my story a teensy tiny bit. after two hours of walking endlessly though overlong corridors and killing hundred same looking mobs, the story developed only a little but further into what i was already expecting. i wanted the whole shit to be over with to get to the good part. alas they never showed and what showed was always like 3 min of bioware wheely dialog and 1 hour of mmo trappings. sith inquisitor wasn’t better, at level 25 in whatever glowy city i gave up and even with the game going f2p i won’t be joining back.
mop beta and gw2 beta on the other handle this way better. i quested through kun-lai summit in one night because it was so much fun. gw2 had me hooked for all 3 days. i’d happily pay for these two mmo’s.
not copying what wow did 8 years ago is the way but either developing some new original ideas or polishing it to the new wow standard spitshine is the key.
01/08/2012 at 05:32 TwwIX says:
lol What “MMO trappings”? This hardly qualifies as an MMO.
01/08/2012 at 20:26 RatherDashing says:
Level 50 is the current level cap. You can play through the entire class story, up to the conclusion. The quality/pacing of the stories varies a lot by the class itself(I’ve played five) and what you like in a story. Sith Warrior has better characters/character drama, Sith Inquisitor has really cool weirdness about it but isn’t very engaging plot/character-wise, Smuggler has lots of great wisecracks and funny dialog, Imperial Agent has the best plotting/reveals, and Jedi Knight just feels badass with big setpieces and lots of things that make you “feel cool”.
31/07/2012 at 20:59 huw says:
It was just so boring. I tried the demo and was so disappointed. I played as a Sith and got through well over 10 levels, and the whole area I’d been playing in was literally a maze of corridors. Add to that the familiar mechanics with not a single bit of innovation and I couldn’t have been more underwhelmed. I’m astonished it cost as much as it reportedly did to make.
I might dabble in it every now and again when it’s free but, like Star Trek Online, it will never be more than a mild distraction.
31/07/2012 at 21:03 tlarn says:
There really was a Titanic-esque air of “It’s too big to fail!” with The Old Republic, wasn’t there?…
01/08/2012 at 09:20 thezirk says:
I’m looking forward to the James Cameron adaptation
01/08/2012 at 12:07 RaytraceRat says:
I’ve almost choked laughing
31/07/2012 at 21:06 CaspianRoach says:
Honestly it wasn’t the subscription fee that was bugging me, but the upfront “box cost” of the game that accompanied it. I don’t want to pay so much for a game I might not even like.
31/07/2012 at 21:23 djbriandamage says:
The vast majority of MMO players leave the game in the first 2 months. This is why MMOs (like TOR and The Secret World) start off with the traditional box-plus-subscription model before inevitably transitioning to free to play. Early adopters help recoup development expenses.
31/07/2012 at 21:07 marcusfell says:
Quick, someone round up all the statements EA made that make them look dumb in light of this development!
31/07/2012 at 21:41 Shuck says:
I’m sure they knew that they would go free to play but also denied it – after all, they were trying to encourage people to pay a subscription fee, something people might be a lot less likely to do if they knew it was going F2P within a matter of months. (Which, frankly, with a subscription-based MMO these days, you can pretty safely assume.)
31/07/2012 at 22:57 TormDK says:
Judging by the feature sheet on swtor.com, if you are not paying a sub you are not doing operations (Raids).
So end game will be on the old subscription model based on their current feature sheet :
People that are subbing, and own the CE (like myself) will be getting a shitload of Cartel Coins though, based on this overview : http://www.swtor.com/free – a quick calculation says about 2500 coins, so it will be interesting to see what those coins are worth in real currency.
31/07/2012 at 21:08 Kaje says:
A message to developers –
Don’t make what is essentially a single player game with poor multiplayer interaction, very little customisation and requires an always on connection – and then expect people to pay a huge amount to actually buy it followed by large monthly payments for the privilege of continuing to play it.
I’ll play it when it’s F2P, there was no chance in hell I’d play it for around £40 for the base game and then over £100 a year.
31/07/2012 at 21:10 TheWhippetLord says:
Not sure how fair it is to call this F2P – doesn’t the level 50 cap effectively mean that you must start paying when you hit engame(ish,) which tends to be where most of the play in MMOS comes? Have other ‘free’ MMOs done this kind of gating? Pretty sure Star Trek Online doesn’t.
Free2Level?
31/07/2012 at 21:16 Dolphan says:
No, 50 is the cap anyway at the moment, so you can always keep playing. Does sound like you’ll have to pay to get some endgame stuff, but tbh it’s not a very ‘endgamey’ MMO.
31/07/2012 at 21:23 TheWhippetLord says:
I was remembering the E3 announcement of upped level cap to come and thought it was already in.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/04/the-old-republic-announces-upcoming-level-cap-new-species-new-planet-and-free-trial/
At least playing up to cap sounds a little less unreasonable.
31/07/2012 at 21:12 Tolkfan says:
Another skull to put in front of WoW’s cave.
31/07/2012 at 21:23 PopeJamal says:
I’m not yelling “WoW Killer” or anything, but I fully expect the Panda expansion to sell well, but not meet expectations. Then, I’d say no more than 12 months before WoW makes a substantial<move towards F2P. I don't think they'll go full bore, F2P, but they'll offer a similar concession like a reduced sub with a limited number of hours or some similar restriction.
As for SWTOR, this is good news for people like me because I bought the game and liked it, but not more than Skyrim and I wasn't willing to pay $15 a month to play what was essentially for me, single-player KOTOR 3. Now, I get to take my time and pay as I go since I don't have loads of game time anymore being an old man.
Someone has to keep those damn kids off the grass…
31/07/2012 at 21:57 Shuck says:
I think WoW will go full F2P, but I think their subscriber numbers are going to have to go down a lot before it becomes worthwhile.
31/07/2012 at 22:10 TheWhippetLord says:
I think a lot depends on how many WoW players come back for the new expansion after leaving during the current pre-patch content freeze – 6 months or so with no new content tends to drive raiders etc away. I suspect that trying to sell an MMO expansion pack for £30-£35 isn’t going to help them much there, having talked to other dormant members of my wow guild.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up with Real-Money AH in a F2P wow eventually, maybe coupled with a Premium Battle.net sub that gives you full access to wow and also whatever Starcraft 2 expansion they’re releasing at the time – as they’ve just done with the ‘annual sub’ deal. (that guess is pulled out of my posterior mind you.)
01/08/2012 at 06:03 Tritagonist says:
Right, I’ve noticed there’s quite a lot of ‘play the first three months after expansion’ players in WoW who are just not interested in the content-less max level gameplay. The lifespan of content patches that are the last of an expansion cycle have been especially bad on Blizzard’s part; WoW’s last one was released in November 2011 and nothing of note as been added since.
If WoW ever goes free-to-play, it’ll be interesting to see what changes are made in the way of micro-transactions to make it profitable.
01/08/2012 at 09:05 cocoleche says:
I’m skeptic about Pandaria’s success. They seem to think that including Facebook-like games (pet battles, farming) will tie players to a sub. But why would someone pay a sub for stuff that’s free on Facebook? Plus you probably have more “friends” on Facebook anyway, so the “because of the community”-argument is kind of moot.
31/07/2012 at 21:14 Dark Nexus says:
For anyone else wondering, here’s a general comparison of features for sub vs free:
http://www.swtor.com/free/features
31/07/2012 at 21:50 Kaira- says:
Doesn’t look too shabby from my point of view. I’m mainly wondering what character creation options will be limited and what “Operations” are. Are they something akin to raids or what?
Honestly, fully available story content, I could see myself soloing/playing co-op with a friend to level cap at least once and if things are well designed might even drop a dime or two at EA’s direction.
31/07/2012 at 21:53 TheWhippetLord says:
Operations = raids
Flashpoints = instances/ dungeons (4-player group)
Warzones = battleground thingies
31/07/2012 at 22:28 Kaira- says:
Right, so it seems that from the way I would be playing the game, I get most of what I want from the free to play edition. Not bad at all. Well, maybe for EA, but eh.
31/07/2012 at 22:05 Dark Nexus says:
Yeah. It sounds kind of like “casual” end-game play will be free, while more serious (or “time intensive”, “focused”, “hardcore” – take your pick) end-game play will require a sub.
31/07/2012 at 21:15 derbefrier says:
hmm this came sooner than i expected. thought it would at least make it a year. subs must be dropping faster than i thought. the game isn’t terrible just not worth 15 bucks a month
31/07/2012 at 21:17 Oneironaut says:
When this first came out I said that I would play it once it went free-to-play. Now, with Path of Exile’s open beta on the horizon, I don’t think I care enough to bother with the installation.
31/07/2012 at 21:44 Hoaxfish says:
That’s pretty much how I feel.
pre-release: a sci-fi mmo is a rare thing, I’ll try it out!
now: that other game looks cool. Months of BS/Denial/etc from Bioware/EA makes me not want to touch this even for free
31/07/2012 at 21:18 dawnmane says:
it’s not dying, silly! Its a transition.
31/07/2012 at 21:46 rustybroomhandle says:
That’s what I said! She didn’t believe me…
31/07/2012 at 21:23 aliksy says:
HAH.
I probably won’t play it anyway because the free weekend wasn’t very fun. It’s a so-so bioware game tied down to shitty MMO gameplay.
If the gameplay did anything new or interesting, maybe I’d try it again.
31/07/2012 at 21:23 Strutter says:
with gw2 on the horizon this is just a little bit on the late side.
31/07/2012 at 21:24 Oasx says:
So how many subscriptions based MMO’s are left? Only significant ones i can think of are Wow, Eve & Rift
31/07/2012 at 21:51 Shuck says:
The older MMOs – Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron’s Call, Everquest (and the Final Fantasies) are still, surprisingly, subscription based. Secret World, of course, for the moment. A smattering of other titles as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_games
31/07/2012 at 21:56 Jay says:
Not sure about the others, but both the EQs have gone free to play. It didn’t happen until surprisingly recently though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some people missed that.
01/08/2012 at 00:35 malkav11 says:
Albeit with a fairly terrible free to play setup. SOE doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing in that regard.
01/08/2012 at 07:11 frightlever says:
Asherons Call was a terrific game back in the day. I came to it a couple of years after it started and the landscape was just dotted with dungeons left over from their monthly events. Total spreadsheeters game though. I had someone look at my level 8 axeman’s stats and he explained that I’d completely gimped the character.
I somewhat enjoyed Asheron’s Call 2 – one of the first major MMORPG casualties I think.
No point the low-res games going F2P. They’re being run on a Game and Watch in the cupboard with a few tens of thousands of loyal players still grinding it out.
I’m currently playing LOTRO again, albeit very casually. I bought the VIP membership at launch but only played a couple of weeks. Logged back in last weekend and I had accrued 13k of Turbine Points, which can buy some very nice hats.
31/07/2012 at 21:39 Hoaxfish says:
Actually it’s EA finally revealing its new business strategy, borrowed from Mexican Drugs Cartels…
If you don’t pay up, your legs get broken.
31/07/2012 at 21:44 lexoneir says:
Not really a surprise. Swtor came close to being decent, but fell short. Too much story, not enough MMO gameplay.
31/07/2012 at 21:45 aliksy says:
Or “Not enough story, too much MMO gameplay.”
In other words, they delivered a product no one wanted. KOTOR fans wanted more single player KOTOR goodness, MMO fans wanted something more than reskinned WoW.
31/07/2012 at 22:02 Tuskin38 says:
Still paying a sub because I enjoy and love this game, plus its the only way to get content past level 50.
31/07/2012 at 22:02 Silver says:
Next up Mass Effect MMO ? :/
31/07/2012 at 22:29 wodin says:
Should have made a single payer game. Simple. MMO is a buzz word finally in it’s death throes, as no everything MMO is super cool, infact i think it’s pretty shit. Give me a great SP game anyday of the week.
31/07/2012 at 22:34 Carra says:
It’s a good game but you need to be a great game in order to compete with WoW.
Removing the subs means that I’ll probably get back to it play some more.
31/07/2012 at 22:38 shagen454 says:
I might give this a shot if it’s free. I mean I stopped playing after week two because it was so boring. So, just maybe if it’s free I’ll give a whirl for a couple of days.
31/07/2012 at 22:53 Azradesh says:
I’m glad they are keeping the sub option, I’d rather sub when/if I ever play it again.
31/07/2012 at 22:53 Josh W says:
I don’t think this will work, as about half of the people I know who gave up did so because they were hoping to play a starwars game with their friends, and found that all their levels went out of sync and they couldn’t play together any more.
If I were them, I’d make it so that you can get a low complexity upgrade to your character to make you competitive, or at least a sidekick, when playing with a friend of higher level.
That way you can play through the story content together, go ooh and choices that other people made etc. This should never have been a game about “looking for group”, or the usual mmo social structures, but one about using the real existing friendship groups with shared feelings about starwars. About the strengths of their single player game made social, with common experiences etc.
Of course, the other half gave up because they went hardcore and got bored with a lack of depth or variety, which also suggests that the mmo elements let them down, and are in need of improvement, but whatever, I’d still go with making the starwars game that people want, and not worrying about legacy details like levels.
31/07/2012 at 22:53 Solanaceae says:
Well according to the FAQ on their site looks like free players will have unlimited access to the main storylines. Great stuff! Will definitely get me playing.
This was pretty fast, I was just thinking I hope they go F2P soon cause I enjoyed the IA and Sith Warrior storylines enough to want to grind through the boring MMO portions. Looking forward to this.
31/07/2012 at 22:55 eel says:
Anyone knows if people who bought the game on release get any appreciation freebies?
31/07/2012 at 23:12 Dark Nexus says:
Yes, you get 150 “Cartel Coins” per month subbed to date, 1000 Cartel Coins and a “Heroes’ Banner” if you bought the CE and have an active sub when the game goes FTP, a “Fan’s Choice in-game Item” if you have an existing sub still active with the game goes FTP, 200 more Cartel Coins per month subbed from now to FTP, and another 250 Cartel coins as a lump sum for being active going into FTP.
They’ve got it further down the page here, in grid form:
http://www.swtor.com/free/
01/08/2012 at 07:26 TormDK says:
CE owners that have kept their sub active will be getting around 2500 Cartel Coins. It will be interesting to seeing what sort of value they will represent once the store goes live.
31/07/2012 at 23:07 spectone says:
Oh no the subscribers have failed release the whales.
31/07/2012 at 23:24 Heliocentric says:
/me flicks on sunglasses*
I guess failure stuck first.
/me poses as guitars strum out and the scene fades to black*
01/08/2012 at 00:14 marcusfell says:
Sir, I don’t recall giving you a license for dramatic exits.
01/08/2012 at 00:33 Heliocentric says:
I’m still here, its just very dark now.
31/07/2012 at 23:47 Howl says:
I would happily pay monthly for an MMO. (EDIT: I had 3 DAoC accounts on the go for years) I’d pay twice the going monthly rate if an MMO was good enough. SWTOR’s problem was that it wasn’t a good game. Everyone seems so hell bent on providing easy, linear, single player, story based experiences that the essence of MMO’s has been lost in the scrabble to duplicate Blizzard’s success.
Give me a first person L4D/DAoC hybrid, or a Mad Max/Interstate ’76/DAoC mashup with a skill based levelling system and maybe vehicular combat too. I don’t want hand holding, just a rock solid interface and game mechanics and a big open world for players to fight over.
01/08/2012 at 01:26 Mr-Link says:
Yay…..now let’s hope the secret world turns F2P soon enough.
That’s what I really want to try as my first MMO ever.
01/08/2012 at 01:30 lociash says:
Hey, maybe I can complete the Sith side storylines now. I only got to lvl 40ish in the beta, I knew all I had to do was wait.
01/08/2012 at 04:46 Metonymy says:
They’re still charging for the client download? Something tells me they have no idea what makes this business model work. You need hundreds of thousands of people trying out your horrible MMO, so when 1% of them ‘stick’ you actually make some money. No one is going to pay for what they have just confirmed is a subpar game.
01/08/2012 at 16:20 syndicatedragon says:
Yeah, still charging for the client makes no sense to me. They don’t seem to understand what “free” means.
01/08/2012 at 06:41 vee41 says:
Wonder why more games haven’t adopted the Guild Wars business model? The first one sold pretty well, I recall something along 10 million boxes and content expansions on top of that. That sounds pretty damn succesfull to me.
GW2 will probably be even greater financial success.
01/08/2012 at 07:29 TormDK says:
There’s alot of hype about GW2, but over time I think the model your game has depends alot on your targeted group.
GW2 is not for everyone, but is being hyped (By the masses) as such.
01/08/2012 at 06:49 Kageru says:
A business move that speaks of desperation more than any sort of planned progression. It’s still not going to be enough for their insane model of expensive, one-off, story-centric content.
This failure was destined from their original design document.
01/08/2012 at 08:15 afarrell says:
I am concerned that if and when WoW starts to freefall (and I’m by no means convinced that it’ll be soon – if they can add Guild Wars 2′s skull to the pile then the increased amount of content and ways to play in Mists of Pandaria may well start bringing people back) and if Blizzard fumble transitioning people to Titan, then there’ll be more excitable people (or just actual idiots as with Studio 38) convinced that there’s gold in those hills, and the market will be a piranha-tank of doomed subscription MMOs for years until and unless one actually gets the momentum to survive.
It’s foolish to put out a subscription MMO now because of WoW – arguments that people won’t pay for one have to ignore the fact that 10 million people already do – but after WoW?
01/08/2012 at 08:17 Kuroko says:
I called it, and got flamed for it.
01/08/2012 at 10:17 frightlever says:
Everyone called it. You probably got flamed for thinking you’re special.
01/08/2012 at 10:51 Kuroko says:
The replies I got were certainly dismissing my call, so your statement that “everyone was calling it” is certainly wrong. In fact, I recall most people sucking the game’s penis back then, and you were probably one of those.
01/08/2012 at 11:15 Chris D says:
I had a quick look back at some of the older threads. Over half of all the words written on the subject were saying how SWTOR would be terrible and would be free to play in six months.
Admittedly this was while Wulf was still posting on RPS so I’m don’t know if we can conclude anything from that.
01/08/2012 at 11:47 ananachaphobiac says:
I hate to admit it, but part of me misses Wulf’s epic, dissertation length, deconstructions. They always made me laugh.
01/08/2012 at 08:26 jkz says:
I feel a disturbance in the balance sheet, as if hundreds of thousands of subscriptions cried out in anguish, and were suddenly unsubscribed… You must go on with your grinding.
01/08/2012 at 09:40 Groove says:
Woooo, I get to try this then get bored of it again!
Honestly I can’t imagine sticking with it after hating the beta quite SO HARD, but I’ll at least jump in for a bit with it F2P.
01/08/2012 at 10:02 JoeGuy says:
My lvl 48 Bounty Hunter will be happy; the other Bounty Hunters have been kicking ass and taking bounty names to jail while mine idles about, reading Jedi erotica and lighting his cigarets with his flamethrower.
01/08/2012 at 10:20 frightlever says:
My major problem with SWTOR was that it wouldn’t run on my gaming PC. I could install and patch on a crappy laptop and copy the patched install over and it would work fine. But patching on the main PC failed at the verification stage every single time – on a computer that runs pretty much everything else flawlessly. Support, at the time, had its head up its own ass so I left in a huff. Prepared to try it again for free.
01/08/2012 at 10:36 Apprehension says:
1. Make M*MO game
2.Sell CD-Key for 50$+, sell “life time” subscriptions
3.Offer no endgame, only easy modo grind to 50, and lousy imitation of KoToR storyline. Yell that voice acting is “innovation” and “amazing feature”.
4.Wait till initial subscription profits die, go F2P.
What is worst its current model for release of most MMOs, cash up on initial box sale for outrageous price and drop development later since you don`t care about people keeping subscriptions.
*I can`t call game Massive when CS or CoD have more players in “instance”.
02/08/2012 at 01:51 Jade Raven says:
Fall AutumnSpring, I think, Autumn is still 7 months away.Quarters (Q1, Q2, etc) make way more sense.
02/08/2012 at 11:53 Suits says:
Love it when apologists are proven wrong