I really don't see how introducing a F2P option to lvl 50 will help expand subs. It will, as you suggest, introduce more players to the game but will they be willing to convert to a sub after reaching lvl 50? I think not.

 

Surely the only way this can be sustained is if you offer great gear for a price? I'm currenly subbing on both WoW and SWTOR and was seriously considering stopping my WoW sub as it is getting really boring, but with this announcment of F2P I have to reconsider my options. Will my time and money continue to be well spent here? I feel as if you seriously need to convince me that it is.

Again, content will be king..... Something that makes it worth it for the sub's to stay. If BW doesn't get that.... then yeah... they are truly lost. But tell me.... Wouldn't you keep the sub if there was a release of decent content for us next month? Something only the sub's had access to? I think most would, as well as others re-activating to check it out as well..... It's all in the way it's handled.

The people, like us, who spent a lot of money, beliving in your game, who supports your game, who plays your game, will have best gear/content/ops/wz? And I mean, if I paid $15.00 per month, can I have better gear for example? Or just a fanzy outfit, like "used boxers from Darth Vader which glows in the dark".

 

If I paid $15.00 per month, can I have direct acces to the "store" and purchase "special items"? Or anybody CAN purchase the special items, for example the F2P "gamers"?

The free page, FAQ & feature page covers at least some of this.

 

As a subscriber & CE owner, you'll get 1000 Cartel Coins for owning a CE, 250 Cartel Coins if you're an active player on August 1st, 150 Cartel Coins for each subscribed month prior to July 31st, and 200 Cartel Coins per month after August 1st that you are subscribed, for a potential total of 2300 Cartel Coins starting pot if you subscribed at launch, plus 200 a month on top if you stay subscribed.

 

Operations cannot be accessed by F2P players. There is nothing stating anything about special items, but you'll start out with a whole lot more coins.

 

So with that pot of Cartel Coins you will be able to 'freely' purchase the items offered on the Cartel Market which are, quote, 'valuable in-game items including customizable gear and convenience features that will enhance the game play experience'. The unknown proviso is of course whether the 200 coins a month plus the initial pot will cover typical expenses of the usual subscriber.

Edited August 1, 2012 by Grammarye

Bioware,

 

STOP listening to people who leave, listen to people who stay.

 

We don't want to read your babble about how excited you are about 'new ways to making people come and play SWTOR", and "how much fun your team is having working on the new model". It's pure rancor crap.

You downsized your team twice, and you expect them to be happy?

 

I don't want a new payment model. I want new content.

 

Patch 1.1 was out 1 month after release, I was favorably impressed.

Patch 1.2 was out 2 months after 1.1, I was kinda meh.

Patch 1.3 was out 3 months after 1.3, with no new content, and I was disappointed.

Now you announce a new payment model but nothing about 1.4.

 

More story content, more often.

 

Bioware, listen to the people WHO STAY. Not the leavers.

he says 'We look forward to hearing your thoughts, suggestions and feedback'

 

i try to get answers and got nowere, only given naff links that were no use whatsoever.

 

he also says this 'Thanks for your support over the last seven months. We have the best fans in the business!'

 

pahahaha XD your subscriptions dropped you bring out the legacy patch, so many problems for alot of people, you treat players unfairly, e.g lvl 50 players got a month free a while back, yet those of us who were here from start, myself included, got nothing if we didnt have a lvl 50. so many people complain about bugs every day and now you bring out this f2p and so many people are annoyed because some of us have just paid alot of money for the game at start and you are now going to sell it for $15 (£9) in august when it was around £40 at launch, and like myslef, have just paid subscription fee of £40 pounds were if id of waited a few weeks i wouldnt of had to, and what do i get bcos id already subscribed for all these months......wait for it....some cartel coins, oh wow, oh my god, thankyou so much (!)

 

Jeff Hickman we are not the 'best fans in the business' many of us are god like fans and you treat us like gum on your shoe!

 

i know this wont apply to newer members, but i just hope soemone out there agrees with me!

If they only listened to people who stay TOR would be closed in the near future. There needs to be a balance between both existing subscribers and those who have left. We need to be realistic - this is a business and if BW only listen to those remaining there'll be no money for updates or to keep the game running.

 

To be fair, my initial impression of the F2P model is promising. I'm hopeful they'll do this properly.

Bioware,

 

STOP listening to people who leave, listen to people who stay.

 

We don't want to read your babble about how excited you are about 'new ways to making people come and play SWTOR", and "how much fun your team is having working on the new model". It's pure rancor crap.

You downsized your team twice, and you expect them to be happy?

 

I don't want a new payment model. I want new content.

 

Patch 1.1 was out 1 month after release, I was favorably impressed.

Patch 1.2 was out 2 months after 1.1, I was kinda meh.

Patch 1.3 was out 3 months after 1.3, with no new content, and I was disappointed.

Now you announce a new payment model but nothing about 1.4.

 

More story content, more often.

 

Bioware, listen to the people WHO STAY. Not the leavers.

 

yes don't listen to the people who don't play the game any more and have left listen to the people that have stayed and supported this game from the start

do we all have to leave this game before any of our voices are heard. If you worried about the people that stay and still play the game and give them what they want more people will come and so many wouldn't leave. Your only going to have the same problem next year people will play til lvl 50 then stop and not play again because the end game not worth paying for........

40% said they will come back if it went f2p what about the other 60% that have left you know the reason everyone posts on the forums just listen to your fans the people that have paid and played the game since it was released

bye bye Bioware/SWTOR

This is ********...

I do like the idea and the concept behind this BioWare. However, this really only tackles 1 problem. Having the F2P till level 50 is really not in my personal opinion a good idea. It should have been capped to say level 30. The other problem if you are going to 50 and you limit the F2P players to some aspects of the game is how will adding more population to a server that desperately needs it but then limit them, solve the population problem. The amount of times now that Heroic missions or any group missions are great is pointless, as you can never get a group on the planet you need them for. I think personally the biggest error this game faced was not doing a world-wide launch, you left countries out by months which when they began, other countries had already finished or grown tired.

 

And in regards to benefiting the current subscribers, Australia (where i'm from in case anyone was wondering) was never offered a Collector's Edition. This makes it somewhat unfair to benefit them over someone who purchased a Digital Deluxe or standard. I would have been happy to purchase the Collector's Edition and receive the rewards, but it was never offered, not even on an upgrade level like the Digital Deluxe had been.

 

You have created a world online game, but really only benefit the USA. Thats just my opinion. Should have made it fair on everyone. But good luck with the new movement, I love the game. Just wish you also didn't have to take the server down twice to almost 3 times a week for maintenance.

 

-DraX.

bb, swtor, ea and bioware.

To that end, I am proud to say that we have a lot of great new content coming your way, and that it will be coming more frequently

More frequuently, sure.

Already noticed that you're missing half your team by now? LOL!

Really should stop lying to the few fans you've got left out there.

More frequuently, sure.

Already noticed that you're missing half your team by now? LOL!

Really should stop lying to the few fans you've got left out there.

 

keep in mind they used that same line before saying we would get "more frequent" updates after 1.2 was done.

yay, cancelled my sub now. I have said at the time of the lvl 15 f2p and will stay to it. swtor goes f2p, I go find something other to play. I'm interested in following your sub numbers, just to see you either losing way much more or just that you math all f2p guys in your numbers and show a huge gain.. will be hillarous

I've looked over the information and noticed something that bothers me some. Collectors Edition buyers get 1000 cartel points, but Deluxe Edition buyers like me, get exactly squat. We paid more for our game then standard edition buyers and though I would have liked to purchase a CE, my finances determined that I had to go one step lower, to a DE purchase.

 

I would suggest that CE buyers get 1000 coins as they listed and that DE buyers get 500 coins. We did after all purchase a more expensive edition and it would seem to me to be only fair that we also get an additional compensation as the CE buyers get, though not as much as they get as obviously we didn't pay as much as they did.

 

I would like to see BW remember that they had THREE game purchase types at launch and stop forgetting those of us who may not have had the money to throw at a CE, but still tried to show BW that we supported them by purchasing the option we could afford.

 

~S

Executive Producer Jeff Hickman addresses the fans about our Free-to-Play announcement:

 

 

Read More

 

Is not acceptable to be a f2p game even with 300k active users.

This is a joke for people who until now have given you credit.

Before you go to f2p had to wait for the 50k of active users, and if the fear of making Guild Wars 2 is increasingly being felt, were all wrong because the players who are still in the game are those who would have gone forward. So instead they were driving out!

I just hope that does not happen with poorer quality of play, but I fear that the game will look like from here to fall much further Diablo3 and this is bad!

Play is now losing its sense!

 

V.

Bye SWTOR, it's been fun.

The rewards better be brilliant and even if it only $15 dollars a month now, which is brilliant, we still better get A LOT more rewards than people who are Free Playing, not just social gear. Will the subscription move down to $15? How many Australian? Are you going to perhaps limit World/Quest access when you say 'limit options' for players. This is a great way to revive the SWTOR community but in all truth I'm a bit hesitant about randoms playing for nothing and we not really getting much in return!

If you make the game F2P with limiting features you must lower the subscription cost of the game. Been as you are no longer paying for a majority of the game features it is only fair.

 

I would welcome this new strategy if the subscription cost is lowered and i think the game would benefit from it massively.

I'm really worried about this. I love this game and will continue to subscribe until we actually see what these "limited access" F2P options actually are.

 

However, if a subscriber has to spend a single penny more than the subscription fee to remain competitive I will quit. With a subscription based model, the playing field is level. But, when "boosts" start showing up that provide "gaming edge" benefits (which are typically consumables, forcing you to return to buy more) then your competitive edge goes beyond your time and your skill. It requires money. Just imagine how terrible it will be when a stim shows up that can be purchased with these Cartel Points that give you a 10% expertise buff in warzones.

 

I really want to welcome the F2P model, but I find myself resenting the decision, hoping they will put in a 3 second global cooldown for F2P accounts.

Edited August 1, 2012 by MoofKnight

Tbh, this is a really bad decision: every kid from 5 yrs old will be able to play the game and ruin general chat with the obvious f**k, n**b and so on...

 

I sincerely hope I'm wrong and the game will benefit from it. Because this game could have been a WoW killer. But making it F2P... I'm affraid it will ruin it completely

I'm cool with a F2P model on 2 conditions;

 

1) No pay to win items are sold, including items that boost a players combat effectiveness, travel speed, crafting crit/success rate and anything else that could be construed to be "pay to win". XP boosts, pets, custom armor shells and mounts in my book are fine.

 

2) Development budgets for operations aren't sacrificed. Already I'm finding the rate at which new and challenging content is released for "end-game" to be glacially slow. If F2P removes Bioware's incentive to create operation content for the raiding community, my own incentive to continue to subscribe will also removed.

 

Otherwise, bring on the pink tauntaun pets and celestial speeders.

I'm cool with a F2P model on 2 conditions;

 

1) No pay to win items are sold, including items that boost a players combat effectiveness, travel speed, crafting crit/success rate and anything else that could be construed to be "pay to win". XP boosts, pets, custom armor shells and mounts in my book are fine.

 

2) Development budgets for operations aren't sacrificed. Already I'm finding the rate at which new and challenging content is released for "end-game" to be glacially slow. If F2P removes Bioware's incentive to create operation content for the raiding community, my own incentive to continue to subscribe will also removed.

 

Otherwise, bring on the pink tauntaun pets and celestial speeders.

 

Quote

Was looking for a reason to cancel my subscription.

 

I hardley play SWTOR and this will free up my money. I've been playing LoL for awhile anyways and been having a blast.

 

Free 2 Play is the best way to go for a theme park MMO, I only hope that the "locked content" is not pay-to-win items. I also hope locked content does'nt effect the legacy stuff either.

as I discussed with my friends we miss alot overwhelming fun of world PvP which was at Ilum prior to 1.2. It was laggy, slideshow, but fun was absolutely great. People were rushing there like crazy. I think BW should rewrite client and server software and resume awsome PvP battles on Ilum.