What's the point now?

Why pay now for what I can do for free in a few months? The whole reason I pay for MMOs is for the complete experience. I have 5 level 85 characters in WOW and the other 5 are levels 70-84. I love leveling alts and I love gearing them up. It's the reason I normally don't mind paying. But, I normally do it while getting to know the community, making friends that I can raid with along the way, etc. With F2P, good luck with any of that. You'll be just as likely to run into F2P trolls that just want to loot ninja everything and wipe the group as run into people you want to add to your friends list. And because Bioware decided to lump everyone on to the same servers, there's no getting away from these people. So, as far as I'm concerned, the MMO part of this game is about to die. I won't pay them more money after doing that to the game.

I kind of hit this wall, too. I wanted to see how a few more of the story-lines played out, but since the F2P news hit and I know that I won't be playing past about August 15, I lost all desire to see those stories. Part of it might be that I'd have to grind through the same planetary and side quests yet again to survive some of the fights.

I don't see it. These types of players have been common in MMOs since the beginning and not only have no problem paying a monthly sub, they don't mind buying a new copy of the game when they get banned. You know, I don't think I've seen any of that kind of behaviour in WoW, nope not at all.

You know, it is fine to just admit you are not entertained enough by a game and just quit, you don't need to publicly blame it on some other group of people.

I am thinking it's to help keep server populations up.

They now know if server populations drop too low it's extremely bad. This will at least keep them populated.

Yes, it is hard to take a f2p game seriously...let alone make any serious investment into one. The news hit me like a gut punch. I wasn't able to play when the game came out, so I just started 3 weeks ago and was really having a blast and thinking this is the mmo I will be playing for the next few years. But the f2p news really turned swtor into a single player game for me. If you don't already have good friends and guildies then you are unlikely to find them after the game goes f2p. I just don't like f2p players. They range from permanent noobs to flakey to griefers.

I'll play thought the stories and will wait and see how it turns out. But it is really hard to take seriously statements from EA/BW saying f2p will allow them to add more content when they are laying off big chucks of their team. They can't manage to fix the bugs and improve the game as it is with the team they got, but now they are going to do that AND develop meaningful expansions with less people?!? That sounds like a magic trick to me. The wise man listens to a person's actions over their words; and their actions say they are just cost cutting and focusing on making money using the game as nothing more than a platform for a cash vanity store with their skeleton crew. "more content" just seems like their code word for more items developed for the cash store...what else could the few people left be able to do? It seems very clear to me that the "F2P business model" they are switching to means a low cost small team capable of only making cookie cutter expansions with lots of cash store items to sell.

After seeing how Diablo 3 was developed as nothing more than a platform to try and force people to use the Real Money Auction, I am discusted with any developers that have real money stores as any part of their game (because it ALWAYS becames the whole point of the game...ALWAYS). It seems while BW tried to do it right, EA is now making them switch to this model too: the game just being a platform to try and suck as much money from players as possible by targeting their impulse control.

I'm just going to keep buying game cards and playing like I have been. If I get some cartel coins out of it and can do anything neat with them, cool.

Up until the announcement, I was still having fun with the game. Since then, every time I log in, I play for 20 minutes and lose all interest. Before, it's like I had a long term goal I was playing for. Now, this game has the same feeling LOTRO has when I play it. It just feels.... temporary. Like I know deep down that there is no actual goal anymore and that I won't be playing for long anyway. Again, that whole "what's the point" feeling. Again, I'm not saying that it should be like this for everyone. It's just how I personally feel about F2P games.


Still though... the class story lines are the best part of the game. If we get to play those for free, I don't see why anyone would continue subbing.

I understand the "change = sky falling" instinct, but I don't agree with the assessments here. I still play several games that I loved as subscription games that have since gone FTP, in particular LOTRO and City of Heroes. In both of those games, the community (and the games at large) improved upon going FTP. I'd throw Star Trek Online in that category as well, though it's still kind of a crappy game by comparison to some others.

Now, if the only community of players with which you interact are general chat trolls, then I suppose you will see an influx of them. A large number of players will come back or try the game for the first time, and a certain predictable proportion of them will be idiots, there's no question. I submit, however, that if you are playing an MMO, you ought to understand that in fact, the best community for you is a good guild. Islands of non-idiots exist out there, and will continue to grow as the game's player base grows. If you don't like the "community" of people that babble in general chat, then the game offers you several excellent ways to eliminate that problem completely, from editing your chat tab settings up through simply toggling the chat window off or ignoring players.

The subscription model is pretty much dead. Blizzard continues to have success with it, but if EA and BioWare, with their resources, couldn't make it work, then I doubt anyone else will ever be able to convince their investors to let them try.

Besides, all FTP means is that you only have to pay for what you want. New content comes out, you're interested in it, so you give them a few bucks when you want to try it. You finish it up and you're bored with the game for a while? Great, take a few months off and go resub to Wow while you wait for something new to come out. In the meantime, TOR's still there waiting for you...and you have the convenience of not having to say "Hmm, playing my BH for a couple hours today would be fun, but not $14.99 worth of fun."

Personally I love FTP, and I'm glad TOR went to it. Means the game's not going to get mothballed, like that other Star Wars game that still gives some of us mental pains when we think about it.

You?! Why wouldn't you sub just to support this massive super secret space project you so vehemently believe is just around the corner?!

This isn't a flame, it really isn't. But I don't understand, why are or were people pissed that they're going F2P. If You were or are already subbed it doesn't hurt or effect us in anyway. So what if people who never played the game get to play it for free (after they buy it for $15) we're the one's that get the full game with everything F2P people are the one's who need to pay out of pocket to get what we have.

I think once it goes F2P and people start finding out that it's gonna cost them more then the the $15 a month to get what the subs have, they will sub. They will never really get to play for free because every bit of content that comes out even if it is minor they have to pay for it. From what I've read there will be a TON of restrictions for F2P and I think it's gonna cost them a small fortune in the long run to get what subs have and will get in the coming months.. Just my thoughts......