Gamescom Interview with Jeff Hickman about the future of SWTOR

He might be Superman for all I care. It doesn`t help me, as subscriber, one bit. Because he opened one more can'o'worms: subs MIGHT need to pay for content in the future.

This interview made me unsubscribe,,,go watch Trions interviews from gamescon and You will see the difference

^^this!

^^and THIS

I don`t.

But they can afford it. They have about 9 mil subs left. This game has less than 1 mil and losing them fast.

And to be honest, 7 months into the game with as little content as they have, while lacking it from the start... they kinda owe us Makeb.. and many others.

Well so is operations quality gear, that's available to everybody right? ANYONE can go do the ops and get black whole gear just like ANYONE can go do the flashpoints and gear themselves out. Warhero gear is available to ANYONE all you have to do is buy it with rwz comms. So why not just sell that gear on the website as well?

Your argument could be applied to Campaign Gear and War Hero gear as well...soooooo
1. Should WH and BH gear go up for sale for real money?
2. How is gear with stats being sold for real money p2w in one case but NOT p2w in another?
3. Are you starting to see the problems here lol?

After all, buying gear for real money is just another gear source you're paying for...

They only have about 3M US/EU players left.

1. ABSOLUTELY NOT
2. P2W means better than anything you can find ingame. As long as it is weaker than the top and comparable to gear that can be found relatively easy (by this I mean within one month, as opposed to tedious grinds that go 2+ months) it`s not P2W. Unfair? yes, since it should have been only "fluff". But not P2W.
3.I don`t. P2W, to me, at least, means "2". And we aren`t there ... yet.

And about WOW... globally it has 9 mils
http://www.mmodata.net/ - not the 10 it claims in that chart, but I found that 9 mil figure somewhere...
http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/09/wo...riber-numbers/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...g-subscribers/
I actually got 1 mil less than them, but I THINK it was a somehow more accurate number. It`s still... 9 mils away

Pay 2 Win means buying an ADVANTAGE.
Are you suggesting that buying items does not give you an advantage over others that havent?
Are you really saying that some level 40 in blues he paid real money for didn't buy his win over another l40 in questing drops because "nothing under 50 counts?"

Do you not see how quickly they are moving the goalposts here? From no "no gear," to "only cosmetic gear," to "gear with stats but not STRONG gear with stats." They've already skipped the first 3 steps in having your cash shop make the game pay 2 win pushing them to the very edge of the game being pay 2 win and the cash shop HASNT EVEN COME OUT YET.

As long as we won`t share the same view on what Pay to Win is, we will keep disagreeing. And you only have an advantage, as long as you are THE ONLY ONE, or the VERY SELECT FEW that have it. If you have access one day earlier to one gear set.. that`s not advantage.

1. I am not suggesting. I am saying that, as long as it is WEAKER than top gear , it is NOT Pay to Win. Because everybody has a fair chance at getting the same gear, or virtually equal (like Campaign and Black Hole are now).
2. How is this different than buying purple mods for any of your alts, from a wealthy main? All you need is ONE day of "dailies" to kit anything below lvl 50. How is this different than having an army of alts with 400 crafting and making your own mods? How is this different than buying a Legacy Set and move mods around?

Again... as long as THE TOP is still ingame only and ONLY the mainstream is available in the Cash Shop... nothing will change.

[EDIT]Also, PvE is irrelevant under level 50, because it`s throwaway gear. The ONLY gear that matters is level 50. So, yes, point 1 still applies. Even better, PvE is NOT competitive. It compares to how fast can you drop mobs, or how fast can you change locations. As long as you can match with REASONABLE ingame effort what the Cash Shop is giving, there is no problem. The ONLY place where you can see P2W in your example is PvP. Under 50, rule 2 applies. At 50... rule 1.

Charging for expansions is what almost every game out there does and has done since the beginning of MMOs.

I'm sure that there are ways people can twist things around, that's why devs are careful about speaking publicly and interviews like this are fairly rare. And many questions are still unanswered (like "what are cartel coins really worth" or "what exactly is going to be in the cash shop" - couldn't be answered in an interview) but I didn't see any new red flags here. Jeff did seem like a good, sincere game maker.