Gamescom Interview with Jeff Hickman about the future of SWTOR

Good Questions just a shame the answers weren't as good.

Currently more bank slots and inventory is sold through credits as are priority transport, low cool downs for quick travel and the like. Unless these are taken out nobody will purchase them for cash if they find 15 bucks a month a barrier to enjoying the game.

The same goes for mid level blue gear that you will out level within few hours of purchasing it. Your real options are to offer pay to win, content or iconic looking gear. I suspect if you offer people an option to grind out 200 black hole coms or pay 20 bucks some people will pay for the gear. Equally new species, companions or additions to the story and people will pay and you offer people the Revan outfit or the Luke outfit and you will have people handing over cash. Though this only works if the social aspect of the game is vastly improved where having a certain look is important.

I'd put it this way... I only see P2W as a problem if subscribers have to pay more money to win. Then I would probably quit. I don't have a problem with free players being placed at a comparative disadvantage, especially since they have the option to buy more access to content. The whole point of F2P is still to get people to buy things.

@Mikro,

Your interview was also picked up at Massively.

Summary from Massively:

I think you left one group out - those that are happy playing the game, and would like to continue to do so, but can't because the company has driven off too many of the first group so the game becomes nothing of what it started as (ala LOTRO) when the company does everything it can to get dollars in the door to stay a float.

And if they charge subs for this "beefy chunk of content" that they are talking about doing? That includes the planet quests and next tier of raiding. If subs have to buy that, then they WILL be charging subs more money on top of their sub if they want to win.

And you may not be so worried about it, but for me 49 out of 50 levels being pay to win and only the very terminal level being even partially free from buying an advantage is very worrisome. It's as though they are skipping all the way to the very edge of turning pay 2 win.

People were worried enough when they were simply selling xp buffs, and then became more worried at the prospect of cosmetic gear, and now are MORE worried that they will be selling gear with stats. They've already just gone ahead and skipped steps 1, 2, and 3 and are now just ONE step away from going over the edge and that worries me.

Yeah, man, that low level gear they sell in the shop will ruin the game!

No it doesn't per se but, this way the slippery slope lies.

Also, since part of playing this game is a "gear grind" all along the way ( oranges with planet comms to upgrade ), this waters down any sense of accomplishment.

They might as well sell 'I win' buttons, and premade fully geared level CAP characters because it seems like the posers today whom fancy themselves gamers don't want to put in any work to L2P their class and gear their characters ( the primary focus of most MMORPGS ). Most of this new generation of "gamers" just wants to epeen.

I agree that the leveling gear isn't necessarily the breaker that some are taking it as, but his other point was referring to the POSSIBILITY that subscribers MAY have to pay extra to get the Makeb content (at this point, we don't know, of course). And on that, I agree that if someone with a sub has to pay ANYTHING extra for content then I too will be done. Again, we don't know which way it will go so I'm still in "wait and see" mode. I'm still enjoying leveling alts though I am tired of Denova.

Edit: Now if the bonus from CE and 'reimbursement' from monthly sub ends up being enough for that new content, I may amend the above...maybe lol.

Really??? How many times are you going to say he is Great and Good in one Post are you his PR Agent or Something??? Do you Know Him in Real Life??? Is he your next Door neighbor??? Post like this make me Laugh..

You must not pvp very much. One of the best pvp pub guilds on the fatman servers members almost ALL wear greens on their toons when they are leveling in pvp. They had members that trolled me so I started looking at their gear and they were wearing mostly greens while my toons have all mod gear with blue or purple mods I crafted for them as well as augments my main made.

So not only are you incorrect but selling p2w blue gear also has an effect on the crafters who level armor mech and synthweaving. So we have to RE for blue schems and farm the mats to do it and they can just buy the gear. That sounds fair