TOR to sell Stated Gear In FTP cash shop here is our new content after 6 monthes of n

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08...ng-new-planet/

Gamescom 2012: SWTOR will sell statted gear, debating new planet monetization

by Justin Olivetti on Aug 20th 2012 8:30AM

How do you take a subscription title like Star Wars: The Old Republic and turn it into a free-to-play MMO? According to Executive Producer Jeff Hickman, you do it as carefully as possible. "Give the story away," he explained. "Make the casual player understand what that is. Don't try to monetize that. Monetize all the things around that. I think, actually, as we looked through it, it is not as complex as you think it is. It is very difficult."

While plans for SWTOR's cash shop are not finalized, Hickman did admit that players could use it to purchase gear to help them level up: "I don't want to unbalance the game by putting things out on the store that somebody can walk in on day one, buy and be the winner. Having said that, there will be some things that we put out in the store that do enhance power value in some way, but not at the top end."

Hickman nibbled around the topic of the planet Makeb, which is still under construction. With more story and more systems, he hopes players will be pleased with the final result. However, Hickman could not confirm nor deny that it will expand the level cap, nor would he go into detail about whether BioWare is going to attempt to sell this to subscribers or not.

As has been stated by many others, I feel betrayed as a longtime (December) subscriber if I'm asked to fork over money for Makeb.

More and more, this feels like a PAY TO WIN model instead of a FREE TO PLAY model.

Ugh, im just getting more and more depressed about this. I can't be the only person that feels like EA pulled the plug and now we're just getting some afterbirth to suck more money out of us until they totally can it. There's literally no possible way for them to justify selling the planet since there's just nothing to do when you hit 50. Like leveling for the first time is awesome and probably why the game didn't tank immediately like AoC or Warhammer. But once you hit 50, the game just ends. You go from fighting sith lords that've wronged you, doing epic bounties, turning the tide of battle on a planet.....to sitting on fleet typing LFG for a few hours.

If this crappy world event is this "constant game updates" that they're toting about, we're screwed. Boring, poorly planned, poorly executed, bugged, rushed, etc. There's been hardly any content releases since launch (if you wanna defend this, take a hard look at WoW over the past 8 months, it may not be fair to compare but thats SWTOR's competition either way and constant content releases are something that we've become spoiled with and have come to flat out expect) and yet when they do FINALLY put something new out, its just so...Beta quality that you wonder why?

I'lll even add this disclaimer: I don't wanna play WoW again. I really dont wanna dump all this time and effort put into gearing and leveling alts but its coming to the point where im considering cutting my losses. I want this game to be awesome, but Bioware and EA have to want this game to be awesome too and im just not getting that feedback from them. Actually, the only feedback we are getting is constant empty promises with "soon", "being tested", "something we're looking at." After eating 8 months of it, it just doesn't work for me anymore. They were getting us all hyped up over a gosh darn companion....then just stopped talking about it. Where is he? Where's this new warzone you showed a few months ago? New operation? New flashpoints? Remove the voiceovers, i spacebar through them anyways and start dumping out quality content every 2 months with events like the Rakghoul (NOT THE GRAND RACE OF CRAP) in between to hold us over. If that's something you can't accomplish, rehire all those people that you laid off through those 2 waves of lay-offs.

Honestly, if they were to sell green gear in the shop I wouldn't care. God knows I just sell that stuff to a vender when I pick it up anyway. Sometimes, it does help though so for a f2p person maybe that's a good way to go. I'm just talking off the cuff though without really putting any thought into it.

I think what we are all experiencing here is the angst associated with a changing model. We have no idea what our subs will mean and that's hard to deal with. I know I might be over stating my opinion on this, but I don't understand Bioware's new philosophy of increase the speculation, and decrease transparency. I would like to just know a little more about things concerning the product I subscribe to. I love this game, and have since launch. I just want to continue to love the game while understanding where it's going and what will be asked of me is all. Of course, I don't expect a ton right now, but November is fast approaching so I would just like a little more information.

To me, it would depend on the magnitude of the "expansion". If it's indeed a "beefy chunk of content", I wouldn't mind paying accordingly. Going down this road is something I don't like them doing though, and while we should wait to pass judgement, I gotta say the statement left me a bit sore.

Does anyone really care if someone buys an outfit at lvl25 with cash when they'll out level it in a day or 2? I don't. Who cares at that level. He did say there won't be any purchasable high end gear, which is what's important. But of course everyone just glosses over that part, you know the important part.

Yeah they've said many things (including Makeb would be free to subscriber - and now maybe not )...... including "everything is subject to change".

Can you honestly say that if selling green gear is their biggest cashshop earner no one at Bioware EA is going to go "well..... if green gear sells this well..... what if we sell purple gear?" etc. etc.

P2W is P2W is P2W.

They can sell all the green and blue items they want up to a certain lvl (35-40) as long as it doesnt effect endgame crafting and end game gear progression. If thy sell Rakata, then ya that's a problem. But the more money then can sucker FTP people at lower levels the better for us on the long run.

I am really beginning to fail to see the reason to pay a sub anymore... I mean, what advantages will a sub player have under the new F2P model? Besides access to stuff that it ALREADY bought / earned / unlocked / grind.