Will the game survive 2013 ?

Agreed. With current F2P restrictions I doubt many will stay and play the F2P option for more then a week or two. Either they will leave or subscribe.

So exactly what is the point of this post? You're asking for answers that can possibly be known, but even worse you're asking ridiculous questions like "what is EAs road map?"


No one from EA is going to pop into this thread and feed you some internal power point presentation from a developer meeting. Got that? You understand that they share what they feel they need to share. We know the game is transitioning into a F2p model with sub option. We know 1.5 is coming. We also know that they have more events planned and some speculative space project.

Stop asking ridiculous questions. All you're doing is driving a lot of armchairs analysts to spout their 2 cents about how doomed the game is. Being that this is the second most populated MMO on the market I don't think there is any logical reason to assume the game will be shut down or your soul will be sucked out by EA.

If you don't like playing a game, stop playing it. If you like the game, play it.

These kinds of questions are useless and just take up space from the rest of the folks trying to have an adult conversation about features and functions they really want to see.

This. Although I agree the 1 bar restriction is a tad draconian.

It seems very clear to me that the F2P option is meant to do 3 things:

1. Allow new or returning customers to play the class stories 1-50 free

2. Allow the "solo" player (who basically wanted to play KOTOR 3) to tool around the game until they are comfortable and feel up to not soloing anymore.

2. Provide a "perk" marketplace for subscribers who can pay their cartel coins for "hey neato" stuff like moddable gear shells, rare masks, unique pets and whatnot.

Anyone who wants to do anything touching on end-game (including lvl 50 Flashpoints, WZs, high-level crafting, Black Hole quests, etc) after the level cap is reached will pretty much need to subscribe. Hopefully, this will weed out people that decide the game is crap and they'll move on, rather than coming to the forums b*tching every day.

I'm fine with that model, and despite the tragicomedy of errors EA/Bioware has made since launch, I think this is a good move for them. Subscribers are already cooing at how cool the Cartel Shop looks, and it just might bring folks back to the game.

You are looking at the "glass is half empty" side. The best thing this game has to offer are the eight great storylines that the F2P players *can* enjoy from start to finish.

SWG bombed and it lasted for 8 years.


So yeah, I think this game is safe for the forseeable future.

The game will be here, and I expect it will be making more money than it currently is.

However, if you are a core/traditional MMO gamer, this wont be the place for you. F2P is aimed at casuals. Lots of casuals spend little amounts of money which drives profits. That money is re-invested in to more content aimed at F2Pers to repeat the cycle of earning money.

It means those of us who subscribe, raid and pvp will get less "proper" content, get bored quicker and leave.

Its simple supply and demand: core gamers demand high quality goods, when the goods aren't delivered they leave for someone else who can supply the high quality content.


For a real life example, look at LOTRO. Their free 2 play model is superior, but they basically make their money off character unlocks, cosmetic fluff, zone unlocks (i.e. leveling content) and instance packs (group content). As a consequence, since F2P in lotro there has been quite large amounts of new zones released in expansions, loads of fluff items and an increase in development of small instances (3man) rather than larger instances and raids (6man and 12man). There has been virtually no PvP expansion as until recently PvP remained a subscriber only benefit.

Probably.

3 servers, sub 100k pop, and an "update" every 6 months.

Simple really. You either have faith in something, or you don't. Clearly you do not. Many others do, and will continue to enjoy and play the game for a long long time.

Or were you just trying to crab walk your way into a rant about communications? No game developer communicates sufficiently to please you I am sure.

Someone like you, who constantly complains about a game, should probably find a game you actually enjoy and do not feel compelled to complain about in a gaming forum. Then again, you maybe you complain about every game in every gaming forum. Personally, I don't see the point, but you are free to do so I guess, as long as you stay within the forum rules.

Problem is this F2P model is so extremely limited that it's basically pointless. In theory you can get 50 and experience the content however with 1 quicker bar, extra CD's etc it won't be possible in reality. They should have just allowed full access up to level 20 for all characters and if you want more then you need to sub it would make more sense than this botched attempt at a F2P model.

BioWare should realise they simply can't compete with the likes of GW2 and WoW with this current model because their game just isn't good enough. If they can't see that things will just keep getting worse until they do, not going to say the game will die because I doubt that but definitely expect further decreases in subscriptions.

CoX is a bad reference example. CoX did not close because it was not successful. It closed becasue the studio management team got up in the faces of the Korean parent company, and they got slap-smacked for it buy flushing the game. You have an issue with that, write down the names of the management at Paragon Studios and make sure to play one of their products again. They showed extreme arrogance and lack of responsibility by what they tried to do with their parent company. NCsoft made and example of them.