Developer Update: Free-to-Play Option

Lower mod removal prices in 1.5....!

Sounds good thus far.

Glad I'm staying subscribed.

Well, it was sure heavy on the hype, but that is what customers of BioWare have come to expect. The "high quality" experience- which used to be what we expected- is waning.

So apparently F2P is "SCHEDULED" and coming in "MID NOVEMBER", however we don't have a release date.

One just shakes their head when they read these things.

On the positive side, as a subscriber, I am looking forward to having the buying power of items in the Cartel Coin Market. There are some neat vanity items and armor sets in there.


I still want to see customizable gear specifically for companions- each of their starting outfits for example and then a few others of varying unique style that can be purchased. Akaavi, Lord Scurge, Nadia Grell are a few examples of this.

Keep plugging away BioWare but cut down on the bs already.

The F2P model is broken because you are making people pay not for the content but for the tools needed to enjoy it.

You have two issues:

• New players will not find normal paying for features that are free in others F2P MMO or that are not up to the market standard.
• Former players won't come back in the F2P model, or should I say won't spend money in it.

Thing is now a player has to pay more upfront than a monthly fee to be able to have a good game play experience.

You are implementing an entry barrier that's higher than the former one.
While you are trying to hide it, dividing it in subsets. Soon enough players will do the math and the word will spread out on the social networks, ruining your relaunch tentative. Never underestimate the MMO players...
Also more players will have access to the game and tell others players how broken is the game, especially as they'll compare it to games like LotRo, GW2. It's going to give you bad press.

Thing is you aren't in a monopolistic market. You do have competitors that have higher quality products with same or even lower price.

Okay, this might explain the delusional "Early feedback has been extremely positive" sentence there. But maybe I read more of the feedback forums than you guys do... and selling quickbars is still hot topic for many, so even most F2P friendly websites make fun of SWTOR doing that.

Going by what he said:

"If you have friends who love Star Wars™ and the BioWare-style storytelling, but were uneasy about the monthly subscription, or paying $60 up front for the box – well, come mid-November, those concerns should be erased."

Unless he was just making an estimate mid november is the 15th.

Isn't that in the works already?

As F2P is going to come out, I hardly can understand, why I should continue subscribing if I already reached maximum level? What's the point?

Well, at least HMs are going to get fun (as in difficult) again once we have plenty F2P'ers queueing up.. I wonder if theres going to be enough of them to invalidate group finder (as in better to gather a whole team before queuing)..

You, friend, have understood the most fundamental problem with "theme park MMOs".

It would be appreciated if these blogs were published a bit timelier next time.