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.

I just want to point out one thing: this blog was written a few weeks ago, so if it reads that way...well, that's why!

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.

This is the second time I've seen this release date in regards to F2P: "Soon!" And that's just today. Could we nail it down to a month, at least? There's only one and half of them left this year.

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.

Actually, let guilds have their own capital ship as a guild base...for THAT I'd stick around!

Isn't that in the works already?

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)..

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?

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

I just want to point out one thing: this blog was written a few weeks ago, so if it reads that way...well, that's why!

I just want to point out one thing: this blog was written a few weeks ago, so if it reads that way...well, that's why!

Incoming but truthful rant:

So you all knew this was written "weeks ago" but instead of giving a more accurate assessment of F2P you decide to rehash stuff that has been in the public purview for at least a month? It doesnt take long to write a half dozen paragraphs pointing out all the pros and cons of the system as it sits on the PTS right now and how you have made changes due to player feedback, or are you afraid to see that when it is all laid out everyone (who hasn't already realized) that your F2P and Preferred model is only a ploy to make people come back to boost your numbers for your 1 year mark? Those of us that have been watching the info and playing the PTS have seen that you wont bring back many people to the game that will become subscribers in the long run UNLESS YOU BRING OUT CONTENT REGULARLY. You have been saying 6-8 weeks for months and adding one or two Operation's in 6 months and only 1 new WZ is not really new content. neither is fixing bugs new content, or adding better shadows or better lighting through leaves. we have been hearing for months about Cathar as a new race, a new WZ, revamped open world PvP, a reworked/retooled Space combat (the one you have been teasing looks to still be on rails). Give us x-wing vs Tie PvP as space combat and I think most would be happy. Give us one new WZ and one new Op every other 6 weeks and we would be happy. KEEP THE OLD BUGS THAT HAVE BEEN FIXED OUT OF THE NEW CODE and we would be happy. As a whole we love the SW IP, we love the class dynamics we dont like waiting on content and waiting on bug fixes. dont wait until tuesday to put out bug patches, the engine was suppose to allow you to fix bugs and upload them to the live servers without to much trouble, why did that not happen?

This is the true state of the game and everyone knows it.

I feel really sad for now, with my knowledge that F2P coming out. No, I don't want to say that i regret about my time spent in this game, I only start to regret about my money spent to this, because I wont have any point of my previous subscriptions (exept cartel points wich i dont really need), because now F2P eliminates need in my future subscribings. For now, the only thing wich will keep me subscribing will be only my love to this game. It is really sorrowfully isnt it?

This makes no sense. If you love the game and will keep subscribing, how do you regret spending money on it?

Also subscribers get a lot better experience then the free players.

And I am proof that sub fees did not keep rif-raf off the servers.

This makes no sense. If you love the game and will keep subscribing, how do you regret spending money on it?

 

Also subscribers get a lot better experience then the free players.

 

And I am proof that sub fees did not keep rif-raf off the servers.

To people complaining this is old news, not everyone lives on the forums and fan sites, for many this is NEWS.

"The second core rule is that subscribers should not experience any degradation of their gameplay experience. Those of you who are still paying a monthly fee should still get the same gameplay experience and you won’t find anything taken away from you and the gameplay that you currently enjoy. Furthermore, we really wanted to be sure that in no way would subscribers feel they needed to make purchases from the Cartel Market in order to be competitive in the game."

This is true... but not completely. The clear example is that... actually you can obtain all item in the game with the cartel market you have to pay for them! And THIS IS PART OF THE GAMEPLAY... last patch you "recolorize" the gear and you put in the market new look like gear... this is not fair... idem for sppeders, stuff and so on... you have so many gear in the DB and probably you will release most of them in market and not in the game... as i say this is unfair and change the gameplay...

This makes no sense. If you love the game and will keep subscribing, how do you regret spending money on it?

 

Also subscribers get a lot better experience then the free players.

 

And I am proof that sub fees did not keep rif-raf off the servers.

I dont need faster EXP if i already max level.

Personally I think that the "subscribers will not have any degration in gameplay experience" part should be number one rule

 

EDIT: Oh

this!

We are literally granting millions of dollars worth of Complimentary Cartel Coins as part of this program

No, you don`t. You gave some pixels to access some other pixels.

Want to give something? Put the money worth of cartel coins onto my CC

This. The quality of life restrictions are ridiculous and will only serve to frustrate potential F2P players and drive them away not incentivise them to make purchases. Please read your own Test Server forums and take to heart the feedback contained there before pushing this out to live servers. As I have seen others say in countless other threads: you only have one chance to make a first impression with this new model so even if you change it after the push to live any bad publicity will already be out there and that's what people will see so it will prevent a lot of people from even trying the game.

GOD FORBID that mail is unlocked for free-to-play players! Credit SPAM galore! Also LOTRO had restrictions on Quick Travel for F2P as well as Bag size and bank! At least when I played 2 years ago or so, don't remember.

In fact, when I compare the prefered status of LOTRO and SWTOR the following can be said (features as advertised on the lotro.com site)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trait:

SWTOR (SW):

LOTRO (LO):

Chat:

SW : limited for general/trade etc

LO: limited (do not remember what)

Mail

SW: limited to one attachement

LO: limited by CURRENCY cap

Money:

SW 350000 creds

LO: 5gold

not really comparable because of differnt prices but limited as well and 350k should get you pretty far

Bags

SW: 30 (?) slots

LO: 3 bag slots (item slots dependend on bags in slots, so 3 ten slot bags would be same as SWTOR

Bank:

SW: 80 slots

LO: I... do not remember. In the feature list only "shared" bank is mentioned, but that were extra slots where you put items which were available to all your chars.

Content:

SW: Class and Region Quest available

LO "Epic Quest" (class quest equivalent, but same for all races/chars except the first chapter) available. Region quests need to be purchased except the first regions

Dungeons:

SW: all available. Limited number of loot allowances (which I still do not know how this should work see below)

LO: IIRC the dungeons were given access to, when one purchased the region. Also the "event encounters" were also tied to the region.

PVP:

SW: WZ available but only 3 per week (also not clear if per character or per account)

LO: PVP as a reaver available, other options need to be purchased.

Crafting:

SW: 2 crew skills all recipes available for crafting, even artifact quality

LO: crafting available BUT crafting guild access needs to be purchased crafting guild offer exclusive recipes which are prototype or artifact quality. I can not remember how to get higher quality recipies

----------------------------------

So all in all, I think SWTOR F2P is NOT restrictive. Hell, you need the 3 hotbar not before lvl 25-30.... that is some time to test it. Also content wise the deal is EXTREAMLY good. You can play EVERYTHING, except Operations (Raids) which start at lvl 50 anyway. What I do not know and would like to have clarified contetn wise is:

3 per week per character or per account. Also if I pass on everything in a FP, do my 3 loots per week stay the same or get deducted. If the latter the deal is even better.

If you compare it to EQ2 F2P the deal is also top notch. So get real and quit bashing.

Also thing is: If you start as F2P, do a one month subscription adn revert to preferred, you retain all the stuff you purchased as a sub: cargo hold, inventory slots, gear. +500 cartel coints. So I gues you can get pretty far by timing your subscription and doing key purchases in the store. OF course the experience will be limited if you do not spend a dime, but THAT should be obvious, right? because otherwise nobody would do a sub or all the subs would cry Havok and rightly so.

Cheers

Olaf

So basically everyone that ever had an account will be Preffered Status and anyone who ONLY pays the minimum of ~$5 US. FOREVER? It is not stipulated. If one only has to pay for a slightly degraded subscription for a one time fee of ~$5 US. Why would they ever subscribe?

The preferred status is still pretty restricted if you look at the big picture, so no cow for you.

PVP:

SW: WZ available but only 3 per week (also not clear if per character or per account)

That was already bumped up to 5 on the PTS. Seeing how you have to buy the weekly passes per character (which I still think is a bad idea), I'd venture a guess and say that the limit applies per character as well.

RIGHT, BIOWARE?