Article on F2P

I just re-subbed for a month or two to play the game again, and I'm starting to feel a little bad for "The Old Republic," especially in light of the virtual dogpile actually making the Bioware heads resign. This was a great game with a few questionable design choices. I played the game for about 3 months straight last year, more than any game I've ever played in my life, and had a blast. Did all the heroic quests and flashpoints in teams, enjoyed the stories (the sith ones, anyway,) and now I'm coming back to invest another 100 hours (oh God.) I quit subscribing because it was too addictive, for God's sake.

I'm just not a "subscribing" player--I play Mass Effect 3 for a week and then maybe play it again a year later. Never played another MMO. I was their ideal player (looking for story,) and I loved it--I just didn't subscribe for years, since I don't do that. The game is still awesome. I've still paid them $130 in total for their supergame.

So they didn't quite crack whatever mojo makes WoW players subscribe for years. And their free to play model is a trap to show players how addictive and awesome the game is (which you might have missed if you're reading game journalism)--someone call the police.

The "haters" exist because they too really enjoy the game but are frustrated by the seemingly poor decisions made for it in the past year.

I, for one, wanted to play KOTOR many times over with different classes, and this delivers with WZs I think are also fun. I am still subscribed. Still, I am really frustrated at how cheap the quality control has become since 1.4's introduction. There are in-your-face distracting bugs almost everywhere you go.

Even the cartel market, what has arguably become the focus of the game, is coupled with preview screens so bugged I can't even view my companions. It also broke one of the most valued features since launch, color matching. It's ridiculous! And I actually like the game.

Most of the "haters" are still here because they too like the game and are saddened to see it falling apart with each new patch.

Why have so many trolls sticked around? To troll.

Haters hate because something in their lives are missing..or maybe something is wrong with them and love to attack a concept, etc. Not sure really.

Pretty much these are the people who I /facepalm at or maybe get my pity.

I read the article, hoping it was a critical look at F2play and, by extension, its knock-on effect for subscribers.

While there may be one, maybe two good points in it, it's wrapped up in such childish, trolley, flame-war inducing language that I eventually concluded it is an article without merit.

The author later posts to apologise for the innacuracies contained in it (there are several glaring ones), and to admit he was striving to emulate Jon Stewart () with biting satire and sarcasm, and got it wrong.

He's no Jon Stewart, I'll say that much. All in all a waste of time. I'm sure there's better ways to spend 5 minutes, even on the internet.

Article is on the money and highlights the greed readily apparent behind F2P. F2P (a la carte purchases) is not a viable option in SWTOR. And the big problem here is -- if 2 million+ players that forked over up to $150 for the client were not willing to pay a subscription fee, how the hell does EA think a crippled version of the same game will do any better?

They don't. They just want to squeeze more money out of the already loyal subscribers.

A nobody on a website said this game sucks?! Say it isn't so!

Yeah...him....2million+ other folks...EA execs too. lol.

How is that considered to be an article? He just copied and pasted QQ from the forums.

I returned to the game and faced the same choice that the article's author discusses: resub or don't play. I enjoy the game enough, so I resubbed. Anyone who thinks that this F2P model is anything other than ludicrous is kidding themselves, though.

That article is outdated and too riddled with sarcastic, scathing opinions to be of any real value, though.

Its absurd to write your article based on $180 to play the game. If someone sits down to just play a couple class stories they can easily get to level 50 (twice) by paying ZERO dollars. That's a heck of a deal.

Bloggers aren't journalists and this is all this flame bait garbage is.