Gamasutra: The Burning of Star Wars - The Old Republic

Crafting never really had a peak for that matter, so by that logic of them intentionally gimping crafting, F2P was already known from as early as prior to launch.

Personally I don't think it's related, rather just a terrible crafting design instead of intention.

It is unfortunate that you let something so small as a typo keep you from reading the entire article. The author feels exactly as I do and have been saying on these forums all along. In the end like me, TUXs and others, the author want's SWTOR to succeed. He is just unimpressed with how EAware is going about it.

TOR makes a very good first impression, even to seasoned MMO vets. The problem is it stays the same game throughout. It never gets harder and it never evolves into something different from the first 10 levels.

This is easily observed by following general chat. Newbie zones are filled with people saying how much they love the game. By the time you get to Taris/Balmorra you rarely hear those things anymore and you'll often hear profanity laced rants about how terrible those planets are. Those planets aren't terrible, they just play exactly like the two previous planets and by then the shine has worn off and people have clued into the fact that what you've been doing for 20 levels is exactly what you will be doing for the next 30.

So, you want SWTOR to succeed but feel EA is going about it wrong?

Then I really only have a couple of questions. First, do you feel that EA for all of their gaming history is going to change how they do business to suddenly make SWTOR the game you hoped it would be? I'm personally doubting that.

Second, do you believe EA will sell their stake in the game to somebody who will make SWTOR the game you hoped it would be? I'm doubting that is going to happen either.

In the end then, what is your ideal outcome by posting this because I don't see any point where you or anyone else with your outlook on the status of the game is going to be satisfied?

Anyone notice that most of the discussion on the Gamasutra article are about how angry and biased the article writer seems to be and how it is detriment to his entire point, regardless of if his points are right or wrong.

That is exactly how I feel about this forum sometimes. I love how that is brought up as a main point on gamasutra

The last thing I was expecting after writing this article was having to defend its tone. Sarcasm and satire are powerful tools in a writer's repertoire, and I have found sarcastic humour to be an excellent mode for public web writing. The articles I write for Gamasutra are intended for a very broad audience and are created with the hope of both educating and entertaining. The use of sarcasm is not a disrespectful one, but one meant to stimulate and maintain the interest of the reader.

The reception to this piece has forced me to re-think my style of delivery. I am particularly fond of the satirical styles of Rick Mercer, Brent Butt, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert, though I am clearly ill suited to emulate them.

This article is a comparative analysis of the factors that led to diminishing subscription revenues versus the revenue-generating tactics of the current Free 2 Play implementation. It is overlaid with a tone satirizing common F2P practices as a means of citation-free reference to a plethora of recent articles on the topic and to evoke a certain degree of frustration and exasperation with their continual misuse. The objective of the article is to suggest that the current F2P implementation is not the one that ought to have been chosen in order to maximize revenues for SWTOR and, by examining reasons I identified in my analysis of the game and its community, tries to determine which, if any, implementation could turn SWTOR around to profitability.

I am hopeful that if you re-read the article with a critical eye, you will find it as compelling to read as I found it to write.

TL;DR F2P is bad and shouldnt be used as a tool to get subscribers...

Then *** is the point of F2P?! Now I agree that BioWare is taking bad steps but F2P and its restrictions arent one of them. What better way than to convince people to pay than say "Look heres a lite version of the game, pay up and you get the better version."

I bet some of these people are using programs with trials past its expire date without ever paying to get the full version and if it ever goes down they'll say "Huh.. wonder what happened."

This line of argument is not apt. What is more apt is looking at the reason EA went F2P with SWTOR. All along, John Riccitellio and Peter Moore have been maintaining that noone wanted to pay $15 a month in subscription fees to play "a MMORPG". This is false. Many didn't want to pay $15 a month to play SWTOR because they recogonised it wasn't ready for prime time. What is ironic is that although the game is now F2P it penalizes a player until he either quits or subscribes. Now remember the game went F2P in the first place because noone wanted to subscribe!! Right Mr.'s Ricccitellio and Moore? Right? Circular logic! Irony!