Hey everyone, here is the interview I did with Lead Designer Damion Schubert regarding the F2P option and the future content after F2P release. Big thank you to Community Coordinator Eric Musco for arranging this interview and Lead Designer Damion Schubert for taking the time to do the interview on such a busy and historic week for SWTOR! Also, thank you for everyone who sent their questions to me, I think I included most of the questions that were relevant and not already answered!

http://dulfy.net/2012/11/16/swtor-f2p-future-content-interview-with-damion-schubert/

1. What was the biggest challenge in converting such a massive MMO into a FTP model?

It would have to be giving away as much as humanly possible to our free to play players, while still ensuring that our subscribers felt like they were getting a great value. Both populations of players are a key component to Star Wars: The Old Republic’s path forward, so getting this tricky balance correct is crucial.

2. Compared to other FTP MMO games in the market, what makes the SWTOR FTP model unique?

I think it really is the amount of free content that you get. We made the decision to allow players to reach level 50 without paying if they so desire, which means that they can play all of our core stories for free. This is a staggering amount of free content – roughly equal to more than 20 standalone Bioware games – and while free players will find that some light spending in the cartel market will make things easier or faster, they have the option of playing this content 100% for free.

3. Is there a dedicated team working on the Cartel Market items?

Absolutely! Breaking this off to be a separate team helps us to ensure that these resources are dedicated, and for example, to be sure that warzones and operations don’t have their people or resources stolen. We’re pretty committed to continuing to deliver quality content upgrades to all our players, and we want to be sure that that team can’t have its focus split.

4. How will future expansions for SWTOR work with the FTP option. Is it something that players can unlock via the Cartel Market or does it require a separate purchase?

We are still identifying the exact specifics of this, but should have an answer for this very, very soon.

5. Are there any content in the future (that are not part of a major expansion) that subscribers will have to make a purchase in the Cartel Market to gain access?

What we sell vs. what we give away will vary widely based on the sort of content we’re talking about. There will definitely be content that is only available for purchase – much of the contents in the Cartel Packs, for example, are not available in any other ways. However, we also definitely want to ensure that our subscription option is a good value, and have plans to make that richer over time.

6. During the livestream Q&A hosted before 1.4, it was mentioned that Cathar would be the first race available through Cartel Market. Will this be a Cartel Market exclusive or subscribers can unlock it via other means?

This will most likely be a Cartel Market exclusive. However, its price point will be reasonable, and subscribers wishing not to pay for it will have the option of storing up the Cartel Coins they earn for free through the Loyalty Program.

7. With regards to Makeb/Level cap increase and other stuff mentioned in E3 of this year, has the FTP launch affected the release timing of these new content? Is there an approximate date when we can expect the release of these?

The Free to Play option and Cartel Market were built by an entirely different team, in order to ensure the Makeb team remained completely focused on their target date. We definitely have a date in mind, and there should be news about that coming soon!

8. For those who have access to the VIP/Collectors Edition vendors, will we see any new items added to them in the future or is the focus primarily in the cartel market?

Most of our development effort will focus on keeping the cartel market fresh and full of awesome stuff to purchase. That being said, I definitely have it on my to-do list to revisit these secondary vendors in the future.

9. After the launch of FTP, will we see quality of life features as part of the 6 week content release schedule?

We will definitely see more quality of life features creep into the game as part of the regular updates. No ETA on specific ordering of them, but I can say that we play the game too and know which rough edges need to be filed off.

10. Once FTP launches, will there be options to purchase server transfers with Cartel Coins?

Not at that time, but server transfers are coming.

11. For subscribers with more than 12 characters due to the server consolidation, will they have to purchase character slots to unlock them once the character slot restrictions are put in place?

That is the current plan, yes. We don’t think it’s fair to everyone else who wasn’t lucky enough to get this accidental side benefit from server merges. However, those additional characters aren’t lost, and players will easily be able to unlock those characters. The timeline for this is TBD.

12. For FTP players looking to become a subscriber, will they have to purchase the game first or they can just sign up for a subscription/apply game time?

Nope, there is no longer any reason to purchase the box or pay any sort of up front cost. Players will be able to either buy the boxed product and get a month free of subscriber status (along with a faster install) OR they will be able to sign up for a subscription via the website without ever having to change out of their pajamas.

13. Are there any plans in the future to increase the credit cap for preferred status players via a purchase in the cartel market?

We are investigating, and considering this. The credit cap limitations are put in place to prevent free and preferred accounts from being abused by Credit Farmers. We will adjust these limitations based on how pervasive an issue they turn out to be. We know a substantial portion of our population will be free and preferred, and we will work to tweak their experience to find the best balance between giving them a positive gameplay experience, while protecting our in-game community and economy from unscrupulous elements.

14. Armor dyes can introduce a great detail of personalization and variety for players in addition to all the unique armor models. Is there a plan to introduce this feature in the Cartel Market or are there technical limitations that would prevent this?

No comment. Oh, how I would love to. But I can’t. Yet.

15. For the weekly passes you can purchase with flashpoints/operations/warzones etc, will there be discounts in the future for those who purchase multiple passes at once?

In the future, we plan to frequently leverage bundling to offer good deals to our players. That being said, the most price-effective bundling of these weekly passes will remain to pay for a monthly subscription. For those not wanting to buy a subscription they might forget about, we also have various game time card offerings.

16. For those who intend to play SWTOR for a very long time, will there be a lifetime subscription option or a discounted annual pass?

We plan to continue offering the 6-month subscriptions at a discount (and these subscribers also get a larger monthly allotment of cartel coins!) No comment on any additional payment plans planned.

17. With the introduction of unique color crystals in the Cartel Market, will players have the opportunity to purchase existing color crystals in the Cartel Market given that it is now considered a vanity item rather than a stat upgrade?

We’ve definitely talked about separating color from stats, and making these more freely available through the cartel market and other sources. There are some design questions that need to be answered before we can do anything like this, however, chief of which being how to ensure that the Artifice crew skill remains relevant.

18. Will be there any faction or Advanced Class change option available for purchase in the future?

We have had serious talks recently about offering an Advanced Class change option – I think that one will likely happen eventually. Species is likely as well. Doing a faction switch is considerably more difficult for us, though, due to the various quest flags set throughout the level up process, so this isn’t on the horizon anytime soon.

19. With the introduction of the Event Equipment Requisition authorization in the Cartel Market, will we see more frequent world events in the future?

We definitely have more events planned – we plan to introduce several in the next year. We also plan on bringing some old events back, so players should definitely see the pace of events accelerate considerably over the course of 2013.

Excellent interview Dulfy!

I know some are going to probably get worked up about some of the answers.... but from my perspective this is one of the best sets of interview questions I have seen and frankly I think he was as forthright and honest as disclosure limits permited.

As always.... Thanks for all that you do for the community!

Thanks for the interview write up, Duffy.

Unfortunately, I've given up hope of Bioware ever giving us the Charater Transfers we've been asking for for...hell, nearly a year.

Nothing on SGRA's, no surprise there.

And I noticed gear unlocks in the Cartel Market. Very Pay to Win there. Treading deadly waters there Bioware. I'm not a PvP'er but people in my guild were going ballistic over it.

Everything else was ok. Nothing I'm going to loose sleep over. But yeah, I'm in a pessemistic mood today.

And I noticed gear unlocks in the Cartel Market. Very Pay to Win there. Treading deadly waters there Bioware. I'm not a PvP'er but people in my guild were going ballistic over it.

That is NOT Pay-2-Win because if you subscribe... you do not have to unlock with coins. Top end gear equip is simply something that you are not allowed for free in this game. So the feature is pay-2-play.

Please stop exaggerating.

As for transfers... he reaffirmed yet again.. they are coming.

8. For those who have access to the VIP/Collectors Edition vendors, will we see any new items added to them in the future or is the focus primarily in the cartel market?

 

Most of our development effort will focus on keeping the cartel market fresh and full of awesome stuff to purchase. That being said, I definitely have it on my to-do list to revisit these secondary vendors in the future.

This, however they have said they would revist them over a year ago even before the games launch as one of their promises. There has not been one new item added to the store since launch.

Thanks for the write up Dulfy! I'm not at all happy about this part though and I will explain why.

11. For subscribers with more than 12 characters due to the server consolidation, will they have to purchase character slots to unlock them once the character slot restrictions are put in place?

That is the current plan, yes. We don’t think it’s fair to everyone else who wasn’t lucky enough to get this accidental side benefit from server merges. However, those additional characters aren’t lost, and players will easily be able to unlock those characters. The timeline for this is TBD.

Now it wasn't an accidental side benefit at all. In fact I was forced to make my final characters up to the total of 16 advanced classes earlier than I wanted. So now even though I had 8 characters on each of my 2 servers and was forcibly merged and moved to one server , i will have to pay to unlock my 4 characters above the maximum of 12 ? Well that isn't going to go down well with me at all. I will kick up a fuss over that. We could have 50 characters for free. It's absolutely ridiculous that I will have to pay for the 4 characters that I am allowed to have for free one day then not the next. Anyone else have any thoughts on this ?

EDIT - Plus the fact they merged 6 RP east coast servers into 1 and no option for me to move 1 set of my 16 characters ( 8 ) to a different server. I might actually quit because of this stupid money grabbing scheme. There are 16 advanced classes BioWare and I was encouraged to make them by you. So quit with the side benefit malarky.

Cheers,

BAdOrb.

We have had serious talks recently about offering an Advanced Class change option – I think that one will likely happen eventually.

Really? People can't just make up their mind and then live with the choice, or roll an alt?

I have a feeling this is going to result in a lot of mismatched specs/gear and newer players not learning how to play their AC correctly.

Thank you, Dulfy, for the interview! Nice to see someone be able to pry some new information out.

Take aways:

Very glad the Cartel Market team is seperate from the other teams. Cautiously hopeful that we'll see stepped up content releases now.

Disappointed Cathar are going to be a cartel market item; however, I'm glad I learned of it now before I spent all my allowance.

Interesting that us 6 months subs get more monthly coins. I noticed my security key gets me more too. Are there any other places where they've added more monthly coins?

"Server transfers are coming." <rolls eyes>

Sounds like they have a more robust armor-dye/customization type system in the works. Looking forward to that!

Advanced class/species change options - interesting. Perhaps my merc will get a flamethrower

Nice interview..

but nothing about a Space Sim yet ?

Thanks for the write up Dulfy! I'm not at all happy about this part though and I will explain why.

 

11. For subscribers with more than 12 characters due to the server consolidation, will they have to purchase character slots to unlock them once the character slot restrictions are put in place?

 

That is the current plan, yes. We don’t think it’s fair to everyone else who wasn’t lucky enough to get this accidental side benefit from server merges. However, those additional characters aren’t lost, and players will easily be able to unlock those characters. The timeline for this is TBD.

 

Now it wasn't an accidental side benefit at all. In fact I was forced to make my final characters up to the total of 16 advanced classes earlier than I wanted. So now even though I had 8 characters on each of my 2 servers and was forcibly merged and moved to one server , i will have to pay to unlock my 4 characters above the maximum of 12 ? Well that isn't going to go down well with me at all. I will kick up a fuss over that. We could have 50 characters for free. It's absolutely ridiculous that I will have to pay for the 4 characters that I am allowed to have for free one day then not the next. Anyone else have any thoughts on this ?

 

Cheers,

 

BAdOrb.

At every step of the way they have repeatedly screwed players over their server roll out and consolidation mistakes, I guess I'm not surprised that they will do it again, just glad it won't impact me this time.

EDIT - Plus the fact they merged 6 RP east coast servers into 1 and no option for me to move 1 set of my 16 characters ( 8 ) to a different server. I might actually quit because of this stupid money grabbing scheme. There are 16 advanced classes BioWare and I was encouraged to make them by you. So quit with the side benefit malarky.

Cheers,

 

BAdOrb.

Vote with your dollars brother, vote with your dollars! At the current rate of strangling of returning/free players, there will probably be another round of server consolidations a year from now.

At every step of the way they have repeatedly screwed players over their server roll out and consolidation mistakes, I guess I'm not surprised that they will do it again, just glad it won't impact me this time.

It's an insane situation , 8 characters per server made sense , so i was leaning to making 8 per server on 2 servers for my 16 advanced classes. Where on earth did they get this 12 character slots from ? Out of thin air by the looks of it and I'm not going to stand for them charging me for getting rid of my 2 servers. What they could do is put a cap on the overall amount of characters but still that will annoy another set of people . 16 advanced classes BioWare and no I'm not going to pay you for 4 of those advanced classes on yer bike!

Cheers,

BadOrb.

6. During the livestream Q&A hosted before 1.4, it was mentioned that Cathar would be the first race available through Cartel Market. Will this be a Cartel Market exclusive or subscribers can unlock it via other means?

 

This will most likely be a Cartel Market exclusive. However, its price point will be reasonable, and subscribers wishing not to pay for it will have the option of storing up the Cartel Coins they earn for free through the Loyalty Program.

Not thrilled about this. Not that I have any interest in the Cathar race but that it would set the precedence that subscribers have to pay for minor new content items. I'm fine buying an expansion that has a host of new options, but I don't want to be nickle & dimed into buying minor new content as a subscriber. I hope this isn't decided and they rethink this.

Excellent interview Dulfy!

 

I know some are going to probably get worked up about some of the answers.... but from my perspective this is one of the best sets of interview questions I have seen and frankly I think he was as forthright and honest as disclosure limits permited.

 

As always.... Thanks for all that you do for the community!

The only answer I didn't like (thought it did not effect me) is the one about people with more than 12 characters on a server having to pay money for EAwares mistake.

It was worth the read but, once bitten and all that ... I am cautiously less pessimistic ( only a little ).

Thanks Dulfy!

Thanks for the interview write up, Duffy.

 

Nothing on SGRA's, no surprise there.

I was travelling and not online much at all when the call for questions went out, but looking at the page on dulfy.net it was acknowleged that some questions are off limits for devs to address due to strict non-disclosure policies in place on a corporate level, and SGRs very much seem to be in that category.

I don't think that means we shouldn't ask, and shouldn't express our perfectly understandable frustration that same-gender content cannot be discussed. I think we can and ought to, loudly and often, in hopes that somehow this actually will get escalated to those responsible so that they can see how their decision is hurting community relations, on the off chance that they might care.

THAT SAID, reading between many lines at what has been allowed to be mentioned and connecting several dots and considering the Enigma of the Missing Tweet, something Eric Musco says here is a very good sign for SGRs, and that is that the Makeb content patch has a separate, dedicated development team and it has not been delayed to bring us F2P in 1.5. We know there is one more big content patch planned for calendar year 2012, and Makeb is almost certainly it. Likewise, with the next big installment of story content expected with Makeb, we ought to be able to reasonably expect SGRs to be a part of that.

Needing to guess, infer and suppose because nothing has ever been said here by BioWare at all while other pending content has been discussed on these boards is not at all acceptable. I don't expect Dulfy to have the magic wand to fix that. I do think we now do have a little more to work with, however, so thanks.

This, however they have said they would revist them over a year ago even before the games launch as one of their promises. There has not been one new item added to the store since launch.

There has been one : Taunta.

The only answer I didn't like (thought it did not effect me) is the one about people with more than 12 characters on a server having to pay money for EAwares mistake.

 

It was worth the read but, once bitten and all that ... I am cautiously less pessimistic ( only a little ).

 

Thanks Dulfy!

Yeah I was annoyed that it was likely that I might have to pay for the 13-16th character slots just to make a cathar in the future. Then now it seems i will have to pay for the 4 characters even if I don't make my 16th char into a cathar. No way! You know 3 of those 4 are level 1 and I was going to start 2 of them properly to help f2p players , so now , not only will I have to pay a sub and help them but also extra money too. Lol , this just gets worse. Also giving me the option to move 8 of them for free to another server now would be a bit difficult as some of those 8 and 16 are group characters only not solo. Obviously if someone has over 16 on a server then yeah that's more than 16 advanced classes , but still they might make a new advanced class in the future too. Swings and roundabouts.

So Mr. Schubert I think you might want to re-evaluate this insane idea , especially when we where allowed to have 8 characters per server before the mergers and the fact there are 16 advanced classes.

Cheers,

BadOrb.

We know there is one more big content patch planned for calendar year 2012, and Makeb is almost certainly it.

They never said calendar year 2012 as far as I'm aware. They said "coming this year" in June. This could be interpreted as anytime before June 2013. I wouldn't get your hopes up for Makeb before the end of 2012 because I don't see it happening. I think it will be more like mid February if they keep on their 6 week content cycle.

They never said calendar year 2012 as far as I'm aware. They said "coming this year" in June. This could be interpreted as anytime before June 2013. I wouldn't get your hopes up for Makeb before the end of 2012 because I don't see it happening. I think it will be more like mid February if they keep on their 6 week content cycle.

Indeed. Or it could mean "coming this fiscal year" if they were talking to investors. Either way it will be spun to their advantage. I agree it won't be until sometime in 2013.