Star Wars: TOR Might Become Free-to-Play

I was telling everyone TOR would be F2P eventually and I might be right. I know starting in July you can play up to LV15 free. Bioware reveled that at E3. F2P might be the only way to go Agree or Disagree it looks likely.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/15/hmmm-the-old-republic-looking-at-free-to-play/

“I think it’s more than the free-to-play model – it’s more that there is a lot of competitive offers. If it was just free-to-play games and they weren’t very good it wouldn’t even be a question. But there are definitely good games out there and good games coming out, so of course all of this competition impacts your plan with what you want to do.”

“The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well. Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play, but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.”

Click to expand...

I can't see how it can afford to be F2P. $300m more than Mrs. Lucas took home in the settlement.

What's the deal with this game, is it just not making the money that they expected it to generate? Everything I heard sounded pretty positive. I don't generally touch MMO's, but I've heard that this game actually contains a pretty good story regardless of whether or not your travel with groups -- if it becomes F2P, it might be worth trying out.

Lucky Day said:

I can't see how it can afford to be F2P. $300m more than Mrs. Lucas took home in the settlement.

Click to expand...

Micro transactions and expansions.

rossrjensen said:

What's the deal with this game, is it just not making the money that they expected it to generate? Everything I heard sounded pretty positive. I don't generally touch MMO's, but I've heard that this game actually contains a pretty good story regardless of whether or not your travel with groups — if it becomes F2P, it might be worth trying out.

Click to expand...

Subscribers keep falling no matter what we read it seems it's not enough. To quote RPS BioWare’s made no bones about the need to evolve to survive – even as it attempted to tell us everything was a-okay mere days before, well, you know.

I also heard it's quite playable in single player. I was planning to try it out anyway but I definitely will now. The only thing I'm worried about is performance on my aged machine, but it doesn't look like it will be that hungry so I'm hopeful.

Quick question though. I've only ever played one other MMO and that was Age of Conan. That is "free to play" but there is a lot of locked content including most of the dungeons and some races and classes. Is that common or does free to play usually mean completely free?

Well I only played D&D online. Some content and items have to be bought but most of the games content is free. You still have to buy the expansions also.

I can imagine special "smugglers boxes" that you have to buy a special lightsabre to open.

-
The entire game can be finished with in 30 days and is too easy is what I've read.

Ever since IWD taught Bioware and Co.'s that killing first level characters is bad, no game seems to want to do it anymore. Remember how controversial it was at the .dot when we learned that companions get instantly revived if everyone isn't dead after a fight in KoTOR? I imagine the same idea is in the MMOG.

Apparently they are convinced people don't want a challenge even after they have food, shelter and everything else they might want including the money to buy video games.

I've played some TOR and enjoyed it. It's worth taking a look at the very least if it becomes F2P. I still prefer DDO though!!

Just to be picky, but shouldn't this topic be posted on the MMORPG section?

Ball_Breaker said:

Just to be picky, but shouldn't this topic be posted on the MMORPG section?

Click to expand...

They can move it they want. I just posted it here. I rarely visit the mmo section. I'm not picky. It still is an rpg.

human_male said:

I also heard it's quite playable in single player. I was planning to try it out anyway but I definitely will now. The only thing I'm worried about is performance on my aged machine, but it doesn't look like it will be that hungry so I'm hopeful.

Quick question though. I've only ever played one other MMO and that was Age of Conan. That is "free to play" but there is a lot of locked content including most of the dungeons and some races and classes. Is that common or does free to play usually mean completely free?

Click to expand...

My only experience with F2P MMOs is LOTRO, and since I was a lifetime subscriber, my experience is limited, I have access to everything. But AFAIK on the F2P subscription you only have access to the basic classes, fewer character slots, fewer bags for carrying loot, and a limited set of quest packages, and other limitations. The game will still be enjoyable (if you like LOTRO), and you can buy whatever you want of whats's missing.

Premium members pay a monthly subscription fee, and have access to more. And lifetime subscribers have everything (I'm not sure you can buy a lifetime subscription now).

Two things I don't like with the new model: In the LOTRO shop you can buy items which affect your strength in gameplay: better armour, additional resurrection and healing abilities and such. This means you can buy benefits in PVP play. However, since I don't PVP, I'm not affected by it. I usually buy silly stuff like better looking horses, clothes, and things that eliminate issues I find tedious.

The other thing I don't like is the in game advertisements, like: You have reached the max number of daily (repeatable side quests, to gain xp and loot) quests. But you can increase the limit by spending turbine points". An immersion breaker, but usually I ignore it, so it's not a big deal for me.

I play SWTOR at the moment, and have a very good time with it. I like the classes, I like the crafting system, the setting and the story. I play mostly solo, but I still can do Heroics by carefully using my abilities and there's also a companion, who'll fight with me. Some of those are quite interesting (my favourite is the R2D2 prototype. But I'm not too happy with the Bioware dialogue wheel, and I still think LOTRO is a better game..

pibbur the scoundrell

If SW:TOR becomes F2P, then I might take a look at it - as a Star Wars fan.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

If SW:TOR becomes F2P, then I might take a look at it - as a Star Wars fan.

Click to expand...

Yepp, that's one of the reasons I like SWTOR. Just as I like LOTRO partly because of the story behind it.

pibbur who knows how to use a lightsaber

The biggest impediment to making Toro F2p as i see it is that the leveling prosess is prettymuch the only enjoyable part of the game.
Endgame is really just a poor verson of wow's with tons of loadingscreens and bugs thrown in for good measure so even if it is "free" i dont see alot of people sticking around for any length of time once they hit 50.
Its not that the game is bad it just that prettymuch every thing from class abilitys to raid encounter mechanics are a straigh ripoff of wow so its allready old and tired when they impliment it.
And unlike all the other wow clones who just copy the basic design model and build their own stuff ontop of it Toro really just plain copy and rename what little of wow's content their awful engine is capable of running.
If it atleast resembled starwars in some way they might have a cult following of sorts but they couldnt even get that part right so they are forced to rely on quality of content wich they have not been able to pull off so sofar.
Still it apparently doesnt require much to make an f2p model profitable so this will probably keep their servers running for a few years.

Obviously we see a lot of things differntly, I like just being there, and I don't see it as a wow ripoff.

It has to be said, though, that I've not gotten very far in the game (a couple of level 15 alts), so maybe I will change my mind later. But for now, I have a very good time with it.

pibbur, jedi knight wannabe

the game itself is not a WoW clone, unless you consider all sedans as clones of each other. Sure combat has the timeout system like WoW, and you have skill trees, etc. But the focus on this one is the storylines. Unfortunately, as awesome as the storylines are, they end at 50. After that, it falls into the same 'do the same thing every day so you can get a set of pink butterfly armor'. And this end-game system makes it not a WoW clone, but basically a MMO clone at this stage (as they all rely in the same mechanism).

It takes about 3 weeks to reach max level (unless you're very casual). So, let's say you are interested in 3 classes, that means you're done in 2-3 months. If you are a completist and want to experience all 8 storylines, then you could be playing for 6 months or so. The main problem is that your road to 50 is not done exclusively by following your storyline, that's about 20% of the exp. The rest is doing the 'common' quests which are common to all classes in the faction. So, after you do the first character to 50, the next one will be doing a lot of the same quests, same with the 3rd and 4th. Another problem is that these common quests are very easy (unlike the storyline quests which have some fun battles tailored to your class). You'll be doing a lot of fights of '3 easy mobs' or '1 easy/1 medium' or '1 tougher mob' (all 3 types of fight being easy either way).

The other issue is that, in a little cowardice, they decided they didn't want to get into the whole faction balancing thing, so each class in a faction has a mirror image in the other faction differing only in their animations (a jedi consular throws pebbles and a sith inquisitor throws lightning, but both do 100 damage, and their skill trees are identical), so really there are only 4 classes not 8 (well, each class has two branches so I should say there are 8 classes not 16).

So yes, game is fun for a few months, depending how many storylines you pursue.

I have never liked F2P mmo style games. Guild Wars 2 may be the first exception to that rule ... and a lot depends on how it works out. I have been in the last few weekend betas and tried out the gem store and so far doesn't seem that bad. I far prefer to just pay a single static fee and have complete access then have it done in bits and pieces.

The way a previous poster explained LoTR sounds horrible to me ... as bad, if not worse, then how they did DLC in DAO.

As for TOR, I played it for a bit. Got two characters to level 30 or so on each side. Story was fun but the art style for the world was a turn-off to me for some reason and I had a hard time getting into it. Plus I tend to prefer fantasy.

But the whole discussion about end-game keeps reminding me of the idea, based on totally anecdotal evidence, that people just don't seem to play MMO's like they use to. UO, EQ1, and as late as WoW, I saw people play for years. Lately it seems like people burn through content at ever increasing speeds ... perhaps because developers are afraid of making a game to hard or being labeled a "grind" so they make it easier/faster to level.

I was in a guild in RIFT of 300+ people. In just 2-3 months most had reached max level (it took me 9 months). They did the raiding and by the end of the year many were looking for another MMO. Many are in TERA and a good chunk is already talking about GW2 and TSW.

Maybe its because there are so many more games now then in the past, plus a chance in focus on level speed ... which means people get to end-game sooner but with no real purpose.

I mean to me max level is not end-game content, its the end-OF-THE-game for me. For me its the journey. Exploring. Seeing content and lore. Doing light role playing. Chatting with folks. Raiding, for me, is boring and repetitive. A pure grind after you have done the content once ... for what ... for better equipment so you can redo the same content at "hero" level? Ah well different strokes for different folks and all that.

But I wonder if that is why people are harsher and more easily burnt on end-game content as they are reaching it faster, and many more games, and so perhaps it is time to see what other options might exist.

Not sure how you keep an MMO alive for years these days when it is so easy to burn through content. PvP (which I don't do) at least has the positive aspect that it is fun (for those who like it) to push yourself against others.

But not sure what you can do with a game once you no longer have any real progression outside of gear upgrades.

(For example in RIFT you can progress your character at max level by putting points into special trees ... but they are so meaningless its rather pointless. Just not a lot to look forward to.)

It is not a wow clone because it is built on the same basic systems so much as the fact that almost every single character ability is a re-named wow ability.
Even the most blatant wow clone prior to this had enough innovation to come up with their own classes and class abilitys (for the most part).
The same approach is used in their raid encounter mechanics aswell alltho severly limited by the poorly optimised engine.

What a waste as this game could've been possible great single player RPG.

Ashbery76 said:

What a waste as this game could've been possible great single player RPG.

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. It's been far too long since we've had a great, or even good, game set in the Star Wars universe.