Star Wars: The Old Republic F2P

elminster

So by the end of the year SWTOR is going free-to-play. Anyone planning on getting into it/going back?

Personally I played it for the first month (or so) that I had it, got to level 42 with the Jedi Sage and around level 25 with the bounty hunter, and then lost interest.

You can see the restrictions they are putting up for free players, its pretty ridiculous in my opinion but its their choice as a business.

http://www.swtor.com/free/features

BelgarathMTH

I listened to the negative buzz and avoided SWTOR. (not to be confused with the single-player masterpiece KOTOR.)

If it becomes free-to-play, then I might try it. I'll pay for the software, but there is no way, after my finally *very* negative experience with WoW, that I am *ever* going to agree to a monthly charge to play a game again.

EDIT: I followed your link and read it. This is not "free-to-play". This is exactly the same crap that Blizzard pulled with "free" WoW. That's how they got me hooked in. You cannot actually play the game and have full interaction privileges with anyone else who plays the game unless you subscribe. It's a kind of classic "bait and switch" tactic, similar to what drug pushers do. "Free sample of *insert illegal drug name*, come on, you'll love it, no obligation at all, you have nothing to lose". "Oh, you want another dose, well, that'll cost you the very reasonable price of *insert unreasonable price that is going to destroy you financially and then destroy your whole life*"

j0lssoni

SWTOR as a whole was for me, personally, perhaps the biggest disappointment during my relatively short gaming career/life. The stories were pretty basic BioWare standard, and hell, it's Star Wars. But the gameplay due to the limitations of the beyond shitty HeroEngine is just awful and makes playing PvP on a "serious" level (ranked warzones) nigh impossible. The PvE content is what we're already familiar with from past MMORPGs, a group of 16 people beating on bosses for 5-10 minutes, then distributing the epix. Was fun for the first couple of times (Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace [you fight a freaking Rancor in there!]), but for the third time around (Explosive Conflict), it got pretty dull. All in all, I'd give SWTOR a solid 7/10, but if I include my original expectations to the score, it drops to a 3,5.

elminster

belgarathmth said:

I listened to the negative buzz and avoided SWTOR. (not to be confused with the single-player masterpiece KOTOR.)

If it becomes free-to-play, then I might try it. I'll pay for the software, but there is no way, after my finally *very* negative experience with WoW, that I am *ever* going to agree to a monthly charge to play a game again.

EDIT: I followed your link and read it. This is not "free-to-play". This is exactly the same crap that Blizzard pulled with "free" WoW. That's how they got me hooked in. You cannot actually play the game and have full interaction privileges with anyone else who plays the game unless you subscribe. It's a kind of classic "bait and switch" tactic, similar to what drug pushers do. "Free sample of *insert illegal drug name*, come on, you'll love it, no obligation at all, you have nothing to lose". "Oh, you want another dose, well, that'll cost you the very reasonable price of *insert unreasonable price that is going to destroy you financially and then destroy your whole life*"

I agree its not actually free-to-play. I suspect though that they will have to reduce the restrictions further, as I can't see this drumming up much interest the way they are approaching it. Personally I would not have minded, having paid the initial cost of playing, them restricting me from some multiplayer like the arena if I'm not subscribing, but this business of limiting the number of times you can die (I of course never died so its not an issue for me ) is more than ridiculous. As is the stuff involving the emergency fleet pass (which was already limited to 18 hour cool offs) and quick travel.

BelgarathMTH

@Elminster, Blizzard totally got away with doing the exact same thing with WoW. The thing is, in their case, they already had a monolithic, golden idol, cash-cow property. They were just using this bait-and-switch technique to "lick the spoon", and to "scrape the mixing bowl" in their notorious greediness.

I seriously doubt that Bioware is going to get away with trying the same marketing technique with a tainted product.

elminster

belgarathmth said:

@Elminster, Blizzard totally got away with doing the exact same thing with WoW. The thing is, in their case, they already had a monolithic, golden idol, cash-cow property. They were just using this bait-and-switch technique to "lick the spoon", and to "scrape the mixing bowl" in their notorious greediness.

I seriously doubt that Bioware is going to get away with trying the same marketing technique with a tainted product.

I agree I don't think they will get away with it, though in their case I imagine since they've already spent lots developing the game they really don't have much to lose by trying this. Its not like their fanbase is particularly enamoured by the quality coming out of Bioware lately.

BelgarathMTH

@Elminster, they still have the potential to get a single unit of cash flow out of me. If they make it a true free-to-play, and sell the software while leaving up a permanent server, with full functionality and no monthly charges or subscriptions, then, and only then, I will probably pay them a one-time 20 bucks or so and try their game.

I will be especially interested if they create a single-player version of the game. The trouble is, most of the single-player content in games designed to be MMORPG's, is very, very shallow and boring. The whole design of the game is centered around PvP competition and "guild" raiding, and if you want to just play by yourself, then, forget it. There is only a token effort to make single-player, rpg, and story even remotely interesting.

And whatever story is there, you will never get to read if you are a latecomer, because the anonymous players you are almost forced to play with will not be interested in story or rp. They will be hurry, hurry, hurry; move, move, move; loot, loot, loot; "What kind of lame player are you? You're not standing there trying to READ, are you? You *curse, curse, profane insult, profane insult*, how dare you slow me down by trying to roleplay anything or pay attention to *story*?" Bleagh.

elminster

belgarathmth said:

And whatever story is there, you will never get to read if you are a latecomer, because the anonymous players you are almost forced to play with will not be interested in story or rp. They will be hurry, hurry, hurry; move, move, move; loot, loot, loot; "What kind of lame player are you? You're not standing there trying to READ, are you? You *curse, curse, profane insult, profane insult*, how dare you slow me down by trying to roleplay anything or pay attention to *story*?" Bleagh.

That is EXACTLY like my experience with some of the multiplayer quests was like (I want to say it was the flashpoints). Its like I'm playing with 12 year olds with an attention span of 30 seconds. Its really annoying frankly. I will also say that most of the storylines from what I played (up to a minimum of level 10 for all 8 of them, level 25 for bounty hunter and level 42 for jedi sage) were meh. Though the bounty hunter was actually pretty good.

EDIT: Even Jennifer Hale voicing the female trooper could not save that storyline for me.

reedmilfam

The game is boring. Your character's story is not special, as there are a gazillion on the same path. When some other yuk-yuk takes your mission-critical kill, you have to stand around for 90 seconds and hope another yuk-yuk doesn't do the same.

I tried to like this game. I really did. After $60 for the game and god knows how much for the 3-month subscription, I stopped playing it after about 40 days. They got $100 from me, I got to maybe level 20 and found that I just didn't care enough to load the game to play.

I knew there was a reason I don't play MMO's. Now I know the specifics of that reason.

reedmilfam

@elminster And, yup. It is not RPG. It's click on the n ext thing and don't even watch the screen because you have to watch your skill recharge timers.

BelgarathMTH

@reedmilfam, what you said, x 100. You have posted another case where I wish I could click insightful, agree, and like, all three. And then click an amplifier button! Amen, brother!

elminster

The other thing that pissed me off about the game is how it takes so much longer to level up after level 30 or so. I found that with my Jedi Sage by level 40 it was taking forever to level up, and because I had missed bonus quests prior I was somewhat under-leveled for my area. My understanding is that is typical with MMORG's, but from what I've heard from friends it was excessively done in TOR. They may have fixed this issue since, as I have not played since May, but I kind of doubt it. I pretty much had to just keep doing the arena to get up to level, and since there were only 3 areas at that point it was pretty boring.

BelgarathMTH

@elminster, given my experience with WoW, which seems to me to be the grandaddy and archetype of all MMO's, of any kind, anywhere, what you and @reedmilfam have said only reinforces my decision that MMO's are not for me, and never will be.

It sounds like SWTOR has all the bad things about WoW, and few or none of the good things. (VERY few "good" things.)

The only draw for these shallow, hollow shells of gaming stories is, for me, the potential to socialize in real time with other players. But then, most other players that I might actually wind up playing with do not have even close to my own interest in myth, story, teamwork, friendship, cooperative play, or anything else in common with my own philosophy of gaming.

And, I can get a pretty good amount of high-quality socializing in forums like this one, without having my game time play ruined by total idiots.

I have come to *hate* MMO's. No matter how enticing the advertising, the marketing, the promise of a good story, the promise of a good play, WoW has taught me to know better - quite bitterly to know better. I do *not* want other people ruining my play time.

elminster

Yea you aren't missing much.

Koson

elminster said:

The other thing that pissed me off about the game is how it takes so much longer to level up after level 30 or so. I found that with my Jedi Sage by level 40 it was taking forever to level up, and because I had missed bonus quests prior I was somewhat under-leveled for my area. My understanding is that is typical with MMORG's, but from what I've heard from friends it was excessively done in TOR. They may have fixed this issue since, as I have not played since May, but I kind of doubt it. I pretty much had to just keep doing the arena to get up to level, and since there were only 3 areas at that point it was pretty boring.

Is strange that you say this as I always skipped some quests and never did the bonus missions on planets after completing the personal / planetary storyline, I did no PvP whatsoever and also avoided the piloting missions, yet by the time I reached a new planet I was 1-2 levels above the starting lvl for it. It is true I ran flashpoints too but going 2-3 times through a FP is not enough to grant 2 levels of experience.

I played the game for about 3 months and liked many things in it - the storylines were cool (I completed the Sith Inquisitor one and got to chapter 3 with the Jedi Knight and Imperial Agent), the flashpoints were interesting (when you were for the 100th time in one you'd fast-forward the dialogues too ) and the classes / characters were well designed. Had it been a single-player game it would have been perfect. Alas it wasn't / isn't, and seems to be going the same way WoW is without having the luxury of a (still) big playerbase. I don't think I'll play again when is free to play (got a bonus free week during the summer and after 5 minutes on-line I logged off), but the fact that I found more things against than for playing it doesn't make it a failure of a game. It depends what you want / expect from it.

elminster

Is strange that you say this as I always skipped some quests and never did the bonus missions on planets after completing the personal / planetary storyline, I did no PvP whatsoever and also avoided the piloting missions, yet by the time I reached a new planet I was 1-2 levels above the starting lvl for it. It is true I ran flashpoints too but going 2-3 times through a FP is not enough to grant 2 levels of experience.



I found that for the first maybe 32 levels I was always above my level expectation (2 levels at least), but after I gradually began to have less and less experience available to the point where by 42 I was expected to be 43 or 44 for quests. I suppose its possible that I missed quests, but I was pretty thorough. I even did piloting missions even when they were only green, did flashpoints, a lot of arena time etc. Ohh well whatevs. Obviously someone blew up Alderaan on me haha

That being said I did love the Rakghoul plague. Now that was fun event!

Koson

Hehe, I hated the Rakghoul plague event, just like I hated the similar event in WoW pre-launch of Wrath of the Fail King.
Iirc the Alderaan bonus series was for players level 40 - I never did it but had a friend who had the same issue as you and he went and did those missions to catch up in XP.

ajwz

reedmilfam

@Elminster - that is because it intentionally slows your progression. It's so it takes LONGER so you pay the fee for LONGER. It's a money grab. People that are having fun don't mind, I suppose.

The root of the problem in my opinion is that RPG =/= MMO. The pace of the game is quick fight-fight-fight, rather than immerse in an environment and interact with quality PC's and NPC's. They're hoping the addiction of wiping out 100's of the same enemies will keep you going. At least, that is what I think they are hoping.

Places don't feel alive. Just a bunch of standing figures that look the same and don't add much. The characters run around for the 45 second quests and you get to repeat the fight TO the quest on the way out because they all regenerated.

TJ_Hooker

No offense to anyone, but most of these complaints seem to be about things that could should have been anticipated. From my experience of MMOs, shallow gameplay and story are the norm, and dealing with immature/stupid people should be expected in any online activity.

When it comes to being upset/surprised by the ways Free-to-Play models limit game features, I can only assume that the person is new to this term. From what I know, you're better off thinking of F2P as a different kind of demo. Where traditional demos limited you to certain levels or to a specific amount of time, F2P limits you in other ways. I mean if F2P included full functionality, no-one would pay and how would the company make money? Complaining about how F2P is just some underhanded way get you hooked on the game is kind of silly since that is literally the entire point of using the F2P model for big games like this.

I'm not defending SWTOR or F2P, as I've never played the former and I avoid the latter. But some of these complaints seem on par with someone complaining that the latest Call of Duty lacks originality.

reedmilfam

The issue is that it was presented as 'different', essentially. It isn't an MMO with depth. As for what we should have expected, I didn't play MMO's because I expected them to be like what they are. I mean, yeah, shame on me for expecting better. I think I fell into that expectation because BioWare had such a solid record to that point. They got me hooked because I loved KOTOR so much (and I can show you places where BioWare says this is just like getting KOTOR 3-12) and thought they could pull something magical off.

They didn't. I'm disappointed because WOWTOR is not KOTOR 3-12. I'm not the one that said it would be. If I told you I'm making a pizza and I bring a ham sandwich... Just saying.

scriver

Hey, at least it's not as bad as the TES mmorpg will be. Watching that one crash will be hilarious, though I already feel sorry for all of those who will waste money on it.

TJ_Hooker

@reedmilfam
You make a good point. I really didn't follow the marketing campaign for SWTOR so I don't really know what was promised. If they failed to deliver on what they promised then that's a pretty legitimate complaint. My bad.