WoW Petopia Community

SWTOR is Going Free to Play

*UPDATE http://www.swtor.com/free *


Originally Posted by SWTOR SWTOR
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.

Asked whether it would be feasible to adapt The Old Republic to a free-to-play model, Lusinchi coyly suggests that the wheels may be in motion for a drastic change.
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.

http://www.mmo-champion.com

http://www.gamestm.co.uk/discuss/star-w ... -designer/

And so it begins.

Been waiting for this news for a while.

This would be nice for me at least. Perhaps they could have a mixture, where you would still have to buy the game, but then playtime would be free.

I do generally think "Oh i wish i could play swtor right now" probably twice a month (not enough to warrant a $15 subscription though)

Going F2P used to be the death of an MMO, but not anymore. My husband and I still play pretty consistently, and my brother just renewed his sub, so I don't really mind either way what they do. They're still getting my money.

Rhyela wrote:Going F2P used to be the death of an MMO, but not anymore. My husband and I still play pretty consistently, and my brother just renewed his sub, so I don't really mind either way what they do. They're still getting my money.

No I'd still say it's the death of most MMOs. For a game that was so hyped up to be the "next stage" of MMOs it's not doing that well for it's self. :S Just another reason to never trust the hype I guess

Not saying it'll be the death of this one tho.




I might give it another go when it becomes free.

Will be very happy to pop in and out of the game if it becomes FTP. It certainly had a lot of merits, but not enough for me to justify paying monthly for it.
I am very sad to see that it's not doing as well for itself as the hype and money spent should have suggested, but I am glad that my own wild expectations had died about a year before it was released.Though I admit I was still disappointed. I think it has great potential, and am sorry to realise that it will probably never reach that potential now.

cowmuflage wrote:

Rhyela wrote:Going F2P used to be the death of an MMO, but not anymore. My husband and I still play pretty consistently, and my brother just renewed his sub, so I don't really mind either way what they do. They're still getting my money.

No I'd still say it's the death of most MMOs. For a game that was so hyped up to be the "next stage" of MMOs it's not doing that well for it's self. :S Just another reason to never trust the hype I guess

Not saying it'll be the death of this one tho.

I might give it another go when it becomes free.

I dont think its necessarily a "death of most MMOs". Its just a "we're never going to be able to compete with Warcraft so we're switching"

I'm suprised RIFT has lasted so long with a paid subscription, although if you buy a year in advance, its only 9.99 a month.

I always thought SWTOR needed to charge LESS than what Warcraft charged. Even 2-3 bucks cheaper could sway certain decisions for those of us who couldn't justify paying for two MMO's at the same time (raises hand)

Mozag wrote:Will be very happy to pop in and out of the game if it becomes FTP. It certainly had a lot of merits, but not enough for me to justify paying monthly for it.
I am very sad to see that it's not doing as well for itself as the hype and money spent should have suggested, but I am glad that my own wild expectations had died about a year before it was released.Though I admit I was still disappointed. I think it has great potential, and am sorry to realise that it will probably never reach that potential now.

I'm sad that its not doing well too. If it would have been a larger success that would have kept Blizzard more on its toes. I don't want them to get too relaxed with having no "main" competitor, because then they can get sloppy and lazy and it wouldn't matter to their numbers much.

Part of the mistake was TOR releasing without basic things that we're used to now (LFG for instances, a well-defined end game, etc.). I'm not saying that it should have been a WoW clone, but when so much of the base clearly came from its predecessors, TOR should have learned even more from where they'd evolved to during TOR's development. Even if there was a different system for some of the missing perks, there needed to be some sort of equivalent. I commend the staff for getting at least LFG running only a few patches in, but the damage was done on release with a number of people. :/

Kalliope wrote:Part of the mistake was TOR releasing without basic things that we're used to now (LFG for instances, a well-defined end game, etc.). I'm not saying that it should have been a WoW clone, but when so much of the base clearly came from its predecessors, TOR should have learned even more from where they'd evolved to during TOR's development. Even if there was a different system for some of the missing perks, there needed to be some sort of equivalent. I commend the staff for getting at least LFG running only a few patches in, but the damage was done on release with a number of people. :/

Ugh yeah, i did not enjoy having to search for a group like old Vanilla / BC days. I didnt enjoy the sitting in Sith Capital spamming trade looking for one more for mid-20s dungeon etc.

I dont think they even had a LFG channel. They could have at least done that /4 Lookingforgroup

Royi wrote:

Kalliope wrote:Part of the mistake was TOR releasing without basic things that we're used to now (LFG for instances, a well-defined end game, etc.). I'm not saying that it should have been a WoW clone, but when so much of the base clearly came from its predecessors, TOR should have learned even more from where they'd evolved to during TOR's development. Even if there was a different system for some of the missing perks, there needed to be some sort of equivalent. I commend the staff for getting at least LFG running only a few patches in, but the damage was done on release with a number of people. :/

Ugh yeah, i did not enjoy having to search for a group like old Vanilla / BC days. I didnt enjoy the sitting in Sith Capital spamming trade looking for one more for mid-20s dungeon etc.

I dont think they even had a LFG channel. They could have at least done that /4 Lookingforgroup

I think they got to cought up in there own hype quite frankly that they did not think about basic things in some parts!

Royi wrote:

cowmuflage wrote:

Rhyela wrote:Going F2P used to be the death of an MMO, but not anymore. My husband and I still play pretty consistently, and my brother just renewed his sub, so I don't really mind either way what they do. They're still getting my money.

No I'd still say it's the death of most MMOs. For a game that was so hyped up to be the "next stage" of MMOs it's not doing that well for it's self. :S Just another reason to never trust the hype I guess

Not saying it'll be the death of this one tho.

I might give it another go when it becomes free.

I dont think its necessarily a "death of most MMOs". Its just a "we're never going to be able to compete with Warcraft so we're switching"

I'm suprised RIFT has lasted so long with a paid subscription, although if you buy a year in advance, its only 9.99 a month.

I always thought SWTOR needed to charge LESS than what Warcraft charged. Even 2-3 bucks cheaper could sway certain decisions for those of us who couldn't justify paying for two MMO's at the same time (raises hand)

It useally is the starting of the death of the MMO when you become F2P that is if you where a paid one to start off with. Like Conan etc.

No seeng as how much money they put into SWTOR I don't think they could of done that and got enough cash back and would of been too much of a risk to take. They where already taking a lot of risks in the first place. (Of course this is all just speculation )

cowmuflage wrote:It useally is the starting of the death of the MMO when you become F2P that is if you where a paid one to start off with. Like Conan etc.

No seeng as how much money they put into SWTOR I don't think they could of done that and got enough cash back and would of been too much of a risk to take. They where already taking a lot of risks in the first place. (Of course this is all just speculation )

Well said.

i might start playing if it would become ftp but for now i won't i can't afford two subscriptions besides there is only so much you can do in a day, i am playing old games right now, can be fun too from time to time .

I just hope they don't get discouraged and shut it down or stop trying. I think of Aion, and how it's down to like two servers now. But at least it's still going! I dunno, I know it's got its faults, but I still enjoy it. I suppose in the end, that's what matters. Doesn't matter what other people say about it, as long as I'm having fun, then okay.

I wont like it if it goes the F2P route of it's free till end game where you then have to pay for the dungeons and raids and the good gear. I mean if they do that there is no point in making it free imo

I made an Imperial Agent tonight and, OMG, I LOVE his voice!

I'll come back eventually, I just way over-hyped it myself (well Bioware did hype it up to the Nth degree ), lead to me becoming very dissapointed

The male Imperial Agent is voiced by Olivier Award-winning actor Bertie Carvel...and yes, my IA is my favorite SWTOR toon as well, largely because of that voice.

As to SWTOR going F2P...the only thing about it going free that is actually confirmed is that they're putting in a "free to level 15" trial, much like what WoW has, in a future patch. They've said they're considering other payment options, but that doesn't necessarily mean F2P. It could mean they're thinking about PayPal, or the whole pay via phone bill thing that WoW has/had, or they could be considering some other time segment for subscription plans. I wouldn't freak out too much about the F2P thing...if BW can keep 500,000 subscribers, things will very likely keep going as they are.

I wouldn't mind it if they would drop the monthly fee a bit too. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the game RIFT (I think its fairly decent, I subbed for a couple months) I liked how they had a yearly option for 9.99 a month or something similar.

Well its all said and done:


http://www.swtor.com/free


I'm looking forward to it, if anyone is able to post what the restrictions will be I would appreciate it (my work just today blocked most gaming sites , yet petopia is still up )

I'm very conflicted about the free-to-play thing.

My husband plays Aeion, and I hear his (very legitimate) complaints about how NCSoft treats their customers now that the game has gone FtoP.

This even has me questioning my interest in GuildWars 2 now... knowing that it is run by the same people as Aeion.