The sky has not fallen (yet)

[Ingmar]

because I really don't care enough about the subject matter to do so.

So you wandered into the graveyard forum for a game you've never played, why, to troll? You're putting yourself in some great company on that one.

[ghost]

I played it for six weeks.  I actually enjoyed it a little bit, but my gaming time has been crunched quite a bit with the new baby coming.

And I figured the article was out there for discussion.  There's nothing wrong with disagreeing.  I'm not trying to piss on your cheerios, bro.  

[Ingmar]

Ah, ok. I took the wrong impression away from one of your earlier remarks then.

[Amaron]

But it's absolutely silly to think that this game won't be F2P in the next 6-12 months in at least some fashion.  At a bare minimum I would expect an extended trial up to mid level or some shit like that. 

What odds are you willing to give me?  If it's silly then it should be easy money for you eh?  

[Fordel]

I wouldn't cry if it went F2P, the game is quickly entering maintenance mode for ME. Log in, do a few dailies, set up the craft monkeys and filter off.


I have little to no interest in their dungeon/raid experience and I don't intend to play the gear/tier catchup game for their PvP. Wake me up when Dorne starts flirting with me again.

[ghost]

I'm not going to gamble with you because EA has shown their ability to be completely stupid with Warhammer Online.  There's absolutely no reason for them to wait so long to make that F2P. 

I probably will play SWTOR when it's free to play.  I just don't have the time to spend more than 30 minutes to an hour per week dicking around with it right now and I'm not paying $15 to do that. 

[Outlawedprod]

We are posting in a thread for a mmo less than a year old that is already in the gaming graveyard.  This game is going F2P ASAP.

Judging by Bioware's ability to get dungeon finder and good adjustments made the F2P conversion will probably take too long.  I wouldn't be surprised if they hit 250k subscribers or less by the end of August.

[Amaron]

I'm not going to gamble with you because EA has shown their ability to be completely stupid with Warhammer Online.  There's absolutely no reason for them to wait so long to make that F2P.  

Warhammer was an obvious failure right away.  They didn't even have enough population after one month to make a server merger worthwhile.  Since the merger this game has had 12 servers running 3,000~4000 people online at prime time in the US every day for a month now.   Server pops are stable or increasing.  If they fail to deliver a halfway decent patch for 1.4 (certainly possible) then yea subs will start bleeding again.  F2P is certainly possible in the future but arguing that it's a given doesn't make any sense at all.

Besides avoiding F2P isn't really stupid for EA.  They aren't smart enough to do it properly.  It's better to wait for the game to actually be dead before they even start.

[Evildrider]

We are posting in a thread for a mmo less than a year old that is already in the gaming graveyard.  This game is going F2P ASAP.

Then every game that f13 plays I should never buy cuz it'll be f2p amirite?   

[Ingmar]

I'm not going to gamble with you because EA has shown their ability to be completely stupid with Warhammer Online.  There's absolutely no reason for them to wait so long to make that F2P.  

Warhammer was an obvious failure right away.  They didn't even have enough population after one month to make a server merger worthwhile.  Since the merger this game has had 12 servers running 3,000~4000 people online at prime time in the US every day for a month now.   Server pops are stable or increasing.  If they fail to deliver a halfway decent patch for 1.4 (certainly possible) then yea subs will start bleeding again.  F2P is certainly possible in the future but arguing that it's a given doesn't make any sense at all.

Besides avoiding F2P isn't really stupid for EA.  They aren't smart enough to do it properly.  It's better to wait for the game to actually be dead before they even start.

I think you're misremembering WAR a bit. It wasn't at all obvious straight away that the game was a failure - you can probably go dig up all kinds of posts by the f13 people who were playing it about how much fun Tier 1 PVP was, etc. The death was much more slow than you indicate, too, they had several months of server mergers followed by mergers of merged servers, etc. It wasn't just OK, off a cliff and we're done.

That said, yes, comparing SWTOR's current state to we-figured-out-it-was-bad-eventually WAR is a bit daft. Things seem very stable population-wise now.

[Shatter]

For me the single most disappointing MMO in 12 years of MMO gaming.  Sad when years of anticipation get shit on this quickly, hope they fire every one of these f*cktards.

[UnSub]

I don't think SWOR is F2P in the first 12 months after launch, but I am betting on a cash shop / RMT being added.

[Lantyssa]

It'd benefit greatly from moving to the Free Realms model.  $5 sub plus RMT to get frilly things would probably get them the best of both worlds.

[Amaron]

I think you're misremembering WAR a bit. It wasn't at all obvious straight away that the game was a failure - you can probably go dig up all kinds of posts by the f13 people who were playing it about how much fun Tier 1 PVP was, etc.

The horrid performance of the client was just too obvious a black mark against their team.  It had graphics aimed at market penetration yet it caused even high end computers to choke.  I'm not arguing that actually killed the game.  I'm saying it simply made it obvious Day 1 that they didn't have what it took from a software engineering standpoint.

That's really the black mark against SWTOR right now as well.  They've taken so long to fix certain obvious things.  If it weren't for a few things I'd give this game zero chance to recover too.

1) They suddenly pulled a flawlessly working server transfer system somewhere out of their butt.  Testing went off without much hitch and it was deployed quickly.
2) They used the new transfer system to pull off the best set of server mergers I've ever seen.   Even WoW should seek to emulate that performance with many of their servers.
3) They massively increased server caps out of nowhere and had very little problems from doing so.   They had some extra maintenance cycles but that's really all.
4) 1.3 from a technical standpoint was nearly a miracle patch.   Client performance shot up dramatically across the board.  People with actual performance problems had them all solved overnight.  Most crashes were fixed.

Whatever their problems earlier something changed internally.  If they can extend that something to getting out 1.4 quicker and with better quality then the game can do well.

[Raguel]

All I know is my agent and her new bff are running things (and apparently are "snarkiest bitch in the galaxy" contestants  ) I'd love for the game to go f2p

[Shatter]

All I know is my agent and her new bff are running things (and apparently are "snarkiest bitch in the galaxy" contestants  ) I'd love for the game to go f2p

While my storyline leaves it out my agent and her BFF had a night of drinking where they ended up in a 3 way Jello pool wrestling match with a twilek slave they brought back to the ship for XXX fun then dumped her corpse and erased the memory chip on that annoying droid companion.  Take that GW2

[Raguel]

I'm dangerously close to buying this game, even though I know it can only end badly. The only thing that gives me pause is how "antisocial" mmos have become. Maybe I just feel that way because the free trial only allows /say unless you're in a group/guild or someone talks to you first.

[Ingmar]

Yeah we can thank gold spammers for that.

[Rokal]

I'm dangerously close to buying this game, even though I know it can only end badly. The only thing that gives me pause is how "antisocial" mmos have become. Maybe I just feel that way because the free trial only allows /say unless you're in a group/guild or someone talks to you first.

It's a very isolated experience for an MMO. You spend much more of your time in solo/group only instanced areas or just listening to dialogue. If you have a friend playing, it's a really excellent co-op experience though. Otherwise you'll probably find that it feels more like a single player game than an MMO.

[Ingmar]

Playing on an RP server helps with that, because the people are nuts. I found some people RPing as Revanites at the Revanite Camp on DK the other night.

[Simond]

http://www.runescape.com/

'Totally free to play'

"As of April 11, 2012, RuneScape has 1,114,000 paying members. "

As with his posts on ME3 Simond is just here to troll and work out his hard on for Bioware.

I used to like Bioware. Shame they keep fucking things up over and over again nowadays. Still, people do keep buying their releases so they're not going to learn anything.

[Raguel]

I'm dangerously close to buying this game, even though I know it can only end badly. The only thing that gives me pause is how "antisocial" mmos have become. Maybe I just feel that way because the free trial only allows /say unless you're in a group/guild or someone talks to you first.

It's a very isolated experience for an MMO. You spend much more of your time in solo/group only instanced areas or just listening to dialogue. If you have a friend playing, it's a really excellent co-op experience though. Otherwise you'll probably find that it feels more like a single player game than an MMO.

Well I really don't mind the main storyline being that way. I just meant that I haven't grouped, nor seen others group outside of heroics (and since I can only use /say, I normally wait near the zone or /emote /say those lfg in general chat) and even then there's hardly any chat, just roar through content then abruptly disband. I don't remember cutscenes in WoW but it was the same thing there. Maybe everyone's using voice chat or something.

[Fordel]

Does the trial give you access to general chat? That's where all the 'community' is.

[Raguel]

I can see general chat, i just can't use it. I'm going to break, I just know it. 

[Nevermore]

http://www.runescape.com/

'Totally free to play'

"As of April 11, 2012, RuneScape has 1,114,000 paying members. "

[Citation needed]

[Amaron]

'Totally free to play'

"As of April 11, 2012, RuneScape has 1,114,000 paying members. "

"Paying" doesn't mean subscribers.   Look at the numbers on their financials.   They just aren't pulling in anywhere near that much revenue.

[Phred]

As with his posts on ME3 Simond is just here to troll and work out his hard on for Bioware.

I used to like Bioware. Shame they keep fucking things up over and over again nowadays. Still, people do keep buying their releases so they're not going to learn anything.

But now you merely exist to hop into threads about their games you haven't bought and troll people about them. Talk about Bioware controlling your game.

[ghost]

Negative commentary about a company isn't necessarily trolling, and (unless I'm mistaken) this is the "sky is falling" thread. 

It never ceases to amaze me how people get such personal butt hurt over their MMO of choice. 

[Miasma]

and (unless I'm mistaken) this is the "sky is falling" thread. 

You're mistaken, there is a "not" in there.

[ghost]

and (unless I'm mistaken) this is the "sky is falling" thread. 

You're mistaken, there is a "not" in there.

Maybe it should be removed, since this thread is now in the graveyard?   

[Mattemeo]

Since absolutely no one can explain why the 2nd most lucrative standard structure subscription based MMO currently on the market is considered 'dead', I'll go with... no?

[ghost]

Well maybe it should get un-graveyarded then?  I was actually a bit surprised to see that it had been moved here.  Somebody with the superpowers around here has already apparently anointed it DOA.

[Lantyssa]

It's discussion, other than if it'd dead or not, mostly is.

Being in the Graveyard doesn't mean a game is dead, just that it's not cluttering up the main MMO board.  TSW, and even GW2, will probably be here before long.  If it's not EVE or WoW, that's what happens.  (They're on borrowed time, or Moderator good graces.)

[ghost]

I believe that the current discussion has really been focused more on whether or not the game is going to go F2P and whether or not that would be a good thing.  A lot of folks here seem to take the (dated) stance that going F2P = dead.  That clearly hasn't been the case for LOTRO and I'm sure that there are others that have made the transition smoothly.  I personally think it would completely overhaul the game and lead to a resurgence of players (for example, me) picking the game back up.  I don't know about how the revenue would work out for them, but I can't imagine that it wouldn't provide a nice influx of cash to be able to do upgrades to the content.  Then again, this isn't Turbine and EA fucked up Warhammer Online royally with their hesitance to go F2P when it was painfully obvious that they needed to do so.  

I would also add that it appears as though EA is taking the same dated approach to going F2P in this case.  They already have the player base.  Why not let it grow and make their money through types of transactions?  If you let the population dwindle too much they won't even have that option (just like WHO).

[Rokal]

More fuel to the fire. Still tip-toeing around it, but it's clear that they think the F2P model works/is profitable and are at least investigating it for SWTOR. I seem to recall a similar situation with LOTRO. The CMs kept saying that it wasn't going to F2P right up until they announced that it was and it became clear that they had been working on the conversion all along. No sense scaring off would-be purchasers and making your existing subscribers uncertain or unhappy about the future of the game when that future is so far off. I'm in the camp that thinks we'll see this go F2P before the end of the year.