SWTOR Goes F2P in the Fall

[Numtini]

The other thing about LOTRO is they have offered a lot of "buy our new expansion and for ten bucks more, you'll get a clear path of zones to it, a bunch of points, and a sparklepony!"

[Phred]

Lone-lands was not originally free; before they changed that you hit the paywall REALLY early, like pre-level 20. Even without it the grind for enough points to buy all the zones as you go involves some pretty extreme deed grinding. Not sure if it still requires you to repeat deed grinds on multiple characters just to get enough points, I am pretty sure at one point it did.

Ya I forgot they initially rolled out out as total suck. I think to afford the zones you need to take advantage of the rather frequent half off sales. Also you can pick up one of the turbine point sales as well. A friend of mine did it that way and while slower he managed just fine with it.

[Azazel]

Because 'Jedi Online' (or more-star-warsy-online if you prefer) was always going to be a bigger hit than sim-beru

No wait it wasn't

Looks like SOE threw in the towel too early, but having said that I'd still refused to play the NGE crap.

I'd have been all over SWG if it were SWTOR back in the day. For me, SWTOR just came too late. I don't much care about MMOs anymore. WoW & LOTR (lifetime sub, but don't really play) will probably be my last one(s). I can't even be bothered to try WoT.

[MediumHigh]

Because 'Jedi Online' (or more-star-warsy-online if you prefer) was always going to be a bigger hit than sim-beru

No wait it wasn't

Looks like SOE threw in the towel too early, but having said that I'd still refused to play the NGE crap.

I'd have been all over SWG if it were SWTOR back in the day. For me, SWTOR just came too late. I don't much care about MMOs anymore. WoW & LOTR (lifetime sub, but don't really play) will probably be my last one(s). I can't even be bothered to try WoT.

I wouldn't call SWOTR "jedi online", it was bioware take on starwars online and nothing more. Static and repetitive content of mild carebear difficulty doesn't make for a game you pay a sub for. Let alone play online with thousands of asshats. SWG would have worked perfectly fine if it wasn't called starwars.

[Amaron]

http://www.examiner.com/article/analyst-swtor-move-to-free-to-play-could-attract-up-to-50-million-players

Once you get past all the financial analyst jargon, Pachter finally lays it all out by saying he believes Star Wars: The Old Republic now has the potential to "attract at least 10 million [monthly active subscribers] indefinitely, with upside to perhaps 50 million."

[Goreschach]

Appropriate avatar is appropriate.

[Typhon]

http://www.examiner.com/article/analyst-swtor-move-to-free-to-play-could-attract-up-to-50-million-players

Once you get past all the financial analyst jargon, Pachter finally lays it all out by saying he believes Star Wars: The Old Republic now has the potential to "attract at least 10 million [monthly active subscribers] indefinitely, with upside to perhaps 50 million."

Most internet chat comments track heavily in the 'stupid', 'insane' or 'stupidly insane' demographics, but I found this one insightful;

Apparently Wedbush Securities allows it's employees to smoke crack on the job.

[koro]

That's just Michael "The PS3 will rule in 2008!" Pachter being Michael "World of Warcraft will never hit 4 million players" Pachter. Nothing unusual here.

[Lakov_Sanite]

If star wars ever gets to one million active subs it would be a god damned miracle.

[Nevermore]

If star wars ever gets to one million active subs it would be a god damned miracle.

Wait, what?  You mean again? 

[Rokal]

The only way his statement doesn't seem completely insane is if he meant 10 million monthly active users, not subscribers. Still seems unrealistic, but possible given free to play and the popularity of the brand.

[Phred]

If star wars ever gets to one million active subs it would be a god damned miracle.

Wait, what?  You mean again?  

What? Haven't you heard? SWToR never even beat SWG's numbers. It was all smoke and mirrors.  

[Ingmar]

Yeah the [brackets] there are the journalist filling in what they thought the guy meant, not what he actually said. It had to be users, not subscribers.

[UnSub]

And again: Patcher is the industry analyst video games deserves.

He's been such a pollyanna about SWOR I wonder if he / his company has financial interests in EA. And yes, while SWOR now has the "potential" to attract 10m - 50m paying players, it's in the same way that I have the potential to have a threesome with Angelina Jolie and Anne Hathaway.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Did swor break 1mil subs? I knew they did in box sales but that's not the same thing. Either way they are well below one million now and I don't think they will ever surpass that in Paid subscriptions again.

[Kageru]

It peaked at 1.7 million subs I believe, but the trajectory was clearly steeply negative. Unlike WoW which grew after launch.

I suspect half the allure of f2p is they can change how they report things. I expect metrics to be delivered in terms of "unique accounts" or something equally meaningless and subscription numbers are never mentioned again.

[Falconeer]

1.7M subs? Are you sure? Sounds unbelievable to me, I'd love to see some data. I mean, I could believe 1.7M in the first months (so 1.7M "free subs"), but 1.7M paying? I am sure it's true if you say that, but I'd love to see some backup info. Not because I doubt you, I am simply curious about the source.

[koro]

It was in an older EA earnings call that talked about subscriber numbers. Even if you completely dismiss the 1.7 million subs number for whatever reason, they had 1.3 million or so a few months after release according to another earnings call, which is still over a million.

[Amaron]

Considering the server pops they were over 1 million for several months in fact.  They probably lost a very large chunk only recently before the server mergers.  People will quit any game if their server is dead.

[Hoax]

Oh man, what a fucking piece of shit game this was. I almost want to go look up which of our shitposters were so busy defending this pile all the way up to launch telling me how it wasn't completely fucking retarded to spend so much time making content that would only be cool once and trying to turn that into a mmo for really no fucking good reason. Except I guess so they could try to charge more than $60 for the game when the only benefit to the players was it had the same boring as shit 1991 called and it wants its combat engine back gameplay as WoW.

/gloat

For real SWTOR had the most annoying f13 fanbois of any release I can think of lately. Fuck this stupid game.

[Paelos]

Ok. Most people had that same exact concern going into the game. In fact, before it launched most people were wondering what the hell the endgame would be up to release.

The concern was never whether or not the game's VO thing would work (it did). The concern was if they could produce content at a decent pace (they didn't), and if they could keep the game functionally stable (also no).

Nice revisionist history though.

[Ingmar]

Maybe he means me!  

I still like the game, am still subscribed, intend to stay subscribed, and the decision to do the leveling content the way they did it totally works for what I want out of the game. And I like the combat too. (I like diku combat in most of its forms, I know, blasphemy.)

I don't attach a lot of my self-esteem to whether or not the game has 500k players or 10 million players though, I just like playing it.

[Evildrider]

Maybe he means me! 

I still like the game, am still subscribed, intend to stay subscribed, and the decision to do the leveling content the way they did it totally works for what I want out of the game.

I don't attach a lot of my self-esteem to whether or not the game has 500k players or 10 million players though, I just like playing it.

 I am also still subbed and playing with a fairly decent sized guild.

[Falconeer]

What the hell do you do with a guild in that game right now? Repeat content until your eyes bleed? Make infinite alts (to repeat content until your eyes bleed)? PvP maybe?

EDIT: To clarify, it was launched 8 months ago, and they barely added any content, and all the content they had was unbelievably easy to begin with. What do you really do now?

EDIT after reading your reply: PvP makes sense. It's self-renewing content.

[Evildrider]

Most of us PvP and do Ops.  Which is more then I used to do in WoW when I hit endgame.

[Phred]

For real SWTOR had the most annoying f13 fanbois of any release I can think of lately. Fuck this stupid game.

I guess that's a reaction  to the most annoying set of trolls ever eh? BTW WoW was released in 2004, but that's ok we're pretty well inured to hyperbole now.

[taolurker]

I saw Hoax trolling the fanbois, and I would like to say that I also experienced first hand this fanboism when I said something on other forums about not wanting to spoil things for myself in beta. I said that I wouldn't pay for a Bioware cutscene fest with multiplayer tacked on per month though, and didn't see myself paying for the game, or seeing worth in a subscription. I was replied to, spelled it out in quite a few posts, and then was told not to post criticisms on that forum, so they could discuss it's awesomeness.

I did predict that they would go Buddy Key/Free Trials early on, and didn't pay for the game because of this. I also still stand by my original assertion that watching a cut scene of an alien that I magically understood made me realize this wasn't the SWTOR I was looking for (which I posted here and lots of places back in December).

[Evildrider]

Are people really this butthurt about people liking a game that they do not? 

And there are fanboy's for every game, if you think the SWTOR ones are bad the GW2 ones are worse.

[Goreschach]

I'm still pissed off that we got this instead of KOTOR 3.

[Evildrider]

You mean the KOTOR 3 that got cancelled and didn't involve Bioware at all?

[Goreschach]

I mean the kotor 3 they would have used the ip for instead of this shitpile.

[Evildrider]

I mean the kotor 3 they would have used the ip for instead of this shitpile.

You are bitching about something that would never have happened.  It's pretty obvious that Lucasarts wanted an MMO, do you really think they came to Bioware and was all like "Hey you can have the IP back if you make us a new single player game!". 

[Falconeer]

What's wrong with GW2 fanbois? The game isn't out yet, and while it won't be for everybody it certainly looks pretty good on so many aspects, it's not a WoW reskin and it won't require a monthly fee to play the same DIKU everyone has been playing since 2004.
GW2 fanbois will have the chance to become the worst ever if you want, but at least give the game the time to get released.

I personally don't think what makes a bunch of fanbois atrocious is their love for a game I don't like. It's usually their blindness to obvious issues that they would totally flame in any other game beside the one they are aroused by.

Case in point, the SWTOR fanbois and fangirls.

[Kageru]

Fanboys and other types of extremists are annoying both for and against, it's just a game with some good and some bad. And of course it sold over a million. EA budget + bioware + star wars could have sold a million boxes even if they were empty.

However if it's proven failure can be used as evidence that spending most of your time and budget on story content doesn't help you much in terms of retention it's contributed something to the genre.

[Reg]

More annoying than even fanboys are the guys that pontificate endlessly about games they've never played.