SWTOR Goes F2P in the Fall

[Margalis]

I guess that's a reaction  to the most annoying set of trolls ever eh?

The funny thing is even some of the super fanboys who went on and on about how the game was great and how everyone who said otherwise were just "haters" has stopped playing same as everyone else. Which makes them look a bit silly in retrospect.

The Star Wars goggles were strong.

You can call me a troll but basically everything I said about the game turned out to be spot-on. Which really isn't much of an accomplishment given how obvious the problems were. It's kind of hard not to troll a little when something has major conceptual and design problems and defenders are just "but...but Yoda!"

It's fine to enjoy the game, but it never really answered the basic question "why would I play this" with anything other than "laser swords" and "voice acting" - two things that are not really compelling for a long term subscription. In the end it's basically just a game for people who love Star Wars.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I guess that's a reaction  to the most annoying set of trolls ever eh?

The funny thing is even some of the super fanboys who went on and on about how the game was great and how everyone who said otherwise were just "haters" has stopped playing same as everyone else. Which makes them look a bit silly in retrospect.

The Star Wars goggles were strong.

You can call me a troll but basically everything I said about the game turned out to be spot-on. Which really isn't much of an accomplishment given how obvious the problems were. It's kind of hard not to troll a little when something has major conceptual and design problems and defenders are just "but...but Yoda!"

It's fine to enjoy the game, but it never really answered the basic question "why would I play this" with anything other than "laser swords" and "voice acting" - two things that are not really compelling for a long term subscription. In the end it's basically just a game for people who love Star Wars.

I was a constant critic though not as harsh as some but it was/is simply infuriating how people could not or would not see the same basic flaws that crop up in so many other MMO's.  How could this game not have appeared as bland and derivative as it was? To me, it stunk of "half-baked cash-in" from miles away.

[Typhon]

Maybe we should change the name from f13.net to Cassandra.net?  Our tag line could be, "Impotently forecasting gaming doom since 2008"

If only we'd listened!

... uh, yeah.  I had two months worth of fun out the game, they did some interesting things, they failed to figure out how to make the same tired old shit more fun (like everyone else).  A good effort, might have been better as a single-player/co-op game.

[Outlawedprod]

One of the key moments which signaled the game's upcoming doom happened on January 18th.  The 1.1 "Ilum" patch showed just how clueless their ability to build endgame was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL0kDP_Cexo

[Zetor]

Maybe we should change the name from f13.net to Cassandra.net?  Our tag line could be, "Impotently forecasting gaming doom since 2008"

If only we'd listened!

... uh, yeah.  I had two months worth of fun out the game, they did some interesting things, they failed to figure out how to make the same tired old shit more fun (like everyone else).  A good effort, might have been better as a single-player/co-op game.

Basically this. I got a trooper to 50 (fun), tried endgame and pvp (not very fun), levelled a consular to 50 (fun, though a bit less due to planet quest repetition), tried endgame and pvp again with both chars (still not fun), levelled an agent to 26ish (fun), then my second month was ending and I decided not to resub.

Really, this game isn't terrible, and the levelling quests' stories are good/interesting just as if I was playing kotor3. Now that I won't have to pay a sub fee, there's no big downside except if they screw the pooch on alternate levelling paths (doing coruscant a second time wasn't nearly as fun as the first except for the Gree quests) and downtime with travel restrictions etc. Going to wait and see...

[Falconeer]

This game, simply, as plenty of us said BEFORE launch and after trying the game extensively and then even proceeding to buy it and enjoy for a while, was not worth a monthly fee. It isn't a terrible game. It's just utterly bland and rehashed, and basically after you are done with the very easy high end content (couple of months) it becomes a single player game (coop at best) with a monthly fee.

Monthly fees these days are justified by consistent content updates, not by the simple existence of an online service. That shit doesn't fly anymore. Even Smed realized it.

What is being called out as "fanboism" is the fact that plenty here didn't seem to notice such an obvious fact. And it's even more amusing that EA/Bioware caved in and admitted that long before some of the supporters did.

[Outlawedprod]

Probably a bad time for office morale =p
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=516560

LOL @ post #6

They may be out just looking for Mark Jacobs.

[Falconeer]

Since we are on topic, I suggest you all read what ours truly MahrinSkel wrote 8 months ago, when SWTOR was so brand new and shiny.

One of the developers that worked on it confided to me that they were a little worried it might turn out like CoH: Fun for as long as it took people to consume the content, but then nothing, no elder game meant people played for a few months and left, maybe reactivating for new content expansions.  If that turned out to be true, I'm not sure that it's a problem.

[...]

In many ways, from a business perspective, this is the perfect single-player/co-op AAA game, it just happens to have a really big, really pretty, 3D matchmaking lobby.

--Dave

Exactly. Which is not worth a monthly fee in the 2012 market. Everyone who tried the beta could eventually enjoy the brief ride and still see this, except the... well, you know.

[Typhon]

To someone who likes the game and continues to be subbed (*cough*Ingmar*cough*), you're wrong - it is a good game, it is worth a sub, they are having fun.  They are just fans that aren't bothered by things that annoy you.  Doesn't make them fanbois.  You* of all people calling them fanbois seems hypocritical.

I really disliked my time in TSW, which is bizarre because I really love all things Lovercraft and I usually enjoy deck building.  That you like it doesn't make me think you are a fanboi.  It just makes me scratch my head as to why it didn't click for me (actually it's worse than 'didn't click', I positively dislike the game).

I also think Funcom is smoking crack about how frequently they are going to release new content when they are struggling to fix their chat, but me typing that sentence doesn't make me a prophet worth celebrating.  I'm hoping that my pessimism is unfounded.  This is an important point to focus on because while TSWs model is considerably less complicated than SWTORs (only needing to one side of the voice-overs/cut scenes), it's still more complicated than WoWs (more quests with voice-overs).  We know how slow WoW is in releasing new content, even with a massive budget, and how often Funcom over-promises.  If TSW doesn't retain an acceptable subscriber base, the content teams will be the first to be downsized, and the game will become exactly like SWTOR.

*You are fairly notorious (and self-acknowledged) for getting overly excited** about games that don't pan out.
** I like this about you.  You still love games.  You aren't afraid to be enthusiastic about a game that you hope will be good.  There are more than a few people that post on f13 that I wonder whether they like games at all anymore.  What they do seem to enjoy is returning to a thread to say, "see?! I toldyoubutyouwoudn'tlistenIwassoright!!!!1!".  I find that really old, tired and in no way "usefully cynical".

[Falconeer]

First of all, everyone thinks I am a fanboi. I don't even try to de-label myself. Who cares? I'm excited about Secret World, I'm excited about Mechwarrior, I'm excited about Guild Wars, I loved Age of Conan and Vanguard. So? A fanboi is not an idiot to me, I have lots of respect for some of the people that in this thread I consider fanbois and fangirls of SWTOR.  A fanboi is a person that has a crush on something and lose some of his/her objectivity in the process. It's really what happens when we have a crush for a person, by the way, usually.

Vanguard sucked. I am pretty sure I qualified as a fanboi of that game. There were many red lights all flashing and screaming "this is gonan suckkkkk!" but I didn't want to see them cause sometimes hoping is believing, and they are both delicious until they last. Lesson learned, hopefully.

Second, I said multiple times The Secret World was NOT worth a monthly fee for the same reasons SWTOR was NOT worth a monthly fee. So your whole argument about it is invalid. Now, Funcom is trying to justify the monthly fee, and we will see if they can do that. We all know they probably won't. The fact that I like the game does not prevent me from seeing why it's not worth a monthly fee without monthly updates. Bioware never justified the monthly fee, and considering they had to develop tons of diffrent content for different classes, it was easy to imagine the outcome of that promise.

Again, my lack of appreciation for SWTOR or my appreciation for The Secret World, or whatever other piece of shit you can find in my gamer resume, have nothing to do with the ability to see (or not see) that SWTOR was going to perform quite bad.

This is all I have to say.


P.S: Just a silly addition. While I agree that the whole "HAAAAA I TOLD YA!" trend is annoying and gets old very fast especially considering how easy it is to say "I told you" when your prediction is right and just fall silently in the background when it turns out you were wrong, I think it wouldn't hurt if from time to time someone made the effort to write a line or two about how wrong they were about something they supported. It's definitely easy and douchy to always try to be "right" and be the I-told-ya kind of asshole, but it's quite easy too to never admit when you were wrong about something. And that has nothing to do with the amount of fun you had with something, since hopefully objective criticism can go a little beyond subjective pleasure.

[palmer_eldritch]

The thing I loved in SWTOR was when you were grouped with a friend or two and one of you chooses the light option while the other chooses the dark option in a conversation. Those "aww you killed the colonists? I wanted to save them!" moments were the best part of the game.

I also liked that they had a character voiced by Paul Darrow (Overseer Tremel) but sadly they kill him off pretty early on.

[Fabricated]

I liked SWTOR until the second raid tier turned out to be a buggy, messily-tuned pile of boring shit. Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace had bugs and various issues but they were at least interesting visually and in terms of story. I can't even remember the names of the bosses in Denova.

Between that and no LFD so I could do stuff when I logged that wasn't raiding, and the travel-slog involved in playing alts and I was out. Which is too bad because it's not a terrible game, it's just deficient for a game released in 2012.

[Phred]

I guess that's a reaction  to the most annoying set of trolls ever eh?

The funny thing is even some of the super fanboys who went on and on about how the game was great and how everyone who said otherwise were just "haters" has stopped playing same as everyone else.

I don't remember these people can you link some of their posts?

[Typhon]

First of all, everyone thinks I am a fanboi. I don't even try to de-label myself. Who cares? I'm excited about Secret World, I'm excited about Mechwarrior, I'm excited about Guild Wars, I loved Age of Conan and Vanguard. So? [...]

As I mentioned in the ** part of my last post, I like this about you.  You clearly like/love video games and there is obviously no ulterior motive when you post about a game - you just want to talk about them.

and that is all I have to say about that.   

[Scold]

I'm looking forward to playing through the class storylines, maybe some multiplayer StarFox levels, and then not touching it again, all while not paying a cent for the privilege.

[Spiff]

I was reasonably excited about this at first, which had turned to cautious by launch, but it left me very disappointed in the end.

I recognize there are many decent things to say about the game and it has the production value to carry the 'AAA-label', but in the end playing it just felt like such a huge slog.
It has all the drawbacks of trying to marry RPG with MMO and doesn't offer any upside over a decent co-op.
The cutscene/'your choices DO matter' format never felt as stale to me in any game that had the Bioware stamp on it as it did here, possibly because my choices were so utterly superficial.
The multiplayer convo-wheel-roll had a fun novelty to it, but after the 2nd or 3d time in the same instance that had worn off as well.

I'm not over MMO (as my simmering fanboi'ism for GW2 shall attest to) but I am over this kind of MMO; basically cramming as much MMO as they feel necessary to keep the dream of that sweet sweet sub money alive into what could be a good/great single player RPG.
Which is also why for the first time I've not bought a Funcom MMO at launch (just when they've finally learned to launch a decent MMO).

Part of me is actually angry at them (over a game, god help me ) for pissing away that humongous budget on what I feel now was such a stunted, backwards step in gaming.
This part hopes it all melts down leaving nothing but a huge radiating wasteland as a warning to future generations.

The more sensible part of me however sees there are plenty of people enjoying it so I guess there must be something there I didn't see ... hidden way deep down below all the tripe  .

[Ingmar]

First of all, everyone thinks I am a fanboi. I don't even try to de-label myself. Who cares? I'm excited about Secret World, I'm excited about Mechwarrior, I'm excited about Guild Wars, I loved Age of Conan and Vanguard. So? [...]

As I mentioned in the ** part of my last post, I like this about you.  You clearly like/love video games and there is obviously no ulterior motive when you post about a game - you just want to talk about them.

and that is all I have to say about that.   

The other important thing about Falconeer (and Nebu, and other people who tried this game and didn't like it) is he forms his own opinions by actually playing the games. So while I might not agree with his tastes, his decisions in avatar design, or even see things he sees as flaws in a game as positives, I'm not going to crawl up his ass for it. Hell I'm not going to cry about anyone's opinion about a released MMO out here in the general forum, whether or not they have any basis for it. (At least not much, I try not to but nobody's perfect...)

Where it truly crosses the line for me, where it stops being someone's opinion and starts being flat out trolling, is when it happens in the game's subforum, which is presumably for people playing the game. I can't stand Eve, but I don't go into the Eve forum and constantly trash it. I'm having a lot of issues with TSW, and if/when I stop playing it, I'll probably stop posting in the subforum because I'm not going to be adding anything to the discussion there. And for the most part that holds true for most posters on f13 and most of the game-specific subforums. I'm just not sure why the same courtesy has in general never been extended to WoW and SWTOR players.

Meh, I don't really want to turn this into some kind of meta-discussion about forum posting either, but I needed to get that out there.

[Evildrider]

First of all, everyone thinks I am a fanboi. I don't even try to de-label myself. Who cares? I'm excited about Secret World, I'm excited about Mechwarrior, I'm excited about Guild Wars, I loved Age of Conan and Vanguard. So? [...]

As I mentioned in the ** part of my last post, I like this about you.  You clearly like/love video games and there is obviously no ulterior motive when you post about a game - you just want to talk about them.

and that is all I have to say about that.   

The other important thing about Falconeer (and Nebu, and other people who tried this game and didn't like it) is he forms his own opinions by actually playing the games. So while I might not agree with his tastes, his decisions in avatar design, or even see things he sees as flaws in a game as positives, I'm not going to crawl up his ass for it. Hell I'm not going to cry about anyone's opinion about a released MMO out here in the general forum, whether or not they have any basis for it. (At least not much, I try not to but nobody's perfect...)

Where it truly crosses the line for me, where it stops being someone's opinion and starts being flat out trolling, is when it happens in the game's subforum, which is presumably for people playing the game. I can't stand Eve, but I don't go into the Eve forum and constantly trash it. I'm having a lot of issues with TSW, and if/when I stop playing it, I'll probably stop posting in the subforum because I'm not going to be adding anything to the discussion there. And for the most part that holds true for most posters on f13 and most of the game-specific subforums. I'm just not sure why the same courtesy has in general never been extended to WoW and SWTOR players.

Meh, I don't really want to turn this into some kind of meta-discussion about forum posting either, but I needed to get that out there.

This is pretty much my outlook as well.  If people are having fun with a game, I don't like, more power to them.  Why would I keep spouting out how bad I think the game is or just start shit for no reason.  I usually come to these boards for decent game discussions, but it's slowly heading towards the same shit I try to avoid on official game boards.

[tazelbain]

Right, deliberately trying to piss on people's parade is bad.  But many of these games have market wide implications that are very troubling. Where can we talk about that?

[palmer_eldritch]

Right, deliberately trying to piss on people's parade is bad.  But many of these games have market wide implications that are very troubling. Where can we talk about that?

Well if I might make a suggestion, above my pay grade I know, I think that if a sub-forum is formed for a game then the general thread for that game (like this one http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9959.0 or this one http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15047.0) should stay in "MMOG Discussion" and not get moved to the sub forum. Because the sub-forums seem to be for discussing actually playing the game while MMOG Discussion seems to be a place to debate broader stuff. (The Star Wars thread perhaps needed a new thread because it was so long but that's a different issue)

[Ingmar]

That makes a lot of sense.

[Typhon]

and/or create a "Troubling Gaming Design and/or Business Model trends" thread.

[Sjofn]

P.S: Just a silly addition. While I agree that the whole "HAAAAA I TOLD YA!" trend is annoying and gets old very fast especially considering how easy it is to say "I told you" when your prediction is right and just fall silently in the background when it turns out you were wrong, I think it wouldn't hurt if from time to time someone made the effort to write a line or two about how wrong they were about something they supported. It's definitely easy and douchy to always try to be "right" and be the I-told-ya kind of asshole, but it's quite easy too to never admit when you were wrong about something. And that has nothing to do with the amount of fun you had with something, since hopefully objective criticism can go a little beyond subjective pleasure.

Thing is, in terms of SWTOR, I wasn't wrong. I thought, for me, the game would be a lot of fun and, for me, worth a monthly fee. Given I am still subscribed, still having fun with it, and have no plans to unsubscribe (I'm not done with the game yet, and the monthly fee does not outweigh my desire to "finish," thus the sub is still, again TO ME, worth it), that means that, as far as my predictions FOR ME went, I was right. And those are the only predictions I try to make as far as games go, 'cause while I like when a bunch of people like a game I do because I can chit chat to them about it, ultimately I don't really care if the game I enjoy has a fanbase of three people or three million, so I don't really bother caring about it.


It does get really tiring being told HEY YOU LIKE A SHITTY GAAAAAAAAAAAME when people are all "this is OBJECTIVELY BAD." Buggy-ass bugginess is objectively bad. Design decisions you don't like? Those aren't actually objectively bad, dudes. Every design decision you hate, even the ones that 99% of people loathe, still have that 1% who think it's great. That doesn't make them terrible, wrong people, that just makes them different from you, and an audience you shouldn't design for if you want to make a jillion dollars.

[Rasix]

Right, deliberately trying to piss on people's parade is bad.  But many of these games have market wide implications that are very troubling. Where can we talk about that?

Well if I might make a suggestion, above my pay grade I know, I think that if a sub-forum is formed for a game then the general thread for that game (like this one http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9959.0 or this one http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15047.0) should stay in "MMOG Discussion" and not get moved to the sub forum. Because the sub-forums seem to be for discussing actually playing the game while MMOG Discussion seems to be a place to debate broader stuff. (The Star Wars thread perhaps needed a new thread because it was so long but that's a different issue)

While that's a good idea and I mostly agree with it, it just gives the trolls free reign to be as annoying as they want.  

Here's what can happen if I split/den an annoyingly trolling post or line of posting:

- Nothing:  this is the best result.  People get the hint and dial it down.  

- Original poster bitches and just illustrates they completely don't get it.  

- A few more people bitch.  People continue to bitch.  Conversation centers around the bitching until I split/den the conversation about the bitching.

- Go to top.

- OP sends me a nasty PM(s).  This gets forwarded to Trippy and then he weighs your heart against a feather and metes out appropriate punishment.

- Internet fucking revolution.  I was wrong, and I'm bringing down the entire site with my heavy handed moderating. Someone is being mega-ultra-giga-twat about a game they don't even play by a company they don't like and I'm the bad guy.

And.. if it's out in the general MMO discussion, I probably see it.  So I have to do something.  Usually.  If it's hidden away in a subforum of a game I don't play, I can wait for a PM from someone asking me step in or wait for the spill over into another thread.

Personally, I just don't give a shit anymore about the business side of MMO success.  Success of a MMO for me is "did I have fun".  Everything else is noise. Unfortunately that noise can get a bit loud and makes people angry.

[HaemishM]

It does get really tiring being told HEY YOU LIKE A SHITTY GAAAAAAAAAAAME when people are all "this is OBJECTIVELY BAD."

Yeah, but you like Dragon Age. 

[Rasix]

You're soooo getting denned.

[Ingmar]

Just as soon as Rasix puts the last touches on his basement shrine to Merrill.

[Rasix]

HAH! I don't even have a basement.

It's in the attic crawl space. The candles are proving problematic.

[Nevermore]

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?

Pretty much the same thing you do with a guild in TSW, except there's 8 class stories to do in TOR instead of 3 faction stories to do in TSW.

[Sjofn]

It does get really tiring being told HEY YOU LIKE A SHITTY GAAAAAAAAAAAME when people are all "this is OBJECTIVELY BAD."

Yeah, but you like Dragon Age. 

Hey, DA:O is generally considered a good game. That's more "HEY YOU LIKE A DECENT GAME WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU." 

[tazelbain]

Business trends of this kind do actually have a profound impact on the fun of the games.  Diablo 3 and SWTOR are at the front and center this.  Faux-multiplayer on singleplayer games and the singleplayer-ification of MMOs are driven in large part by business decisions and not what is fun. I am sure the GW2 Cash shop bothers quite a few people even if it doesn't me.  But as a GW2 fan boy I still don't mind people discussing GW2's pay2win is ruining things and subs are better. It's a perfectly justifiable opinion.

I don't want to ruin anyone's fun, but I would like to talk about the reality of MMOs and everything not peachy keen.

[Simond]

Right, deliberately trying to piss on people's parade is bad.  But many of these games have market wide implications that are very troubling. Where can we talk about that?

Well if I might make a suggestion, above my pay grade I know, I think that if a sub-forum is formed for a game then the general thread for that game (like this one http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9959.0 or this one http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15047.0) should stay in "MMOG Discussion" and not get moved to the sub forum. Because the sub-forums seem to be for discussing actually playing the game while MMOG Discussion seems to be a place to debate broader stuff. (The Star Wars thread perhaps needed a new thread because it was so long but that's a different issue)

While that's a good idea and I mostly agree with it, it just gives the trolls free reign to be as annoying as they want.  

Here's what can happen if I split/den an annoyingly trolling post or line of posting:

- Nothing:  this is the best result.  People get the hint and dial it down.  

- Original poster bitches and just illustrates they completely don't get it.  

- A few more people bitch.  People continue to bitch.  Conversation centers around the bitching until I split/den the conversation about the bitching.

- Go to top.

- OP sends me a nasty PM(s).  This gets forwarded to Trippy and then he weighs your heart against a feather and metes out appropriate punishment.

- Internet fucking revolution.  I was wrong, and I'm bringing down the entire site with my heavy handed moderating. Someone is being mega-ultra-giga-twat about a game they don't even play by a company they don't like and I'm the bad guy.

And.. if it's out in the general MMO discussion, I probably see it.  So I have to do something.  Usually.  If it's hidden away in a subforum of a game I don't play, I can wait for a PM from someone asking me step in or wait for the spill over into another thread.

Personally, I just don't give a shit anymore about the business side of MMO success.  Success of a MMO for me is "did I have fun".  Everything else is noise. Unfortunately that noise can get a bit loud and makes people angry.

Serious question: Are you really saying that you only want people to post nice things about games and you'll den everything else? Because that's what this reads like, which kind of restricts the whole concept of debate.

[Rasix]

I was going to add an edit, but I didn't think I had to be that explicit.  

No, it doesn't have to be all sunshine and butterflies, but it's a far cry from the usual crap that falls out of your mouth.  Do you really consider what you do debating? Seriously?  At least sinij was honest with himself.

[Sjofn]

Tch, Rasix, to use previous posts to judge new posts is totally cheating.

[Simond]

I was going to add an edit, but I didn't think I had to be that explicit.  

No, it doesn't have to be all sunshine and butterflies, but it's a far cry from the usual crap that falls out of your mouth.  Do you really consider what you do debating? Seriously?  At least sinij was honest with himself.

My thoughts on SWTOR could always be summed up as "It's a ridiculously expensive, overhyped, underfeatured clone of WoW-from-a-few-expansions-back which is trading on a) the Star Wars name and b) the Bioware name, Bioware concentrated on completely the wrong things during development, and it would be free-to-play within a year".

And, well, here we are.