SWTOR Goes F2P in the Fall

[Paelos]

Restricted travel does not sound like any fun at all.

I don't know what that means. Does it mean I can't own a speeder? Does it mean I can't fly to certain planets without a timer?

It could be less of a PITA with certain restrictions, almost game-breaking with others.

[Tyrnan]

Maybe it means you can only have the basic speeder? Or you have to go through a few more orbital stations every time you move planets 

I'm actually surprised there's no mention of Legacy stuff in the F2P matrix. I expected them to put some of that behind an unlock fee or something. And still sign of Pay2Gay 

[Musashi]

That model looks gimped to me.  Wasted opportunity IMO.

I think there's a huge difference between a profitable F2P model, and an extended free trial.  This looks to me like the latter.  If you're trying to get hooks in and turn me into a subscriber, that's not F2P.  It's just a teaser.  Sure it's free to try out a dude and level him up.  But you're restricted from damn near any endgame content, it looks like. (And restricted travel while you do it?  Fuuuuuuuck you.)  Why would I do that if I wanted to play beyond just dicking around with a couple dudes?  It is the proverbial trap, I say.

[UnSub]

What EA wants is more players in the game, which means dropping the box cost requirement. The cash shop will mean a group overpay and subsidise the non-payers.

The only MMO model that makes sense financially is to build a small, dynamic world for a small audience and then grow the game slowly.  The financial model of blowing $50-100MM over 5 years then turning on the lights and hoping people show up is just crazy.

Minecraft proves you do not have to invest in cutting edge visuals.  Gameplay will trump visuals. 

I agree that the AAA model of MMO development doesn't really work (RIFT is the only post-2004 title I can think of that has maintained its relative success after launch; it's too soon to tell with TSW) but the "start small and grow" model doesn't necessarily work either. A Tale in The Desert and Love are two indie MMOs that went this way and, to my knowlege, have remained at the small end of the scale as well. Yes, it worked for CCP, but they also had their publisher basically wipe their development debts (through selling the Eve IP back to CCP at a discounted figure) after they only sold 50k units at Eve's launch. (Or at least that's according to the info I've seen, since what happened when during Eve's launch and rise has generally disappeared from the internet after Eve got successful.)

Also, citing Minecraft as an example of how graphics don't matter is a bit like citing WoW as a model for developing a successful MMO - it's true in that it worked for one company, but it doesn't necessarily mean it is going to work for the next people along who try the same thing.

[Kageru]

You can't draw any such conclusions from SWTOR. A bad game failing tells you nothing more than that.

[eldaec]

I suspect restricted travel mean less fast-travel, taxis and/or slower speeders.

If it meant you can't go to Ilum or some other super secret subscriber zone I'd have no concerns with it. But it'll probably be the other thing, which is stupid since it will make the game seem horrible to any new players who join for f2p.

[Reg]

That's what LOTRO did when they first went F2P. It was enough to drive me away. They may have lightened up on that by now though.

[Numtini]

That's what LOTRO did when they first went F2P. It was enough to drive me away. They may have lightened up on that by now though.

From memory, LOTRO took horse routes, bag space, and a couple of other subscriber perks and made them one time subscriber perks. But if you were ever subscribed, you got them forever. So if you were an older subscriber, you got them, and advice for new players who wanted to go the non-sub way was to sub for one month to get all the perks, then go to cash shop.

[Cyrrex]

That's what LOTRO did when they first went F2P. It was enough to drive me away. They may have lightened up on that by now though.

From memory, LOTRO took horse routes, bag space, and a couple of other subscriber perks and made them one time subscriber perks. But if you were ever subscribed, you got them forever. So if you were an older subscriber, you got them, and advice for new players who wanted to go the non-sub way was to sub for one month to get all the perks, then go to cash shop.

That sounds about right, because I had all those benefits as founder without ever having to pay for it.  The LOTRO model seems a decent way to go in general.  In fact, as long as they don't overly nerf travel, I think I can live with their current suggest model.  I think they will be missing an opportunity if they don't put in some kind of smart cash shop.  Things I wouldn't dream of purchasing in a LOTRO cash shop...I might consider it here, were they cheap enough.  Alas, I imagine they are too greedy to do it the way I would like to see it.

[Zetor]

re F2P restrictions: it's not just what you do, it's how you do it. See also here.

[5150]

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.

[Merusk]

Except it WAS.  It just isn't big enough hit for the money spent on it.  Earlier in the thread the earnings call mentioned north of 500k players.  SWG had about 350-400k at its peak, still below TOR's fall numbers.

[Shannow]

Even ww2ol is hoping (sic) on the bandwagon:

ww2ol goes f2p

[Mrbloodworth]

Yes, but WW2OL suffers from stagnation ( Game, client, tech. I do not mean player numbers ), something they have been dumping a good deal of time into correcting.

[Lantyssa]

That model looks gimped to me.  Wasted opportunity IMO.

It's funny how we're the exact opposite.  I look at the model and think it'll be perfect because everything that's paid for I'm completely uninterested in.

[Lantyssa]

Except it WAS.  It just isn't big enough hit for the money spent on it.  Earlier in the thread the earnings call mentioned north of 500k players.  SWG had about 350-400k at its peak, still below TOR's fall numbers.

Not that I really want to get into this discussion at length right now, but there were other factors leading to SWG's low population.  Eventually ToR would fall below SWG's numbers and not have the sandboxiness to help retain the die-hard players.

Different issues, different time periods, and different end-user knowledge and acceptance of MMOs.

[Numtini]

Is the account going to be free or will you need to do a purchase?

[Soln]

Any evidence from the dev or EA notes if they will do a Hartsmann-like pass?  It would be terrific when they launch F2P that they claim they've tuned and optimized parts of the play.  It would make F2P a positive announcement and not sort of a capitulation.  QoL changes FTW (e.g. faster travel).

[Rokal]

My hunch is that quick travel and emergency fleet passes will be paid items (with very short cooldowns) for non-subscribers. I could also see faster mounts locked behind a paywall, but I don't think they're crazy enough to cut off free players from mounts or taxis entirely given how much travel is in SWTOR. Can you imagine doing Tatooine without a mount? 

That model looks gimped to me.  Wasted opportunity IMO.

It's funny how we're the exact opposite.  I look at the model and think it'll be perfect because everything that's paid for I'm completely uninterested in.

Doesn't that mean the model is a wasted opportunity? There should be things that you want to spend money on, preferably that you don't feel bad about purchasing. I don't think cosmetic stuff alone is enough to make a F2P model work.

I'd love to put my money where my mouth was by buying content packs that I could play at my own pace, but with the details we have so far I can't see myself spending much.

[Ingmar]

Taxis wouldn't be possible given you can't actually get from area to area on some planets without them. I could see restricting tier 2/3 mounts easily. I never bother upgrading past tier 1 until max level, and even then only on characters I intend to keep using for endgame stuff.

[koro]

Is the account going to be free or will you need to do a purchase?

You still have to buy the box, which is having its price lowered to $15. That alone is probably going to cut this F2P initiative off at its knees if it isn't nixed.

[Lantyssa]

Doesn't that mean the model is a wasted opportunity? There should be things that you want to spend money on, preferably that you don't feel bad about purchasing. I don't think cosmetic stuff alone is enough to make a F2P model work.

You're very much wrong.  Cosmetic stuff is huge.

GW had great success with its costumes.  Sparkle Ponies.  Little KT.  Baby Moonkin.  EQ2 heritage armors.  The whole of Free Realms.

(Well, if they're not hideously ugly, which just about everything above mid-level has been in ToR so far...)

[Rokal]

You still have to buy the box, which is having its price lowered to $15. That alone is probably going to cut this F2P initiative off at its knees if it isn't nixed.

The $15 cost is just for pre-F2P. They're lowering the cost of the box later this month for people that might want to start playing before the conversion.

GW had great success with its costumes.  Sparkle Ponies.  Little KT.  Baby Moonkin.  EQ2 heritage armors.  The whole of Free Realms.

GW had a box cost and didn't really do any content updates. They released paid expansion packs instead. There was a paywall to access the first set of levels/zones (original game) and further paywalls (expansions) if you wanted to progress past that point as the game moved on. Cosmetics can be a nice bump (WoW is a great example) but I don't think it's the bread-and-butter for most F2P MMOs.

I don't know if any F2P devs have released numbers about what sells best in their store, but I believe Turbine at least hinted that content was king back when DDO made it's F2P conversion. Having content available in the store is good for gamers too: it allows us to send a very clear message with our wallets to developers about what we want them to invest resources in for future updates.

[Amaron]

You're very much wrong.  Cosmetic stuff is huge.

That depends entirely on the game being sticky though. This isn't TF2 where the base game is so good that people will just keep playing it forever without new content.  People who are bored will not buy hats.

[Zetor]

As far as I'm concerned, GW1 was the only game that did f2p 'right' until now - no obtrusive CASH SHOP BUY BUY BUY stuff (check the article I linked in my previous post for how egregious it is in lotro, f'rex), and you didn't need to buy anything from the store at all (I didn't, and I played through all of the normal+most of the 'hardmode' content). Of course it's not a real f2p game, more like a 'normal' boxed game that happens to be played fully online (I heard something similar was happening in the third installment of a popular ARPG series, too.  ). And it probably helps that it was designed for that model from the get-go, instead of a forced design shift after release like... every other 'f2p' AAA mmo out there.

Other than that - eh. I honestly didn't find COH so bad for the most part, but I have a vet account that has IOs permanently unlocked, so yeah. Initially I found LOTRO's model ok, but it's grown to annoy me as time went on.

[Threash]

Giving away the good part of the game for free and charging for the horrible end game is completely ass backwards.

[Rokal]

That depends entirely on the game being sticky though. This isn't TF2 where the base game is so good that people will just keep playing it forever without new content.  People who are bored will not buy hats.

Also worth noting that hats/weapons in TF2 do give gameplay advantages (or at least modifications). It's not just about cosmetics. It works okay because those items can also be unlocked through gameplay, and theoretically they are all balanced with the free items.

Initially I found LOTRO's model ok, but it's grown to annoy me as time went on.

I would agree with this. LOTRO's model I was initially fine with but it's gotten more intrusive as time went on. I no longer player the game, mostly because the quest/combat systems were stale after 65 levels, but the Star-lit crystals and lock boxes would have been enough to make me quit even if I still liked the gameplay.

I like GW1's model, but I think DDO's model is my favorite so far because it also supports frequent paid content updates.

Giving away the good part of the game for free and charging for the horrible end game is completely ass backwards.

This is a good way of putting it.

[tazelbain]

I like GW1's model, but I think DDO's model is my favorite so far because it also supports frequent paid content updates.

Except those fucking Tomes

[Rokal]

Except those fucking Tomes

The stat tomes? I've had decent luck getting them from quest rewards or the AH (for important stats). This means my characters usually don't have each stat maxed, but it isn't game-breaking when half of the stats are dump stats for most characters.

I can see why this would bother people though.

[UnSub]

Other than that - eh. I honestly didn't find COH so bad for the most part, but I have a vet account that has IOs permanently unlocked, so yeah. Initially I found LOTRO's model ok, but it's grown to annoy me as time went on.

I have a CoH/V vet account that would have everything unlocked, but I started a new account to try the newbie experience.

CoH/V has always had terrible free trial restrictions - especially the no access to broadcast chat, only local and team (and help, which is used as the default broadcast by F2Pers) - and that was carried through to the F2P conversion. So that's an immediate turn-off when (unless you and your friends all start playing at exactly the same time) you can't get in contact with people.

I'm not sure if they changed this, but given CoH/V's F2P conversion only saw a short-lived spike in revenue, I'm guessing the conversion hasn't brought back the player numbers they thought it would.

[MediumHigh]

Dat patience and its virtues 

[Scold]

On F2P or more accurately cash shop games in general. LOTRO (and I assume DDO) are successful as cash shop because you can actually play the game out of the cash shop.

That wasn't my experience with either of those games, the pay wall hits hard and early. And their definition of viable is probably a whole heap different from what EA / Bioware would consider worth bothering with. This is purely a desperation move because subs simply aren't a winning option for them.

How long ago did you play DDO? I picked it up recently, and I haven't been feeling the paywall in the slightest.

[Malakili]

On F2P or more accurately cash shop games in general. LOTRO (and I assume DDO) are successful as cash shop because you can actually play the game out of the cash shop.

That wasn't my experience with either of those games, the pay wall hits hard and early. And their definition of viable is probably a whole heap different from what EA / Bioware would consider worth bothering with. This is purely a desperation move because subs simply aren't a winning option for them.

How long ago did you play DDO? I picked it up recently, and I haven't been feeling the paywall in the slightest.

I haven't played DDO since it went free to play, but I reinstalled LOTRO earlier this year and pretty quickly realized I needed to pay - but then again, I was already paying a mid level character.  I don't know what it would have been like to start from scratch.  Of course, I get down with the lord of the rings enough that I ended up just spending 30 bucks on a 3 month subscription/gold membership/whatever its called and felt like I easily got my money's worth at the end.

I actually prefer the optional subscription models, generally if I am willing to spend anything at all on an MMO, I'm willing to spend 10-15, and I'd much prefer to just pay the sub fee instead of trying to pick out the "right" 15 bucks worth out of the cash shop that I am supposed to get to emulate a subscription.

[Phred]

Of course, I get down with the lord of the rings enough that I ended up just spending 30 bucks on a 3 month subscription/gold membership/whatever its called and felt like I easily got my money's worth at the end.

I did the same thing when I played LoTRO last year. But, I had old characters as well. I could easily see it being a lot easier starting new ones if you're going f2p because you can earn a ton of Turbine points just leveling up and doing deeds and it's pretty well free until you hit 30 or so iirc. Unless you don't want to do deeds in which case you're going to be reaching for your wallet but what's wrong with that. With some careful studying you can find which zones you need to pick up to make it to 60 and you might even accumulate enough points to pick up Moria while you're at it. My 3 month sub pretty well covered all the time I could keep interested and the free turbine points paid for the next expansion as well, though I've never gone back to actually play that expansion.

[Ingmar]

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.