SWTOR Goes F2P in the Fall

[UnSub]

This may shock you, but the idea behind these MMOs is to make money.   

Which is why they should keep doing subs instead of shitty F2P.

Subs work well for the one or two top MMOs, or those that have carved out a historical niche.

F2P allows a lot more titles to survive if they can cultivate a small-yet-dedicated audience. Or even a large casual audience. There have been a number of F2P titles dying off this year, so it isn't foolproof, but not forcing players to buy the box and then pay a sub fee means a title has a much bigger audience which in turn has a flow-on effect within a massively multiplayer game.

Which is why a lot of MMOs offer hybrid payment models. They want that regular sub revenue, but also want a large active player base.

[Venkman]

Subs are done. They're just taking a while to die completely because we are awash in some really old ass games that still eke by on the monthly fees. The benefits of subs have been obvious since newspapers and then magazines did it. After the first year or two, whoever's left is pure profit because they either love what's there so much they aren't ever going to leave, or they've forgotten they're paying for it.

But new games can't rely on that because f2p is far too lucrative in a much shorter period of time (months versus years), and you can get both kinds of players: the pay-nothing eyeballs you can throw ads at and use for "registered accounts" PR, and the beautiful snowflakes willing to pay through the nose to look unique in a sea of sameness. Plus, games built as f2p generally cost less. That doesn't include the almost-dead games built on AAA budgets with expected sustainable subs converted to f2p as a last gasp chance to keep it alive. You don't spend $100-250mm on a f2p title. But the lower risk of f2p is important for another reason.

Gamers are fickle, and MMOs have evolved to incorporate them. Multi-month subscriptions are no longer assumed. Companies can no more rely a gamer to stay in an MMO any longer than they can expect the masses to stay in an FPS or a sports title or any other 1-2 month genre. This is partly where sequelization came from. And it's hit MMOs now.

Which really just means we caught up to where the Eastern markets were 8 years ago  

[Azazel]

I just think they charge about twice as much as they should because they can. This is a distinction of value, nothing more. Charging nearly two month's subscription for a sparklepony is ludicrous, and they know full well that people will lap it up anyway. I feel responsible for being the curmudgeonly, pennypinching antithesis to that. Fuck your sparklepony, and for $25, you really ought to be able to.

It's all degrees of perspective. I've bought a ton of the $10 pets and $25 mounts in WoW for my wife and myself, and even as gifts for friends - and in LotRO, I used Turbine points to buy one of the P2W max-speed mount for one of my (and the wife's) main characters. Despite my other opinions on aspects of LotRO - there's a huge gap in perceived value between a $20 sparkle horse that you get on one character versus a $25 sparkle horse that you get on every character on the goddamned account, across all servers. F2P or not, the value for the LotRO mounts is shit. And I say this as someone willing to spend money on useless shit.

[Mattemeo]

It's all degrees of perspective. I've bought a ton of the $10 pets and $25 mounts in WoW for my wife and myself, and even as gifts for friends - and in LotRO, I used Turbine points to buy the P2W max-speed mount for one of my (and the wife's) characters. Despite my other opinions on aspects of LotRO - there's a huge gap in perceived value between a $20 sparkle horse that you get on one character versus a $25 sparkle horse that you get on every character on the goddamned account, across all servers. F2P or not, the value for the LotRO mounts is shit. And I say this as someone willing to spend money on useless shit.

It's one of the big things that is keeping me umming and ahhing about getting into The Secret World. I like my characters to look good. I agonize over it (especially in SWtOR, where finding good looking gear is a metagame itself). The fact that TSW has a RM store for buying clothing for your characters is already a bitter pill to swallow because I know I could probably spend a lot of money on it. The bitterest part is the aftertaste of knowing that whatever you buy, it will only be available on one character per transaction. That's just downright mean.

As for the difference between LotRO's fluff and WoW's fluff, I guess while LotRO is doing the same thing as TSW in making you repurchase the same item for other characters, LotRO literally survives on that. WoW has been self-perpetuating for a few years now.

[Ingmar]

The sort of annoying thing about the TSW implementation is that subbing doesn't get you a store point allowance. It's all on top of having a sub, and there are a lot of options involved that are store-only. You can buy an entire, nice-looking business suit with in-game money... except the dress shirt. They're all RMT-only (for male characters). You get the top half of the Bruce Lee Game of Death outfit as an achievement reward... but if you want the pants, RMT. Stuff like that is kind of irritating. If it was just one or the other it would bother me a lot less - make the whole yellow tracksuit thing a store purchase, or the whole suit, and it at least makes some kind of sense to me.

[Venkman]

Yea, I didn't much go for the all-hands-in-all-pockets approach TSW currently have. It'll clean up when they inevitably go F2P. But for now, the sub is just so you can continue to log in while the MTX is for stuff you can't get any other way in a game you're already paying for.

Was a minor quibble I had, becuase luckily, I couldn't care any less what my character looks like 

[Sky]

Was a minor quibble I had, becuase luckily, I couldn't care any less what my character looks like 

I do, but in mmo, that doesn't count for much. In the 'traditional' model, I'm cockblocked by raid requirements, I've had zero ability to get the really cool stuff in any mmo since UO (eat my katana of vanq, bitches). Under f2p, mtx, whatever, I won't drop real money just to look cool in a video game.

For sub-less games, as long as its not intrusive to my playstyle (and TOR's looks decent), I'm getting kind of excited for it. I could easily see jumping between TOR and GW2, and eventually finishing up stuff in TSW when they jump onboard. If not...there are always other things to do, no loss for me.

[Sheepherder]

In the 'traditional' model, I'm cockblocked by raid requirements, I've had zero ability to get the really cool stuff in any mmo since UO (eat my katana of vanq, bitches).

[Ingmar]

That assumes your barrier is 'getting into a raid group' and not 'actually having time to raid'.

[Sky]

Because I play so much WoW.

Also, you may misunderstand what I mean by raid requirements. Time and inclination to do synchronized dancing with strangers are also requirements.

[Malakili]

That assumes your barrier is 'getting into a raid group' and not 'actually having time to raid'.

Yeah, the thing about raiding is that it requires chunks of times were are unrealistic for a lot of people.  A well oiled raid guild is probably only spending 15 hours a week raiding at most unless they are chewing class (and then it is a lot more). Throw in another 30% for prep (5 hoursish) and we're looking at 20 hours a week.  That isn't absolutely absurd if it is the only game you play.  But even then,  the problem for "casual" players is that they can't get the same rewards over 20 hours of play unless they can spend it in 4-5 3 hour uninterrupted blocks.  Whether or not that is 20 hours in one week spread out into hour chunks here and there for 20 hours over a month, that seems to be the disconnect.    

I guess it comes down to the question of whether or not MMOs should reward you playing a lot of hours consistently, or if it just pure /played that matters.  In other words, should a guy who plays 5 hours a day and I guy who plays 1 hour a day be at the same amount of progression after 20 hours /played over any amount of real time.  A raider will say they play more, so they should be rewarded more, a "casual" player will say that it isn't right that a raiders 20 hours are worth "more" than their 20 hours.

[Soln]

That assumes your barrier is 'getting into a raid group' and not 'actually having time to raid'.

For me it's the intimidation of not knowing what to do: don't step in the fire.  How am I supposed to know if I've never run the instance before?  

The time to run a raid should also included the forced prep time every raider assumes us casuals have to do.

And I still assume gear is still a necessity for any PUG raid?  I've never ever tried to use the LFR tool because of gear and not knowing what to do.

[Raguel]

That assumes your barrier is 'getting into a raid group' and not 'actually having time to raid'.

For me it's the intimidation of not knowing what to do: don't step in the fire.  How am I supposed to know if I've never run the instance before?  

The time to run a raid should also included the forced prep time every raider assumes us casuals have to do.

And I still assume gear is still a necessity for any PUG raid?  I've never ever tried to use the LFR tool because of gear and not knowing what to do.

This is something I've noticed in both WoW and SWToR; it's rare that anyone ever communicates; most people just seem to assume everyone has already done it several times already.

[Merusk]

That assumes your barrier is 'getting into a raid group' and not 'actually having time to raid'.

For me it's the intimidation of not knowing what to do: don't step in the fire.  How am I supposed to know if I've never run the instance before?  

The time to run a raid should also included the forced prep time every raider assumes us casuals have to do.

And I still assume gear is still a necessity for any PUG raid?  I've never ever tried to use the LFR tool because of gear and not knowing what to do.

WoW added the Dungeon Guide to try and smooth some of the Mechanics unknowns.   There's also YouTube vids if you don't want to read that, don't understand or don't want to ask questions of your group for fear of looking silly.   You're not on the cutting edge, or even the bloody edge so make use of the mistakes of other people who've paid the "idiot tax" to learn the harsh lessons.

LFR raids require no prep time.  Flasks, food, etc.  Totally unnecessary and nobody bitches until wipes happen.   Fuck, you can even sneak on  as a DPS in DPS gear and take a healer slot and until you wipe or suck ass almost nobody will call you on it. (Not that I've done that...  )

[Sheepherder]

Because I play so much WoW.

Also, you may misunderstand what I mean by raid requirements. Time and inclination to do synchronized dancing with strangers are also requirements.

1. Who's fault is that?
2. You don't have an hour and a half?
3. I want to do raid things without doing raid things.  Chances are you're sitting out the next generation of MMO's as well.

[Threash]

It's all degrees of perspective. I've bought a ton of the $10 pets and $25 mounts in WoW for my wife and myself, and even as gifts for friends - and in LotRO, I used Turbine points to buy the P2W max-speed mount for one of my (and the wife's) characters. Despite my other opinions on aspects of LotRO - there's a huge gap in perceived value between a $20 sparkle horse that you get on one character versus a $25 sparkle horse that you get on every character on the goddamned account, across all servers. F2P or not, the value for the LotRO mounts is shit. And I say this as someone willing to spend money on useless shit.

It's one of the big things that is keeping me umming and ahhing about getting into The Secret World. I like my characters to look good. I agonize over it (especially in SWtOR, where finding good looking gear is a metagame itself). The fact that TSW has a RM store for buying clothing for your characters is already a bitter pill to swallow because I know I could probably spend a lot of money on it. The bitterest part is the aftertaste of knowing that whatever you buy, it will only be available on one character per transaction. That's just downright mean.

As for the difference between LotRO's fluff and WoW's fluff, I guess while LotRO is doing the same thing as TSW in making you repurchase the same item for other characters, LotRO literally survives on that. WoW has been self-perpetuating for a few years now.

There is almost no reason to have more than one character in TSW.

[Venkman]

Because I play so much WoW.

Also, you may misunderstand what I mean by raid requirements. Time and inclination to do synchronized dancing with strangers are also requirements.

1. Who's fault is that?
2. You don't have an hour and a half?
3. I want to do raid things without doing raid things.  Chances are you're sitting out the next generation of MMO's as well.

Raiding is and will always be niche, because of all the things mentioned here and always:

• The level of coordination before and during. This is the funnest part of raids. But it's also for a much smaller set of players than the ones who are hanging around duoing with their spouse or getting together with their buddies once or twice a weak. Anyone can join a random pickup raid. But how many of those are ever successful?
• The time investment (both to prep and partake). Slightly more than 90 minutes there.
• Being blamed for making few mistakes causing the dozens of hours of collective time loss. This is probably one of the harder things to handle for people who can even invest the time. The horror stories non-raiders tell other non-raiders about raiding...
• Gentrification itself. The average age of videos gamers in general is not going down nor is it staying steady. Maybe we'll all have time again for raids when we're retired 
• Oh and, well, the sheer desire to make all of that investment just for the chance that something of meaningful value will not only drop, but that you'll win the role.
  
  

Raiding being the thing most talked about a few years into the life of an MMO does not make raiding the foundation by which all MMOs launch. It is fun. I've enjoyed many of the ones I've been in. But Molten Core why WoW was initially successfully.

[Merusk]

You can keep calling raiding niche, but 90% of the players in the largest pay-to-participate MMO take part.  If they added the LFR tool to the F2P games I suspect you'd see the same there.

Single player antisocial online.. that's niche.   Games are social experiences now, the anti-social need not apply.

[Mattemeo]

You can keep calling raiding niche, but 90% of the players in the largest pay-to-participate MMO take part. 

Wat

[Threash]

Raiding stopped being niche when it became the only endgame option.  Back in EQ casuals were busy taking years to level to bother with raiding, now it takes three months tops and you gotta give 100% of your players something to do at max level.

[Sky]

Single player antisocial online.. that's niche.   Games are social experiences now, the anti-social need not apply.

Well, I'm not anti-social, I'm ADHD. I can't sit and concentrate on doing one thing for that long, especially coordinated with a bunch of people. It's one reason I like GW2 a lot, it's a very meandering experience and it both keeps me from getting bored and allows me to drop what I'm doing and walk away for a few minutes to do something else. I don't think it's antisocial to play guitar, do the laundry, play with my cat, talk on the phone, go say hi to the neighbor, have a snack, etc ad nauseum reasons why I don't sit for an hour and a half at a computer.

But it is kind of funny you say that games are social experiences when the last several mmo releases have caught shit (mostly from wow players) that they're single player experiences. Just because wow is popular doesn't mean it's good. It's there, doing what it does. If you like that, go do that. Don't put tackling into baseball.

But as I said, it doesn't really bug me much anymore. I get my money's worth out of the few mmo I play because I'm a slow content consumer (level 15 in GW2!), even TOR would offer me another year or so. And gaming is probably my third or fourth hobby at this point. So whatevs :)

[Rendakor]

For me it's the intimidation of not knowing what to do: don't step in the fire.  How am I supposed to know if I've never run the instance before?  

The time to run a raid should also included the forced prep time every raider assumes us casuals have to do.

And I still assume gear is still a necessity for any PUG raid?  I've never ever tried to use the LFR tool because of gear and not knowing what to do.

As a DPS or healer, you can figure everything you need to know out by downloading Deadly Boss Mods and following the rest of the group. Trying to tank is a little bit more difficult, but if that's what you want to do, go in as a DPS the first couple times and watch what the tanks are doing, or just go do research somewhere else: YouTube vids, wowhead comments, etc. The gear requirement on DS LFR is pretty low too, 372 IIRC? Easily obtainable from the DS 5 mans.

[Sky]

I do find humor in the accepted 'mainstream' gameplay is to go watch a video and then try to copy what they did.

Strictly my own opinion, of course, but that sounds like a wretched game.

[Malakili]

I do find humor in the accepted 'mainstream' gameplay is to go watch a video and then try to copy what they did.

Strictly my own opinion, of course, but that sounds like a wretched game.

Why wouldn't you?  If I want to learn how to play guitar (an example i'm choosing because you mentioned it), I'm not going to just pick up a guitar and try from scratch without help to figure it out.

[Merusk]

Single player antisocial online.. that's niche.   Games are social experiences now, the anti-social need not apply.

Well, I'm not anti-social, I'm ADHD. I can't sit and concentrate on doing one thing for that long, especially coordinated with a bunch of people. It's one reason I like GW2 a lot, it's a very meandering experience and it both keeps me from getting bored and allows me to drop what I'm doing and walk away for a few minutes to do something else. I don't think it's antisocial to play guitar, do the laundry, play with my cat, talk on the phone, go say hi to the neighbor, have a snack, etc ad nauseum reasons why I don't sit for an hour and a half at a computer.

But it is kind of funny you say that games are social experiences when the last several mmo releases have caught shit (mostly from wow players) that they're single player experiences. Just because wow is popular doesn't mean it's good. It's there, doing what it does. If you like that, go do that. Don't put tackling into baseball.

But as I said, it doesn't really bug me much anymore. I get my money's worth out of the few mmo I play because I'm a slow content consumer (level 15 in GW2!), even TOR would offer me another year or so. And gaming is probably my third or fourth hobby at this point. So whatevs :)

The LFR design allows you to drop in and out at your whim, the only extended stretch of time is the waiting on queue to open-up.  Sure, you'll wind-up running the same bosses more often than not but it's not designed folks who don't have large chunks of time for wasting - like most games.

I didn't say popular = good, but I tire of the tightly-held idea by my generation and hipsters that popular = crap.   Those games aren't catching shit for being single player just from WOW players.. it's all players.  The generation raised on social media and multiplayer games being the norm, not the exception.  The ones who don't think twice about foolishly sharing every facet of their lives and wonder what you're trying to hide because you don't do the same.   Times & market changed and so have games.

As such a slow content consumer.. why care at all then? At that point you're the one asking for tackling in baseball.  The amount of additonal content by the time you hit the cap means none of this is ever a concern for you.   There were plenty of 'cool looking' models in the leveling portion of the last few games I played - which was your initial gripe.

[Ingmar]

You can keep calling raiding niche, but 90% of the players in the largest pay-to-participate MMO take part. 

Wat

Post LFR that's probably about right.

[Venkman]

You can keep calling raiding niche, but 90% of the players in the largest pay-to-participate MMO take part.  If they added the LFR tool to the F2P games I suspect you'd see the same there.

Single player antisocial online.. that's niche.   Games are social experiences now, the anti-social need not apply.

Wait as sec there. There's a stat out there somewhere that says over 8 million* of WoW's subscribers are raiding? If LFR has really resulted in that then fuckyea it should be build into the basic requirements alongside minimaps and bank boxes.

And I'm not saying raiding vs single player antisocial. There's a lot of ways people play these games that don't require 25+ person coordinated raids.

* Based on their posted 9mm subscribers from yesterday

[Mattemeo]

You can keep calling raiding niche, but 90% of the players in the largest pay-to-participate MMO take part. 

Wat

Post LFR that's probably about right.

No. Just no. Significantly less than 90% of total WoW players ever hit max level let alone raid. And that's after LFR made things even simpler. 90% is beyond a crazy estimation. I'd struggle to imagine much over 40% of WoW players ever make it to raids, be it regular or casual attempts.

[Rendakor]

You honestly think there's a large number of currently-subbed WoW players that never hit max level? 

[Kail]

You honestly think there's a large number of currently-subbed WoW players that never hit max level? 

Depends on what you mean by "a large number".  When I was playing, six months ago, there were still a fair number of newbies in the newbie zones.  People quit every day, for the game to be holding relatively steady, there's got to be new players taking their places.

10% seems a bit iffy, but without any solid numbers from Blizzard on either side (and if there are any, I wouldn't mind seeing them), it doesn't seem any more or less believable than "90% of everyone has seen a raid".

[Amaron]

Why wouldn't you?  If I want to learn how to play guitar (an example i'm choosing because you mentioned it), I'm not going to just pick up a guitar and try from scratch without help to figure it out.

Maybe some people just want to dive in and play Raid Hero™.  I'm not sure what you'd call the rock band derivative.  The Guild is already taken.

[Venkman]

There's a number of sites that breakdown various stats from players who use mods. I haven't played in years so no idea if these mods/sites are still accurate. But back in the day theyt indicated that a good chunk of players did have a character hit the level cap, even if the vast majority of reported characters were spread across all levels.

Eight years in, I'd say there's a good chance most current active players have hit the cap at some point or another.

The earlier question is whether the vast majority of them have been raiding in a way that we'd now say that Raiding is no longer a niche activity for a dedicated minority. I think it is because of all that is required to be the kind of dedicated raider a developer would design a game around. But I'm happy to be proven wrong.

[Rendakor]

The thing with WoW today is that you don't need to be dedicated to be a raider. LFR requires very little effort to get into; get your ilvl to the minimum and wait in a queue. No farming mats/resist gear/food/flasks, no need to learn strats, coordinate with guildies, make 9-39 friends, get keyed, travel to a distant zone, etc. If you are inclined toward raiding at all, you're probably doing at least LFR.

[eldaec]

Even if they haven't reached max level, the vast majority of eq clone players believe the reason they are playing is to hit max level so they can raid with their friends.

If developers stopped actively working to prevent non-max players cooperating with other players in a cooperative multiplayer game, then perhaps they wouldn't have to spend all their time getting migraine worrying about end game raids.

Hey look CoX is shutting down, wonder if they have any ideas to steal....

[Kageru]

Was reading the SWTOR forums, to see how things are going, and the chatter their seems to feel numbers are still trending downwards even after the merges.