Not so good news about F2P

[Mattemeo]

All former subscribers who reactivate their subscription by the new date of December 20, 2012 at 11:59am CDT will be granted Complimentary Cartel Coins for their prior paid months up to November 15, 2012.

...so not only do I have to pay more money to get my "complimentary" Cartel Coins that I essentially paid for through subscribing since release, but there's also a fucking "complimentary" expiration date?

 

[eldaec]

You don't have to do anything.

EA is not the boss of you.

[Amaron]

Trying to chop a game designed for subscription into f2p, without cannibalising subscriptions is why we see these sort of pointless semi-conversions that are just stealing focus and resources.

Not really pointless.  They now have a game with subs+cash shop and not much bitching from subbers.

[Sky]

I bet trying to lure back the people they alienated would've been a good business move.

Or just go ahead and continue alienating them, whatever.

[Venkman]

Yea but the reason people left was due to game design things that are far more expensive to change than a billing model.

Separately, I imagine they're a bit re-energized now that some new movies are coming. They got a couple of years to figure out how to evolve this game to align

[Fordel]

So when they first did the merges, I lost Fordel and renamed myself Fordell (two L's). Now that they did the super mega mergers, I have somehow reclaimed Fordel, as I had that as a level 1 alt name on our original server...



 

[Ingmar]

Time to level a new Trooper clearly!

[Nevermore]

I'd be jumping for joy if the names I lost were suddenly available.

[Fordel]

Depends if I can get them to move the name back to the proper toon now.

[Amaron]

The thing with the names is definitely moronic.  With F2P starting it will be even worse.  Even something simple like a "display" name would go a long way.

[koro]

SWTOR-Spy now has a calculator for determining the dollar cost of the stuff in the market. Apparently some things have increased in price.

[Ingmar]

And other things have dropped in price I think? I could swear quickbars were more than 250 each last I saw.

[Zetor]

Nah, quickbars were always 250... though in practice I'd rather go with the account-level quickbar (at least 1, probably 2). 2 quickbars + artifact unlock are 3780 coins total, that's $27.49 - $42. Where are they getting the dollar prices from (and what's with the huge variance), btw?

[Ingmar]

Ah, that's what I was missing, account-wide unlocks at the end.

Yeah, things are just generally too high in price it seems like. I get 1750 coins for subbing since launch and having the digital deluxe bonus, if anyone was curious. Won't go far if you're intending to try to F2P it. (I'm not, so w/e on that for me.)

[Zetor]

Yep, I have 150 coins for 1 month of sub (preorder + free month don't give any coins).

[Ingmar]

The variance in price by the way is because the bigger bundles of coins are cheaper in a per coin sense.

[Evildrider]

I'll be keeping my sub, I'm gonna blow all my saved up coins on those cartel packs and then done.

[Ingmar]

I think I might buy a bunch of account inventory/bank unlock things so I don't have to spend any credits on alts 5-16.

[Amaron]

Yeah, things are just generally too high in price it seems like.

The artifact license is the one that makes the least sense.  You'd only really want that at 50.  If you're playing at 50 you're subbing one way or another.

[eldaec]

I really don't understand the strategy here.

They get the stink of desperation associated with "free" to play, but haven't provided a viable, sustainable, or even comprehensible path for microtransaction players. I cannot imagine what sort of player could conceivably want to pick their way through that mess in order to play without subscription. It even seems to create issues with existing players who for some reason now think "F"2P should mean the game is cheaper overall.

If this a story based mmo, why not just have people pay per story, maybe leaving the prologues free.

[Zetor]

It's not f2p, it's a trial. I think they expect 'f2p' people to convert to subscribers once they get annoyed enough by the restrictions. They aren't really expecting old subscribers to come back either (I mean srsly, 150 coins and some grandfathered storage for preordering the game at $60+?).

The only problem is -- when people get annoyed by the restrictions, they tend to quit instead.

[eldaec]

And if they just said that it would make sense to me. Obfuscating the cost of playing in a reasonable way just seems like terrible marketing.

[koro]

Nah, quickbars were always 250... though in practice I'd rather go with the account-level quickbar (at least 1, probably 2). 2 quickbars + artifact unlock are 3780 coins total, that's $27.49 - $42. Where are they getting the dollar prices from (and what's with the huge variance), btw?

The $42 is the actual hard dollar value of the 3780 coins (90 coins per dollar, revealed during the conference call last week with coin pricing details), and I assume $27.49 is how much it costs in dollars if you buy the highest-tier coin packs, which give you a better dollars-to-coins conversion rate.

Edit: In fact, it even says so right at the top of the page:

This tool also helps you determine how many coins it will cost to buy all the items you are interested in and an estimate cost in USD. Low price point is calculated at 137 coins for 1$ exchange rate (what you get when you buy the biggest coin package) and high price point is 90 coins for 1$. Just click on the "Add to wishlist" link and browse away.

Also, I messed around with it a bit, and to get an F2P account as close to parity with a subscriber's account as you can get, it costs 12,650 cartel coins, or between $92.34 and $140.56, depending on the size of the coin packs you buy. After that, it's between $28-42 a month to unlock access to Warzones, Flashpoints, Operations, and space missions. Even then, you're still stuck with only two characters (once they implement that), a strict in-game credit cap (that can only be removed via subscribing), and a hefty XP penalty.

[Amaron]

And if they just said that it would make sense to me. Obfuscating the cost of playing in a reasonable way just seems like terrible marketing.

The cost of playing is easy to see.  You just click on $$$ buttons and quickly understand the cost is subscribing.  There's no way they'll admit it's a trial.  The whole point is to shoehorn in the cash shop.

[Rokal]

The cost to unlock most of the things I feel like I "need" (account-wide unlocks for artifact/event gear, companion tradeskills, UI elements, etc.) adds up to around $50. That's the box cost to buy-in to a relatively complete gameplay experience. I feel pretty comfortable with that, though I'd have felt much better spending $80+ on game content instead.

My wish list at this point would be:

-removing the hotbar limitation entirely for all players, even those that spend nothing
-adding monthly discounted passes for warzones/FPs/OPs.

[Raguel]

What I'd like to do is the ability to share legacy (and maybe coin) across servers. My old EQ/DAoC friends will decide to join  ANY DAY NOW so I want to be able to hit the ground running when I reroll on another server.

[Sjofn]

Tell them to roll on Ebon Hawk, silly!

Actually cross server legacy WOULD be delightful, I have friends on Jedi Covenant. :(

[eldaec]

Another general point on this design, too many of the features you don't start with are necessary to make the game enjoyable. Locking med droids? Seriously?

If the trial isn't fun why the hell would people start to sub.

 Also, this feature nickel and diming is all very well, but every time a microtrans player unlocks a thing they are going to feel that investment is wasted if they sub (rationality be damned) putting another barrier between them and a subscription.

I just don't get it.

[Fordel]

So when they first did the merges, I lost Fordel and renamed myself Fordell (two L's). Now that they did the super mega mergers, I have somehow reclaimed Fordel, as I had that as a level 1 alt name on our original server...



 

As expected:

Unfortunately, at this time server transfers, account to account transfers, name changes, race changes, and legacy changes are not services that we offer. While this may change in the future, currently we are unable to offer assistance with these requests.

 

[Raguel]

Tell them to roll on Ebon Hawk, silly!

Actually cross server legacy WOULD be delightful, I have friends on Jedi Covenant. :(

yeabut I'd want to start over with them and I pretty much already filled up all my slots already. Most of them I think are still on the first planet tho.

[Shatter]

I have one more for their F2P model.  Subs get to keep names, F2P can choose names but if a sub takes it then F2P loses it.  Brilliant I know

[UnSub]

I have one more for their F2P model.  Subs get to keep names, F2P can choose names but if a sub takes it then F2P loses it.  Brilliant I know

That is the most incredibly brilliant, genius-level MENSA-grade stupidity I've ever heard.

EDIT: Is there a link to that info somewhere?

Given how EA has been behaving towards SWOR's F2P, I found it plausible. 

[Amaron]

Locking med droids? Seriously?

Yea that's a pretty fatal flaw.  There's no ghost mode to skip mob packs on your corpse run.  I expect they'll nix it very fast.

EDIT: Is there a link to that info somewhere?

It was a joke.  They aren't actually doing that.

[koro]

And despite a twelve hour downtime:

Today’s server maintenance has been extended with no ETA. We will update as soon as we have more info. Thank you for your patience.

Show of hands, who's surprised? Anyone?

Didn't think so.

[Nebu]

They've had some router issues as well (post Sandy), so it doesn't surprise me given their skeleton crew.  Fortunately, I have a job and it will be up when I get home