How did F2P go so wrong?
 

I let my sub drop 2 months ago and was going to come back and check out the F2P option, and man i hit the floor laughing my butt off lol. Man have bioware been paying attention to the market the last few years especially with guild wars 2 and Lord of the rings online out there.

They need to use guild wars 2 but more so lord of the rings online for a guide.
Lord of the rings online lets free players grind like mad for a few hours and unlock everything the paid players get for free. Your ridding skill takes longer as a free player. IN LOTRO you just grind starter area quests for the turbine points to unlock that. Bank tabs and auction house is limited for free players. Well you can grind that out in several hours as well and take that restriction off.

You have a gold cap as a free player in LOTRO guess what you can grind that cap off as well. In LOTRO if your a free player you can play the game to remove your restrictions how about Old republic get a brain and do that.

And yes i do buy items and points to buy other perks in these games. Because guild wars and LOTRO did give me a choice not just make the game so frustrating that i feel that i have to buy these things to compete. Actually i was really happy to buy things from them because they made it so inviting and didnt nerf me so i really wanted to buy this stuff from these guys to say thank you. With so many Competing MMOs out there this isnt the way to win people over to your side. The Dark side is very strong in you EA.

They do that I unsubcribe... F2P should not get the same perks as paying players unless they pay for it. They are not hurting for players right now, and you can finish the game without paying a dime as is. Most of the perks you are talking about, I did not even get as a Sub until I got my first toon leveled and/or my legacy to 50 and that was way more than serveral hours.

Give me stuff for free...NO give me everything for free.:rolleyes:

I also object... I rather have it restricted, than forcing us to grind gring grind.
I am perfectly happy it's no insane grind currently, and I like to keep it that way.

I play for story, not just to grind for hours to be able to do so, thank you very much...

I tried LotRO a long while back before I got into swtor beta in an effort to play my first mmo and see what it was all about. I hated the grinding, in fact, it didn't take me very long to quit the game entirely.

I was expecting some reasonable arguments why TOR's F2P had failed, but nope.

It failed because there were 5 instances on Korriban the other night when I was trying to get my matrix shard. Almost could not see the darn thing for all the un-buffed masses running around. :xp:

Also what does reasonable have to do with a gaming forum? I want my free stuff now. :D

I played the free. It's actually pretty robust for free. All the little things that add upare what got me back subbed. If you want all the perks, sub. it's not that much. If you want the perks without subbing, buy the cartel coins. If you want all the perks with no pay, and massive grinding involved... um... bye.

I'm sure some f2p/pref folks are also playing with a subbed person as well who is helping them make up for any quality of life things f2p doesn't include.

The grinding in lOTRO wasnt that bad it took me like 2 days of playing to unlock everything. And cant see this F2P model as far at all with me having both guild wars 2 and LORD of the rings online. And guild wars 2 has no restrictions at all and its totally free with a much larger and far more detailed more. And the flashpoint restrictions and hot bar restrictions are just plain silly. The game lacked end game content and updates came too late to keep subbing. Hell i paid for like 5 months that i didnt even play because i was so bored of Old republic. This free 2 play model is really new and the most restrictive that ive seen and thats why its not going to work. Yes the story is free but the story is why everyone left the game. They finish the story and say im bored and half the user base left.

Other than the story the max lvl content just wasnt enough to keep me. If im gonna sub ill go back to wow since the last expansion was on sale for 19 dollars which i bought but haven't resubbed yet. I dropped wow for old for 6 months but the game content ran out fast.

Heh. as one of the ones who came back simply because it was free, I can say this. it's a heck of a "Free Demo" Got me to resub. And from the Gen Chat, sounded like a bunch of other folks did too. Those that don't, Oh well. Seriously. You don't have to buy the game to get free gameplay that's restricted. You've got no skin in the game at that point. They don't hit people with the banner ads, or interrupt your gameplay with ads. It's a pretty nice game for free.

I don't understand how people can get through everything so quickly that they've run out of things to do...

They don't have me bugging them to go run go do datacron runs, dailies, daily heroics, hmfps, world bosses and Ops like you do. :xp: There was a time when I was running 3 and 4 Ops a week, I didn't have time for the other class stories becaue I was too busy running Ops and Dailies on 2 toons.

I can understand people saying that there is no after 50 content that I want to do, but saying there is no after 50 content is just silly.

I for one bought the game for the story. Figured I would mess with it a few months and be done, never thought I would do raids beyond a few with friends from this forum. However, I love the social aspect of the game. I love the fact that some content actually requires a fairly cohesive group to finish. Sure most can be PUGed, but do the same content a few times with a regular group and you will never want to go back to a pug again.

Lynk they get through the content so fast because all they care about is the grind. Not the other aspects of what the game offers.

I can understand the grind in other MMOs since there's really not much else, but the difference swtor brings in terms of story and the connections between them are too good to pass up... though I guess the toon limit does hurt that since F2P folks only get 2 slots while subbers get 12...

Either way, experiencing all 8 class stories is something I think everyone should try to do with swtor. Especially when it comes to the Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior stories (and certain flashpoints) in terms of peoples interest in the whole "KotOR III" dynamic.

Also, spacebar

Yeah BioWare should make us all pay 19.99 to unlock the space bar....they would make a killing.

Hate to say it, but I would buy it just for HMFP that I have done over and over and for that alien talk. :xp: I have some friends in the Senate, I am going to get them to pass a law where everyone has to speak basic. :D

*shakes fist @ everyone who spacebars stuff they experience for the first time on swtor*

It's no wonder people are like "what's the point of this game?" They're missing the point because they spacebar through it all.

You can't tell me you don't spacebar the alien talk after you have read the subtitles. I know you hate that as much as me. :D Maybe even more than me.

Yeah, but that's different, I read what they said and then spacebar when appropriate cause sometimes they just do this really awkward pause to let slow people read the subtitles... it breaks the flow.

Ha, yeah, that annoys me. Most of the time I spacebar when I've read it, but sometimes I takes a bit longer and then I spacebar just when the next line begins. Aaargh.

Your spacebar skills are not as attuned as mine.

Meh, I don't care for lvl 50+ raid content. Grind = suck. Enough during the story.
Once I finish my class story it's bye bye character... why do silly reruns and stuff? Never understood that part of MMO gameplay...

Because people like to challenge themselves by co-operating with others in a communal nature on a difficult task that can only be completed by working as a team.

TL;DR

F2P certainly didn't fail from a business POV... I'm subbed anyway, but I spent about £75 on Cartel stuff, that's like a years subscription cost in a day. Bioware are recouping at a rapid rate. I cannot comment on the restrictions as I didn't bother to try and play my un-subbed account.

Yeah, I bought a couple of extra cartel coin packs too... and then realised how much of a killing they're making off of all of this. It's genius yet so stupidly simple.

That's the whole point of F2P really...
A few making up for the rest. And generating lots of money.

While us really free people still serve as help when, say, needing to do a Flashpoint or Heroic and generally populating areas...

It's the ciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiife!!

You seem to be equating Ops to grinding. From my stand point the two are not the same. I have done EV and KP 20 plus times each, at least, but if someone yells tonight to go again, I will jump at the chance. I see something different every time I do a raid. What doesn't change is I will lmao every time. Even in the worse wipefest, I will find something to make me smile. It is just a game, those toons are not real, but the people I am listening to and talking to in voice are real.

I thought that way too, until I actually ran a raid. My first raid where I fell in love with the concept that I thought was stupid, wasn't even with friends. Mav got me to sign up for the raid with Casual Alliance. I didn't know anyone in the group. I was a terrible healer too (even worse than I am now), but by the time we finished I was hooked. Now when someone put up a event I am the first to sign up, when someone is looking for a healer in alliance chat, I jump at the chance. I was a bye, bye person after class story, now I don't even have time to do the stories because I am either doing a raid or working on making my 50 toons better for Ops.

Now dailies and HMFP still feel like grinding to me, but they are quick and painless and needed to make myself better for the real prize Operations. I am not one of those that just do ops for gear either, you can ask Lynk or Mav I may get gear in 1 out of every 10 Ops I do.

When you have people to support you during endgame (which is the entire point) there's not really any grinding done during endgame.

I do believe that's grind, yes.
And I can't even try it to love it if I wanted it, pretty sure operations are only for paid persons. Not that I am anywhere near anyways (lvl 20 now).

And already getting tired of combat...

I haven't done something, no clue about it, but yes it is a grind....Is that seriously what you are say? :rolleyes:

having done my fair share of raids, I can say that most of the time was spent talking, waiting on raid member who's wife needed him for "Just a second" or the "Smoke break" crowd. And the "Dude? You there? Did he drop?"

And honestly, It's more about the fun of it than actual gear. Hanging out with friends(or new friends for the time being). I used to while away the time by interjecting random bad jokes.

"A priest, a Rabbi, a blond and a duck all walk into a bar. The bartender looks at them and says, 'What is this some kind of joke?'"

It's a raid like the Flashpoints, right? The Esselles, the ones with the 6 barriers on the homeship of which I cannot recall the names... etc.
Just called Operation instead...

Right?
So yeah, I can make a decision based on that...

Nope, that's not an Operation. Flashpoints are group missions Like any other Heroic, but with an actual story. And what you're talking about is Hard Mode Flashpoints. Which if you are redoing them all the time for gear, yeah grind.

Yes, but without doing one, you are just making a totally unfounded, uneducated and completely irrational decision, but yes you can make a decision on anything even if it is not based on any facts or knowledge. It just may not be a correct decision. :xp:

Tommycat: AHAHAHAHAH, I died laughing, man :D That's exactly how it is, some guy saying that he has to take time out to "tuck his wife in"... oh man, it's true, it's so true *wipes away tear*

Hassat: An operation is a raid, yes, but it's different from a flashpoint. It involves 8 players with a group usually comprising of two tanks, two healers and four DPS. Since they're endgame, they're only done once you reach level 50 and it requires you to use everything you have learned about your character and their skiils as well as being able to work with those 7 other people in a team to complete the Operation. The name of the game is cooperation, skill and knowledge of their class, other classes and the enemies and challenges you face in the Operation.


Earlier I mentioned that if you're part of a good guild with a lot of great people, then there's really no grinding that needs to be done to get to a point where you're ready for Operations because any grinding that is involved has already been done by someone else. With my Vanguard, the gear I got came slowly, however, months later when I took my Gunslinger into Operations, she ended up getting a tonne of gear all at once because the people around me in my guild were able to support me.

As with everything involving MMOs... it's a social event based around cooperation in a social game... and it's a hell of a lot of fun, especially when you have a good group you're playing with.

I think they only made a few small mistakes with the restrictions in f2p which blew up in their face from a user perspective. People all over the web are saying how poorly implemented it is, and a lot of it isn't even accurate, just because they heard you have to pay to revive or only have x number of action bars. It's still the same game as it was before and if you were a previous subscriber, you just need to subscribe for 1 more month to get enough coins to unlock all those little annoying things. The completely free option is aimed at people trying it for the first time.

I do still think it's too restrictive, not allowing armor color matching or hiding head slot for example, but for casual players that shouldn't matter as much. If you want more, well it's still really a subscription game with a free option. I think the cartel market sucks for current subscribers, there is almost nothing there I'd want to waste my 3,000+ cartel coins on, but from the f2p angle I think it's way overblown.

Changes coming to F2P.

More quick bars

More Character Slots

the quick bars confused the hell out of me i was like WHERE IS THE 2 SIDEBARS??? WTF! lol i am going to just subscribe it's worth it. :)

No need to subscribe, just get prefered status... whenever that patch comes around.

F2P till then ;)

I'll be signing up for clan buisness, and Im looking forward to it, since subbing has always been a pain in the ass or me. Since ive never played any games like WoW or TOR It'll be new for me, with all the extra clickable(?) things :D

On another note, does anyone know what the former player count was and what it is now?