I don't see how getting the base client and being allowed to play for as long as you want counts as a "free trial", but sure, whatever you want man. By the same logic the free level of F2P games are also "free trials".
Its no time limit lvl limited trial, WARs had it for years, dont know how you missed it.
This cracks me up so I'll quote Blizzard's adverts on this very site with a lovely ORC holding up the banner for World Of Warcraft to make it simple for all you folks,
OK it says....
World Of Warcraft FREE TO PLAY upto level 20
So what part of the FREE TO PLAY bit is confusing you?
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
No it is not. It's not that I can not do it. I just do not want to. Is it so hard to understand this?
And
1) buy a game and enter your valid game code
2) play free for 30 days
is way simpler and exactly what I do expect to have. Why do I have to open and immediatelly cancel my account to get what I PAID FOR IN ADVANCE?
Because EA/Bioware decided to do it this way to earn a little extra from idiots who forget to cancel their account before it renews and make life more convienient for their customers. This is admittedly more difficult for children who have to convince mommy to give them her credit card number for a game a whole month in advance, or buy a game time card. Welcome to the free market.
People have really ran out of things to complain about. Every day it's a new controversy that just looks really silly to me.
In all my years of mmo gaming I have never seen as big of a freak out about this.
If you think this practice is wrong, that's one thing, and I would say that you have every right to be upset about this policy.
The thing that I think is silly, is to complain about EA doing it, when you should be complaining about the entire industry.
Bioware/EA did not invent this practice yesterday; it has been in place as long as MMOs have been charging monthly fees. It isn't even limited to the MMO or video game industry!
It is unfair to blame the existence of this practice on Bioware or EA or this game. They are simply following an idustry standard that was established many years ago. No matter how much you deny that fact, it is still true. I have done this many times before.
If you want to blame someone, blame every P2P game I've ever seen. Until then, fork over the number and play or don't, it makes no difference to me.
No it is not. It's not that I can not do it. I just do not want to. Is it so hard to understand this?
And
1) buy a game and enter your valid game code
2) play free for 30 days
is way simpler and exactly what I do expect to have. Why do I have to open and immediatelly cancel my account to get what I PAID FOR IN ADVANCE?
Its only a check to varify you are who say you are thats all, you can cancel it 10 seconds after so no charges are taken, it is no more nefarious than that. But of course numpties will grab their tinfoil hats and pitchforks and go on a we've be had rampage whether it is of not.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
I did not know WoW was free i dont realy follow that kind of games sorry for misunstanding hehe.
But i think the difference is that here in europe different rules apply becouse majority here in europe don't have or use creditcards and i know many use gamecards-paypal or bank number here as i see them always in gameshops here those gamecards. With WoW and Darkfall we did not have this kind of rules we jsut had one month and after month finished we needed to active or it auto stopped.
Sure thing, I don't really have any idea how things are done in Europe, but in the US and in my experience, all P2P games require you to setup a subscription with a payment option so it'll autorenew at the end of your included-with-the-game month.
There is barely any difference between the US and Europe regarding payment options and requirements for the free 30 days. Coming from the same country as Forest-nl, if nl stand for Netherlands at least, it is required for any mmo to give up some sort of payment option in order to enjoy the free 30 days. I personally experienced this with both WoW and WaR, and if I'm not mistaken with Aion aswell. It is true that many Europeans don't use creditcards, but this doesn't mean that in europe the 30 free days are available without choosing some sort of payment option beforehand. In order to use the free 30 days in WoW or WaR, I first needed to enter a prepaid gamecard code or fill in the info of my bank account, or some other payment option. In fact, in the case with WoW, I bought it in the early days in which there were no other payment options other than gamecards or creditcards, meaning that I did in fact had to pay for a 2month gamecard before I could enjoy my first 30 days.
Regardless, the OP is being silly. In every MMO the free 30 days require some kind of payment option beforehand, and you don't actually get billed as long as you cancel it before the 30 days end. So there is no problem at alll as the 30 free days are actually included and does not require any actual payment in order to enjoy it.
Why do I have to open and immediatelly cancel my account to get what I PAID FOR IN ADVANCE?
Because believe it or not, it is the simplest way.
The way EA billing system is setup allows to separate each process - account creation, shipping/client download and account activation.
EA does not support SWTOR only, they support many different products with different needs thus system needs to be robust.
Enjoy your game.
Also Fext doesnt realize he paid for access to the game, not the game subscription needed to play, he also read the box which said you needed an active subscription and decided to buy anyway. I dont know some ppl are just either too young to be buying things on their own or lack social awareness.
Why do I have to open and immediatelly cancel my account to get what I PAID FOR IN ADVANCE?
Because believe it or not, it is the simplest way.
The way EA billing system is setup allows to separate each process - account creation, shipping/client download and account activation.
EA does not support SWTOR only, they support many different products with different needs thus system needs to be robust.
Enjoy your game.
Also Fext doesnt realize he paid for access to the game, not the game subscription needed to play, he also read the box which said you needed an active subscription and decided to buy anyway. I dont know some ppl are just either too young to be buying things on their own or lack social awareness.
i don't know, but anyone buying a MMO and not expecting to have to create a subscription to it.. is probably new to the whole MMO thing in general, if this was a game on one of the various consoles i could sort of understand it.. but.. its not.. so.. kind of have to wonder what games has been playing that this credit card business hit them like a tonne of bricks from left field....
Few years ago you absolutely needed to give a cc info to play any mmo. People complained. Some company understood it is maybe not into their favor to upset new customer, so they took this away and let you access their game without any cc info. For some reasons EA/Bioware are not part of those companies and went back to the older model.
Few years ago you absolutely needed to give a cc info to play any mmo. People complained. Some company understood it is maybe not into their favor to upset new customer, so they took this away and let you access their game without any cc info. For some reasons EA/Bioware are not part of those companies and went back to the older model.
Show me which mmo removed this, every mmo needs CC info to get access if its P2P, only F2P with pay 2 win 1000 pounds cash shop dont require your CC to play but require you to pay thousands of pounds to have any fun. So I dont know where you are coming from.
WoW, L2, UO, DAoC, SB, PS, EQ, EQ2, Aion, LOTRO, EVE, all required setup of a sub when I started playing.
Originally posted by Requiamer Few years ago you absolutely needed to give a cc info to play any mmo. People complained. Some company understood it is maybe not into their favor to upset new customer, so they took this away and let you access their game without any cc info. For some reasons EA/Bioware are not part of those companies and went back to the older model.
That isn't the case.
The major difference in what you talk about is the absence of purchase fee, which changes the procedure of creating new accounts and account validation. This usually comes with trial offers or similar program.
Pretty much any game does not have a trial program at release and indeed operates same way as EA/Bioware operates now.
In the end it really is irrelevant what you or I think of people who got into problems because of this whole active-subscription-required-to-play thing. Fact is that a great many people seem to have had problems with it. That's the only important thing here. Of course you could say the customer's wrong and that's their problem. But that's hardly a good business practice.
Saying that it has been like this forever in the MMO world is a bad argument. That doesn't make it better. It only makes it possible for veterans not to get into these sorts of problems. However, I daresay there might also be a whole lot of people that have never played an MMO before SWTOR. After all this is Star Wars and if the Warcraft IP has brought in new MMO players then Star Wars sure as hell has too.
Those people (and others, too) obviously didn't expect it to work like that. For good reasons, too. So I say blame the service, not the customer.
Fact is that a great many people seem to have had problems with it. That's the only important thing here.
Fact? Really? Do you also have a source or backup for such claims?
Well, to be honest I extrapolated that from my social environment and all the whining on the web (boards, twitter etc.). Especially from those people who failed to set up a subscription before that maintenance after which you had queues even on the account page.
Fact is that a great many people seem to have had problems with it. That's the only important thing here.
Fact? Really? Do you also have a source or backup for such claims?
Well, to be honest I extrapolated that from my social environment and all the whining on the web (boards, twitter etc.). Especially from those people who failed to set up a subscription before that maintenance after which you had queues even on the account page.
So could you post those numbers against ppl that are playing and tell us what the ratio is and if its significant or not?
Originally posted by Mundus Well, to be honest I extrapolated that from my social environment and all the whining on the web (boards, twitter etc.). Especially from those people who failed to set up a subscription before that maintenance after which you had queues even on the account page.
You did it wrong then.
What you read on 'internetz' does not make for 'facts'. It isn't in any way representative sample nor reliable source.
I'm not writing a scientific paper here so I quite frankly don't take the source issue that seriously. But I do get that I should be more careful with the word fact around here (or in general rather).
Still: "Fact is that a great many people seem to have had problems with it."
I don't have sources/data to back up that many people in fact have had problems. But I do see indicators that there seem to be quite a number of people who got caught by surprise. Alone the whole account subscription page queue thing is a pretty good one in my opinion. If the whole procedure of setting up a subscription and cancelling it right away was so clearly common knowledge, then I wonder how that mess came about.
Yes, I know people have been informed and all. But seriously? There are enough people (again no sources) that don't even read the damn quest dialogues, so ...
Can you quantify the amount of people that have not been affected?
But yes, that's not what you're trying to say, I think. I've understood that your point is, that it is no proven fact, that many people have had problems. That doesn't negate my original point, though.
Every single one of you whiners who are making this such a big deal should learn how big MMORPGs work....
When WOW launched it REQUIRED CREDIT CARD info, the same thing as swtor does, in order to get the initial 30 days for free (you WERE NOT BILLED untill the 30 free days were gone - it's the same thing with SWTOR). Why WOW decided to scrap this later on is because they had enough players and didn't need to "secure" them selves and by doing that they automatically invited millions of kids. I remember my friend telling me when AoC launched he had to subscribe, again same thing as I discribed. EVE online had the same thing at launch.
So cut the crap and play the game if you want to. It's not like this forum QQing will help you in any way.
And NO! it's not a scam. TBH, they can do whatever they want with their game and yours (read their) accounts because BIOWARE/EA owns every single account made on their website for their game (the same as wow does - it's stated in TOA)...
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life." -------------------------------
Can you quantify the amount of people that have not been affected?
Nope, why would I do that? I am not trying to quantify anything, I say 'some' as the size of the group is unknown. I do not say some few or a few, etc. It is you claiming it is a 'great deal of people'.
Burden of proof is on your shoulders, not mine.
EDIT:
Well, that was your entire point - the issue is of some significant scale.
Yet, you admit yourself you have no data to back up such claims.
Originally posted by MundusI don't have sources/data to back up that many people in fact have had problems. But I do see indicators that there seem to be quite a number of people who got caught by surprise.
So you have no data, yet you know it is 'quite a number'?
I do not want to dig into your post too much as it is one huge pile of failed assumptions and conclusions drawn upon them. I just thought you let it die as: "Ok, I overshoot quite a bit here, sorry."
Can you quantify the amount of people that have not been affected?
Nope, why would I do that? I am not trying to quantify anything, I say 'some' as the size of the group is unknown. I do not say some few or a few, etc. It is you claiming it is a 'great deal of people'.
Burden of proof is on your shoulders, not mine.
EDIT:
Well, that was your entire point - the issue is of some significant scale.
Yet, you admit yourself you have no data to back up such claims.
Originally posted by Mundus
I don't have sources/data to back up that many people in fact have had problems. But I do see indicators that there seem to be quite a number of people who got caught by surprise.
So you have no data, yet you know it is 'quite a number'?
I do not want to dig into your post too much as it is one huge pile of failed assumptions and conclusions drawn upon them. I just thought you let it die as: "Ok, I overshoot quite a bit here, sorry."
Was I wrong...?
Yep, pretty much. Your argument isn't exactly a prime example of the scientific method either.
No reason to be sorry for me. Besides, I never said that I knew it was quite a number, but that it sure looked that way. Apparently I made a bold statement in saying it was a fact that it does. Although this whole discussion isn't that useful.
Obviously there are people (OP) who are not satisfied with how this whole subscription thing works right now. I know a couple of them, boards and twitter seem to be populated by some as well. Their number? Unknown. Doesn't matter that much for the argument, though. The argument merely being that the way it is sucks.
There are people that seem to have accepted the way it is, which, however, doesn't make it right for the other side.
I say I don't want to be forced to provide billing information even before the 30 days I have already payed for passed. This is independent from what the box says. I know what the box says. Who are you to tell me (or anyone else for that matter) that I don't want that or that my desire is "wrong"?
Comments
This cracks me up so I'll quote Blizzard's adverts on this very site with a lovely ORC holding up the banner for World Of Warcraft to make it simple for all you folks,
OK it says....
World Of Warcraft FREE TO PLAY upto level 20
So what part of the FREE TO PLAY bit is confusing you?
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Because EA/Bioware decided to do it this way to earn a little extra from idiots who forget to cancel their account before it renews and make life more convienient for their customers. This is admittedly more difficult for children who have to convince mommy to give them her credit card number for a game a whole month in advance, or buy a game time card. Welcome to the free market.
In all my years of mmo gaming I have never seen as big of a freak out about this.
If you think this practice is wrong, that's one thing, and I would say that you have every right to be upset about this policy.
The thing that I think is silly, is to complain about EA doing it, when you should be complaining about the entire industry.
Bioware/EA did not invent this practice yesterday; it has been in place as long as MMOs have been charging monthly fees. It isn't even limited to the MMO or video game industry!
It is unfair to blame the existence of this practice on Bioware or EA or this game. They are simply following an idustry standard that was established many years ago. No matter how much you deny that fact, it is still true. I have done this many times before.
If you want to blame someone, blame every P2P game I've ever seen. Until then, fork over the number and play or don't, it makes no difference to me.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
Its only a check to varify you are who say you are thats all, you can cancel it 10 seconds after so no charges are taken, it is no more nefarious than that. But of course numpties will grab their tinfoil hats and pitchforks and go on a we've be had rampage whether it is of not.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Make a fake paypal and use that. There's no charge so there's no check.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Shadow's Hand Guild
Open recruitment for
The Secret World - Dragons
Planetside 2 - Terran Republic
Tera - Dragonfall Server
http://www.shadowshand.com
There is barely any difference between the US and Europe regarding payment options and requirements for the free 30 days. Coming from the same country as Forest-nl, if nl stand for Netherlands at least, it is required for any mmo to give up some sort of payment option in order to enjoy the free 30 days. I personally experienced this with both WoW and WaR, and if I'm not mistaken with Aion aswell. It is true that many Europeans don't use creditcards, but this doesn't mean that in europe the 30 free days are available without choosing some sort of payment option beforehand. In order to use the free 30 days in WoW or WaR, I first needed to enter a prepaid gamecard code or fill in the info of my bank account, or some other payment option. In fact, in the case with WoW, I bought it in the early days in which there were no other payment options other than gamecards or creditcards, meaning that I did in fact had to pay for a 2month gamecard before I could enjoy my first 30 days.
Regardless, the OP is being silly. In every MMO the free 30 days require some kind of payment option beforehand, and you don't actually get billed as long as you cancel it before the 30 days end. So there is no problem at alll as the 30 free days are actually included and does not require any actual payment in order to enjoy it.
Because believe it or not, it is the simplest way.
The way EA billing system is setup allows to separate each process - account creation, shipping/client download and account activation.
EA does not support SWTOR only, they support many different products with different needs thus system needs to be robust.
Enjoy your game.
Also Fext doesnt realize he paid for access to the game, not the game subscription needed to play, he also read the box which said you needed an active subscription and decided to buy anyway. I dont know some ppl are just either too young to be buying things on their own or lack social awareness.
i don't know, but anyone buying a MMO and not expecting to have to create a subscription to it.. is probably new to the whole MMO thing in general, if this was a game on one of the various consoles i could sort of understand it.. but.. its not.. so.. kind of have to wonder what games has been playing that this credit card business hit them like a tonne of bricks from left field....
Few years ago you absolutely needed to give a cc info to play any mmo. People complained. Some company understood it is maybe not into their favor to upset new customer, so they took this away and let you access their game without any cc info. For some reasons EA/Bioware are not part of those companies and went back to the older model.
Show me which mmo removed this, every mmo needs CC info to get access if its P2P, only F2P with pay 2 win 1000 pounds cash shop dont require your CC to play but require you to pay thousands of pounds to have any fun. So I dont know where you are coming from.
WoW, L2, UO, DAoC, SB, PS, EQ, EQ2, Aion, LOTRO, EVE, all required setup of a sub when I started playing.
That isn't the case.
The major difference in what you talk about is the absence of purchase fee, which changes the procedure of creating new accounts and account validation. This usually comes with trial offers or similar program.
Pretty much any game does not have a trial program at release and indeed operates same way as EA/Bioware operates now.
In the end it really is irrelevant what you or I think of people who got into problems because of this whole active-subscription-required-to-play thing. Fact is that a great many people seem to have had problems with it. That's the only important thing here. Of course you could say the customer's wrong and that's their problem. But that's hardly a good business practice.
Saying that it has been like this forever in the MMO world is a bad argument. That doesn't make it better. It only makes it possible for veterans not to get into these sorts of problems. However, I daresay there might also be a whole lot of people that have never played an MMO before SWTOR. After all this is Star Wars and if the Warcraft IP has brought in new MMO players then Star Wars sure as hell has too.
Those people (and others, too) obviously didn't expect it to work like that. For good reasons, too. So I say blame the service, not the customer.
Fact? Really? Do you also have a source or backup for such claims?
Well, to be honest I extrapolated that from my social environment and all the whining on the web (boards, twitter etc.). Especially from those people who failed to set up a subscription before that maintenance after which you had queues even on the account page.
So could you post those numbers against ppl that are playing and tell us what the ratio is and if its significant or not?
You did it wrong then.
What you read on 'internetz' does not make for 'facts'. It isn't in any way representative sample nor reliable source.
I'm not writing a scientific paper here so I quite frankly don't take the source issue that seriously. But I do get that I should be more careful with the word fact around here (or in general rather).
Still: "Fact is that a great many people seem to have had problems with it."
I don't have sources/data to back up that many people in fact have had problems. But I do see indicators that there seem to be quite a number of people who got caught by surprise. Alone the whole account subscription page queue thing is a pretty good one in my opinion. If the whole procedure of setting up a subscription and cancelling it right away was so clearly common knowledge, then I wonder how that mess came about.
Yes, I know people have been informed and all. But seriously? There are enough people (again no sources) that don't even read the damn quest dialogues, so ...
Fixed:
"Seems that some people have had problems with it"
1) It is no fact.
2) You can't quantify the amount of people affected.
Can you quantify the amount of people that have not been affected?
But yes, that's not what you're trying to say, I think. I've understood that your point is, that it is no proven fact, that many people have had problems. That doesn't negate my original point, though.
Every single one of you whiners who are making this such a big deal should learn how big MMORPGs work....
When WOW launched it REQUIRED CREDIT CARD info, the same thing as swtor does, in order to get the initial 30 days for free (you WERE NOT BILLED untill the 30 free days were gone - it's the same thing with SWTOR). Why WOW decided to scrap this later on is because they had enough players and didn't need to "secure" them selves and by doing that they automatically invited millions of kids. I remember my friend telling me when AoC launched he had to subscribe, again same thing as I discribed. EVE online had the same thing at launch.
So cut the crap and play the game if you want to. It's not like this forum QQing will help you in any way.
And NO! it's not a scam. TBH, they can do whatever they want with their game and yours (read their) accounts because BIOWARE/EA owns every single account made on their website for their game (the same as wow does - it's stated in TOA)...
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
-------------------------------
Nope, why would I do that? I am not trying to quantify anything, I say 'some' as the size of the group is unknown. I do not say some few or a few, etc. It is you claiming it is a 'great deal of people'.
Burden of proof is on your shoulders, not mine.
EDIT:
Well, that was your entire point - the issue is of some significant scale.
Yet, you admit yourself you have no data to back up such claims.
So you have no data, yet you know it is 'quite a number'?
I do not want to dig into your post too much as it is one huge pile of failed assumptions and conclusions drawn upon them. I just thought you let it die as: "Ok, I overshoot quite a bit here, sorry."
Was I wrong...?
Yep, pretty much. Your argument isn't exactly a prime example of the scientific method either.
No reason to be sorry for me. Besides, I never said that I knew it was quite a number, but that it sure looked that way. Apparently I made a bold statement in saying it was a fact that it does. Although this whole discussion isn't that useful.
Obviously there are people (OP) who are not satisfied with how this whole subscription thing works right now. I know a couple of them, boards and twitter seem to be populated by some as well. Their number? Unknown. Doesn't matter that much for the argument, though. The argument merely being that the way it is sucks.
There are people that seem to have accepted the way it is, which, however, doesn't make it right for the other side.
I say I don't want to be forced to provide billing information even before the 30 days I have already payed for passed. This is independent from what the box says. I know what the box says. Who are you to tell me (or anyone else for that matter) that I don't want that or that my desire is "wrong"?