Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Rumor: makeb update , costing dollars?
Demmi77
Member UncommonPosts: 229
seems a few articles have pointed out the makeb update and f2p and costing more dollars is up in the air at bioware. I am not sure if this is true.
this would be the ultimate slap in the face to the community if they did this.
Comments
It's not really a rumor, since it came from SWTOR Executive Producer Jeff Hickman:
"What (if anything) will subscribers have to pay for after F2P launches?
I wish I had a solid answer for you on that. We’re still in discussion about some of the larger content updates that we’re planning. Great example is the planet Makeb. We’ve talked about Makeb, we have a lot of plans around Makeb. I wish I could give you more details, but I can tell you that I think the playerbase is going to be really, really pleased. More story content. New and interesting things for the players to do. More systems and interesting functions in the game … I can’t go into a lot of detail, but around things like that … This is a pretty big piece (of content). It is probably all that I can say. It is definitely still for discussion whether we sell that to the subscriber or the subscriber gets that for free because it is a big beefy chunk of content."
ref:
http://www.swtor-life.com/video/the-future-of-swtor-jeff-hickman-interview/7112/
It's just disappointing because they are essentially testing the waters to see customers reactions as they evaluate losses & gains. It just shows a complete lack of respect for the people who pay their salaries. If you give in to this DLC payment, then expect to give in to more nickle and diming every time something new is available. Even if EA doesn't follow through, the fact that they even considered paid DLC for 1 cruddy planet is disturbing. We're not talking about an expansion with 10+ zones, 10 dungeons, few new PVP maps, 500 more quests, new gameplay features, new crafting skill, etc. They are offer 1 planet with a few quests and a bunch of dailies.
I was really hoping this game was going to turn around, with EA Bioware adding stuff that couldn't be found in other games .. stuff that reminded me I was playing a SW game (3D free space exploration / combat, casino, arcade, racing, etc). Seeing as how there is absolutely nothing but more rail space missions, instanced PVE/PVP and slews of more dailies for release over the next year, I guess I'm having my interest diminish sort of fast.
Going to a gimped fremium system didn't help, especially when NCSoft proved that online games could be completely free and still be profitable without Pay to Win. Now paying SWTOR subscription + DLC fees + cashshop Pay to Win is going to only bury SWTOR faster. I'm bored and looking more and more at GW2 and considering ordering it .. something to do until ArcheAge or The Repopulation comes out.
Why MMO'ers just can't seem to have a decent game for Star Wars, the most popular IP in the world, eludes me.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Why would this surprise anyone, the game is going freemium NOT F2P, so for them content gating is the way to go.
I played it for some months till I couldn't deal with the stupidness of it all anymore.
for me the best thing it has is lv 10-49 Warzones, 50 WZ suck big time to much gear disparity.
One thing that has always bothered me is this:
Why oh why do I need to go to a bloody mailbox to pick up a message from some NPC ?
all characters carry with them a personal Holocom unit, you wouldn't ask someone with a cellphone to go to the post office to pickup their voicemail or text messages right ?
I can understand the need for it when you need to pickup equipment but NOT for bloody messages !
Angry Joe's Guild Wars 2 video review
Aerowyn's Video Compilation of ALL things Guild Wars 2
@Taugrim explains why the fanbois don't get it
The level 10-49 warzones look like the first casualty to the P2W creep. In the Hickman interview mentioned earlier, he states the the cash shop will be selling Blue gear for the lower levels.
The OP is mainly referring to people having subs and still having to pay for small content updates not the F2P gypsies.
Double dipping subscribers for content is the worst thing you can do ever full stop period /end thread. Cosmetic double dipping is pretty much standard.
Content should be charged at bite sized prices to F2P customers and subscribers always should have full access and then some shop coin thrown in.
Ahnog
Hokey religions are no replacement for a good blaster at your side.
That's not what's going on. Read the second post.
I am of mixed feelings since I do not have enough information about Markeb to make a real judgment. What is it really bringing that's new to the game? I look at LOTRO which has always asked subscribers to buy full on expansions for access to new content but they each typically bring some new feature that is significant to play be it new classes or mounted combat and skirmish soldier use during PVE. Markeb sounds like just a quest pack on that scale and unworthy of additional pay from subscribers. I could certainly see charging a F2P user though.
If you are going to keep a paid tier of service (subscription paying players) in a F2P game environment then you need to reward the people that pay adequately for the dollars. Otherwise, whats the point? Star Trek Online is (regretfully) a good example of a game where their isn’t enough reward for the dollar to keep someone paying a sub fee rather than just using the F2P service.
EA have been double dipping customers for years, it obviously works for them.
+1
hihihi
This game is dying. I wanted to like it. It wasn't the trinity system or the classes, I actually like class based games where the classes have set roles and people need to know how to play. No, it wasn't the engine, people complained about the graphics, but I thought they were acceptable(didn't say good) No sir, it was the content. The content up to 50 was moderately amusing but somewhat shallow. The content after 50 was non existant. I blame this on way too much money on the voice over nonsense. Towards the end I was frantically pounding space bar to skip 99% of it and was getting annoyed in hardmodes when someone didn't space fast enough. That money wouold have served them better being spent on more encounters, raids, AI, and deeper worlds.
Content is what matters in these games, people always get hung up on the way you access the content. Some of it si generational, you younger folks want PC games to play like console games, us older folks were always PC gamers first, most of us anyways. Skill system vs class sytem seems cool, but eventually the min maxers figure out a template or 2 that you must use to be competitive, when that happens you actually have less freedom in character developement than in class based games, and it will happen, it is inevitable. Action based combat is my pet peve, I am not here to discuss its merits, but a sizeable minority of us don't like it, and frankly spazzing around circle straffing while frantically pressing 5 3 4 2 isn't all that realistic or more immersive. No my friends I say to you that if the content is good you won't care about the engine you use to access it. In fact that works both ways I imagine, if the content is good I'd play a skill based game. Action combat may be pusing it, I dont like console action rpgs and don't want my pc games to become them. But you see where I am going, deep immersive content is what these games are lacking now days and that's why they're failing hard.
Back in the days when SWTOR was in mid-production (say, 2009 or so) the model that made the most sense to me for what kind of game they seemed to be going for was:
B2P + a good DLC on a regular basis (say, four times a year). No subs, no cash shop.
Bioware seemed to be going for some online version of KOTOR rather than a standard MMO, where story would rule the day instead of the PVP warzoning and raiding that's prevalent now... So, that seemed to be the natural path to go.
Had they gone that route (or even straight B2P without further announcements), it'd not be so annoying that they were expecting players to pay for additional content that's not on the scale of a classic expansion.
But now... This seems like the ideal move to piss of your remaining subbers.
You get tons of those Cartel Coins, if you have the CE.
However, I still don't get it why don't they go with the LOTRO model, which seems is a pretty neat freemium model in my opinion.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
People keep mistaking f2p for f2p+have fun
I have to add:
While this will surely piss off their current playerbase who have probably paid more than several months' worth of sub fee up to now, the F2P model might actually make it possible for me to hop back in the future. Here's why:
They're making the core story experience free. So I can go back and play a class story I haven't tried, reach cap, and quit, no money spent.
I have a feeling a lot of people will do this. So what does that add up to?
A lot of pissed off fans unsubbing and thus stopping giving them money, and a lot of "new" players who aren't thinking of giving them money anyway.
Bioware, have you actually thought this through?
Why not, they should charge 45$ for "the biggest update ever" from everyone.
Everyone still giving them money deserves that.
After all, those who still play love Bioware so much, why not support them with money?
I mean a normal box price + almost a year's worth of subs. People expect to get something for their sub and rightfully so. "We use it to pay for servers" doesn't really cut it nowadays.
You get tons of cartel coins if you have the CE AND/OR if you have been a subscriber, so anyone thats spent $100 or more will definitely be getting a fair bit.
"tons of", yeah? so how do you end up with that statement? Bioware doesn't even know their prices yet.
Oh let me get it, it's "tons of" because it's a high number. (And ignore the fact that prices could be even a bigger number)
Tons of cartel coins means nothing to me. I had a lifetime sub in lotro so I get 500 TP per month to spend in their store. I deinstalled lotro over a year ago. So both my account and the wife's account is accumulating TP that will never be used in Lotro.
Same with SWTOR you can shower me with cartel coins because we both had the ce, and a 6 month sub. There is no reason to use them. Free to play does nothing for me, if you don't fix the problems that drove me off.
Meanwhile you just go look at torstatus.net and the thread now active again asking for more server merges to realize they are still bleeding subs.
Cartel coins only have value if there is something that you want to "buy".
People who bought the CE edition - well they got all the "extras" in the box so the coins could be seen as a bonus.
People who have subscribed on a regular basis .... well they may feel let down if they have done so because of the "promise" of future content etc. but the promise was an unspecified "trust us and we will do right by you" which makes it tough to say that EA haven't delivered what they said they would - 9 months worth of meaningful content so far.
As to the interview it reminds me of WAR after the 2nd round of staff cuts (about months after launch). The "we have really great plans but we can't tell you about" and "we wil be making presentations about future developments to EA management".
And the plans - clearly - were never signed off. They never happened. Later there was a bit of not much / fluff but that was it.