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How do you think F2P would actually WORK?
Grand_Nagus
Member UncommonPosts: 335
We've all heard the rumors about TOR going F2P. But how do you think it would actually WORK in TOR? What parts of the game would be free and what parts would have to be purchased?
Comments
B2p or go to hell.Life has far more better things to do than paying for pixels
BTP is really off the table, you need initial hype and good word of mouth to get good box sales. As is they cannot sell boxes because of bad word of mouth. More than likely Cash-Shop for certain tiered gear sets, probably entry level PVE and PVP sets, access to certain dungeons and pvp types. Maybe even pay to unlock areas like Runescape does? But they are really dealing with Ground Zero right now and have no chance of competing with GW2 for Box sales.
Actually, I still think B2P is a good bet for SWTOR. I hold that this game isn't worth the sub, but what you'd get for a standard $60 box fee is at least as much as a typical sRPG, likely much more. The storytelling alone makes it worth at least two playthroughs, and after that you could shelve the game if you want and still feel like you got your money's worth. Throw in a little cosmetic item mall and some exp boosters or whatever to keep the game alive and going for those that continue playing, and I think the game would do much better than it's doing right now.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Well here is the problem, most of the people who bailed out are waiting on GW2 boxes to go on sale. So it wont sell boxes until after that. Then if GW2 is even half the game it is supposed to be ( it is). Then it will have to compete with GW2 being an older game with bad word of mouth. They are just setting another bar thats hard to reach, they will actually have to sell MORE boxes than they wanted to at Launch to even break even. No I think they will have to Severely abuse the Cash Shop to make up lost revenue.
swtor broke records for box sales .. didnt it? they didnt sell it for $20 or something .. the people that bailed wouldnt be buying new boxes. If B2P is an option it basically means the game is F2P until the next expansion at this point. Which they wouldnt do .. until the next expansion most likely .. at least not without offering some F2P cash shop stuff ..
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
here's my thought on free to play SWTOR...
The store will consist of textures... and if you dnt buy the textures all you get are green screens like the latest movies :P
hirez textures? /holds breath
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
hmmm now theres a thought.... but knowing EA they would charge even more for the hi res ones...
It'll prolly work out like DDO, and LOTRO....you'll have content locked out for free players like Jedis and the Zones that drop the best of gears, in PvP they'll be so underpowered it'll force them to pay something. The Box owners will get a tad more reprieve as they will not require much in the form of buying anything for the launch of f2p, and will have option to continue their subscription.....
That'll be the start, then will come the expansions....and everyone will pay for something...quite possibly even the subscribers....
It won't work and EA/Biowares officially admitting they are considering it means that they are going to do it in the near future.
People are already unwilling to pay a monthly sub for SWTOR and going F2P is not going to change the fact that it is one of the worst games released in the past couple of years.
Somehow I suspect that people are not going to shell out cash-shop money for more voice overs when the game has an amazing amount of design flaws and lack of basic features.
For F2P?
I guess the question is 'what would people pay for'?
- appearance. Move the entire 'social' tab into micropayments.
- speeder license.
- inventory/ship/bank unlocks.
- high level planets. (planets beyond level ?40? could be unlocked once for a micropayment).
- micropayment additonal/bonus content.
- if there is actually a plan to upgrade ship combat, micropayment that.
- "exp boosters" etc.
- possibly high level crafting material.
- fleet recall thingies.
etc.
My own view is that B2P is more reasonable for SWTOR than F2P, but whichever works for them I guess.
Add lock-boxes to "win" your own Corellian Cruiser and I think you just described Star Trek: The Old Republic.
I agree with all of your list except possibly the high-level planets. I can definitely see them adding rainbow-colored light sabers and that kind of trash to a cash shop; I never liked the game but I really do sympathize with those who do about how it might be affected by F2P.
They should do a profit sharing model instead. The longer you sub or more that you buy on cash shop gets you a portion ownership of stock. Get more people to play and you have a pyramid scheme.
next generation of MMO business models.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
No. I hope F2P nails the damn coffin so another company can pick up SW and do it right.
"Everything is mine and your woman too"
For a F2P cash shop to work you need to program in fustrations, then offer the solution for a price.
This would probably go the pay per content route perhaps, with a bunch of goofy deco crap in the cash shop.
Also they could limit the companions to just your starter one then sell the rest, or perhaps introduce new OP companions that make the current ones obsolete.
Also all kinds of deco pets, the game has the lore to support it...get R2D2 to follow you or whatever.
Either way going f2p is going to piss off the current players, drive guranteed funds away, then introduce the global gaming community, a majority of which wont pay a dime ever and will complain en mass for more free player benefits...the chat will be spammed with several diffrent languages and the game will never be the same. Happens...
I think the best route is to steal the Funcom business model...make the origional content completely free like a trial, add in deco crap and xp potions...release expansion that makes anything free worthless, charge box+sub for content in expansion. Watch the paying community dominate and ridicule the free community into subbing. Oh and once you go p2p you cant go back. Goal here is to get free players to pay a very small fee for xp potions which will get them to endgame faster which will highlight how they need to pay to compete for better expansion gear/instances and possibly the final 10 levels. Works pretty good imo...i mean anarchy online is still chugging along with this...as is AoC.
like a ship .. we'll call it The Titanic
in an ocean (ok you got me i have no idea where the Titanic went down).
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
The game is already setup for F2P. It's the first thing I thought when I logged in at release.
From the crafting materials to gear to legacy.
They were prepared for it.
People that pre-ordered should get entire store free of charge.
do you buy music? life has far more better things to do than paying for noises so tahts no reason to not pay. Paying to get the pixels is fine, paying to play with them is bad so I do agree with you that B2P is the way to go (for every sub based mmo IMO).
The could try the Guild Wars B2P model. That was incredibly successful. This is right out of the 4Q2008 NCSoft financial statements:
Sept, 2006 Dec, 2006 Mar, 2007 Jun, 2007 Sept, 2007 Dec, 2007 Mar, 2008 Jun, 2008 Sept, 2008 Dec, 2008
# of Accounts activated
2 ,447,000 3 ,122,000 3 ,555,000 3 ,917,000 4 ,500,000 4 ,878,000 5 ,159,000 5 ,377,000 5 ,589,000 5 ,803,000
They released in 2005, but the table only goes from September 2006 to December 2008. During that period they added 3.4 million new customers. At the end of 2008, and for a long time there after, this was the #2 MMO in the west. Even a couple of months ago it would still crawl into the top-10 from the 11-20 range. From December 2008 through June 2012, they added another 1.2 million customers. And, yes, in 2008 they added the "trilogy" so it's not like they sold 7 million of each campaign plus 7 million of the Eye of North XPAC separately. But it's never been F2P and the complete game still costs $30 in the NCSoft store.
But I don't think SWTOR can do that. Simply put, they're not charting anymore. It usually takes 7,500 sales a week to chart in at 100. For example, Storm Lover Kai!I came in 99th with 7,583... So B2P... I just don't see it being even remotely viable. This game is just not attracting much in the way of new players and most of the old players who've left don't obviously think much of the game and wouldn't add to any revenue stream if they came back.
So I think the only viable solution is they go F2P cash-shop plus charge a box price for major, major expansions -- like DDO or LOTRO. Get people in at low-cost, low-commitment and sell vanity items, inventory unlocks, skill unlocks, character slots, new races, 'adventure packs,' pets, dyes plus some will sub to 'upgrade' their accounts... DDO died almost immediately and the F2P + cash shop revived it and it's more robust now, including multiple excellent expansions, than it was in the sub-days when everyone fled... LOTRO did well as a sub game from 2007 through 2010, though was never a huge success. In 2010 subs started dropping they went F2P and and Turbine tripled it's revenue.
And both games got better. Purists whine, but I'm telling you flat-out I was in both... Before F2P you couldn't do anything but solo. After F2P, both games became viable. You could finally do stuff with other people.... Before F2P, in LOTRO, I'd been stuck in the Moria campaign for four weeks. Couldn't get a key quest done. Almost no players at my level and at that part of the quest, plus there was only a half-dozen people in my guild, half of whom weren't on at any one time... After F2P I was done weeks after the swell of new players hit Moria and went off to Mirkwood.
Alas for SWTOR, I don't see EA doing it. EA killed Warhammer (closed 98% of its servers due to population loss) rather than go F2P in any material fashion. I can see them doing the same to SWTOR. The guy who runs EA is a moron. So is the board of directors. Let's face it, the guy marketed frozen desserts and Chlorox bleach before he got his chance to run EA into the ground. And he may have been great at marketing bleach, but this isn't the same kind of oligopolistic staples market. There's way too much competition here and he's not up to it.
No. It was a recording artifact. From July 1 through December 15th they sold 890K. On December 20th they said "hey, look, 890K sales!"
As an accountant, that stuff just ticks me off to no end. It's a lie based on an accrual accounting artifact. If they were cash-basis, they'd have recognized all those sales as they received the cash and we'd have good sense of their early-pre-launch sales.
BTW, that goes for all pre-orders. SWTOR isn't the only game to make BS claims like that. It just totally frosts me.
Get access up to a certain level, then buy the client from the online store at 50$ to go further.
Then any kind of cash-shop malarky that EA can come up with.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
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Well first off legacy is made for micro transactions. all you would have to do is link a button on the new cathar race which will be added through legacy and charge 10 bucks to unlock it.
Then I would start linking everything else in legacy to TORcash which you have to buy from origin store and there you go. the rest of the games systems are very easy to work in a way to charge for XP gains again legacy. but content and the ability to have alts as a companion can be on the TOR cash store. plus if you hate the darkside look you get at max darkside point's? buy darth malgus darkside look for 20 bucks.
Black lightsaber crystals 10 bucks. all those neat companion looks you can buy with credits are nothing. the cash store will have a ton of new ones you can't find in game for 15 bucks a piece.
new speeders that seat 4 people 50 bucks.
They knew they would have MT's from before the game even launched. legacy is proof of that little sneaky feature that links all the perks how interesting.
Aion. Do that.