There is a very good chance SWTOR will thrive under the F2P model for many years to come. Sure, many of the overarching game mechanics are flawed, but there's a lot of great content in there.
Let's see, EAware are still incompetent, condescending morons, and Operatives are still nerfed to PVE and PVP uselessness. So no, they haven't fixed the reasons I left at least.
I don't think they have figured that out yet even though everyone else has. The building in Austin is just an echo chamber, otherwise they would have started revamping the game about three months ago.
On the official forums they are talking about space being expanded by 10 new rail missions. Talk about a kick in the dick for all who asked, begged, cajoled, and threatened them to bring in real 3d space.
Going F2P does one thing. It brings in new players that were turned off by the box price and subscription model. The problem is EA's goal is to get people to subscribe. SWTOR should be B2P like GW2.
Originally posted by FrodoFragins Going F2P does one thing. It brings in new players that were turned off by the box price and subscription model. The problem is EA's goal is to get people to subscribe. SWTOR should be B2P like GW2.
alot of games should be B2P. I would own a copy of both TERA and TSW
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
Originally posted by FrodoFragins Going F2P does one thing. It brings in new players that were turned off by the box price and subscription model. The problem is EA's goal is to get people to subscribe. SWTOR should be B2P like GW2.
alot of games should be B2P. I would own a copy of both TERA and TSW
It worked for GW1 and I'm very, very confident it will work for GW2. I still main, however, that P2P ISN'T dead, that the problem WASN'T the subscription for SWTOR. The problem with SWTOR is that SWTOR isn't worth $15 a month. Taking away the $15 a month won't negate the fact that SWTOR is a craptacular game. Yes, it had some great ideas, a couple neat twists on things, yada yada yada.
There are, quite literally, REAL F2P and even a few P2W games out there that are BETTER GAMES than SWTOR.
i think a lot of people just left because SWTOR just isnt that great of a game and they found better over the last few months to fit their playstyles. While I enjoyed SWTOR personally I just got bored of it pretty quickly but I never seen anything glaringly wrong with it either , it was just an okay game nothing great. Its funny I can read a number of books and play single player games and read the story and I love star wars lore. But from day one in SWTOR i was hitting spacebar as the story just could never get me hooked to read more. I wish it could but I just didnt find the writing and story arch on any of the classes exciting.
I think free to play is going to bring in a lot of new players regardless of what they fix. But will it make money? thats where the fixes come in and so we shall see . You can look at all the free to plays now like AOC and EQ2 LOTR online etc and see they did well for a few months with free to play but they do not look so great now with a lot of empty servers running.
People quit because the game wasn't worth a sub fee in its current state. So instead of fixing the game, they remove the sub fee. Gotta love the corporate mindset. Its cheaper and easier to charge less for an inferior product than to rebuild your product in order to make it worth a higher price.
Umm.. the number 1 reason people left is because of the '$15 sub fee'.That's a fact and not 'I don't like XYZ so everyone must hate XYZ!' opinion.So yeah, EA/BW is fixing the number 1 reason people left SWTOR.
Well... Bioware does seem to imply that 40% was the highest single response number. However, lugal does have a point. Bioware really should reveal the full breakdown of feedback.
An example of the breakdown might be... 40% monthy fee - 20% issue #2 - 20% issue #3 and 20% issue #4 --- or ajy variation thereof in which the remaining issues add up to 60%. What are those other issues, and when can we see some work on them?
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1. Crafting still crap and kinda useless to grind. Better to just do gathering skills and sell what you can as you level for the cash. Noone makes low level items after they get pass the point they need to use them to advance and when they do make them most just reverse engineer them back into the mats.
2. Still nerfing profs for pvp balance while not considering that it hurts pve gameplay. If I'm gonna be stuck alone on planets 90 percent of the time I don't want my abilities nerfed because of pvp.
3. I also don't want my tank, dps, or healing companions to be less effective then a player of the same role cause you want me to group with them which turns out to be impossible cause there isn't anyone else on the map with me. Healer Companions are often used cause they function best without as much need to gear them up. They nerfed the tank companions to crap and you gotta do alot of tthe stupid legacy crap to unlock the perks to make them decent again.
4. Letting you get social gear and make it what your profession needs like heavy armor instead of cloth is great. Making you grind social points to get it when it seems most are skipping the lower flashpoints and I can be on a planet for hours without seeing anyone else makes them doing that kinda frecking pointless.
5. Gear again only now Im talking about the regular armors you get throughout the game. You finally find a helmet that looks cool and boom 4 hours later you have to replace it with some freaking clown head gear to get better stats. Make all armor ingame where you can change the stats already.. Seems really simple but they aint figuring it out at all. If that is really to hard to do make a system like DCUO has where once you've collected a piece with a certain look you can always use that look on your character. I know alot don't care about what their toon is wearing most the time but very few want a toon that looks like he just hit the local discount clothes shop with 5 bucks to his name 90 percent of the time.
6. Space is well great a few times through but same missions over and over again every few levels and all in the rail shooter style lacks what I call wanted content. The game is star wars without a full 3D space in it seems kinda retarded add to that, they don't seem to understand ppl don't want different maps they want a 3D space game where you control which way you fly and how long your in the map. I HATE TIMERS!!!.
7. If you want the game to get subs or atleast ppl playing listen to the ppl on the forums instead of ignoring them and acting as if they don't know what they want or they are just insane ppl that have extra time on the computers while staying in the Mental Health Clinic. People usually are truthful about what they want in those threads marked "Things I'd like to see added ingame".
These are a few reasons I left the game. I don't mind paying 15 bucks I just want the game to work well and features that are being asked for put into game instead of waiting to get what the devs think they want added to game next. Im the customer please me not you.
In order to fix the reason most people left in the first place, they'd have to redesign the core of the game and change the entire philosophy behind it.
Originally posted by FrodoFragins Going F2P does one thing. It brings in new players that were turned off by the box price and subscription model. The problem is EA's goal is to get people to subscribe. SWTOR should be B2P like GW2.
alot of games should be B2P. I would own a copy of both TERA and TSW
I totally agree. MMOs these days don't pump out enough content to justify a subscription fee anyway, it isn't like the good old days where you got significant monthly updates.
I would much prefer paid expansions or DLC so that I can decide which content I think is worth purchasing, rather than hoping for the best with a subscription.
Really does make you wonder if its EGO or just that they are clueless. They see all those threads about features and systems needing to be added fixed or redesigned, then they go sit down at a meeting and think that its not their game its the customers just don't want to pay 15 bucks....
Umm.. the number 1 reason people left is because of the '$15 sub fee'.
That's a fact and not 'I don't like XYZ so everyone must hate XYZ!' opinion.
So yeah, EA/BW is fixing the number 1 reason people left SWTOR.
Actually OP that isn't the direct reason, they left because the content wasn't WORTH the subscription. I'm no fan of subs but lets be honest here.
the problems with this game go deeper then just poor launch. It's the same old 2004 feature list all over again with a little tweak to the gear but not enough to make the gear treadmill in any way fun.
Cookie Cutter Builds, ten million abilities, macro button fighting (trust me my roommate was all about macros when i tried it), gear treadmill (might not be as familiar as most things but trust me there's still an elitest gear requirement to do anything fun), nonimmersive worlds, dailies. There's really nothing more to say other then, it's all the same stuff we've seen end game (oh yeah, end game, so that people rush to the end to do anything meaningful or fun almost forgot that one), no solo or duo dungeons, the holy trinity, static lobby style LFG end game.
For my part, no amount of free will ever change the fact that the gameplay was boring and uninspired. F2P won't make me go back, for sure.
The man responsible for this WoW skills copy paste, Georg Zeller, he was fired sure .. but the amount of needed work to rebuild entirely original & entertaining combat skill mechanics is unrational. Especially since they're nearly shutting the big revenue source down now.
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Originally posted by Darthconnor Really does make you wonder if its EGO or just that they are clueless. They see all those threads about features and systems needing to be added fixed or redesigned, then they go sit down at a meeting and think that its not their game its the customers just don't want to pay 15 bucks....
I think its more a case of just being clueless to the requirments of modern MMO's. Most of the higher ups in the SWTOR dev team came from SOE with some Mythic folks added to the mix further down the line.
SOE games from EQ1 up to DCUO all suffer from exactly the same issues SWTOR does..
1) Rushed out the door way to early
2) Missing content and features that should of been in the game at release
3) Bug fixes taking way to long and then those fixes causing other bugs
4) Major lack of PvP balance
5) Taking forever for new content to be added to the game
6) Total lack of respect towards the customer
Sadly those in charge just haven't wised up to the fact that there is a huge choice of MMO's on the maket now with more coming out every few months and players just wont pay a sub fee and stick around in a crap game anymore.
I left because Ilum was crap, the stories were not very good, crafting was totally pointless, and really just over all the game was exactly the samething that has been done for years and years.
Unless they totally redesign the entire game I see no reason to ever install it again.
I, sadly, agree in full.
The combat (PvE) is just awful.
PvP the combat isn't too bad, but it's entirely gear based (which makes it awful.)
PvE 10+ is balanced for Companions, and that kind of explains (to me) without a doubt why I had SO much more fun with the game and combat 1-10 than I did 11-50 (especially 30-50).
PvE balanced for Companions sucks. Plain and simple, it's boring, tedius, entirely too slow for Star Wars, and just a horrid grind.
2) Missing content and features that should of been in the game at release
3) Bug fixes taking way to long and then those fixes causing other bugs
4) Major lack of PvP balance
5) Taking forever for new content to be added to the game
6) Total lack of respect towards the customer
I think you just nailed several major releases in the last 5 years. WAR for example.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
Just fixing the price point of a game is not going to fix why folks left. All one has to do is look at the host of the many problems that folks left the game for.
(1) The number one reason why folks left is they was the lack of content. Once you got to 50 you ran out of stuff to do other than grind or do operations and with half the operations bugging out well that left you grinding dailies.
(2) Another reason is folks were bored, After I hit my fourth alt to 50, I was like omg I can not run that quest again. While I found the class story arcs great, the rest of it was just repetition, and after you raised alts you become alt out in a since.
(3) The price point never bothered me I paid for a 6 month sub, only played 3 months of it. Again boredom had set in.
(4) Space on rails, so they are getting new space missions it is still star-fox space on rails missions. We want real space combat like in JTL jump to light speed for those non swg folks
(5) Broken operations. Eternity vault anybody?? You ever down SOA only to have him come back alive, ever had him bug out because the tank got into a mind trap, or somebody fell through the floor. All the bugs in this game totally ignored, and were ignored during beta.
(6) lies and broken promises. What happened to the 500 planets, what happened to 1.3 million subs. So forth and so on, little hard to trust them at this point. This is the same kind of bs that got Turbine into trouble.
(7) Lack of content, and content updates. Does anybody really believe the lie that they are going to do content updates every 6 weeks, if so lets talk about the coastal-land in Kentucky I have for sale.
(8) It has to be fun, well after 4 alts it became unfunny. Now everybody has their own definition of fun. I think ea/bioware misread what I had to say when I unsubbed. I did say it was not worth the 15 bucks, but I said I would not be back until they fixed the problems. In fact I ran out of room on the exit survey to tell them all the problems they needed to fix.
Yes the game is not worth 1 red cent for me to play, and free to play still does not make it worth anything.
Can ea/bioware pull off what turbine did , I don't know. LOTRO was a way better game when it went free to play and had 5 times the ammount of content in it that game than what swtor has lately. I just don't think that swtor is positioned the way some of these other pay to play games were when they went free to play.
I left because Ilum was crap, the stories were not very good, crafting was totally pointless, and really just over all the game was exactly the samething that has been done for years and years.
Unless they totally redesign the entire game I see no reason to ever install it again.
Agreed. Overall the game very much sub par, not worth the monthly sub and as of right now, not worth the download and my hardrive space.
Originally posted by Gdemami Originally posted by MidBossNo, what is likely going on here is people wrote "This game is not worth a monthly payment".
Along the same argument you used just paragraph above: Those did no have to buy the game in the first place?
If the cost is $0 for the personal story content, I might actually download and play the game again. That's really all I was interested in seeing in the first place.
In fact, if I could play the game doing nothing but the class story content, companion content, and space combat, I'd definitely play the game. I'd even consider paying for it.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Well cool. They're turning the dial to free to play, but who cares? I think a lot of people are looking past the fact that even though it is going free, they still have not really addressed the reason why people left in the first place. I sincerely believe that if they just addressed the reasons, and invited the early adopters back, they would be much more successful. But instead they are practically keeping the same formula, design and content.
I really have not seen anything like "well patch SWTOR 2.0 Free to Play model is going to have this list of changes". Nothing. It sadly seems like they're just going to extend the life of the game enough to get what money they can before finally turning out the lights.
I hate to bring WoW into this but the reason their numbers declined is because they failed to retain the customers they had, while they focused on bringing new ones in. If SWTOR goes the same route, and does not improve the content, then highly doubt this massive budget project can sustain itself. Sure you will have the curious people, and the kids who can't afford the monthly fee, but the money is in the people who bought the game and decided it was not fun.
We want to like this game again BioWare.
That depends, on what "peoples" reasons for leaving were. I may have had different reasons for leaving than you did, as did many others, and many others may share your reasons for leaving but find mine unimportant. If they would have had constant fairly speedy updates like Trion did in the beginning, I would probably still be playing, but that may not be why you left.
Comments
I don't think they have figured that out yet even though everyone else has. The building in Austin is just an echo chamber, otherwise they would have started revamping the game about three months ago.
On the official forums they are talking about space being expanded by 10 new rail missions. Talk about a kick in the dick for all who asked, begged, cajoled, and threatened them to bring in real 3d space.
They don't get it.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
alot of games should be B2P. I would own a copy of both TERA and TSW
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
It worked for GW1 and I'm very, very confident it will work for GW2. I still main, however, that P2P ISN'T dead, that the problem WASN'T the subscription for SWTOR. The problem with SWTOR is that SWTOR isn't worth $15 a month. Taking away the $15 a month won't negate the fact that SWTOR is a craptacular game. Yes, it had some great ideas, a couple neat twists on things, yada yada yada.
There are, quite literally, REAL F2P and even a few P2W games out there that are BETTER GAMES than SWTOR.
i think a lot of people just left because SWTOR just isnt that great of a game and they found better over the last few months to fit their playstyles. While I enjoyed SWTOR personally I just got bored of it pretty quickly but I never seen anything glaringly wrong with it either , it was just an okay game nothing great. Its funny I can read a number of books and play single player games and read the story and I love star wars lore. But from day one in SWTOR i was hitting spacebar as the story just could never get me hooked to read more. I wish it could but I just didnt find the writing and story arch on any of the classes exciting.
I think free to play is going to bring in a lot of new players regardless of what they fix. But will it make money? thats where the fixes come in and so we shall see . You can look at all the free to plays now like AOC and EQ2 LOTR online etc and see they did well for a few months with free to play but they do not look so great now with a lot of empty servers running.
People quit because the game wasn't worth a sub fee in its current state. So instead of fixing the game, they remove the sub fee. Gotta love the corporate mindset. Its cheaper and easier to charge less for an inferior product than to rebuild your product in order to make it worth a higher price.
Well... Bioware does seem to imply that 40% was the highest single response number. However, lugal does have a point. Bioware really should reveal the full breakdown of feedback.An example of the breakdown might be... 40% monthy fee - 20% issue #2 - 20% issue #3 and 20% issue #4 --- or ajy variation thereof in which the remaining issues add up to 60%. What are those other issues, and when can we see some work on them?
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1. Crafting still crap and kinda useless to grind. Better to just do gathering skills and sell what you can as you level for the cash. Noone makes low level items after they get pass the point they need to use them to advance and when they do make them most just reverse engineer them back into the mats.
2. Still nerfing profs for pvp balance while not considering that it hurts pve gameplay. If I'm gonna be stuck alone on planets 90 percent of the time I don't want my abilities nerfed because of pvp.
3. I also don't want my tank, dps, or healing companions to be less effective then a player of the same role cause you want me to group with them which turns out to be impossible cause there isn't anyone else on the map with me. Healer Companions are often used cause they function best without as much need to gear them up. They nerfed the tank companions to crap and you gotta do alot of tthe stupid legacy crap to unlock the perks to make them decent again.
4. Letting you get social gear and make it what your profession needs like heavy armor instead of cloth is great. Making you grind social points to get it when it seems most are skipping the lower flashpoints and I can be on a planet for hours without seeing anyone else makes them doing that kinda frecking pointless.
5. Gear again only now Im talking about the regular armors you get throughout the game. You finally find a helmet that looks cool and boom 4 hours later you have to replace it with some freaking clown head gear to get better stats. Make all armor ingame where you can change the stats already.. Seems really simple but they aint figuring it out at all. If that is really to hard to do make a system like DCUO has where once you've collected a piece with a certain look you can always use that look on your character. I know alot don't care about what their toon is wearing most the time but very few want a toon that looks like he just hit the local discount clothes shop with 5 bucks to his name 90 percent of the time.
6. Space is well great a few times through but same missions over and over again every few levels and all in the rail shooter style lacks what I call wanted content. The game is star wars without a full 3D space in it seems kinda retarded add to that, they don't seem to understand ppl don't want different maps they want a 3D space game where you control which way you fly and how long your in the map. I HATE TIMERS!!!.
7. If you want the game to get subs or atleast ppl playing listen to the ppl on the forums instead of ignoring them and acting as if they don't know what they want or they are just insane ppl that have extra time on the computers while staying in the Mental Health Clinic. People usually are truthful about what they want in those threads marked "Things I'd like to see added ingame".
These are a few reasons I left the game. I don't mind paying 15 bucks I just want the game to work well and features that are being asked for put into game instead of waiting to get what the devs think they want added to game next. Im the customer please me not you.
I totally agree. MMOs these days don't pump out enough content to justify a subscription fee anyway, it isn't like the good old days where you got significant monthly updates.
I would much prefer paid expansions or DLC so that I can decide which content I think is worth purchasing, rather than hoping for the best with a subscription.
Actually OP that isn't the direct reason, they left because the content wasn't WORTH the subscription. I'm no fan of subs but lets be honest here.
the problems with this game go deeper then just poor launch. It's the same old 2004 feature list all over again with a little tweak to the gear but not enough to make the gear treadmill in any way fun.
Cookie Cutter Builds, ten million abilities, macro button fighting (trust me my roommate was all about macros when i tried it), gear treadmill (might not be as familiar as most things but trust me there's still an elitest gear requirement to do anything fun), nonimmersive worlds, dailies. There's really nothing more to say other then, it's all the same stuff we've seen end game (oh yeah, end game, so that people rush to the end to do anything meaningful or fun almost forgot that one), no solo or duo dungeons, the holy trinity, static lobby style LFG end game.
For my part, no amount of free will ever change the fact that the gameplay was boring and uninspired. F2P won't make me go back, for sure.
The man responsible for this WoW skills copy paste, Georg Zeller, he was fired sure .. but the amount of needed work to rebuild entirely original & entertaining combat skill mechanics is unrational. Especially since they're nearly shutting the big revenue source down now.
***** Before hitting that reply button, please READ the WHOLE thread you're about to post in *****
I think its more a case of just being clueless to the requirments of modern MMO's. Most of the higher ups in the SWTOR dev team came from SOE with some Mythic folks added to the mix further down the line.
SOE games from EQ1 up to DCUO all suffer from exactly the same issues SWTOR does..
1) Rushed out the door way to early
2) Missing content and features that should of been in the game at release
3) Bug fixes taking way to long and then those fixes causing other bugs
4) Major lack of PvP balance
5) Taking forever for new content to be added to the game
6) Total lack of respect towards the customer
Sadly those in charge just haven't wised up to the fact that there is a huge choice of MMO's on the maket now with more coming out every few months and players just wont pay a sub fee and stick around in a crap game anymore.
I, sadly, agree in full.
The combat (PvE) is just awful.
PvP the combat isn't too bad, but it's entirely gear based (which makes it awful.)
PvE 10+ is balanced for Companions, and that kind of explains (to me) without a doubt why I had SO much more fun with the game and combat 1-10 than I did 11-50 (especially 30-50).
PvE balanced for Companions sucks. Plain and simple, it's boring, tedius, entirely too slow for Star Wars, and just a horrid grind.
According to EA data it is 40% of the people who left.
I think you just nailed several major releases in the last 5 years. WAR for example.
Just fixing the price point of a game is not going to fix why folks left. All one has to do is look at the host of the many problems that folks left the game for.
(1) The number one reason why folks left is they was the lack of content. Once you got to 50 you ran out of stuff to do other than grind or do operations and with half the operations bugging out well that left you grinding dailies.
(2) Another reason is folks were bored, After I hit my fourth alt to 50, I was like omg I can not run that quest again. While I found the class story arcs great, the rest of it was just repetition, and after you raised alts you become alt out in a since.
(3) The price point never bothered me I paid for a 6 month sub, only played 3 months of it. Again boredom had set in.
(4) Space on rails, so they are getting new space missions it is still star-fox space on rails missions. We want real space combat like in JTL jump to light speed for those non swg folks
(5) Broken operations. Eternity vault anybody?? You ever down SOA only to have him come back alive, ever had him bug out because the tank got into a mind trap, or somebody fell through the floor. All the bugs in this game totally ignored, and were ignored during beta.
(6) lies and broken promises. What happened to the 500 planets, what happened to 1.3 million subs. So forth and so on, little hard to trust them at this point. This is the same kind of bs that got Turbine into trouble.
(7) Lack of content, and content updates. Does anybody really believe the lie that they are going to do content updates every 6 weeks, if so lets talk about the coastal-land in Kentucky I have for sale.
(8) It has to be fun, well after 4 alts it became unfunny. Now everybody has their own definition of fun. I think ea/bioware misread what I had to say when I unsubbed. I did say it was not worth the 15 bucks, but I said I would not be back until they fixed the problems. In fact I ran out of room on the exit survey to tell them all the problems they needed to fix.
Yes the game is not worth 1 red cent for me to play, and free to play still does not make it worth anything.
Can ea/bioware pull off what turbine did , I don't know. LOTRO was a way better game when it went free to play and had 5 times the ammount of content in it that game than what swtor has lately. I just don't think that swtor is positioned the way some of these other pay to play games were when they went free to play.
Agreed. Overall the game very much sub par, not worth the monthly sub and as of right now, not worth the download and my hardrive space.
Along the same argument you used just paragraph above: Those did no have to buy the game in the first place?
It is the "sub" that people leave for. Not in and of by itself, but because "I wont pay for crap.".
Many will pick up and play the F2P, but I would imagine that EA will put the features that are workable into the cash shop.
Along the same argument you used just paragraph above: Those did no have to buy the game in the first place?
If the cost is $0 for the personal story content, I might actually download and play the game again. That's really all I was interested in seeing in the first place.
In fact, if I could play the game doing nothing but the class story content, companion content, and space combat, I'd definitely play the game. I'd even consider paying for it.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
That depends, on what "peoples" reasons for leaving were. I may have had different reasons for leaving than you did, as did many others, and many others may share your reasons for leaving but find mine unimportant. If they would have had constant fairly speedy updates like Trion did in the beginning, I would probably still be playing, but that may not be why you left.