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[Column] Star Wars: The Old Republic: SWTOR Livestream Q&A Thoughts
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
BioWare recently conducted a livestream Q&A on Star Wars: The Old Republic's free-to-play option and the future of the game. In this week's SWTOR column, we offer a breakdown of what we learned during the Q&A along with our thoughts.
On the F2P front, anyone who is actively playing the game since it has gone free-to-play has definitely noticed a significant pick-up in the game’s population. Of course, BioWare was eager to play this up by highlighting that the growth has “blown away” their expectations. Spin? Truth? Who knows, but the game has definitely been livelier as of late; that much is certain.
Read more of Michael Bitton's SWTOR Livestream Q&A Thoughts.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
Cathar? As in Juhani from KotOR 1?
I'm very glad to hear that about the quickslot bars--that's a huge impediment to play. The other things sound good as well, though I'll hold my opinion on open-world pvp till I see it--just never seems to work very well in these graphically intensive games.
As for putting guild features on the backburner--I can understand that. They have to put in cash content first or the game won't survive the accountants at EA.
Apply lemon juice and candle flame here to reveal secret message.
i would love to see some actual data on how much money they are making off the market from new accounts created because i believe this is just all hype as they have lied so much in the past about sub numbers and active accounts . I think honestly that a lot of people who were on the fence with this title now have been playing it for free.
Warfronts do not pop any faster on the ebon hawk , nor do dungeons on dungeon finder. I see players yes but how many of them are not dropping a dime on this game? Also on Ebon Hawk at primetime we only have 2 fleet instances and ive never EVER on any planet seen more than 2 instances going of it at the same time and that was only during primetime hours. Maybe other servers are different but people on here saying there are 4 and 5 instances of fleet i honestly think are full of it here.My shard says full or very heavy all the time like the rest.
Yup!
Yes, Juhani was a Cathar. I do think that Bioware will need to work on the models a bit before releasing the new race.
All of the stuff covered here is great. I am happy to have my new quick bars. I haven't seen my increased character slots yet, but that's alright. I can survive for now.
As a whole, I think F2P has really helped SWTOR. The new player base has injected some life into the game and I really am enjoying myself. I honestly haven't found F2P all that restricting, even on my level 50 character.
I am really looking forward to the new race, though I do hope they introduce more. Guess I'll have to buy the new one when it comes to make sure they do more. I would also love to see some more lightsaber crystals on the market. I don't dig the yellow orange.
Overall, I'm happy with the whole thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtTg8FSNbmU
View more silliness at http://www.youtube.com/thehiveleader
For starters they can't listen to free to play players, as they are second class citizens and can not post on swtor official forums, they are just hering what some of the folks who can post are saying, they sure are not listing to those of us over here.
Second they are saying the wrods staraging, lol. They are up according to torstatus.net but not stagering. I still see a lot of servers in the medium status according to the torstatus.net.
I have to say they still have not fixed the reasons why I left swtor, until then I just can't see going back, they sure did not listen to us back then about what was wrong, and have not listed to any of that feedback.
In the end my time (lets say 1-2 hours a day) is worth much more then say the 50 cent a day a subscription would cost) and while SW:Tor wa fun for month thwey in the last year have added almost nothing to its strong points. (ie IMO its a story based game)
Instead of actually adding meaningfull content the devs blamed the subscription model for poor player retention. Sorry but IMHO the Ea/bioware Devs seem cluesless and are listening to marketing rather then any actual player input.
the characters slot will be increase in a future patch, but we don't know it yet
You mean species.
Race is an accepted term for that... If you didn't know that than you must not know MMOs that well...
Smile
I see a lot of talk talk talk. Time to see if they can walk the walk.
I have extreme doubts about their ability to put out any type of meaningful open worlf pvp. The engine is just horrible for it.
Aye. Regardless of how many awesome features/content SWTOR has/adds, or any game for that matter, if it lags like hell even on a current gen beast PC, its worthless.
Of course the company will only say something good about it......I doubt it blew away their expectations I think they expected more then what they recieved for F2P who knows.......
and IMO, the only good/great superduper awesome OPvP takes place in a sandbox mmo, doesn't belong in themepark, I rather they never do a reboot on llum or make that whole planet pve oriented.
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
As true as that might be most of your fellow PVp:ers does not see it that way and demands that every last game have a PvP element and that it is so awesome that it sucks your eyeballs out... That is why they are dissapointed most of the time... But at least they avoid going blind.
This have been a good conversation
Ilum.....still dead and dysfunctional. Until they create a better open-world PvP environment with consequences and benefits for participation (not just camping the spawn points for gankfest zerg like it was), I will not provide any $ to Bioware. Ilum was the ultimate fail in terms of PvP development. I mean, who makes objectives that takes 1 person 15 seconds to take? Where were the bases, bunkers and other objectives to fight over and hold, with server-wide consequences? This is the basics of open-world PvP and they just failed on so many levels it was like they never played a game that had open-world PvP.
Some thing where intresting, some where not, we will see what happens when it actually happens.
And sorry to be somewhat off topic, but couldn't help but seeing Jeff Hickman as a younger George Lucas??
They are going to give it another shot, if its a fail then IMO, scrap the OPvP project for llum and settle for their 15 minute "warzones".
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
Cool story
Reminds me:
clickyThe combination of Star Wars + F2P was just too much to resist and for the first time I'm playing an MMO. I'm having a grand old time with my Jedi Knight. About a week in I spent the US$5 it took to get Preferred status which dialed back some of the worst of the restrictions.
I still get the sense that people in and out of the company view the F2P program as an extended trial. I learned years ago from a gym membership that subscription models don't work for me. Anybody expecting me to subscribe is going to be rather disappointed. On the other hand, give me real value for my money and I will gladly pay.
With the coins I got from my $5 investment, I've unlocked 10 slots on the GTN and have just plonked down for another 5500 so I can get several more unlocks. When additional character slots become available, I will likely spring for two or more depending on cost. If the SSSP is all that and a bag of chips, yeah *waves wallet*.
And that's the thing. If I sub, I'm trusting Bioware to produce content I want. Looking over the forums I see a lot of broken promises. By not subbing, they won't get my money until they deliver.
Fixing the hotbar gaffe and upping the character slots are steps in the right direction but there are still several annoyances left:
- Inability to post on the main forums. (Unless you've subbed in the past)
- Reduced XP rate.
- Credit-cap.
- Crafting. Non-subs have a reduced chance to critical and are prevented from queuing missions.
IMO, the crafting limitations should be lifted with the unlock for the 3rd crew-skill. (or just be removed altogether). I'd grudgingly pay for a credit-limit unlock but I'd be happier if it was lifted for Preferred. To be honest, the XP reduction doesn't bother me. I've managed to hit each planet at the approprite level. However if you're trying to level with a subscriber, they'll outlevel you quickly.