@TheHT said:

DETAILS.

after looking at the access you will actually be getting, if you do play for free you will not be able to do anything. and on top of that expect it to take at least 6 months to get to level 50. you cant even play all 4 , count em, 4 warzones. it seems like their f2p model will be less "pay to win", and more like "pay to have fun".

its so sad how far this game has fallen.

@Sayishere said:

The thing is, people think this is like the end of swtor, people bailing ship unsubbing because of this news. This is a ridiculous notion, but it primarily comes down to money. Free to pay is becoming the standard structure for mmo these days( obviously wow is the exception). My worry is the game becoming pay to win, and if that day ever comes im unsubbing. This news is perfect for those who never played the game before. I suggest people to try the game out, because the levelling is really fun, and who knows, you may get hooked.

actually the leveling was a massive grind. it took a 100 hrs to get to level 49 , because if you dont do every piece of content on a planet and just try to level through story. u will hit a huge progression block at level 36. trust me on this one

They seem to be making the only part I care about free to play. I have no interest in the actual multiplayer parts of this game. Just give me the story. I concider this a win.

How much money does a Deathstar cost?

@Sayishere said:

The thing is, people think this is like the end of swtor, people bailing ship unsubbing because of this news. This is a ridiculous notion, but it primarily comes down to money. Free to pay is becoming the standard structure for mmo these days( obviously wow is the exception). My worry is the game becoming pay to win, and if that day ever comes im unsubbing. This news is perfect for those who never played the game before. I suggest people to try the game out, because the levelling is really fun, and who knows, you may get hooked.

actually the leveling was a massive grind. it took a 100 hrs to get to level 49 , because if you dont do every piece of content on a planet and just try to level through story. u will hit a huge progression block at level 36. trust me on this one

@Trilogy said:

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@LegendaryChopChop said:

Cool, now let's end all MMOs too while we're at it.

Yea because that's not completely irrelevant or unnecessary...

You mean like MMOs?

No, I mean like you're uninformed opinion of them. It's sort of like all the people that hate Call of Duty just for existing. So silly.

Yes, because any opinion that disagrees with yours is automatically uninformed. Sure thing, chief.

Before everyone starts to complain and shit all over what Bioware is actually trying to accomplish, compare what they are offering to one of the most successful F2P mmo's: LOTRO.

@jayspadez said:

@TheHT said:

DETAILS.

after looking at the access you will actually be getting, if you do play for free you will not be able to do anything. and on top of that expect it to take at least 6 months to get to level 50. you cant even play all 4 , count em, 4 warzones. it seems like their f2p model will be less "pay to win", and more like "pay to have fun".

its so sad how far this game has fallen.

Looks like I'm too late...

@Brodehouse said:

@jayspadez

@Sayishere said:

The thing is, people think this is like the end of swtor, people bailing ship unsubbing because of this news. This is a ridiculous notion, but it primarily comes down to money. Free to pay is becoming the standard structure for mmo these days( obviously wow is the exception). My worry is the game becoming pay to win, and if that day ever comes im unsubbing. This news is perfect for those who never played the game before. I suggest people to try the game out, because the levelling is really fun, and who knows, you may get hooked.

actually the leveling was a massive grind. it took a 100 hrs to get to level 49 , because if you dont do every piece of content on a planet and just try to level through story. u will hit a huge progression block at level 36. trust me on this one

You say these things like no one else has ever played this game. Horseshit. I was overlevelled the majority of that game and I would only do half of any planet's quests.

There's absolutely zero chance that you did "half the quests", as I played the game and did something similar and flat out could not beat a main story quest. Then was forced to go grind 3 more levels and come back, only to be told by everyone in chat "yeah that's how it is".

That game was front loaded to hell and zero fun half way through.

I learned my lesson from STO and didn't buy the game. Now, I get to play it for free soon. Go me!

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@LegendaryChopChop said:

Cool, now let's end all MMOs too while we're at it.

Yea because that's not completely irrelevant or unnecessary...

You mean like MMOs?

No, I mean like you're uninformed opinion of them. It's sort of like all the people that hate Call of Duty just for existing. So silly.

Yes, because any opinion that disagrees with yours is automatically uninformed. Sure thing, chief.

No, your opinion isn't poor because it's not in agreement with me, it's poor because you made some wild, half assed, blanket statement that's not even related to MMO's going free to play. There's a difference between having an opinion and being completely unreasonable for no reason.

@Xeirus said:

@Brodehouse said:

@jayspadez

@Sayishere said:

The thing is, people think this is like the end of swtor, people bailing ship unsubbing because of this news. This is a ridiculous notion, but it primarily comes down to money. Free to pay is becoming the standard structure for mmo these days( obviously wow is the exception). My worry is the game becoming pay to win, and if that day ever comes im unsubbing. This news is perfect for those who never played the game before. I suggest people to try the game out, because the levelling is really fun, and who knows, you may get hooked.

actually the leveling was a massive grind. it took a 100 hrs to get to level 49 , because if you dont do every piece of content on a planet and just try to level through story. u will hit a huge progression block at level 36. trust me on this one

You say these things like no one else has ever played this game. Horseshit. I was overlevelled the majority of that game and I would only do half of any planet's quests.

There's absolutely zero chance that you did "half the quests", as I played the game and did something similar and flat out could not beat a main story quest. Then was forced to go grind 3 more levels and come back, only to be told by everyone in chat "yeah that's how it is".

That game was front loaded to hell and zero fun half way through.

I skipped entire planets worth of side quests (Belsavis). I would skip entire wings of quests on planets. There are difficulty spikes in some fights (Smuggler's final fight on Tatooine is rough) but trying to pretend like that game is difficult is a larf.

Also, I find it amusing you name 36 as when it's zero fun, since that's the level range for the best two flashpoints in the game. I guess Hoth sucks, I'll give you that

@Trilogy said:

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@LegendaryChopChop said:

Cool, now let's end all MMOs too while we're at it.

Yea because that's not completely irrelevant or unnecessary...

You mean like MMOs?

No, I mean like you're uninformed opinion of them. It's sort of like all the people that hate Call of Duty just for existing. So silly.

Yes, because any opinion that disagrees with yours is automatically uninformed. Sure thing, chief.

No, your opinion isn't poor because it's not in agreement with me, it's poor because you made some wild, half assed, blanket statement that's not even related to MMO's going free to play. There's a difference between having an opinion and being completely unreasonable for no reason.

Oh, it's 'poor', now? A moment ago it was 'uninformed'. Those two words aren't synonymous. Regardless, you've made a lot of assumptions based on some statement I never made. How's the weather in the world you've made up in your head?

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@LegendaryChopChop said:

Cool, now let's end all MMOs too while we're at it.

Yea because that's not completely irrelevant or unnecessary...

You mean like MMOs?

No, I mean like you're uninformed opinion of them. It's sort of like all the people that hate Call of Duty just for existing. So silly.

Yes, because any opinion that disagrees with yours is automatically uninformed. Sure thing, chief.

No, your opinion isn't poor because it's not in agreement with me, it's poor because you made some wild, half assed, blanket statement that's not even related to MMO's going free to play. There's a difference between having an opinion and being completely unreasonable for no reason.

Oh, it's 'poor', now? A moment ago it was 'uninformed'. Those two words aren't synonymous. Regardless, you've made a lot of assumptions based on some statement I never made. How's the weather in the world you've made up in your head?

Oh I get it, you're always this unreasonable and obtuse.

@Brodehouse said:

@Xeirus said:

@Brodehouse said:

@jayspadez

@Sayishere said:

The thing is, people think this is like the end of swtor, people bailing ship unsubbing because of this news. This is a ridiculous notion, but it primarily comes down to money. Free to pay is becoming the standard structure for mmo these days( obviously wow is the exception). My worry is the game becoming pay to win, and if that day ever comes im unsubbing. This news is perfect for those who never played the game before. I suggest people to try the game out, because the levelling is really fun, and who knows, you may get hooked.

actually the leveling was a massive grind. it took a 100 hrs to get to level 49 , because if you dont do every piece of content on a planet and just try to level through story. u will hit a huge progression block at level 36. trust me on this one

You say these things like no one else has ever played this game. Horseshit. I was overlevelled the majority of that game and I would only do half of any planet's quests.

There's absolutely zero chance that you did "half the quests", as I played the game and did something similar and flat out could not beat a main story quest. Then was forced to go grind 3 more levels and come back, only to be told by everyone in chat "yeah that's how it is".

That game was front loaded to hell and zero fun half way through.

I skipped entire planets worth of side quests (Belsavis). I would skip entire wings of quests on planets. There are difficulty spikes in some fights (Smuggler's final fight on Tatooine is rough) but trying to pretend like that game is difficult is a larf.

Also, I find it amusing you name 36 as when it's zero fun, since that's the level range for the best two flashpoints in the game. I guess Hoth sucks, I'll give you that

It's not that the game is difficult, it's an MMO, it's just flat out impossible to do a quest when the numbers aren't high enough, the game hadn't thought that I could get to that point before whatever level it was.

I'm also not the one who stated 36 to be the level, I'm just backing up statements that I know to be true. If the best is at 36 that sounds like a flaw with the game, not the player.

@GERALTITUDE said:

Cool, I will try this now.

Haha, yeh same.

@Forum_User said:

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at. Are you saying that classes should have less skills? Because it's generally the sheer volume of skills, coupled with the fact that an online game with other players around can't be paused, that necessitates the hotbars, although some single player RPGs also have them out of convenience.

I'm not sure if you are coming at this from the perspective of a player of single player RPGs or as someone who just isn't really into RPGs, period. I can't really think of that many RPGs that work how you describe, MMO or not. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and the Fable series (neither of which I have played) come to mind. Those are kind of outliers, though.

I'm not really into RPGs at all, you're right, so I'm just asking out of curiosity. But it seems like if you want to make something with mass appeal (which you have to shoot for with an MMO to make money) that you'd be better off using a more traditional 3rd person combat model (like Fable or Amalur like you mentioned) and incorporating a lot skills into that more action-y style than staying the standard strafe-heavy movement and hotbar mechanics that most MMOs use. I feel like that second system alienates people that aren't really into RPGs but still want the world. Who knows, I could be way off. Like I said, I don't really play MMOs, so it's just something I've always thought about.

@jamesisaacs said:

@GERALTITUDE said:

Cool, I will try this now.

Haha, yeh same.

Haha! yeah.

@Crunchman said:

WoW...

hahha... I see what you did there.

A key factor for MMOs is the social aspect. Doing repetitive and boring tasks can be tolerable or even fun if you do with friends. If the MMO is empty then you are just doing a chore.

@Mcfart said:

l

o

l

sure didn't take them long.. Whoever spent $60 on this or paid a subscription must be missing that money right now.

I don't regret the money I spent on the game at all. I thoroughly enjoyed the content I played through. When the F2P hits, I'll be playing it again alongside Guild Wars 2.

Honestly, I don't understand the logic that you have. If I feel like the money I paid for something is justified, then what is the issue? I'm assuming you didn't play the game at all (because that seems to be the general attitude of those who didn't bother playing it at all beyond the possible first 15 levels). Therefore, what is the point in what you're saying?

They recouped the costs of what the game took to make it, and now they are transitioning to a proven business model in order to procure its longevity. The model has been HIGHLY successful for Dungeons & Dragons Online, Champions Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Vindictus, and many other MMO games out there. In turn, why wouldn't they explore this option rather than keeping the $15/month fee that is obviously becoming less attractive to people?

The general consensus that the MMO community has about TOR is that it's a great game that had a rough launch and some patching issues. A lot of that is due to being made by a new studio that was launching a multi-million dollar MMO. Since then, things have significantly improved. There's no denying that it's been a rough road for the guys, but I have a feeling that this is going to be a significant improvement for the guys.

I enjoyed this game more than WoW, believe it or not, but realized a few months in that I no longer had any interest in playing MMOs. Too bad; there were story hooks I was interested in, but just didn't want to pay to grind through the filler to get there.

I was surprised the game didn't start out as free-to-play.

Man - what does this mean for the upcoming Elder Scrolls game....they must be shitting bricks....

@Dick_Mohawk: SWTOR doesnt require Origin to play it.

@GERALTITUDE said:

Cool, I will try this now.

This

@leebmx said:

Man - what does this mean for the upcoming Elder Scrolls game....they must be shitting bricks....

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, I just cannot imagine they're feeling any confidence at all about releasing this game with a box fee and a sub. Like, they have to be thinking up a f2p plan for this game right? There''s just no way that they're not. The f2p conversion probably won't be at launch, but still, I cannot fathom a world where this game comes out and lasts more than a year with a box fee and sub.

@Trilogy said:

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@thebigJ_A said:

@Trilogy said:

@LegendaryChopChop said:

Cool, now let's end all MMOs too while we're at it.

Yea because that's not completely irrelevant or unnecessary...

You mean like MMOs?

No, I mean like you're uninformed opinion of them. It's sort of like all the people that hate Call of Duty just for existing. So silly.

Yes, because any opinion that disagrees with yours is automatically uninformed. Sure thing, chief.

No, your opinion isn't poor because it's not in agreement with me, it's poor because you made some wild, half assed, blanket statement that's not even related to MMO's going free to play. There's a difference between having an opinion and being completely unreasonable for no reason.

Oh, it's 'poor', now? A moment ago it was 'uninformed'. Those two words aren't synonymous. Regardless, you've made a lot of assumptions based on some statement I never made. How's the weather in the world you've made up in your head?

Oh I get it, you're always this unreasonable and obtuse.

I see a lot of controversy came out after I said what I did... well, I still feel that way. All MMOs that become "free to play" should be going belly up, period. Why? Because it's clearly a PR move to help them rationalize their failure of the games. Not to "open it up to more audiences" or anything of that.

It's just my opinion, and it's related to the constant failures of MMOs coming abound. How many subscription MMOs are still going strong, or haven't damage controlled into going free to play?

Taking a wonderful game like KOTOR and making it into an MMO was a disastrous concept in the beginning, regardless.

This game was set up to be the next WoW, and look at what happened. It had all the right pieces in place.

I think this failure will ultimately be the deathblow of the MMO genre.

... except for WoW, of course. But that's a whole other beast.

@014 said:

Also, PC games can be had for cheap on Steam several times a year. This causes me to have a backlog of games I feel I should play (hopefully finish) before subscribing to a time-sucking MMO. That said, it's been my plan for a while now to subscribe to EVE Online this Winter whether I finish my backlog of games or not.

I too blame Steam. I also have a back log of games, that I need to catch up on, and Steam offering low prices isn't helping to reduce the back log. I've meant to star playing Eve at some time, but haven't set a date yet.

@LegendaryChopChop said:

I see a lot of controversy came out after I said what I did... well, I still feel that way. All MMOs that become "free to play" should be going belly up, period. Why? Because it's clearly a PR move to help them rationalize their failure of the games. Not to "open it up to more audiences" or anything of that.

It's just my opinion, and it's related to the constant failures of MMOs coming abound. How many subscription MMOs are still going strong, or haven't damage controlled into going free to play?

Taking a wonderful game like KOTOR and making it into an MMO was a disastrous concept in the beginning, regardless.

This game was set up to be the next WoW, and look at what happened. It had all the right pieces in place.

I think this failure will ultimately be the deathblow of the MMO genre.

... except for WoW, of course. But that's a whole other beast.

No, that other guy was just being an ass for no reason. If you want to have an actual discussion about this though then I'm game. The reason MMO's go free to play is because they are all chasing the same dream that blizzard made a reality back in 2004. The current reality is that it's so hard to pull blizzard's audience away from WoW for just another WoW clone. It's just not going to happen without some real innovation to the genre. People always point to how WoW took over everquest but I really don't think lightning will strike twice in the same place. So what ends up happening is that when these games aren't massive success stories, they have to go to plan B which is the free to play model.

So why do developers and publishers still try to make the subscription model work out of the gate? Because if it pays off it's totally worth it. The problem is that it is way to big of a gamble. The Old Republic took 300 million dollars to develop. That's just fucking absurd. Dev teams and publishers can't keep taking that risk of a 6 year + development cycle and spending that kind of money. It's too volatile.

Here's the problem with MMO's. It's not that people aren't willing to pay the subscription fee. WoW proves that. The real issue is that the subscription model dictates too much on how and MMO is made. It's the reason for almost every feature in the genre. Things like thousands of quests to extend the leveling process, gated PvE progression, repeatable daily quests, endless seasons of pvp, the length that it takes to obtain the best gear in the game, the fact that endgame has to be repeatable, ect. All of it is designed to keep you coming back every week and every month to keep paying that subscription. You can argue that those things are vital to what makes an MMO an MMO but I would disagree and I think those factors can totally hurt the quality of a game.

Take questing for example. The reason why quests in MMO's are so mundane and repetitious is because there has to be so many of them to draw the leveling process out as long as possible. I find that to be pretty arbitrary. That's a recurring theme in the downside of MMO's... "arbitrary". Why did The Old Republic fail? Because it felt the need to stick to the tropes of the genre. Why do we need to have the holy trinity (tank healer dps) in MMOs? At least Guild Wars 2 new better than to go down that path.

In my opinion, traditional mechanics aren't what's important in making a good MMO. All you need are the basics. Huge, persistent, seamless open world... and the social connectivity to play cooperatively and competitively sometimes simultaneously. You don't need the tank healer dps, you don't need a separation between leveling and endgame, you don't even need the game to be an rpg. Until developers start realizing that, the genre will continue to struggle. I don't think the MMO genre should go away. It just needs some innovation.

I'll absolutely come back to this come November. I burnt out a bit after getting 3 characters to 50, and wasn't really playing enough to justify a subscription. Free to play sounds great to me though, and if the rewards are good enough I might occasionally drop some money down.

When I first heard about this game I was so damn excited about it. Then as more and more information came out regarding it I began to lose interest. I played the beta and that confirmed my concerns about just everything so I just sort of gave up on it. But if its free to play then I may just get it. I liked the story part of the game so I may just buy it to play through the sith inquisitor, warrior and bounty hunter story-lines and treat it like a single-players as much as I can. Honestly, I, and it seems a lot of others, just wish they had done a third knights of the old republic game

@Trilogy: Well said and well thought out.

@Trilogy said:

In my opinion, traditional mechanics aren't what's important in making a good MMO. All you need are the basics. Huge, persistent, seamless open world... and the social connectivity to play cooperatively and competitively sometimes simultaneously. You don't need the tank healer dps, you don't need a separation between leveling and endgame, you don't even need the game to be an rpg. Until developers start realizing that, the genre will continue to struggle. I don't think the MMO genre should go away. It just needs some innovation.

On that note it made me think, what was the last WORLD you were interested in?

One of the things that made WoW so special was the fact that the world was memorable and something you actually wanted to explore and see. It sickens me to think of how much time I spent in Vanilla and BC just LOOKING AT SHIT.

When I played SWTOR I did not feel like I was in an interesting world. I felt like I was in "Random Generated texture Number 11" plastered with SW shit. My time is precious. Walking around for 6 hours in the most blank desert imaginable with literally nothing noticeable is not my idea of a good experience.

As far as my experience goes with GW2 beta its a place I really want to spend some time dicking around in.

Cool!

Now I can finish that damn game lol

Does anyone by chance know why companies dont try to drop the monthly fee from $15 down to like $10 or $5 a month to try and save subscribers or entice more new players? I would very much consider more mmo's if the monthly fee was less then the standard $15. The only thing I can think of at the moment would be anything lower then $15 is not cost effective as far as the cost of processing a single subscribers payment.

Anyone know?

@gunninkr: most MMOs you can buy in bigger time blocks to save on your monthly fee (ie: 1 year for 99 bucks or shit like that), which is a big reason they'll keep it at 15. I'm sure they do focus groups and metrics to see, and the price resistance at $15 is low enough that they'll continue to charge just that.

One of the best MMO's out there, with one of the most horrible business models backing it up. Oh well, I assume it will be up on www.mmo-play.com as soon as it is free to play. I'll look for it then I suppose.

As much as I loved this game, I just couldn't picture it being incredibly successful a long time after launch. I may be in the minority, but I was expecting this to happen sooner or later. However, this will give everyone a chance to try it and play through one of the fantastic storylines in the game, so this isn't all bad.

I'm not surprised at all and this 
 
@Grissefar said:

It's one of the most desperate E3 speeches I have heard. Just listen to this line: "That's insanely awesome." C'mon buddy, at least try to make it sound like you believe it.

Neat. Looking forward to finally playing this.

Shaiya Phoenix is a free to Play MMO RPG published by Aeria Games started as a result of community ongoing demands for a different Shaiya experience. One of the greatest challenges in MMORPG development is keeping the community happy and engaged.