Star Wars: The Old Republic to go free-to-play
Star Wars: The Old Republic is to move to a free-to-play model as BioWare and EA attempt to stem subscriber losses.
A move to a free-to-play model seems to be the standard tactic for MMOs that aren't quite performing as well as hoped: even World of Warcraft, the three-hundred-pound gorilla in the MMO market, has a model where gamers can get their fix free initially before being asked for cash to progress.
The model for Star Wars: The Old Republic follows the same pattern: gamers will have access to characters up to level 50 for free, after which they will have to take out a subscription to advance. New content will also be made available to subscribers first, with free players left out of the fun - while unspecified advanced features will also be restricted to paying gamers.
'Since launch, our team has spent a lot of time trying to find new ways to be able to bring the Star Wars: The Old Republic experience to as many potential players as possible,' claimed the title's executive producer Jeff Hickman in a statement regarding the move to free-to-play. 'We quickly became aware that our subscription only model was a major barrier for a lot people who wanted to become part of The Old Republic universe. In fact, many players who have left the game said they would happily come back if they could play without the commitment of a monthly fee.'
To convince players to keep their subscriptions and not simply drop to the free level, the companies have also launched a rewards programme under which subscribers - including those whose subscriptions have lapsed - will receive 150 Cartel Coins for every month paid prior to today, with an additional 200 Cartel Coins per month if they continue to subscribe through to the launch of the free-to-play option later this year. A one-time bonus of 1,000 Cartel Coins, redeemable for 'convenience items,' boosts, visually unique equipment, collectibles, and other virtual purchases, will also be given to Collector's Edition owners.
'Our team is extremely excited about this new plan,' added Hickman. 'We are working hard and having a lot of fun preparing new content and items for the game. We believe that this is the right direction for our game – more choices, more options and more ways to customise your play experience to suit your play-style. We want to be able to keep our fans excited, engaged and having fun every time you login. We look forward to hearing your thoughts, suggestions and feedback.'
The news comes on the back of a raft of planned content expansions, including a new operation dubbed Terror From Beyond, a new heroic mission set on the planet of Belsavis, additional space combat missions for level 50 characters, a new companion character and the Ancient Hypergate player-versus-player warzone.
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Discuss in the forums Reply'Our team is extremely excited about this new plan,' added Hickman. 'We are working hard and having a lot of fun preparing new content and items for the game.'
Suuure... ;)
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http://uk.gamespot.com/news/bioware-lays-off-part-of-star-wars-the-old-republic-team-6378106
and now its gone F2P
"gamers will have access to characters up to level 50 for free, after which they will have to take out a subscription to advance"
They had a "heroic mode" like system where some of the dungeons you completed while levelling were boosted up to max level and allowed you to get level 50 set gear. Only problem was you could do the end game operations without gearing up first and get far better gear, so everyone skipped straight to those and cut out potentially weeks of grinding.
Not interested in returning for a F2P version to be honest, MMO's realistically get one shot to be huge and that's passed by for this game, as it did for Warhammer and AOC before.
Except Earth and Beyond was a much better game! I still miss it.
There is a planned Level Cap increase with the next set of content (at least, when the new Operation and Planet are released).
With regards to a lack of endgame, i think that's improved immensely. I could see how early on the single Operation would have been tiring to repeat, however now with 3 Operations, 1 of which being immensely challenging, i think there's enough to satisfy most people (our Guild has been around since launch and whilst we've lost quite a few players, one of our Ops teams has only just started tackling Hard Mode Denova).
Obviously "Hardcore" MMOers will never be satisfied with the endgame because they rush to the end at a pace like no other, but for the majority i think the current endgame is sufficient, but slightly growing old.
The problem is I just don't have the spare time needed to play MMO's.
this is pretty much my exact argument about subscription games. It's like going back to the bad old days of Pay as You Go mobile phones where the monthly call time vouchers expired if you didn't use all the minutes you had paid for.
Paying a fixed fee per month regardless of time can either be great if you have lots of spare time, but it sucks if you only get a couple of hours a week of free time.
Try EVE, a real sandbox and learn to cooperate with 4000 other people in your Alliance to compete against another alliance of 4000 people cooperating to stop you.
Yours in Freedom is better than Rides Plasma,
Star*Dagger
Mostly, players did not quit SWotR because of the monthly fee. They quit because it was a poor game.