Lol yeah, it's pretty lame as events go. Though I felt my Vanguard and Operative were sorely in need of losing their fat PVP rifles in favor of some Kashyyyk goodness. They're in a father-son situation on my legacy tree to boot! Anyway, these are essentially the only classes that benefit, though I guess you could gear rifle-wielding companions as well. I'll have something waiting in the wings to hook up a lv 34 Risha once I roll my Cathar gunslinger in a few months.
If you play all female, yeah, the aliens look more interesting. During beta, this is what I was doing. Once subbed though, I only rolled dudes just to have romance options I can sorta relate to, and - it turns out humans have a whole lot more facial models than the "alien" races, which is unusual. My subscription unexpectedly expired sometime today. I was thinking 6 months (+2), not 180 days. Kinda going through mild withdrawals. Read this whole thread again start to finish, lol. Resisting the urge to buy a month just for 3 weeks of endgaming before traveling. But hell, now l I might visit a gym or get some shopping in. I was pleased though, with the world event and incentive to play all toons, I earned a bit of redemption for my 1st. Got some decent PVP in on the marauder, whom I felt sucked at it back when I was n00b at playing. Probably the reason 4 of my subsequent alts were tanks since then. I'd gotten good enough at the game in general where even just being in all recruit wasn't as frustrating as I thought it would be.
http://www.swtor.com/free/features So Bioware finally updated the features matrix to explain just how limited free to play is going to be in TOR. This has to be the worst FTP I've ever seen in a Western game. Normal stuff like bank, character, and inventory unlocks are there but the rest...c'mon. Want to unlock raids? Too bad. Weekly fee or nothing. Want to unlock PVP? Too bad. Weekly fee or limited to 3x per week. Want to unlock space missions? Too bad. Weekly fee or limited to 3x per week. Want to unlock flashpoints? Too bad. Weekly fee or limited to 3x per week. And my personal favorite: You have to pay to wear purple gear. Yeah, no thanks. For me, one of the big draws of FTP games is the ability to make one time purchases for content, even if that ends up costing me an arm and a leg. If everything outside the leveling story requires a recurring fee to access, what's the point of not having a subscription?
I can't believe they've put extra limitations on things like quick travel, respawning and the fleet pass. I mean what next, limited control access? You can move forwards but must unlock backwards and strafing with cartel coins!? They do realise that all new players are going to do now is blow through the story campaigns and immediately uninstall, right? I mean what's the attraction to stick around at this point? At this rate I think the servers might be totally deserted inside of six months.
The minute it goes FTP the majority of players will cancel their pay subscriptions. Bioware is going to lose money big time.
^I was planning to drop a bunch of money on FTP launch day to unlock all the restrictions. Now EA isn't gonna get a dime from me. The best part of the game is the story missions anyway. If there's no viable endgame without a sub then I will finish getting all 8 classes to the cap and leave. There are plenty of FTP games I can go to for PVP, crafting, instances, etc. There is one other thing that bothers me. When most games go FTP, they throw a bone to ex subscribers. Usually this is in the form of letting people keep some of the things new players will have to pay for. TOR doesn't seem to be doing this at all. They're just giving people a few cartel coins for every month subbed.
Holy crap I wasn't far off; I just noticed the part where you have to pay to be able to sprint! Bugger that for a game of conkers.
I think it's fucking genius as far as FTP goes. If you think about it, the experience of a first-time FTPer ain't gonna be much different than mine was, being a n00b on my first MMO, which was a huge learning curve, yet still super fun and hella addicting. First time MMO players are exactly who they're targeting. An influx of MMO n00bs, a vast array of stingy Star Wars kinda sorta fans that've held out, who aren't super jaded by fully realized, expansive, accomplished, complex worlds that have been under construction for longer than a fucking decade. No they will, much like I did, wanna blow through the story, and not pay much attention to the slog and the grind and all the transport-handicaps that are forced onto them. Hell, when I was playing my 1st, I didn't even know about fleet pass and quick travel for a really really long time. I coudn't afford a speeder 'til lvl 28 or some shit. Tatooine sucked balls. Still, first time through, you're learning, it's all new, it's all fucking worth it, and balls to the wall rewarding. Leveling, Class story, the hands down greatest shit in this game. I managed not to completely suck at a PVP maybe shortly after I had rolled my 2nd toon. Flashpoints? Guilds? Mumble? Naw, fuck people, I'm soloing all o' dis! My point being, an experience is being forced on n00bs who, for lack of knowing better, wouldn't even notice shit was missing. However they do know, and by the time they roll a second toon, they will have grown slightly tired of repeating planet quests and how long getting around takes. And for sake of convenience and further enjoyment of the game, they'll sub and stay at least 6 months longer until they've experienced all of the class stories. I know I'll be back to do at least my final toon, a smuggler. I might even start raiding heavily and shit. And reroll additional 8 toons on a dif server, all chicks this time, romance dudes or wait out SGR, all opposite advanced classes and alignments, all with French speech. Learn a fucking language, why not. All of that, but never as an FTPer, I've worked too hard on my legacy unlocks. I'm just slightly pissed that it sounds like I'll have to have resubbed before FTP launches to get any cartel coins. Or am I hearing that wrong? I'm not in the country, nowhere near fast internet or my bitching desktop, and I might be extending my stay here. Loving life in "the bush". TL;DR I think FTP is gonna kick major ass for Bioware.
Soooo...the cash shop has hit the PTS for testing. http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/22092-cartel-market-items-unlocks-and-more If you didn't already have a problem with the FTP structure, get a load of this. FTP players will have to pay to: Equip and use items gained during world events Customize companion appearance Unlock quickbars Display titles earned through game play Display legacy name Hide head slot Unify colors Fuck off, EA. I'm not paying to toggle my goddamn helmet.
"This Luke is a guitar, it is a weapon from a more civilized people, before the dark times; before the X factor......
Wow. They *really* don't want this to go f2p. Why else cripple the gameplay experience like this? They may as well just admit defeat and shut down the servers if this is going to be their attitude.
As I said (Tl;Dr?) I'm pretty sure FTP is meant to get unjaded complete MMO n00bs (like I was before SWTOR) to try the game, upon which they get hooked on story and switch to subscription just so they could more freely (ironic, huh?) enjoy other aspects of the game as well. Also, the cartel market seems to be a cash sink for subscribers who don't wanna wait for CCs to accumulate before they can get cool shit. Or an alternative to spending buttloads of in-game currency, by letting you unlock so much legacy shit with just a few buck here and there.
^In order to hook new people in with the story, they must first provide an enjoyable gameplay experience. If the gameplay is hobbled and the ability to have any kind of meaningful interaction with other players (rather important in any MMO) roped off then people will get fed up *very* quickly and they most likely won't be dropping any cash on this in the hopes that it might get better. I can't help but get the impression that this is a very very resentful and mean spirited transition to f2p. It's almost like they hired the Grinch to supervise it or something.
EDIT: Was replying to O'Dib ^Maybe you're right, but you would think Bioware would put at least some focus on trying to entice back the million plus people who bought the game and quit. Not all of those people are jaded MMO vultures. Many liked the game but not enough to consistently sub. These draconian quality of life restrictions are going to drive them off as soon as they re-download the client. As for the story being able to hook people...I'm not convinced. I've been playing Bioware games since NWN1 and frankly thought the SWTOR stories were mediocre. They aren't bad like DA2, but they aren't great either. It doesn't help that the class stories only account for a small fraction of the 1-50 experience. The rest is just traditional MMO fetch/kill quests with voice over.
If FTP attracts enough n00bs, many of the quitters who wanted super busy servers might resub just for that. I dunno, my first toon was a Marauder. Notwithstanding my n00bness (because of which I wasn't even aware of all those things they're now restricting for FTPs) & the learning curve, the class story had me major hooked start to finish. The slog didn't matter, made it all seem epic, difficult, a hard-won victory. I imagine the HK droid, SGR, reintroduction of the option to kill off companions, stuff that's sorta been ready from the get-go, but they're holding off on for some reason? All of that may be more reasons for resubs. Now, if someone wanted just stories, but 0 slog, they can buy the major XP boosts, using which they might be able to blow through the game pretty much just doing class. Dunno how much of a boost it is or what it'll cost, but they must be thinking, let's at least get our money's worth in one single burst from all those folks who wanted this to be KOTOR 3. By charging a total of $60 (what any other full length single-player game would be these days) to blow through a toon doing only class, they get 4 months of sub for each toon, or nearly 3 years of sub to do all the classes. Around 500 bucks total, which some Star Wars nerds who hate MMOs might be willing to dish out, or will over time, w/o noticing.