SWTOR f2p

[Craig234]

I still think WoW is a great game, but lost thousands of items when I took a break because they only store them for 30/60 days in the mail queue.

That's one of the things Rift improved, 90 day storage each way in mail.

There's not much way to send a message to a game after a note other than not pay.

Blizzard did the same thing with Diablo II chars, no way to save online chars without refreshing them every 90 days. Not customer-friendly.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Well, as I say I have not played WoW, so the "max level in a week" comment was mostly aimed at ToR. A week might have been an exaggeration but I definitely remember being 40 something and well on the way to 50 in about 2 weeks when I played.

That is the problem of being a clone of WoW.

If you play WoW now, you'll hit level cap in a couple of months (even less with some friends/resurrection scrolls, for a regular play).

WoW does it since it is an old game with massive amounts of content, the nostalgia.

SWTOR doesn't have the massive amount of content and nostalgia...

 

[Jeff7181]

WoW had polished game play, removed most of the inconveniences crawling in the genre.

It was a professional game in the middle of amateurs.

So, WoW attracted players to it that had never or would ever play a MMORPG if it wasn't for the (then) Blizzard seal of quality.

The problem is that the devs looked at it and mistook the WoW market for MMORPG market.

Players have invested thousand of dollars and thousand of hours in WoW. WHy will they toss it away to play a game that it is just like it (and most of the WoW clones have worse game play)?

Now, current day WoW isn't the same as Vanilla or The Burning Crusade WoW - making an everlasting game with a focus on after level cap means that the best bits of the previous content (that used to be the after level cap) are lost.

I miss vanilla. The game feels completely different now... on some realms the economy is, for lack of a better term, fubar. I remember when there was a distinct feeling of us vs. them in terms of Horde vs. Alliance. I haven't played in about a year I think... thinking of reupping for a few months when the new expansion comes out, but normally when I do that, I play for a couple weeks and then stop playing. I've lost touch with my guild that I was in, and even if I was still in the guild and wasn't booted for inactivity, I doubt there's many of the people left from the vanilla days.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Even WoW is dying fast now. Their churn rate is high and they lose 100Ks of players each month.

People are just bored with either the endless grindfest or the same unimaginary 1st gen MMOs. People want the next deal. Not a copy/paste with a new themepark scheme.

 

[micrometers]

I miss vanilla. The game feels completely different now... on some realms the economy is, for lack of a better term, fubar. I remember when there was a distinct feeling of us vs. them in terms of Horde vs. Alliance. I haven't played in about a year I think... thinking of reupping for a few months when the new expansion comes out, but normally when I do that, I play for a couple weeks and then stop playing. I've lost touch with my guild that I was in, and even if I was still in the guild and wasn't booted for inactivity, I doubt there's many of the people left from the vanilla days.

Yeah, I really don't like the feel of the new expansions. Like, the statistics are so ridiculous at this point that they're practically meaningless since the numbers are just huge and it's hard to see how an increase in str. results in more damage.'

Vanilla was just better tuned.

 

[AVP]

I have to say that it is mind blowing that people keep funneling in 100s of millions of dollars into the most costly and least rewarding of playing experiences. It seems that the price for developing a giant, persistent world is making shit as repetitive as possible to pay for it in the form of a monthly subscription.

The funny thing is that the features people actually enjoy about these games are raids, pvp, and instanced dungeons. None of these things require a giant world, leveling, grinding, collecting, trade-skilling, voice-acting or any of the features that bear the brunt of development and server costs.

Why isn't there a game where you fight giant fucking monsters with 10-100 people starting as soon you log in? Why do I have to play to level 50 to start doing fun stuff? Would it really be that hard to make a raiding game that starts at level 1? How fun would it be to play a game where the only content is trying to beat huge new monsters/encounters with friends, a new one being released every week or two?

Also, why do pve levels matter in pvp? Why does gear matter in pvp? Why are premades allowed to play against single people?

Seriously, i can't get over how boring MMOs are to progress in (to get to the fun parts) and why no one has bothered to just offer raiding and/or pvp without the junk. Hopefully open-world gaming in general just dies off. Curt Schilling's company and the money pit that was the star wars mmo could be signs that it is simply too expensive and risky to develop giant 100m dollar worlds and hope enough people subscribe.

Maybe some day someone will release an "mmorpg" without the questing. I can't wait.

 

[micrometers]

WOW had some of the best game environments I'd ever seen in a game, however. Like, the scale of the architecture was unheard of even in like console games.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

SWTOR suffers from a common mistake made by many developers who have "Visions" but forget or do not include (or refuse to compromise on their "Vision" so as to included) "Fun" for their game.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

I have to say that it is mind blowing that people keep funneling in 100s of millions of dollars into the most costly and least rewarding of playing experiences. It seems that the price for developing a giant, persistent world is making shit as repetitive as possible to pay for it in the form of a monthly subscription.

The funny thing is that the features people actually enjoy about these games are raids, pvp, and instanced dungeons. None of these things require a giant world, leveling, grinding, collecting, trade-skilling, voice-acting or any of the features that bear the brunt of development and server costs.

Why isn't there a game where you fight giant fucking monsters with 10-100 people starting as soon you log in? Why do I have to play to level 50 to start doing fun stuff? Would it really be that hard to make a raiding game that starts at level 1? How fun would it be to play a game where the only content is trying to beat huge new monsters/encounters with friends, a new one being released every week or two?

Also, why do pve levels matter in pvp? Why does gear matter in pvp? Why are premades allowed to play against single people?

Seriously, i can't get over how boring MMOs are to progress in (to get to the fun parts) and why no one has bothered to just offer raiding and/or pvp without the junk. Hopefully open-world gaming in general just dies off. Curt Schilling's company and the money pit that was the star wars mmo could be signs that it is simply too expensive and risky to develop giant 100m dollar worlds and hope enough people subscribe.

Maybe some day someone will release an "mmorpg" without the questing. I can't wait.

From my past BWE experinces in GW2 that game has a lot of what you are looking for IMHO and it is basically "Free" after purchase in that you don't have to keep paying a monthly fee to access all parts of the game and progress.

 

[GaiaHunter]

From my past BWE experinces in GW2 that game has a lot of what you are looking for IMHO and it is basically "Free" after purchase in that you don't have to keep paying a monthly fee to access all parts of the game and progress.

I have to agree.

Many people just look at the systems and say "well that is just the same as in this other game and the other was in that other game" or "this is pretty much the same with a different cover" or whatever.

But the way those systems actually interact with each other, the way you just play with other people is so natural that just plays differently.

And it isn't only the players - allied NPCs keep wandering around fighting enemies, doing their stuff, etc.

I always found funny people bashed the original Guild Wars because it was instanced with no open world, but basically most games just turn being on a lobby waiting to enter an instance and the open world is something empty and dead.

How ironic Guild Wars 2 is the one focusing on the open world, making it alive. It brings what was being put in instances back into the open world.

 

[ShintaiDK]

After GW2 its not gonna be fun trying to push a game with monthly subs.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

my opinion of swtor, at any price:

boring
repetitive
empty
annoying
giant waste of time
no fun at all

 

[Fanatical Meat]

How could it cost 150 mil to make? Seems like everyone saw this coming.

 

[micrometers]

I think it was a game not to be played. But directed instead.

"games" nowadays are little more than thinly veiled interactive movies where you press a certain button combination to get the next story element.

 

[ShintaiDK]

"games" nowadays are little more than thinly veiled interactive movies where you press a certain button combination to get the next story element.

Not all games. But the instant gratification geenration got a hard time doing anything on their own, without someone guiding their hand all the time. Hence why most games are so.

 

[zerocool84]

Not all games. But the instant gratification geenration got a hard time doing anything on their own, without someone guiding their hand all the time. Hence why most games are so.

There were games back then that were basically movies. Plus most gamers today hate games where they're not doing something constantly which is why Call of Duty is the #1 game always.