BioWare responds to Star Wars: The Old Republic F2P complaints
When a subscription-based MMORPG turns free-to-play, as they almost inevitably do, it's very important to strike a balance between what's free and what players must pay for. Star Wars: The Old Republic kind of cocked that up. Responding to complaints, BioWare is still trying to find that balance, and yesterday rolled out a few more changes kind to players.
When a subscription-based MMORPG turns free-to-play, as they almost inevitably do, it's very important to strike a balance between what's free and what players must pay for. Star Wars: The Old Republic kind of cocked that up. Responding to complaints, BioWare is still trying to find that balance, and yesterday rolled out a few more changes kind to players.
"We want you to know that this is an ongoing dialogue," BioWare said in a blog post. "Your feedback is critical to the success of TOR, and of special interest to us."
Quickbars are one aspect that BioWare over-restricted. Players typically need several to hold all the skills they'll collect as they level, but free-to-play players were by default limited to only one When The Old Republic first switched models.
BioWare wisely doubled this to 2, and has now raised the limit again for Preferred Status Players (PSPs), those who've either bought an actual copy of the game or bought something from the Cartel Coin store, which uses a virtual currency paid for with real money. PSPs now have 4, and will receive refunds for any more they've bought.
PSPs will receive extra character slots in a future patch, with their previous limit of 2 upped to 6. People who choose to still pay the optional subscription fee will have no limit at all.
Star Wars: The Old Republic went-free-to-play last month, only 11 months after it launched.
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replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, BioWare responds to Star Wars: The Old Republic F2P complaints.
When a subscription-based MMORPG turns free-to-play, as they almost inevitably do, it's very important to strike a balance between what's free and what players must pay for. Star Wars: The Old Republic kind of cocked that up. Responding to complaints, BioWare is still trying to find that balance, and yesterday rolled out a few more changes kind to players.-
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The action bars pissed many people off not shocked they changed it but should of been sooner.
The locks on f2p are harsh as hell action bars was the worst but you have to pay for all most every thing.
Hide Helms
Match armor colours
Use rare armor IE purple
And many other things that should of been free in the first place but nice to see there working on it even if its just the action bars for now.-
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I had purple grade on when i quit i had a try at the f2p and you now have to pay to use it unless you sub so if i take ANY of it off i can not put it back on.
Tested that with a comp i had since i never use him removing his armor ment nothing if i could not put it back on.
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I started with F2P and 2 quickbars wasn't a problem. Matter of fact, this is the best F2P mmo there is considering how good quality the game itself is. Every quest is voice acted, every class has a different and unique story, and you can experience everything in the game but raid content for free. Not cocked up by a long shot, this coming from someone who never intended to play this game but actually put money towards their cash shop.
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I'm glad at least some people have this view.
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Are you seriously trying to defend their choice to limit people to 2 hotbars? :P
Restricting a basic UI feature like that was 100% absurd.
I'm glad they've come to their senses about it, and hopefully some of their other ridiculous choices will be changing in the future as well.-
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Don't be retarded. Limiting the player to only 2 hotbars in an mmorpg, F2P or otherwise, is like releasing a F2P FPS but making mouse-look subscriber only. It literally limits your ability to play certain classes effectively, and hurts subscribers as much as it does the people who paid nothing, because they'll eventually be grouped with someone who is effectively crippled.
There is a right way to design F2P, and there is a wrong way. You don't have to be an industry veteran to understand which side draconian UI restrictions fall under. -
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The Action Bar limit is really stupid, but my Inquisitor is level 22, and I am fine with just two. I am sure by the time I get to end game, I'll be annoyed by it, but it's not a problem now. I think ragnar is right, though, for F2P, s'alright.
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It's still pretty absurd. They only changed the limit to 4, and that for preferred. It's not much of a change at all.
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It depends on the class and level. Some classes are fine with a limited selection of slots; others have a large number of skills that they use very frequently.
And really, what is the alternative? Are you expected to obscure most of your screen and go digging through your spellbook in the middle of combat? Or are you supposed to simply not use skills that your class has been designed and balanced around? It's a very silly restriction that definitely seems to cross the line in limiting the player's game experience.
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I definitely think they restricted too much at the beginning of f2p, but still, think about it: the game is FREE! If you need more action bars, or want to hide your helmet, you'll pay much less than the cost of a monthly subscription. So yeah of course I'm not surprised by all the complaining but I think it's a little ridiculous. And I'm not some BioWare apologist, I have my own stuff to complain about as a subscriber doing endgame content.
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I'm really surprised that they didn't orient the whole F2P model around really good additional end game content. They could release some awesome stuff that subs would eat up (and talk about) and they could charge a lot to F2P players. Those F2P players would get a taste of Sub world, and either sign up, or over-pay for the same content.
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it's a completely bat shit insane way to transition. limiting loot? rezzes? PVP? action bars?
why even let them get past level 5? just have a fully fledged free game but it's capped at level 5 or something. the nickle and dime short sheeting of the entirety of the game is FUCKING STUPID.
they chopped it up so badly that people are jarred and the game isn't even a game.
why did they not look at world of tanks or TF2? maybe look at planetside now? how about tribes2? star trek online? then you have the star wars folks completely fuck up the launch paid+subscription product, and then fuck up the F2P overhaul.
"THE GAME IS FREE" I bought it. played quite a bit of it. this is an abysmal course of action.-
Probably because only one of those games you mentioned is an MMORPG, why would they care how other genres of games handle F2P?
Haven't really heard anything about STO since it went F2P. Unsure why they would want to emulate them.
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Thank you for making my day, If I could have, I would've coughed up blood laughing
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F2P has to make the free players jealous of the paying players somehow in order to induce conversion.
If you make things too pleasant for free players they won't convert.
But you can't make it too bad or they would just quit.
There was a presentation by the Battlefield Heroes developers posted a while back talking about this stuff. It was utterly disgusting listening to it, but every single thing that was mentioned made economic sense and they made a lot of money doing it. So well done F2P is here to stay, though "well done" means what makes money and not good games unfortunately.-
http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/paying-to-win
From http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=28938213#item_28938213
Pretty disgusting if that's the future of games.-
As long as the total cost for a "full game experience" is less than I'd get the game for in a non-f2p world, I'm okay with it.
Planetside 2 is toeing the line, charging $5~$10 for a single gun for a single character, but paying a few bucks once to unlock features of the game? I'm fine with that.
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