When does it go free? - Page 2

Alexrd · 10-09-2012, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tommycat

SWG had several completely different gameplay styles that you could enjoy.

It was an unique experience in the MMO realm, that for sure. I played mostly in space (which was a good space sim on its own). I can't believe I didn't take any screenshots before the game was gone...

Pho3nix · 10-09-2012, 05:11 PM

I never did get that "wow" (wow as in wow not warcraft

) feeling from Galaxies... I tried out the free trial on a few occasions and it just felt clunky as hell to me.

Alexrd · 10-09-2012, 05:28 PM

I think it was the only MMO where I felt I could be anyone and do anything (in the Star Wars universe, that is). The only other MMO that gives this kind of freedom is EVE Online.

adamqd · 10-09-2012, 05:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mimartin

I'm sorry I just don't see the game is a failure.

Neither do I, I think they could do a lot of things better, and Bioware's lack of experience in running an MMO shows with regards to keeping people interested outside of major patches.

The failure part comes from the fact that they have lost 75% of their player base, and have had to close 200 servers... Yes it was oversight on their part, but the reviewers not on EA's payroll just look at the big numbers rather than little details.

I log in, run around, and pretend I'm in the Star Wars universe, I do a couple of dailies (For no real reason other than to wave a lightsaber around) and log out. I'm happy to pay £ for that, 800,000 were not unfortunately.

I gave up on it being KotOR III in 2008, as for SWG, I loved, and will continue to, love it, Forever, and as soon as ProjectSWG is launched (Late 2012) I will play that alongside SWTOR (as long as F2P brings a barber shop and more MMO minutia)

Canderis · 10-09-2012, 06:16 PM

So, is it possible for me to play up to level 15 free still on my old account? I only had 2 characters pass that point.

***Lynk Former*** · 10-10-2012, 01:16 AM

@ Canderis: Yeah, the free to lv15 thing is still up as far as I know and won't go away until they implement the full F2P system.

As for the rest... I don't get why it's BioWare's fault that SWG failed. If anything it was SOE's fault and LucasArts fault for letting it happen with their inaction... which has been their trademark for years.

I also don't get the whole thing when people say that swtor is just like any other mmo... cause if it was, I wouldn't be playing it. It's more accurate to say that swtor is a BioWare RPG wrapped in an MMO shell... and that's how I approached this game this entire time. I don't like MMO's... I still don't. The fact that this is an MMO is overshadowed by the fact that it's a BioWare RPG and that there are 8 different class stories to go through which all tie together in some way and tell a larger story.

I avoided swg like the plague... despite the fact that it had space combat and all this stuff that swtor doesn't have (at least at the moment)... I was also one of the people who wanted kotor 3 over this initially. I'm also the one who convinced mim to buy into this game despite him absolutely refusing to initially

I think whatever disappointment this game has caused in terms of profits and fan support, I've thankfully been able to avoid that because I approached this game a certain way that didn't pile on the expectations of other games onto it but simply judged the game as it is, by itself.

I do this with every game btw, even though I can spot similarities, etc with a lot of games. Judge a game on its own merits or not at all... at least for me.

Alexrd · 10-10-2012, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lynk Former

If anything it was SOE's fault and LucasArts fault for letting it happen with their inaction... which has been their trademark for years.

But they acted when they were loosing subscribers. Unfortunately it wasn't the right action for many.

Qui-Don Jorn · 10-10-2012, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mimartin

I'm sorry I just don't see the game is a failure.

Nor do I. That was just me being a sarcastic smartarse d***.

Canderis · 10-10-2012, 06:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lynk Former

@ Canderis: Yeah, the free to lv15 thing is still up as far as I know and won't go away until they implement the full F2P system.

It just tells me my account is inactive. Any idea on how I can start?

***Lynk Former*** · 10-10-2012, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexrd

But they acted when they were loosing subscribers. Unfortunately it wasn't the right action for many.

Well they did in the end, but at that stage it was a lost cause, and from what many have said, swg was long before the whole free to play trend so it didn't have the infrastructure to be able to be converted to a system like that.

They did hold on for as long as possible though... gotta give 'em that.

@ Canderis: I don't really know what's going on... try contacting the tech support dudes and see what the deal is and if this is normal or just a mistake or something.

adamqd · 10-10-2012, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lynk Former

They did hold on for as long as possible though... gotta give 'em that.

There are two stories... When they announced SWG was shutting down, SOE made a statement that "They decided not to renew the Star Wars License for a 9th year", later an ex employee made a statement saying that "EA amended the contract to have a "No competition clause" in it, therefore taking the renewal decision out of SOE's hands.

It was originally stated that SWG and SWTOR would exist side by side for a at least a time.

Tommycat · 10-10-2012, 03:04 PM

Lynk: My reason for not playing it is your reason for playing it. I feel that it could use more MMO goodies that give me a reason to play past 50. Things that I really enjoyed in my down time were just not as fun to me. I really disliked that in order to craft top gear, I had to raid(Operations). I hated that there wasn't really any way for me to differentiate my goods from anyone else's. I hated that I couldn't even decorate my ship. I couldn't make my home... mine. To me that's why the community is just not there. Sure there are a lot of players, but not the kind of community you see in other MMO's.

Again, I'm not saying it is a failure, or that it is a bad game. far from it. It's an excellent multiplayer RPG. It just feels more like an RPG with some multiplayer capabilities rather than a living breathing persistent world. Perhaps that's a good thing, and they need to just ignore us old MMO players.

As for blaming SWG's demise on Bioware/EA... Not really. But when TOR was first announced, there was all kinds of talk about both being there at the same time. I would have had both installed and would have had active accounts on both. I know many who had similar plans. The official story was that SOE decided not to renew the license. There have since been confirmations that it was due to EA/LA refusing to allow both to exist.

Hassat Hunter · 10-10-2012, 07:52 PM

Well, the reason I'm not playing it, is since I refuse to pay $15 a month to have my SP experience that's free in KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 be ruined by MMO stuff.
Maybe if a one-time pay (Guild War) I could tolerate it, but monthly. It's just not good enough for that.

So that makes me happy it goes F2P. I can just play it through for the only good stuff, mostly ignore the MMO stuff, and then when the stories are done forget all about it. Unlike a, say, KOTOR2 which I keep playing due to it's quality.

***Lynk Former*** · 10-10-2012, 08:05 PM

@ adamq: So... it's EA's fault, not BioWare's as people have said in the past

@ Tommy: I get what you're saying, and from the very beginning swtor has been going for the whole shtick where they wanted to try to pull in non-mmo players with their own brand of rpg... which they did pretty successfully with me. Had it been more of a traditional mmo then I probably wouldn't have invested any time or money into it at all.

@ Hassat: As I've said before, completely understandable.

Scorge · 10-10-2012, 09:11 PM

Free up to what level? 16?

Tommycat · 10-10-2012, 10:10 PM

Lynk: I think they did a great job of bringing the RPG to the MMORPG arena, but fell flat in my estimation on the whole MMO part. There wasn't any need to have other people for your leveling. But I gotta admit, I kinda liked that part of it. I just wished there was a more robust crafting system, and after playing SWG, most other crafting systems fall way short. And it's entirely possible that BioWare ruined the MMO market entirely for me(not in a bad way). Honestly after TOR, it'll be hard to play an MMO that is not fully voiced with a story that lasts from noob to top, and that I can play either solo or grouped. I believe that the people who will enjoy it the most are the SPRPG fans who would like to play it with friends.

Scorge: It's free up to level 15. After you get a toon to 15 I believe you'll have to pay.

Hassat Hunter · 10-11-2012, 07:08 AM

Level 50. When? Still up to debate.
It's free to lvl 15 now.

And I also find annoying that it hampers my completionist mentality. In RPG's obviously you want to do everything, all sidequests. But doing that in TOR required teaming up with groups, getting hugely overleveled so you need to skip stuff to keep challenged (or not and be bored by opponents too weak to destroy you for 10+ hours). I suppose it gets worse with the bonus quests mentioned. I only know that this was already heavily happening in the first 15 levels I played... :/

***Lynk Former*** · 10-11-2012, 08:12 AM

That's the drawback of a game type based around social interaction when you're someone who wants to keep to yourself.

Funnily enough though, I end up skipping the heroics and bonus series and end up underleveled (with my alts)... makes things more interesting and challenging which = more fun in my books. This is counter to my usual completionist ways with other games, though when you think about it, if you really want to call yourself a completionist with this game, you'd better be prepared to play every single class/advanced class and go through every bit of dialogue in the game and choose all of the different choices not just doing the missions themselves so it's really pointless to do... EVERYTHING... which means it's not really that bad to skip a few things.

...if that makes sense.

adamqd · 10-11-2012, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lynk Former

@ adamq: So... it's EA's fault, not BioWare's as people have said in the past

I'm not very good at reading intention over the internet, are you insinuating I blamed Bioware, and have now changed my stance, or that people in general did this?

To Clarify both possible answers, EA is Bioware, so yes

***Lynk Former*** · 10-11-2012, 11:14 AM

No, I wasn't saying you specifically did anything, I was just saying that the general mood around the interwebs from those who are most vocal seem to blame BioWare developers for some kind of conspiracy against SWG.

And when I say BioWare, I mean the development team, not the suits

...and no one has changed their stance, everyone still blames the development team for... well.. everything. I mean, it's not like they're the ones responsible for the ending of Mass Effect 3, they're just trying to create an accessible Star Wars MMO that I thought would have easily complimented SWG's more core MMO philosophy if it had been allowed to keep living.

adamqd · 10-11-2012, 11:22 AM

Ahh ok

To be honest The people who developed TOR are no longer developers for TOR, and a lot of former SWG Devs went on to work on TOR on some level or another.

I get enjoyment from TOR, but it would of been better if I had SWG to fulfill my MMO needs, like you suggested.

Tommycat · 10-11-2012, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lynk Former

...when you think about it, if you really want to call yourself a completionist with this game, you'd better be prepared to play every single class/advanced class and go through every bit of dialogue in the game and choose all of the different choices not just doing the missions themselves so it's really pointless to do... EVERYTHING...

Once it's free to play... I'm SO doing this. I think I might be done right about when I'm 75 years old. I'll skip the Operations and such for after I have completed everything else...

***Lynk Former*** · 10-11-2012, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamqd

Ahh ok

To be honest The people who developed TOR are no longer developers for TOR, and a lot of former SWG Devs went on to work on TOR on some level or another.

I get enjoyment from TOR, but it would of been better if I had SWG to fulfill my MMO needs, like you suggested.

I imagine they all REALLY needed a job and EA was happy to pay them less than their previous job.

adamqd · 10-11-2012, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lynk Former

I imagine they all REALLY needed a job and EA was happy to pay them less than their previous job.

Qft lol

CrisG · 10-12-2012, 12:44 AM

It is interesting timing that the two Doctors quit just when their fabled MMO shows signs of being a normal sized fun game instead of the Greatest Game EVER in the Universe Game