Star Wars: The Old Republic Going Free to Play This Fall

the storylines are great and that is what is most like KOTOR. If you liked KOTOR then you can't go wrong with a free BW story line.

So it seems that my level 42 sith warrior can complete the story after all. If I don't uninstall the game after I see a bunch of "kill 20 dudes" quests while yelling "and this is why you should have made KOTOR 3 you fucking fucks" at the screen.

What a twist!

So they actually did it. I can't believe EA actually pulled the trigger so soon. Things must be looking really bad.

I wonder what the people at Zenimax Online are thinking with their upcoming Elder Scrolls Online right about now.

Cool, now let's end all MMOs too while we're at it.

@stinky said:

next stop, giant bomb end of the world quick look.

@LegendaryChopChop said:

Cool, now let's end all MMOs too while we're at it.

Yea because that's not completely irrelevant or unnecessary...

So that basically means, everyone should play it up until it isn't free again. Come on.

Since the only real reason to play this game is for a few of the storylines and all of the story can be played for free, I don't see this helping them much in the long run since a lot of people will come play and get off without sending any money their way.

i still play it. o well i knew it was inevitable.

I almost downloaded the free trial yesterday and I'm glad I didn't. I'm really looking forward to this.

Called it.

It was obvious from comments they have made that they were at least seriously considering this move. It will definitely be interesting to see the results of this, since it will arguably make this the highest quality free-to-play MMORPG on the market, surpassing games like Lord of the Rings Online and Aion. (By "highest quality," I don't necessarily mean "most fun." I just mean in terms of production values.) I'll be curious to see if some of the subscription-only holdouts like Rift respond. (Of course, they might have been considering making the switch, regardless.)

I'm definitely interested in giving it a try at some point, but it comes at a weird time for me, as I will be knee-deep in Guild Wars 2 this fall. I wonder just how much WoW's next expansion and the no-subscription (but not free-to-play) Guild Wars 2 being on the horizon influenced both the timing of the switch and the timing of the press release. Even though I long thought Bioware, a company known primarily for their storytelling (while often making many just plain bad design decisions in other parts of their games, in my opinion), making a MMO was probably a mistake, I hope the game does really well after the switch, mostly because I'm tired of every AAA MMO launching with a subscription fee. That is assuming that the implementation isn't dumb as all get-out like Sony Online Entertainment's usually are...or worse. Perhaps against my better judgment, I will try and give EA the benefit of a doubt.

I think I will at least try it now.

so who even plays those types of games anymore?

As a Subscriber I'm glad to hear this news.

This makes me wonder if there will be a sudden resurgence and even an upwards in profit. DCUO went free to play, a million+ subscribes joined, and they began making money on it. Who knows, maybe this is how the MMO needs to go, or do what Guild wars is doing and just make it a 60-70 purchase, then you have the game forever.

@Paul_Is_Drunk said:

I wonder what the people at Zenimax Online are thinking with their upcoming Elder Scrolls Online right about now.

"Hey guys, you all loved Skyrim right? This next game isn't like that? Oh... fuck."

But yeah, I lost a bet. Thought TOR would make it to the first anniversary. But it sounds like they have their "premium currency" all specced out, and are well underway to haphazardly staple microtransaction items into the economy. I dare say they have the "advantage" for looking at what STO has done, and the various community reactions to a largely Chinese-MMO marketplace influence (i.e. lockboxes). But that doesn't mean they'll pick the best options. From what jakob is saying it sounds like they're going for the gated route. Meh, I'll see how former subscribers fare.

@sirdesmond said:

Since the only real reason to play this game is for a few of the storylines and all of the story can be played for free, I don't see this helping them much in the long run since a lot of people will come play and get off without sending any money their way.

Yes, that is one thing that kind of bugs me. I'm concerned that they will completely fuck up on how to do free-to-play properly one way or another, and then will come to the erroneous conclusion that not having a subscription fee is a bad model for AAA MMOs. I'm more concerned about the subscription fee part. Charging for the box and inoffensive cash shop stuff like what Guild Wars 2 is doing is just fine by me.

I'm not really sure what the solution is for this particular game. I think that maybe they should have just kept the early level stuff free-to-play (i.e. demo) like they have now and then let non-subscribers purchase the remaining story on a per-class basis. They've already made up their minds, though, it seems.

It was kind of silly that they made a game whose chief selling point always seemed to be story as a MMO. It's not really what MMOs are about. I'm not saying that better story isn't welcome, but when that and the IP are kind of the only thing that sets it apart, that's probably bad.

also, more importantly, kotor II is finally finished :D

@damnable_fiend said:

also, more importantly, kotor II is finally finished :D

I had to Google that, because I wasn't sure if that was just some kind of joke or something.

Wow, I didn't think that fan project was ever actually going to be done.

Honestly, this makes me interested in going back in and playing it now. I couldn't bring myself to pay a monthly fee with how busy school gets, but I genuinely enjoyed TOR and now I can play all I want.

Great idea Bioware making this instead of KOTOR 3, what a fucking waste.

I'll give this a try in the fall now as something to play for FREE yay

Lost interest during the beta and ignored the subsequent beta invites and free time offers after it's release. Aside from some interesting story elements(at least for the Sith Jedi) I thought it was a complete bore. I shant be playing it for free.

Whew. I'm glad I didn't buy it

Later than I was expecting but I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Maybe this fall I'll finally get Blabba the Butt past level 8, now that I no longer have to pay for it.

I really like this game (the people I play this with are a hughe factor though), so I hope they are smart about fleshing out the F2P approach.

So that's how many notches in WoW's belt?

@tactis said:

Great idea Bioware making this instead of KOTOR 3, what a fucking waste.

+1

@Trilogy said:

@LegendaryChopChop said:

Cool, now let's end all MMOs too while we're at it.

Yea because that's not completely irrelevant or unnecessary...

You mean like MMOs?

@avidwriter said:

So that's how many notches in WoW's belt?

I don't really think that most of the people who quit already went back to WoW. I'm sure many will go back when MoP hits, of course. If anything, they probably hopped aboard The Secret World for a bit.

@Forum_User said:

@damnable_fiend said:

also, more importantly, kotor II is finally finished :D

I had to Google that, because I wasn't sure if that was just some kind of joke or something.

Wow, I didn't think that fan project was ever actually going to be done.

To be completely fair, it never did. Team Gizka gave up because, and I quote, "I met a girl".

The team that actually finished it then immediately rolled in like thunder, kicked everybody in the balls, and left us with a complete KotOR2. And I'm still not sure exactly how it all happened.

@damnable_fiend: o.O but kotor 2 was already released in '04

Boy do I feel bad now for spending 60 dollars on this game.

I was expecting this to happen early next year. Didn't expect it this soon...

I wonder how many bricks Bethesda is shittng right now. Aren't they doing quick bar combat?

@Vash108 said:

I wonder how many bricks Bethesda is shittng right now. Aren't they doing quick bar combat?

As opposed to what? Going through a bunch of menus to do stuff?

Dang.

This is awesome news! I played the beta and have been wanting to return, but couldn't justify the monthly fee for the amount I would play (after 4+ years of WoW, I vowed I would never succumb to another MMO like I did then...). I also told myself I would at least wait until the launch days bugs and lag were sorted out...

Now I can finally return to a galaxy far, far away. Huzzah!

They made it a lot longer than I thought.

Shocking.

It's about damn time. Maybe I'll pick it up again and finish a storyline or two.

@Forum_User said:

@Vash108 said:

I wonder how many bricks Bethesda is shittng right now. Aren't they doing quick bar combat?

As opposed to what? Going through a bunch of menus to do stuff?

As someone that doesn't play MMOs, is there a reason why they always opt for this style of combat instead of something more traditional, like say, standard 3rd person combat with just skills/combos thrown on top of it? I know they want to allow character growth, but using a quick bar style of combat alienates a good number of people I'd imagine (WoW not included, I guess, as usual).

The real question is, has Bioware made any justification for replacing Star Wars Galaxies with The Old Republic? I stopped playing Galaxies a long time ago, and haven't heard anything that makes The Old Republic worth playing.

@RedRoach said:

Subscription MMO's are not dead. New MMO's are just going at it wrong. WoW, RIFT, EVE and more MMO's are doing just fine with subs. All these failing MMO's are failing because they're bad, not necessarily because they have a subscription. TOR is the complete opposite of WoW. It's all about the leveling. WoW's leveling sucks, it really does. I mean it's okay but it's no thrill ride. But where WoW succeeds is in the end game content. There is always something to do, it's when WoW is really fun, that's why people play. TOR's end game content is just not of the same quality.

Just look at WoW: Cataclysm. In this expansion they focused too much on making new leveling content and not nearly enough on end game content. This lead to WoW's first subscriber drop ever. Leveling is really a prequel to the actual game, which is raiding, and pvping at max level. leveling is very minor in the grand scheme of things and focusing too much on it was TOR's downfall.

I think that Eve Online (which, as far as I know, does not have as many subscribers as The Old Republic, and never has, so I'm not quite sure where you were going with that) keeps people subbing in part because the pace of character progress is lethargic, and also is directly dependent merely upon subscribing, whether you are playing or not. Other MMOs actually let you reach the finish line, eventually, even if they introduce a new one later. I really hate Eve Online's progression system, and the last thing I want to see from other MMOs is for them to adopt it.

I give Eve Online points for two things:

1. It has an interesting economy. (Too bad it's in support of one of the dullest combat systems I've ever witnessed in a MMORPG, and that there is little else to the game besides the economy, really, which kind of just makes the whole game feel like some kind of weird exercise in circular reasoning or something.)

2. As far as I could tell, you have, for all practical purposes, unlimited storage. That just really makes me further question exactly why virtually every other MMORPG is so damn stingy about storage.

@HarlequinRiot said:

@Forum_User said:

@Vash108 said:

I wonder how many bricks Bethesda is shittng right now. Aren't they doing quick bar combat?

As opposed to what? Going through a bunch of menus to do stuff?

As someone that doesn't play MMOs, is there a reason why they always opt for this style of combat instead of something more traditional, like say, standard 3rd person combat with just skills/combos thrown on top of it? I know they want to allow character growth, but using a quick bar style of combat alienates a good number of people I'd imagine (WoW not included, I guess, as usual).

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at. Are you saying that classes should have less skills? Because it's generally the sheer volume of skills, coupled with the fact that an online game with other players around can't be paused, that necessitates the hotbars, although some single player RPGs also have them out of convenience.

I'm not sure if you are coming at this from the perspective of a player of single player RPGs or as someone who just isn't really into RPGs, period. I can't really think of that many RPGs that work how you describe, MMO or not. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and the Fable series (neither of which I have played) come to mind. Those are kind of outliers, though.

that's sad.

@SomeJerk said:

This is a very good thing for us, because this means we have KOTOR3 right here. Now, how the fuck is Warhammer Online still alive? DAoC I understand because it's the greatest PVP MMO of all time but..

I'm pretty sure that an actual Kotor 3 wouldn't have a bunch of quests where you have to go kill random enemies to get their quest item drops. Just saying.