BioWare and EA Reveal Star Wars:TOR F2P Restrictions.
SWTOR’s gone F2P at least. Here are the restrictions for free players…
Star Wars: The Old Republic, EA an
d BioWare’s Star Wars MMO, has finally made the leap from subscription model to free-to-play, just less than one year after its release. Though SWTOR had strong starting numbers, a lack of new content release has caused the MMO to lose hundreds of thousands of subscribers in a few months.
I’m beginning to think that F2P has real potentials. When SWTOR did the 15-day Free Trial I felt that it had the potential to have a one time boost. Level 15 would take you to end or near the end of the second planet, where you just receive your ship and begin the real adventure. Given the story nature of the game, this had the potential to trigger a one-time boost in subscriptions.
I could see enough people biting the bullet and pay to get the rest of the story. The real question is if they will stay afterwards.
It’s not a sustainable business model, though. The game levels super easy. I could see people get a few level 50’s in one month, get the story, and then quit.
With a F2P, revenue by micro-payment, model, I can see how this can work. The story is nice enough that it does incent people to keep the account, and pay for what they feel is important.
Legacy System
The Legacy system is nice and makes people feel the sense of progression. However, they will need to allow more, maybe even unlimited, characters so that people can keep building out their legacy. I think they can easily make a killing by charging for each additional slots.
I would love to see them expanding to allow different surnames within the legacy system, or make connections between accounts. Given the legacy relationships include non-family relationship such as allies and enemies, it would only make sense that the parties do not share the same surname. They can make it that only accounts linked to the same user can be legacy linked, if they want. I am OK with that.
I think if the Legacy System is built out more dynamically it can introduce a lot of money-making opportunities.
Paid Character Transfer
I sure wish they would allow me to pay for character transfer. I’d want it to be transfer between accounts, not just to different servers for the same account. Regardless of how easy it is to level in SWTOR, I have spent time to level them and I would like to keep my toons. I would want to transfer them to my F2P accounts, so that I can reap the benefit of keeping the toons, but open up slots in my main account (which I will keep subscribed) for more playing.
Paid Name and Appearance Changes
Sounds petty, isn’t it? But when you spend time working on your toon, you want the toon to be everything you are looking for. The fact that I can’t change their name and appearances is bugging the crap out of me.
I’ve spent real money in WoW to customize my toon after creation, and I will do so for SWTOR. Come on, BIOWARE, money waiting for you to collect.
Pets, Vehicles, Special Companion Customizations, Unique Hair Styles and Makeup, and Unique-Mod Gears
It’s all about vanity, and creating your own unique identity. Need I say more?
Paid Account-Level Bank
Having to manage my inventory across toons is just too much hassle. Especially since SWTOR doesn’t support add-ons, so I can leverage things like altoholic. At this point, I have enough alts that I will happily pay for an Account-Level Bank that all my alts can access. BIOWARE – are you hearing me?
Multiboxing
Not necessarily a paid-for service, but just enable it in general. The fact that SWTOR does not allow multi-boxing is just retarded. Do they even know how much subscription they are losing because of these? I have 2 WoW accounts. When I play, one is usually sitting near the Auction House and the Bank, managing my inventories and auctions, while the main goes out and questing. That’s TWO subscriptions Blizzard is getting from me. Sure there talks about ‘unfair advantage.’ All I can say is: those people complaining about multi-boxing doesn’t know what the heck they are talking about.
I am looking forward to SWTOR going full F2P.