SWTOR: Catch-All

Oh gosh, the KotORs are vaaaaaastly superior, go for it, you'll enjoy them!!! I'm definitely a fan (my avatar is an artist's rendition of a Light Side Female Revan). As for KotOR 2, well, if you're patient, I'm willing to bet it'll be on sale during the winter Steam sale. It suffers from a few flaws (rushed out the door, from what I gathered), but the Restoration Pack helps smooth out the edges, I'm told. Was still a good game when I played it without, though.

For sure. That's the one game I plan on getting during the Winter Sale. I had just started KotOR during the past one, and wasn't sure if I was going to finish the game (I had tried playing it a year or so ago and had trouble with crashes) so didn't want to get "yet another game I will not play." However, now that KotOR is done, KotOR II has been bumped up the queue for next pile game.

RE: your avatar...figured that was what it was. I played a female Revan as well.

Well, they've officially announced the pricing on the new planet: Makeb.

For $20, or $10 if you're a subscriber, you get a new planet with 5 more levels worth of content. Earlier I guessed it would be $15, so I wasn't too far off the mark.

That seems like a fair price for a mini-expansion, though I'm still curious about what they're going to do about the end-game. A raised level cap, however small, means a whole new set of flash points and operations doesn't it?

If they learned anything from LOTRO (and judging by the Free to play launch they didn't) then everything will scale to max level, so they don't have to release as much new content.

Vargen wrote:

Well, they've officially announced the pricing on the new planet: Makeb.

For $20, or $10 if you're a subscriber, you get a new planet with 5 more levels worth of content. Earlier I guessed it would be $15, so I wasn't too far off the mark.

That seems like a fair price for a mini-expansion, though I'm still curious about what they're going to do about the end-game. A raised level cap, however small, means a whole new set of flash points and operations doesn't it?

It's a fair price, but I wonder how many people out there were really thinking "oh boy, what I really want is more leveling content!".

Someone will point it out inevitably, but not everyone working on the game will be the same specialisation, so assuming they didn't fire them all there's always going to be people working on content alongside people working on the core game.

Quite true, but I'd have thought that those people's time would be better spent enriching the existing leveling experience. Something like creating more leveling flashpoints (which could also have HM variants for people at the level cap), or increasing enemy variety, or adding more quests in the vast tracts of empty space they currently have you running through.

Sonicator wrote:

It's a fair price, but I wonder how many people out there were really thinking "oh boy, what I really want is more leveling content!".

I almost never see that sentiment in a forum thread, but every time a new WoW expansion hit a few people in /g said they enjoyed leveling up again. So the audience is there, they're just not as vocal.

Something that occurs to me... with the cartel market allowing for digital mini-expansions they could treat raising the level cap like other games treat the release of a new raid tier...

So I'm sad to report that after finishing out my Trooper's story, I have little desire to contiune doing end-game content or rerolling. It's been a fun ride but I just don't feel respected as a SWTOR customer compared to how say ArenaNet treats GW 2 players. And as some of you have pointed out, the levels feel pretty empty. I picked up Mass Effect 3 during a Christmas sale and am hoping that will satisfy my Bioware space opera itch.

I did end up getting control of the guild on Republic side. Anyone that's looking for an invite, please PM Meshulam, Rezakh, Meshullam, or Seruak. My wife's chars are Sabeina and Devorah if you do not see me. We'll try and get you all an invite.

I've been thinking of coming back some now that its free to play. Do we still have anyone on the Sith side of things?

Sith side? not really. We renamed the guild on republic side a little while back, its now GWJ Republic and we're trying to get a core of people together to play. Please feel free to pm me in game for an invite.

Me: Meshulam, Meshullam, Seruak (Rep side) Teruak, Rezakh, Tryzik (Imp side)

So anyone doing the expansion?

I just resubbed to the game at least for a little bit mainly for the PvP. I'm on the Harbinger and my mains name is Hefasto.

Edit: I'm also a Sith..."Because good is dumb."

My wife and I play sporadically, been working on finishing the main quest lines up. We might play the expansion when we are done with that. Probably be a while though.

Play every work day on lunch break with some friends, and the new x-pac has me loading it up at home again a few times a week.

The new x-pac is enjoyable though there is not a ton of content. I am mostly through the new story quest-line and I have enjoyed it (it is on the easy side and can be done quickly if rushed). The new PvP bolster system is better with this patch, but was horrid the first couple of days if you were in lvl 50 pvp gear because the expertise stat on that gear made you inferior and better off playing naked. I like the new achievement system (similar to WoWs but not as advanced) though it is a lil buggy, as it gives me something to do from time to time. The game is mostly the same with some new content, skills and items.

Overall I would say I have enjoyed the x-pac to date specially for the cheap price of $9.99 you do get to see some new story and some new items and a new operation with nothing that is going to totally blow you away.

SWTOR is swimming with cash!

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05...

Apparently subscriber numbers have steadied and f2p has brought in 1.7 new free players.

While I don't think SWTOR was going to die, I did not expect success even remotely close to these more than likely inflated or taken out of relevant context numbers.

It's the same pattern as most sub to F2P conversions.

So, are they still going to delete my characters next time I log in, if I'm not a subscriber?

fangblackbone wrote:

SWTOR is swimming with cash!

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05...

Apparently subscriber numbers have steadied and f2p has brought in 1.7 new free players.

While I don't think SWTOR was going to die, I did not expect success even remotely close to these more than likely inflated or taken out of relevant context numbers.

Doubling revenue means little on its own. You can assume the marginal cost of additional free to play users is pretty low, but AFAIK we've never heard how profitable the game is so we don't have any point of reference. For all I know it could be losing money (I don't think it is, because it's still running, but the info we have just doesn't tell us much).

Yeah, I just noticed they used the word revenue rather than profit. It's hard to infer much from what they're saying/not saying, but I'd imagine they'd be singing from the rooftops if they had significant profit.

Given EA's recent history, I'd say they'd shut it down if it was a drain rather than an income for them, that they haven't says they probably see good things in it's future. A year a half isn't really that old in MMO terms, having done a sub to F2P transition and survived this long I'd say the worst is behind SWTOR. The question is whether there's any great highs to come for it, and with the Disney deal I wonder if they'd invest in it to make it all it can be and keep it going over 5-10+ years.

Well the other news in that is they expect to continue 8 week content releases. So f2p seems to be working out for them.

I guess that is one benefit of f2p, once the devs find the things that people will pay for, you are going to get more of it and more quickly. (up to your elbows for sure)

½ million subscribers are surprisingly high. That should be very profitable. Might not be profitable enough to frequently release new content with tons of voice acting - 8 different story lines - etc, but I'm not sure that was every really going to be profitable no matter what.

1.7 million free players sounds really low on the other hand. Assuming they count every single person who has created an account just to try the game for 5 minutes I had expted more.

Maybe this is a sign of the seriously restricted free to play model they have (especially when their free to play was released). Those who actually want to play ends up subscribing => relatively high subscriber numbers. Whereas most others just don't bother to try at all.

On a different note, I would still gladly pay money for a way to only play through the class stories and ignoring all the other lvling grind/questing... Most of SWTOR feels very repetitive, even for an MMO.

Yeah I tried the beta but it wasn't fun enough to subscribe. Plus considering the size of the pile I've never made the time investment for F2P. I barely play enough LoL, STO, or TF2 as it is... and those don't make pile progress either. Another MMO is the last thing I need.

On a different note, I would still gladly pay money for a way to only play through the class stories and ignoring all the other lvling grind/questing... Most of SWTOR feels very repetitive, even for an MMO.

I could be wrong but I think that would be an absolute cash cow. I mean at this point, who cares if it reduces that time to max level in half. And then, who knows, maybe their desire that replayability would come from playing alts would come to fruition.

Although I still think there is way too much running back and forth in SWTOR. (probably most of the problem with repitition)

Shadout wrote:

On a different note, I would still gladly pay money for a way to only play through the class stories and ignoring all the other lvling grind/questing... Most of SWTOR feels very repetitive, even for an MMO.

I'd probably pay dollars for this thing, too.

You sort of can now; well not really, but what I did last time I played, a month before the expansion came out, was to buy the legacy unlocks to have up to 30% more XP from Warzones and Space missions. Also, I got a few potions for higher XP gain so leveling was super quick running a few Warzones and Space missions and then just running the class quests in the planets. Worked really well for me but I'm someone that really enjoys the warzones in this game and just doing the space missions daily quests was super quick.

I'll be playing this again in a couple months. I pre-purchased the expansion when I was still playing but I got back to GW2 at the moment, so I'll spend some time there first before returning.

Whenever the EA/Disney topic comes up, I keep thinking about the whole SWTOR=KOTOR3+4+5 thing. I bet there would be a reasonable amount of money in adjusting SWTOR into a singleplayer game, not a solo MMO but properly done. It's also on my list of "things I want that'll never happen".

Is anyone playing this on The Harbinger, republic side?

This has completely sucked me back in (I'm not particularly proud of that...), but if anybody else is interested it's double XP weekend this week. Jedi Cov empire (where IPP characters ended up if you didn't do something different) is actually hoppin' most of the day.

It's less depressing if more people get sucked back in.