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Star Wars: The Old Republic Will Be Free To Play This Weekend

lol no preload? The free users will spend 90% of the free weekend downloading and waiting in queues.

If getting max speed, 30gigs would only take me around 300 minutes or less to download. I have 15mbps download speed... nothing earth shattering. It all depends on their servers and if we can get good speeds but 30 gigs isn't a big deal at all for most.
 
1.2 is in April

-sigh- April seems like a really loaded month for potential awesome PC playing. I'll have to see how things pan out. Been wanting to get back into SWTOR but with all the content done on Nightmare with my guild, a lost of us have just stopped playing and are waiting.
 
1.2 patch is going to be huge. I put the game on hold, only to raid once a week while I play some existing games. Up to level 15 is pretty good for certain classes. I recommend Imperial Agent since their storyline gets pretty interesting around there.
 
I'm having a good time w/ the game. Well worth a free weekend, at least to see if you like it.

Though I do have a good guild I'm playing with, so that might be the difference.
 
1.2 patch is going to be huge.

A huge mess.

I've been playing this game since mid Jan, I have 39 days of time left, and I can barely force myself to even log in anymore. A 50 in Battlemaster gear, and 7 chars all past Dromund Kaas.

I hated EA but broke down and bought the game because a few old guildmates and friends decided to try it.

I should have realized their hype for it was skewed since they just so happened to have never played an MMO before.

This game is a mess and free to play is not too far off. Continuing to expect people to pay for this sub par beta isn't going to cut it for much longer.

This free trial... EAWare needs to just put it out of it's misery soon. I don't even have enough interest left in it to continue bitching. It's just bad.
 
We should start a GAF betting pool on how long it'll take before that happens.

Might be also be possible to include a bet into how long it'll be before subscription gaming for MMORPG's go out the window.

I don't know how many people here understand how much F2P's actually make...
 
A huge mess.

I've been playing this game since mid Jan, I have 39 days of time left, and I can barely force myself to even log in anymore. A 50 in Battlemaster gear, and 7 chars all past Dromund Kaas.

I hated EA but broke down and bought the game because a few old guildmates and friends decided to try it.

I should have realized their hype for it was skewed since they just so happened to have never played an MMO before.

This game is a mess and free to play is not too far off. Continuing to expect people to pay for this sub par beta isn't going to cut it for much longer.

This free trial... EAWare needs to just put it out of it's misery soon. I don't even have enough interest left in it to continue bitching. It's just bad.

I was thinking of buying it back in december, but decided to stick with WoW. Did i do right then?
 
A huge mess.

I've been playing this game since mid Jan, I have 39 days of time left, and I can barely force myself to even log in anymore. A 50 in Battlemaster gear, and 7 chars all past Dromund Kaas.

I hated EA but broke down and bought the game because a few old guildmates and friends decided to try it.

I should have realized their hype for it was skewed since they just so happened to have never played an MMO before.

This game is a mess and free to play is not too far off. Continuing to expect people to pay for this sub par beta isn't going to cut it for much longer.

This free trial... EAWare needs to just put it out of it's misery soon. I don't even have enough interest left in it to continue bitching. It's just bad.

The only thing which I dislike about the game is the travelling system. I like it when the world is open and connected like in WoW. In SWTOR, however, you're forced to use a stupid shuttle just to transport within the same planet.
 
A huge mess.

I've been playing this game since mid Jan, I have 39 days of time left, and I can barely force myself to even log in anymore. A 50 in Battlemaster gear, and 7 chars all past Dromund Kaas.

I hated EA but broke down and bought the game because a few old guildmates and friends decided to try it.

I should have realized their hype for it was skewed since they just so happened to have never played an MMO before.

This game is a mess and free to play is not too far off. Continuing to expect people to pay for this sub par beta isn't going to cut it for much longer.

This free trial... EAWare needs to just put it out of it's misery soon. I don't even have enough interest left in it to continue bitching. It's just bad.

Some issues, yes, but a huge mess is hyperbole. Lot of great fixes and updates in coming weeks and they are aware of alot of things they are focusing on. Compared to the many failures of recent, it's had a solid launch despite it's problems and they are going to improve.

The only thing which I dislike about the game is the travelling system. I like it when the world is open and connected like in WoW. In SWTOR, however, you're forced to use a stupid shuttle just to transport within the same planet.

The shuttling between planets/stations? Yea they are getting rid of that, making it optional
 
I wouldn't call this game a mess at all.
It was one of the most polished MMO launches. Although it was missing many key features (like no combat logs or macros).

But I didn't make it passed the first month myself. I had way too many issues with the core systems designs in the game. The biggest thing for me was the reliance on companions - basically making every class a pet class. And to balance that, almost every encounter is a group encounter. I also had a lot of issues with the way skills were distributed (what I felt was "bloat") and the lack of auto attack. I just couldn't have fun with it.

It has some neat ideas though. The stronger story focus is a good idea. But since I'm not a Star Wars fan, there wasn't much to keep me there for very long.

Also, the instanced nature of the game makes me feel like a subscription fee isn't worth it.
 
I was thinking of buying it back in december, but decided to stick with WoW. Did i do right then?

You absolutely did it right.

Some issues, yes, but a huge mess is hyperbole. Lot of great fixes and updates in coming weeks and they are aware of alot of things they are focusing on. Compared to the many failures of recent, it's had a solid launch despite it's problems and they are going to improve.

It's not hyperbole at all. I realize "huge mess", especially here on DramaGAF, is used as hyperbole too often. But in the case of SWTOR it actually is a huge $300 million dollar mess.

You talk about fixes in the "coming weeks" when this game is basically a beta, or even pre beta, since launch.

The "huge fixes" consist of being able to have a pureblood sith Jedi...
a "family tree"
a third party out of game text based combat log with no UI
a guild bank
being able to invite people to groups from your guild list
and being able to move UI elements

Those aren't huge improvements. Those are steps to get it closer to out of beta, but still beta. Still subpar. Still an attempt to be a WoW clone and yet failing in every aspect.
 
I was thinking of buying it back in december, but decided to stick with WoW. Did i do right then?

WoW is the superior game. TOR focused on things like the voice acting and the conversation wheel, but it gets old extremely fast (level 20ish for me). WoW on the other hand has raid finder, dungeon finder, cross server battlegrounds, guild finder, arena, macros and interface mods. On top of that, WoW just feels more fluid and looks much better than the bland TOR worlds.
 
You absolutely did it right.



It's not hyperbole at all. I realize "huge mess", especially here on DramaGAF, is used as hyperbole too often. But in the case of SWTOR it actually is a huge $300 million dollar mess.

You talk about fixes in the "coming weeks" when this game is basically a beta, or even pre beta, since launch.

The "huge fixes" consist of being able to have a pureblood sith Jedi...
a "family tree"
a third party out of game text based combat log with no UI
a guild bank
being able to invite people to groups from your guild list
and being able to move UI elements

Those aren't huge improvements. Those are steps to get it closer to out of beta, but still beta. Still subpar. Still an attempt to be a WoW clone and yet failing in every aspect.

Maybe you feel this way because you had extensive mmorpg experience before, making this one appear a bit shallow..
 
Maybe you feel this way because you had extensive mmorpg experience before, making this one appear a bit shallow..

I have had MMO experience before, yes.

And that experience does indeed influence my opinion of TOR.

"shallow" is not the word I would use though. I would use, as I have above, "sub par". Shallow is only part, a small part, of its problem.
 
I'm hoping this eventually means they will go F2P. Then I could do my single player playthroughs for story at my own pace.

I paid for 3 months because of the slightly discounted rate (measly $1.00 off a month), and I can barely force myself to log on. I paid because I love KOTOR 1 and even 2, and I'm basically playing this for continuity's sake. I'm currently a 30 Jedi Sentinel and I plan on finishing this story and maybe a Sith storyline, and basically pretending that SWTOR was KOTOR 3.

I'm on Tatooine right now. Is it possible for me to finish what's left of the Jedi Sentinel story and a Sith story playthrough in 3 months time if I skip all the ridiculously boring side-fetch missions?

But man the more I sign on the more bitter I feel because what I really want to be playing is Star Trek Online, a much more polished MMO than SWTOR is in its current state.
 
WoW is the superior game. TOR focused on things like the voice acting and the conversation wheel, but it gets old extremely fast (level 20ish for me). WoW on the other hand has raid finder, dungeon finder, cross server battlegrounds, guild finder, arena, macros and interface mods. On top of that, WoW just feels more fluid and looks much better than the bland TOR worlds.

WoW a superior game? :lol

Blizzard has had many years of polish and it's still completely and utterly boring.

I'm not a huge fan of ToR either at the moment, as it's equally as stale and static, but saying that WoW is superior is simply laughable.
 
No thanks, played the Beta, was totally underwhelmed.

It's all about GW2 now. Wait and watch those WOW and TOR subscriptions plummet. *insert evil Mr. Burns "excellent" here*

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WoW a superior game? :lol

Blizzard has had many years of polish and it's still completely and utterly boring.

I'm not a huge fan of ToR either at the moment, as it's equally as stale and static, but saying that WoW is superior is simply laughable.

Given the features that I listed, I wouldn't say it's laughable to call WoW superior to TOR. Debatable sure, but not laughable.
 
Given the features that I listed, I wouldn't say it's laughable to call WoW superior to TOR. Debatable sure, but not laughable.

I don't even think it's debatable. It's not even really subject to opinion, it's pretty much fact WoW is superior in every way except for voice overs which eventually you will be space bar skipping anyway.

I mean sure I guess you -could- debate it, but you'd look pretty silly trying to debate that any aspect of TOR, again aside from the voice work, is better than anything in WoW. You'd just be factually wrong.
 
I feel WoW is the superior game. I'm totally bored of it though.

But that's the thing. I'm just bored of WoW.
SWTOR's gameplay, on the other hand, is "bad" to me.

So if I'm playing WoW, I won't be terribly excited or entertained.
But if I'm playing SWTOR, I'm actually feeling pretty negative.
 
I'm hoping this eventually means they will go F2P. Then I could do my single player playthroughs for story at my own pace.

I paid for 3 months because of the slightly discounted rate (measly $1.00 off a month), and I can barely force myself to log on. I paid because I love KOTOR 1 and even 2, and I'm basically playing this for continuity's sake. I'm currently a 30 Jedi Sentinel and I plan on finishing this story and maybe a Sith storyline, and basically pretending that SWTOR was KOTOR 3.

I'm on Tatooine right now. Is it possible for me to finish what's left of the Jedi Sentinel story and a Sith story playthrough in 3 months time if I skip all the ridiculously boring side-fetch missions?

But man the more I sign on the more bitter I feel because what I really want to be playing is Star Trek Online, a much more polished MMO than SWTOR is in its current state.

Are you at least doing the flashpoints with a few friends? Plenty of KOTOR related storyline stuff there on both sides.

And yeah, you can skip most of the side quests if they don't interest you. The main planet sidequest often has more story bits though (the one that links to other side quests and move you around the map), so those may be worth doing still if the story for them catches you at all.
 
But man the more I sign on the more bitter I feel because what I really want to be playing is Star Trek Online, a much more polished MMO than SWTOR is in its current state.

F2P earns lots of money, I am sure DC Online is making more now then they ever did when they were using a paid sub model

But as someone who played STO at launch I can tell you that it did not start that way. There was a BIG reason why they were giving the game away at $10 within 40 days of launch
 
Sounds like a reaction to the scroll of resurrection update wow just did.

I cancelled my swtor account because I'm waiting for 1.2, thought it would come this month but they pushed it back.
 
Are you at least doing the flashpoints with a few friends? Plenty of KOTOR related storyline stuff there on both sides.

Yeah I have been doing those with about 6 close friends (we alternate) I play with. But it's just really not the game for me when I'm playing with 6 RL friends and I still don't want to play the game. These were the same group of friends that I played FFXI with for 7 years and loved the crap out of the game.



F2P earns lots of money, I am sure DC Online is making more now then they ever did when they were using a paid sub model

But as someone who played STO at launch I can tell you that it did not start that way. There was a BIG reason why they were giving the game away at $10 within 40 days of launch

Yeah I can tell, I actually listened to the entire STOked podcast from episode 1 to I think 110 now, and it was really interesting to see how the game evolved from its launch state.
 
WoW a superior game? :lol

Blizzard has had many years of polish and it's still completely and utterly boring.

I'm not a huge fan of ToR either at the moment, as it's equally as stale and static, but saying that WoW is superior is simply laughable.

I don't see how that's even a discussion? I don't care how many years of polish WoW has had, it's as of right now still the vastly superior game.
 
Did they fix that bug where you can't move while holding Ctrl? How about that bug where the game goes at 5 FPS when there are more than 5 people on screen?

I have not had any FPS issues and I have logged 300 hours since launch not sure what kind of hardware you have but that could be the problem.
 
Given the features that I listed, I wouldn't say it's laughable to call WoW superior to TOR. Debatable sure, but not laughable.

Its not even debatable. WoW is superior in every way, the most important being subscriber numbers. I know you can argue that WoW has been out for a very long time which is true, but at the same time Bioware has had time to study all current MMO's and improve upon them since its inception. Can TOR get better and BE better in the future? Sure, but its not even debatable at this point that WoW is a superior product ranging from sub numbers to polish to amount of content.
 
Yep, some day my 7970 will make this game its bitch, some day...

*goes back to waiting for the next driver release*

I have a 7970 runs the game at max just fine.

Its not even debatable. WoW is superior in every way, the most important being subscriber numbers. I know you can argue that WoW has been out for a very long time which is true, but at the same time Bioware has had time to study all current MMO's and improve upon them since its inception. Can TOR get better and BE better in the future? Sure, but its not even debatable at this point that WoW is a superior product ranging from sub numbers to polish to amount of content.

Graphics and music tor is flatly better. Sp experience is FAR better IMO in tor as well.
 
WoW a superior game? :lol

Blizzard has had many years of polish and it's still completely and utterly boring.

I'm not a huge fan of ToR either at the moment, as it's equally as stale and static, but saying that WoW is superior is simply laughable.

WoW is easily superior despite being completely boring and terrible at this point in time.

TOR is completely unremarkable in every way.
 
I wouldn't call this game a mess at all.
It was one of the most polished MMO launches. Although it was missing many key features (like no combat logs or macros).

But I didn't make it passed the first month myself. I had way too many issues with the core systems designs in the game. The biggest thing for me was the reliance on companions - basically making every class a pet class. And to balance that, almost every encounter is a group encounter. I also had a lot of issues with the way skills were distributed (what I felt was "bloat") and the lack of auto attack. I just couldn't have fun with it.

It has some neat ideas though. The stronger story focus is a good idea. But since I'm not a Star Wars fan, there wasn't much to keep me there for very long.

Also, the instanced nature of the game makes me feel like a subscription fee isn't worth it.

I don't mind the pets. Solo content has always been massively imba either in favor of (Rift and Aion, to name a couple) or against healers, just because of endurance and utility; giving each class options to burst their solo quests down or slow-and-steady tank 'em deals with that. (Plus, it worked for FFXI, though the balance there was that you and your universal pet could get shredded on 6-man content almost as fast as you bit it alone.) On the other hand, knowing FFXI leaves me pretty unimpressed with the plot focus, because it's just "I'm playing KotOR instead of FF6" rather than an amazing new paradigm.

Fuck the skill bloat, though. I've settled on BH as my main and even with healer and DPS specs I've got like a quarter million creds of skills left that are completely useless to learn.

Maybe you feel this way because you had extensive mmorpg experience before, making this one appear a bit shallow..

This is an extremely shitty argument. "You wouldn't think it was bad if you didn't know it could be done better!"

I'm on Tatooine right now. Is it possible for me to finish what's left of the Jedi Sentinel story and a Sith story playthrough in 3 months time if I skip all the ridiculously boring side-fetch missions?

Started in January, gearing out a third 50. Not casual per se, but I've wasted a ton of time on shit that's completely irrelevant to plot. Exploit Nar Shadda to "sell" a worthless piece of NPC trash from your Sith to your Sentinel for half a million or so, and cakewalk through the game on retardedly broken heirloom gear; it'll probably take you a couple weeks.
 
An odd free weekend with no preload and all these limitations. I guess it's a test run to TOR's version of the WoW Starter Edition or whaterver it's called.
 
Did they fix that bug where you can't move while holding Ctrl? How about that bug where the game goes at 5 FPS when there are more than 5 people on screen?

I never had an issue with frame rate other than the occasional hiccup on the fleet when there were hundreds of people in the area. Can't comment on the Ctrl thing personally.

The number of paying accounts has gone up each time they've provided an update since launch. This is just a dealer offering a hit basically. Smart business.
 
Graphics and music tor is flatly better. Sp experience is FAR better IMO in tor as well.

Yea they are slightly better, but not 7 years ahead of them better. I know they were trying to downgrade the graphics engine so that anyone can run the game but thats not even the case. Even on meh computers on the lowest possible settings and worst resolution TOR still runs like shit.

SP is better, no doubt but then again, its an MMO. (Keywords being Massive multiplayer)
 
I don't mind the pets. Solo content has always been massively imba either in favor of (Rift and Aion, to name a couple) or against healers, just because of endurance and utility; giving each class options to burst their solo quests down or slow-and-steady tank 'em deals with that. (Plus, it worked for FFXI, though the balance there was that you and your universal pet could get shredded on 6-man content almost as fast as you bit it alone.) On the other hand, knowing FFXI leaves me pretty unimpressed with the plot focus, because it's just "I'm playing KotOR instead of FF6" rather than an amazing new paradigm.

Fuck the skill bloat, though. I've settled on BH as my main and even with healer and DPS specs I've got like a quarter million creds of skills left that are completely useless to learn.

I played a ton of FFXI myself. That's still the best story in any MMO to date (and better than a lot of single player games too).
Production levels here were impressive to me though (although still not as good as even FFXIV). But the world and story here were boring to me.

I'm always a healer in MMOs. I'm used to having to group or playing slowly. I'm never in a rush though so it's never been an issue for me. I don't know. I don't like pets.

As a Sage, I just don't have enough MP (focus? I forget what it's called in SWTOR) and it doesn't regen fast enough for me to just play without the companion.

But that's just me. I know a lot of other people actually like pets and it encourages a lot more people to play healers.
 
Is this the soonest a major MMO has done something like this? I haven't been following the game or the numbers at all, but on a very surface level this seems kinda depserate.

I don't recall how soon after Rift launched that I started getting 'play free thus weekend' emails, but it was pretty quick. I still get them every 30-60 days. I get them for WoW too a few times a year.
 
The number of paying accounts has gone up each time they've provided an update since launch. This is just a dealer offering a hit basically. Smart business.

No it hasn't. If you pay close attention what they actually keep doing is redefining what they consider a paying account.

Does that sound weird? Yup. That's because it is weird. It's typical EA speak to cover up poor performance.

"How can there be more than one definition of a paying account?" you might rightfully ask. Well, read their articles and clarifications of statements and you'll see indeed EA have somehow manged to have multiple definitions of what constitutes a paying account.

I'm going to stop posting in this thread now because honestly this awful game doesn't even deserve to have its thread bumped to the top of GAF page 1.
 
Started in January, gearing out a third 50. Not casual per se, but I've wasted a ton of time on shit that's completely irrelevant to plot. Exploit Nar Shadda to "sell" a worthless piece of NPC trash from your Sith to your Sentinel for half a million or so, and cakewalk through the game on retardedly broken heirloom gear; it'll probably take you a couple weeks.

I don't really understand what this means because I haven't done a lot of research. Can you explain?

If I'm understanding you correctly, when I roll my Sith under the same account, I'll get some kind of legacy equipment to give to my Sentinel?
 
I played a ton of FFXI myself. That's still the best story in any MMO to date (and better than a lot of single player games too).
Production levels here were impressive to me though (although still not as good as even FFXIV). But the world and story here were boring to me.

I'm always a healer in MMOs. I'm used to having to group or playing slowly. I'm never in a rush though so it's never been an issue for me. I don't know. I don't like pets.

As a Sage, I just don't have enough MP (focus? I forget what it's called in SWTOR) and it doesn't regen fast enough for me to just play without the companion.

But that's just me. I know a lot of other people actually like pets and it encourages a lot more people to play healers.

Sage pet management is by far the most annoying. If you spec your DoT and build crit gear you can do respectable damage on trash, with a stupid-complex rotation, but you've still got a lot of pressing ctrl-1 to make the creepy raptor dude earn his pay.

On the other hand, melee, DPS BH, and agent all get what amounts to a switch between "you actually have 3x the HP it says" and "you do around 2x damage", no pet orders involved.

I don't really understand what this means because I haven't done a lot of research. Can you explain?

If I'm understanding you correctly, when I roll my Sith under the same account, I'll get some kind of legacy equipment to give to my Sentinel?

I forgot how obtuse MMO slang is. :lol

You're not given free gear (yet), but if you go to the planet Nar Shadda, there's an auction house both factions can access. So you play your Sith until level 15 or so, saving up a single level 1 healthpack or something, then go there and list it for an absurd amount of money.
Log out, log back in on your Sentinel, buy it, and an hour later your Sith has the cash to wear nothing but rare drops all the way to 50.
 
I found the game to be quite awful. I'm sad that games like it are what MMORPGs have become.

I can only recommend it if you want to hear some cool Star Wars sound effects.
 
This thread makes me smile. All the bad word going to SWTOR reminds me so much of every non-official FFXI thread. FFXI expansion announced! "This game is fucking terrible, it's slow and took me hours to find a party!" "But they have Fields of Valor and level sync now, much easier to group." "Graphics are dated, what a travesty of a MMO."

Looks like I will always be in the GAF MMO minority.
 
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