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I heard (somewhere??) that SWtOR is being canceled. is this true?

No. It is thriving actually.

Yeah. SWToR is doing okay. I think I underestimated a year ago the game's ability to maintain a respectable subscriber base. There's still a large number of subs. More than enough to keep the game going on top of the microtransactions.

Coolness. I have not played in a long time and was wanting to rejoin.

 Nicorex wrote:
Coolness. I have not played in a long time and was wanting to rejoin.

If you're going to play SWTOR, I strongly suggest you subscribe. SWTOR's free to play system is one of the least open and friendly of any f2p system I've seen (with GW2 being the best). You are severely limited in the number of times per week you can participate in pvp or endgame content, your race selection is heavily restricted, and your maximum in-game money is capped at a very low level. There are some ways to mtiigate this using unlocks that can be bought from other players, but a subscription unlocks everything from the start. Basically all you get with f2p is unlimited storyline and exploration content (so you can at least play through all of the class stories for free).

The only kind of player who benefits from pure F2P in SWTOR is the Weekend Warrior. The player who doesn't have time during the week to play and only does so for a few hours on Friday or Saturday.

 LordofHats wrote:
The only kind of player who benefits from pure F2P in SWTOR is the Weekend Warrior. The player who doesn't have time during the week to play and only does so for a few hours on Friday or Saturday.

Very true.

Forgive my ignorance but it went FTP?
But with an optional sub for more content etc?

 Ratius wrote:
Forgive my ignorance but it went FTP?
But with an optional sub for more content etc?

I think they use a currency called Cartel coins now, but you can still sub and you get some coins every month I think.

 Ratius wrote:
Forgive my ignorance but it went FTP?
But with an optional sub for more content etc?

Pretty much. Subs get access to all content all the time. They also get 500 Cartel Coins each month to spend in the microtransaction store. F2P players get locked out of a lot of stuff and limited access to other stuff. I think you are capped at 3 pvp matches a week, IIRC. You can change this by buying unlocks with Cartel Coins, or buy using in-game currency to buy the unlocks from the trading house. Subs buy item packs with their CCs and the item packs contain useful items and useless (to subs) unlocks. The unlocks go up for sale in the trade house, and f2pers can buy them with in-game currency.

You can also buy CC at any time with real $.

I suppose it's not a bad time to re-join SWTOR. The Galactic Starfighter thingie is pretty fun, if you don't mind it being PvP only.



Sadly, they've delayed the Housing expansion from May to August, but it seems they have added some more features. Also, if you subscribe now, you'll be getting a free place on Nar Shaddaa once it does go live.

As far as the F2P part is concerned, squidhills explained it nicely. I think it's a fair system in that as a subscriber you get more than before (Cartel Coins -> free stuff from the shop for you, or make bonus credits by selling to F2P people), whereas as a Free Player you get to save money.

The only thing I'd recommend for anyone going F2P would be to analyse their gameplay behaviour and check what they actually want out of the game. No, you can't have everything - that's what subs are for. But you can save money if you just buy the unlocks for the things you absolutely want/"need" to do.

 Lynata wrote:
I suppose it's not a bad time to re-join SWTOR. The Galactic Starfighter thingie is pretty fun, if you don't mind it being PvP only.

Spoiler:

Sadly, they've delayed the Housing expansion from May to August, but it seems they have added some more features. Also, if you subscribe now, you'll be getting a free place on Nar Shaddaa once it does go live.

As far as the F2P part is concerned, squidhills explained it nicely. I think it's a fair system in that as a subscriber you get more than before (Cartel Coins -> free stuff from the shop for you, or make bonus credits by selling to F2P people), whereas as a Free Player you get to save money.

The only thing I'd recommend for anyone going F2P would be to analyse their gameplay behaviour and check what they actually want out of the game. No, you can't have everything - that's what subs are for. But you can save money if you just buy the unlocks for the things you absolutely want/"need" to do.

This is an fair assessment. It also seems like the housing stuff will be pricey, as they say the Nar Shadda five room house subscribers will get for free is worth about 4million credits. I'm curious as to the guild flagship design and bonuses as well.

I have fun with Starfighter, but it is annoying having to start over each character as it takes so long to unlock upgrades.

 Lynata wrote:

Spoiler:

Link won't show.

Ahtman wrote:I have fun with Starfighter, but it is annoying having to start over each character as it takes so long to unlock upgrades.

Oh yeah, I know the feeling.

What I did, though, was to have every character specialise on a single unique ship befitting their background, and put all their Requisition there. Together with every character being eligible for the Daily Quest, it works out okay. And it makes for some "in your head" RP consistency.

My Sith: S-12 "Blackbolt" Scout Fighter w/ light laser cannons and sabotage probes
My Agent: M-7 "Razorwire" Bomber w/ laser cannons, proton torpedoes and concussion mines
My Jedi: FT-8 "Starguard" Strike Fighter w/ laser cannons and proton torpedoes
My Smuggler: G-X1 "Firehauler" Transport w/ light laser cannons, seeker mines and sentry drone

I would've wanted to play this game but I don't know if I'd want to go through the pay per month thing with a MMO. It would have to be something I liked. I was rather unhappy with so many jedi classes in the game. I'd prefer to be an assassin if at all possible though I didn't play so I don't know if that class was available. The last thing I enjoyed the hell out of was the 'jedi knight' series for anybody familiar with it. That game is so very awesome. Why did they kill such a good series?

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I would've wanted to play this game but I don't know if I'd want to go through the pay per month thing with a MMO. It would have to be something I liked. I was rather unhappy with so many jedi classes in the game. I'd prefer to be an assassin if at all possible though I didn't play so I don't know if that class was available. The last thing I enjoyed the hell out of was the 'jedi knight' series for anybody familiar with it. That game is so very awesome. Why did they kill such a good series?

What do you mean by assassin? DPS Operative is stealthy and uses knives and blaster rifles, Sniper doesn't have any stealth, but sits back and drills everything between the eyes. There is a class called Assassin, but it is a Sith class that uses sabre-staff like Darth Maul, and also uses stealth and backstabs, if you don't go tank with it.

If you want the assassin play style the options are;

Sith Side, Sith Assassin and Imperial Operative
Republic Side, Jedi Shadow and Smuggler Scoundrel

All four of the above classes have the stealth based back stabbing high burst DPS game play style usually labelled as 'assassin.' Alternately, the Operative and Scoundrel can be played as healers, while the Shadow and Assassin can be played as tanks.

The Sentinel and the Marauder to an extent can be called assassins. They have the highest DPS for PVP in the game and the second highest in PVE, but their stealth is limited to a single ability that only lasts a few seconds.

Sadly the continued existence of SWTOR depends upon the executives at Disney.

 mondo80 wrote:
Sadly the continued existence of SWTOR depends upon the executives at Disney.

Disney cannot refute the contract signed with EA, seeing as they signed it. For the next ten years, EA makes all Star Wars games.

All the Disney thing has changed for SWTOR is its canonocity.

Never mind, LoH beat me to it.

There have been a few varied rumors of a new Star Wars MMO in the works, but I don't know if anything will come of them. On the one hand SWTOR is doing okay. On the other, it does have a number of built in structural flaws that limit its longevity, most importantly a completely trash engine. For now though, SWTOR can keep trooping on because it has Star Wars in the title.

The thing that will kill SWTOR (you know, ignoring money issues) will be a new SW MMO.

LordofHats wrote:There have been a few varied rumors of a new Star Wars MMO in the works, but I don't know if anything will come of them.

After a quick google search, it just seems to be fans jumping to conclusions. Someone at SOE made a comment about SWG players feeling right at home in a new MMO they're working on - but follow-up tweets clarified that this was not referring to the IP but rather to its sandbox nature.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a new SW MMO, but it'd depend on a lot of specifics such as era choice, canon consistency (within the now non-canon EU), and visual design. I think that in spite of its failings, TOR did set a rather high bar, with some cool features, and could have been much worse. Games attached to a popular IP always come with a huge risk of messing with an established setting, and the balancing between gameplay and world consistency is a tricky thing. And let's not even talk about the "theme park" mentality that almost any modern MMO suffers from.

(on a sidenote, what's wrong with the engine?)

(on a sidenote, what's wrong with the engine?)

The engine is extremely restrictive, functional in what it does, but so hard coded that expanding content is a very difficult task. It prevents the development of desperately needed cross server tech for example because of the way instances are handled. It's a bad thing for an MMORPG in the long run.

As a bit of background, not too surprising, as Warhammer: Age of Reckoning had the same problem, and guess who got a "Bioware" label slapped on their shirts to make SWTOR

I think it was the imperial operative I wanted to play as. Generally I like the rogue route but assassin is cool too. In skyrim I prefer the backstabbing dagger approach though using stealth with bows tends to be better. So I suppose the sniper rifle works too. I'm guessing the imperial operative works best.

----------

As far as the Warhammer Online MMO I wanted to play it but sadly skaven weren't one of the main factions. They did have an expansion that sort of included skaven but it didn't seem like enough in my eyes.

Snipers are fun. In PvP, too. The ability to just pick off targets while they're busy with something (or rather someone) else lets you feel like the God of Death deciding who gets to live and who gets to die.

LordofHats wrote:The engine is extremely restrictive, functional in what it does, but so hard coded that expanding content is a very difficult task. It prevents the development of desperately needed cross server tech for example because of the way instances are handled. It's a bad thing for an MMORPG in the long run.

Oh! Alright, I know next to nothing about that; I thought you were dissatisfied with how the game looks. I usually hear the term "engine" only in relation to graphics.

 Lynata wrote:
Snipers are fun. In PvP, too. The ability to just pick off targets while they're busy with something (or rather someone) else lets you feel like the God of Death deciding who gets to live and who gets to die.

Spoiler:

Ok well that was an entirely insane sounding post but I hope it doesn't reflect what type of person you are in real life ;P. When you say 'god of death' I'm almost thinking of 'death note' but strangely enough I never watched much of that anime.

So is Starfighter really slow? I wanted to try it out but I could never seem to get a game and eventually grew tired after 40 minutes of wait or something.

Oh! Alright, I know next to nothing about that; I thought you were dissatisfied with how the game looks. I usually hear the term "engine" only in relation to graphics.

Well I'm not a fan of that either Don't hate it, but they're a little too cartoony for my taste. I'd have prefered a little more photorealism and a body type between 2 and 3

Severely disappointed in character creation - females don't have any actual long hairstyles and males can't have a proper villain stubble beard :(

StarTrotter wrote:So is Starfighter really slow? I wanted to try it out but I could never seem to get a game and eventually grew tired after 40 minutes of wait or something.

I've never had to wait that long, so not sure what the issue was. Twenty minutes or so is the longest I've had to wait.

Sigvatr wrote:Severely disappointed in character creation - females don't have any actual long hairstyles and males can't have a proper villain stubble beard :(

Oddly, stubble is under complexion whereas facial hair just covers more full blown beards and pork chop sideburns.