*****Official Star Wars: The Old Republic Thread*****

davewhite04 said:
Hopefully this won't be the case. Star Wars Galaxies did not have an inflated monthly fee because it carried the license.

Inflation hasn't affected the price of other MMORPG, in fact more are going Free-to-Play.

Hype is the same for all games, look at DC Universe.

Unless paid MMORPG raise prices across the board for tax or inflation reasons(which I doubt), I pretty certain Bioware aren't stupid enough to alienate themselves from potentially hundreds of thousands or more potential subscribers.
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SWG was a long time ago, MMOs werent quite the money maker they are now.

Inflation has affected the price of many MMOs, often newer ones have slightly higher monthly prices, its usually only existing ones who go free to play and even then only after their subscription levels have dropped. On top of that in the EU we have an additional vat on subscription prices for MMOs which is also affected by financial changes.

I would disagree that hype is the same for all games, SW:TOR has massively more hype imo than DC Universe, or than Rift, or than Mortal Online. WoW had massively more hype than Daoc or Darkfall Online and so on.

I think its only a question of time before an MMO tests the waters of a higher fee, and it wouldnt be a huge surprise to me if SWTOR and Bioware decided to be the ones to do that. Irrespective of alienation they will know that despite the people who might complain on forums about a price, they will most likely still pay it. Its the nature of gamers to complain about stuff but then go ahead and still do it anyway.

As I say, all we can do is wait and see, but as I mentioned above, I really wouldnt be at all surprised.
 
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Tombstone said:
We'll see, but I really wouldnt be surprised. I honestly wouldnt be surprised to see a price scheme of :

£14.99 /month
£35 /3 months
£65 /6 months

Wouldnt surprise me in the slightest.

At the end of the day, the game has so much hype, the company has so much hype that frankly they know full well that they could charge that much and regardless of how much people whine , a massive amount of them would still pay it, maybe begrudgingly, but still nevertheless.
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Could happen but would be surprised. Firstly a lot of players would hold off buying this, I know I certainly would, to see if the game was any good hell I would be looking for fantastic, to justify such a monthly fee. This would cause them problems from day one with loss of initial sales.

Secondly could you see parents forking out £15 a month for the kids to play this when there are plenty of other alternatives out there for £5 if not more cheaper. Some would but I think a large majority would refuse.

Of course this is all theoretical but I personally would be disapointed and would not pay a fee like that unless I got a free handjob from Princess Leia ala Jabbba the Hut costume every month to come along with my game time for paying £15... though that might just be me :p :D :o
 
No1newts said:
Could happen but would be surprised. Firstly a lot of players would hold off buying this, I know I certainly would, to see if the game was any good hell I would be looking for fantastic, to justify such a monthly fee. This would cause them problems from day one with loss of initial sales.

Secondly could you see parents forking out £15 a month for the kids to play this when there are plenty of other alternatives out there for £5 if not more cheaper. Some would but I think a large majority would refuse.

Of course this is all theoretical but I personally would be disapointed and would not pay a fee like that unless I got a free handjob from Princess Leia ala Jabbba the Hut costume every month to come along with my game time for paying £15... though that might just be me :p :D :o
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Well regardless of the cost I will be holding off for a few months at release anyway to see if its any good :)

Kids should damn well make their own money to pay for something they want ! , and quite a few parents will give that amount of money if it keeps their kids quiet and stops them pestering them for £40 for the latest console game they want :)

Like I say, all we can do is wait and see what happens. All they have to do is set the EU price point at £12.99 a month and when you add the vat on top it comes out at £15/month, so they could just opt for £12.99 a month and its £15.

If they were just going to match WoW for price then theres no reason why they couldnt announce that right now, the fact that they are not saying yet what the price will be indicates (to me at least) that they are considering not going with the expected price.
 
Tombstone said:
We'll see, but I really wouldnt be surprised. I honestly wouldnt be surprised to see a price scheme of :

£14.99 /month
£35 /3 months
£65 /6 months

Wouldnt surprise me in the slightest.
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I would be extremely surprised at those prices ;) has there been a mmo costing £14.99 per month :confused: , I'll put a million quid it's going to be £8.99 per month
 
kola said:
I would be extremely surprised at those prices ;) has there been a mmo costing £14.99 per month :confused: , I'll put a million quid it's going to be £8.99 per month
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Not sure about £s, but age of conan was 15 Euros a month once you added on the EU vat.

When SWG came out it was $14.99 a month, we were lucky at the time because the £ was so strong against the $ that the exchange rate meant it was a nicer price for us. The £ isnt as strong now though and if they opted for the same price point of $14.99 then for us it would be £9.99 + vat = £12/month.

As a betting man, I am sorely tempted to take you up on that bet that it will be £8.99 a month, seems like really good odds, all I would need is for it to be £9.99 or £9.49 with vat and you'd owe me a million quid :D
 
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Tombstone said:
As a betting man, I am sorely tempted to take you up on that bet that it will be £8.99 a month, seems like really good odds, all I would need is for it to be £9.99 or £9.49 with vat and you'd owe me a million quid :D
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but you wouldn't want my family to be left starving would you ;)
Just thinking the 14.99 price point would put a lot of people off .
 
No1newts said:
Could happen but would be surprised. Firstly a lot of players would hold off buying this, I know I certainly would, to see if the game was any good hell I would be looking for fantastic, to justify such a monthly fee. This would cause them problems from day one with loss of initial sales.

Secondly could you see parents forking out £15 a month for the kids to play this when there are plenty of other alternatives out there for £5 if not more cheaper. Some would but I think a large majority would refuse.
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Both points you've made here, especially the first one are excellent reasons why I'm confident they won't ask for silly monthly fees.

If they did want more, they would at least get a large and loyal following first, otherwise the pressure the game would be under from day one would probably be too much for it to take. The game will crash, slowdown have silly bugs etc. from day one, as is the nature of this genre, and I don't think bioware are daft enough to charge more than £10 for people to put up with this.
 
davewhite04 said:
Both points you've made here, especially the first one are excellent reasons why I'm confident they won't ask for silly monthly fees.

If they did want more, they would at least get a large and loyal following first, otherwise the pressure the game would be under from day one would probably be too much for it to take. The game will crash, slowdown have silly bugs etc. from day one, as is the nature of this genre, and I don't think bioware are daft enough to charge more than £10 for people to put up with this.
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Well as I say, £10 would actually be more like £12 once vat is added, so not far from the £14.99 :)

All we can do is wait and see what happens.
 
kola said:
but you wouldn't want my family to be left starving would you ;)
Just thinking the 14.99 price point would put a lot of people off .
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Hey, any family that so casually bets away all their food money deserves to be left starving :p

I've no doubt a 14.99 price point would put some people off, it would also have a lot of people moaning about it who pay anyway and another lot of people who dont moan and just pay. All we can do is wait and see whats announced.
 
nick-fury said:
There should be a lot more info available after PAX East this coming weekend, maybe even some clues as to a release date!
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Hopefully some info on subscription fees too, if they are just going to be the same as everyone else then there is no reason why they cant announce it. If they are going to be charging a different amount (be it cheaper or more expensive) then I can understand withholding that info til later, but if its just the same then might as well say now.
 
I just can't bring myself to be excited about it, no. It all sounds far to 'safe' - ie. nothing new or exciting, just a rehash of current mmo systems.

Seems to me they're counting on the star wars license and the story to sell it. But I don't want a story in an mmo, I want environment where cool stories just happen by virture of the gameplay - like Planetside or Eve. Some of my best gaming moments are from those games, and none of them were pre-scripted storylines.
 
Sleepery said:
I just can't bring myself to be excited about it, no. It all sounds far to 'safe' - ie. nothing new or exciting, just a rehash of current mmo systems.
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I see what you mean but dev's are damned if they do, damned if they don't these days.

Too different to WoW? Take Final Fantasy as an example, ok it had a LOT of other issues other than being different to WoW but the amount of people who said something along the lines of "the UI makes no sense compared to WoW" "The questing is nothing like WoW" blah blah blah.

Too similar to WoW? Aion, Rift, LoTRo, WAR and the rest. People bash the game for being too similar to WoW despite the fact that all the above games added some unique elements to the formula which made them good games in their own right despite the problems.


Either way they take it a heck of a lot of people are going to be complaining it is either too similar to WoW or they have tried to be too unique and the no one can be bothered to adapt to it.

Personally I would like a game completely away from the wow standard MMO but I must admit then even myself, who wants something different, struggle to find the will to adapt to what is if we are honest a very, very, very polished MMO in terms of how it is set out and works (not gameplay and other such specifics). It has its flaws but it is still sets the standard for every other MMO out there by a country mile.
 
Sleepery said:
I just can't bring myself to be excited about it, no. It all sounds far to 'safe' - ie. nothing new or exciting, just a rehash of current mmo systems.
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Thats the problem with the current gaming market though - ultimately they're going to want to see high sales and high subs, and the only way to do that is to make it very accessible, or as you say, "safe".

But in all honesty, if you were the publishers, you'd want the devs to essentially make WoW but with the SW licence, wouldn't you? The accessibility and familiarity of WoW, but with Jedi's? Its like a giant cash pinata waiting to be smashed open.

And that looks exactly whats going to happen.
 
But how many of the games that make "Greatest of all time" lists are completely original?

The Final Fantasy series used the same formula all the way through, and only by the 6th / 7th had they managed to create games heralded as masterpieces.
Half Life 2 didn't add anything to the FPS genre, it just improved on it all.
Ocarina of Time, again, just perfected gameplay aspects that had been round for years.
Even World of Warcraft had absolutely no innovative gameplay elements at launch, just refined and boosted the quality of it's influences.

There are very few examples of games universally considered near the pinnacle of medium that didn't "steal" from other games.

With how much it costs to make computer games these days, developers are always going to play it safe and focus on quality rather than take risks with innovation. If you want games that are unique, look at the indie market.

With The Old Republic, I'm actually glad they're playing it safe. BioWare obviously know how to make a good game, but they've never made an MMO before. To ensure they get it right, they're borrowing what made the best MMOs so popular, rather than foolishly try to take the industry by storm with a rewrite of the rulebook.
 
That depends how you are defining the "best mmos" though. Personally I think that the best 2 mmos to date are daoc , and the greatest mmo of them all imo, UO. I'm not seeing too much of what made them so good in sw:tor.

I'll have to wait and see what happens, I will 100% definitely wait for 3-4 months after release before considering buying, give it time for the shine and honeymoon period to be over and get a more objective view of exactly what people think.

I hope it turns out to be great, as something big is needed in the mmo genre as its become phenomenally stale in the last few years. Further I hope it doesn't turn out great at first and is then badly ruined by a decision , a la Swg.
 
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