When Games Go Free To Play, How Do Existing Subscribers Feel?

Does this face look happy to you?

I have been thinking about how different I feel as a subscriber of two games that have both gone to a Free to Play model after their initial releases as subscription games. The way I feel as a customer is very different between Star Wars: The Old Republic and Rift.

In SWTOR, I stay subscribed to avoid the hassle of unlocking content and playing the game without rested XP and other conveniences I have become used to in the game. I don’t stay a subscriber because I feel that they value me as one. In fact, I get the subtle sense that they value their cash shop customers far more than they value me, someone who has subscribed since their game released. While I haven’t harshly lambasted them on Twitter the way others have, I still feel really let down by how they treat their paying customers. There are in-game functions (like mail droid summons or cargo hold expansions) in the Legacy system that could be enabled to add nice convenience features for subscribers with a minimum of fuss, but doing so might cost EA a bit of extra cash. After seeing how they have treated their conversion vs. how Rift has done so, they could take some big lessons from Trion.

In Rift, I actually feel that my subscription is valued. They give me a reason to log in every day and every week with a small gift, not to mention all of the really great gifts I got as a reward for being subscribed to their game for  many months. The difference between their rewards and SWTOR’s is night and day. I WANT the Patron abilities that they give us. They are convenience features that make me want to stay a subscriber for more than just avoidance of content unlocks. The value added features in their cash store as well make it really nice for everyone, which is a smart way to tempt players with its offerings. I visit the in game store on a regular basis while questing just to sell trash items. I rarely open the SWTOR cash store, so I’m never tempted to buy stuff in it.

This guy moved to Tempest Bay, what a nice man.

Another lesson that SWTOR could take from Rift is demonstrated by how Trion handled changes to their zones during the F2P conversion. They level gated their new zones to keep out exploiters. I was really worried when they did that because I have a couple of mid 30s characters that I have used to build support crafting skills to high levels. Up to the conversion, those characters, through some pain and help from my husband, managed to open up portals to turn ins for high level crafting quests. I worked hard to get those areas opened up, only to see them closed to me at conversion. But never fear, Trion was thinking ahead when they did this. They moved the NPCs for those quest turn ins to the main city hub that we all can still access. So not only can my low level  characters still progress through crafting, none of my crafters have to travel all over the world to turn in these quests.

By contrast, when SWTOR opened up a new tier of crafting with the expansion that I had to buy, they level locked some of the crafting. I put up with having to pay for the expansion because it really is a nice piece of rich content, but I am very annoyed that I can’t fully benefit from the craft skills on some of my low level characters.

Wasted space, wasted rewards.

My level 41 Treasure Hunting crafter has a bunch of missions that are useless to him, and a bunch of stuff taking up bank space that he can do nothing with, because the rewards he gets from the missions require me to level him to 51 just to open the boxes. None of the prior tiers of missions had that restriction, just the gear you got out of those boxes was level restricted, which was fine. Wow, what a let down. Not only did I as a subscriber have to swallow the bitter pill of not getting their expansion as part of my sub, but they removed some of the value of my time and money spent increasing my craft skills. These were not smart or forward-thinking decisions.

3 of 5 quests, useless

Sorry if this has come across as game bashing. I really do still enjoy SWTOR and I still actively play it. I just wish that they could take some lessons from other game companies in how to treat their customers. I find myself more and more disappointed in them as time goes on and things I’ve been promised, like a free character name change and subscriber-only in game content, have fallen by the wayside. The last thing a company should do is remove incentives from loyal customers. In this regard, Trion has once again shown its quality.

Is This Thing On?

Oh hey there. Look at what I found in my browser favorites list, the link to my blog dashboard. I have been highly unmotivated to spend time on this thing lately haven’t I? With summer and way too many games on my docket, I don’t see that changing much. But I took a funny screen shot last night and figured I’d share it.

The things people do while bored and waiting for the rest of their Operations group to show up can be either highly annoying (I’m talking to you ‘Mr. run around in circles like a jackrabbit’), or just plain silly. We went with silly last night. This might be the closest thing to a guild capital ship that we see in SWTOR for a while. The Gree blue sphere vehicles do meld together quite nicely.

Making our own Gree guild capital ship?

A Few Defiance Tips From A Newbie

I made time today to play Defiance so I could do the episode quest line before the premier. It was a fun chain of quests, I certainly recommend it. Here are a few of my lessons learned.

Tactics matter: If you are grouped, use flanking and draw fire off each other, especially for the mutants with shields. Go to high ground and use sniper rifles from range to avoid things with nasty

attacks that will kill you quickly close in. If you are down, try and crawl to cover or out of bad ground effects before you self revive.

Loadouts: I started with 2 loadouts. You can have different gear and different EGO powers set up in each one. I set up one for precision and ranged attacks and one for close combat attacks. Easy to switch them out.

Mods: Weapons that can be modded will show the slots when you view them, but only some weapons can be modded in all slots. Pay attention to the type of slots that can be filled and only buy the right mod for the right slot. (P.S. The episode quest’s final reward is a weapon with all 4 mod slots available.)

Vehicles: The dodge charger is faster, more durable, and can carry a passenger. The driver side and passenger side doors actually matter for getting into the vehicle, which is pretty cool. Set waypoints on your map (right click an objective). You will see a dynamically updating path marker to your objective, which is a good way to avoid getting into bad terrain or getting lost.

Distractions: There are a ton of bright and shiny things out there. Pick a path and stick with it or you will never feel any continuity in your questing. Go back later and do the side quests and kill things in the area if you want to. That being said, stopping for arkfalls is worth doing. There are some very nice rewards from those, and they feel like epic struggles against some very nasty things. Speaking of very nasty things, if you see a giant hellbug spit big blogs of nasty in the air, they will kill you if you stare at them like a Newb and get hit.

Outfits: You can have a different outfit for a different loadout and the episode quests are likely to help you add to them. I have 4 I can pick from now, but my armor and sunglasses are likely to stay with me for a long time. These shades look great with my facepaint and markings!

That’s it for now, I’m still learning the ropes, but it is a very fun game. I do recommend having a partner to run around with if you can manage it.

So Much To Do, So Little Time

I’m suffering from a wealth of riches where my online gaming experiences are concerned, but the choices are too rich for me to handle. I really want to spend more time playing Defiance, especially to see how the game and the T.V. series come together with its premier. I have got to make some time for it this weekend, but I have this wonderfully new and shiny content of SWTOR’s planet Makeb pulling me away from any other leisure time activities. Sadly, my poor Rift character languishes and my dimension building is on hold for now.

Oooh Ha! Ha Haaaa! Envy my portable Hutt teacher

Makeb is really well done, well worth the cost of my pre-order, especially with the early access time and my lovely Hutt holo-trainer. My main complaint is that it will be over with far too soon. The flow of the quests and the experience of gaining these new five levels is so smooth. For those who gobble up content too quickly, it is almost too smooth, but it is clear that the game has taken game design improvements to heart. I feel that sense of excitement and wonder that I had when I first started playing Old Republic. I’m trying to pace myself, I’ve only touched the initial quests Empire side and I’m only half-way through Republic side, but it is hard not to keep playing and staying up late. I have yet to even try out the new mini-games they’ve added with the seeker droids and Shroud content, but I will try it out once I get to 55 on my Consular.

Happily, we have two very different story experiences we can have on the planet. I won’t spoil it, but you really need to play both a Republic and an Empire character through the planet to see how different your entry to the world and the story arc is between the two sides of the war.

Can you say Ubiquitous vendor trash…

I would say my only dissatisfaction is with the crafting side of the expansion. Maybe it is worthwhile to people who really love building different looking mod-able gear, but I’m much more practical in my crafting needs. I want gear I can build to help me with entry into Operations, not cosmetic gear that does nothing but look pretty. With the cartel market, even augmented gear and some of the cool looking cosmetic gear just doesn’t earn back my credit investments. So far I’m very disappointed with how much time and credits I’ve invested in my crafting and the lack of tangible benefit to having invested them.

I suppose that is my feeling about crafting in general though, not just in the expansion. My advice to you, sell your 450 crew skill missions for any of the gathering skills on the GTN. The credit cost and time your companion is away on the mission is not worth the materials returned by those. You can gather the same number of materials in a fraction of the time just wandering around the initial zones.

Kudos to the writing and design team at Bioware on this one. They’ve done a fantastic job with the visuals and the ambiance. Companions have new dialogue and HK is much more interactive now. I feel sad for the people who didn’t pre-order soon enough or at all. Many in our guild want to run the old content but have no takers, as those of us seeing the new world are far too engrossed.

Trying Out an MMOFPS – Defiance

I’ve only briefly dipped into Defiance’s full release game so far, but I figured I’d at least share some initial info. Getting screen shots is a bit challenging so far, especially with not being able to pan my view around like I’m used to, but hopefully they’ll figure out a good way to share game visuals later. They’ve added a lot of visual upgrades to the starting tutorial zone as well as other updates since I did the beta. Great improvements!

Rift Fire Mask

I hope to post more info later, but between Carnivals, extra XP weekends, family visits and a new SWTOR expansion coming out, my time to play is getting pinched. I do want to play during these first days of game excitement when everyone is learning the ropes and the zones are populated. I think the biggest challenge for the game will be keeping numbers high enough that people have plenty of support and backup against some of the bigger nasty things. Getting used to the FPS view for the game is going to be MY biggest challenge. I’m just so used to driving with my mouse in MMOs and panning my view around.

I love high rate of fire weapons, so my first character had to be a soldier for the assault rifle. I don’t know if I missed the customization options during beta or if they were added later, but be sure to look up in the left corner when you are setting up your character’s looks. There are several options to scroll through. The dev team may want to make those options pulse the way they have set up other things to pulse in the UI to draw attention to them.

Hopefully later this weekend I’ll get a chance to group with my husband and get further into the initial zones so I can talk about gameplay. I’m waiting for him for now so we can support each other on the quests. It is always much more fun that way.

Blog Neglect

Yes folks, I’ve been guilty of blog neglect. This isn’t more than a fluff piece, hello to you all, screen cap, quick update toss up though, sorry.

Mage plus plate = nifty look

I’ve been playing SWTOR and Rift a lot lately. My husband and I finished up the Bounty Hunter story quests with levels to spare. We’re both only 46th level and couldn’t have done it without helping each other out on the Corellia quests. Man, I wish I’d been on the ball to screen cap some of my memorable cinematic moments of the final quests of the Bounty Hunter. Escape pod locks will never be the same again.

I’ve been playing with a 4 person group of RL friends on Sunday afternoons pretty regularly, Empire side. We have all 4 classes covered and wreak havoc across the galaxy. While I haven’t quite finished up my class quests, I did hit level 50 on my purple-lighting darlin’ Inquisitor. I promptly built some upgraded armoring and hilts for her, only to realize that I could immediately get most of her gear from PVP and Tionese starter packs. It was weird. While I’m happy to not have to run another set of gearing up FPs for her, it also felt a bit odd after doing it the hard way for my other 50s. I kind of miss the custom look I had for her which I exchanged for some set piece bonuses.

We’re starting a couple of Jedi Knights to play together. He’s going dark side, but I decided to play some light side for a bit since my Bounty Hunter and Sith Inquisitor are nasty evil types. It will be interesting.

We’re also playing Rift on the occasional evening and have been slowly leveling toward 60 in Storm Legion. I’ve been working on some crafting with low level alts and let me tell you, trying to run through high level insto-kill zones and climb mountains to avoid high level mobs has made me really appreciate the lack of falling damage that has been put into the game. While it is a bit odd to fall off the top of a mountain unscathed, I’m glad not to add that death to the ones handed to me by the mobs I’m trying to dodge.  But I WILL turn in that crafting workorder though it kills me (again and again). I’ve added a screen shot of my Mage, whose wardrobe gear I happen to really like right now. I  love not being stuck wearing a dress/robes for my caster. I sure wish I could put a cosmetic overlay like this on my SWTOR characters.

Happy One Year Anniversary Star Wars: The Old Republic!

I wanted a really iconic location for setting off my celebratory fireworks, so what else should I do but head to Tatooine and jump into a Sarlaac pit?! Congratulations on your first MMO year Bioware. Hoping to wish you many more of these, looking forward to what you have up your sleeves in the future and wishing you all the best to come.

Couldn’t quite get the vantage of the iconic Star Wars location and the bloom of the fireworks, but you get the idea!

I got a couple of other shots I thought were particularly lovely and just had to add them too:

Illum has such gorgeous skies, they make a wonderful backdrop for my Sith Warrior’s salute.

Another shot of fireworks against an Illum sky, gorgeous!