SWTOR now up for Pre Order!

[Nadimos]

It s*cks you cannot pay over paypal. Yesterday i wanted to pre-order the digital deluxe edition from origin. Now i think it is just to expensive. Basicly it is an horrendously overpriced dlc.

A few ingame-items for so much money. But i also exspected as much from EA.

 

Still i will get the game (standard edition) and play it. But only afterwards of release and not from the origin store.

 

PS: Gonna get the Deus Ex Extended Edition Pre-Order instead. Now thats something like a nice game, you can burn your money on. Already played the beta. So sweet. And the price is good on it, too. They are not overcharging like EA.

Edited July 22, 2011 by Nadimos

[LadyMilla]

Well, it is pretty much confirmed for Christmas (unless they invent a new holiday season after Xmas this year)

 

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110721005554/en/EA-Unveils-Special-Editions-Star-Wars-Republic

[Vagrant0]

While I would love for it to be free, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a monthly fee. This is EA we're talking about. But hey, it's the first time EA's publishing an MMO though, so who knows?

No, they had Sims Online.. Didn't hear about it? That's because it was real rubbish and degraded to little more than a cybersex game.

 

My bet is that EA will stoop to a new low having not only monthly payments, but also a wide assortment of powerups and special equipment available for micropayments. And not the reasonable kind (have to pay extra for levels or any race other than human or some other sillyness that people will still pay because they WANT the game to be fun). I'm skeptical that they will do anything other than create a lackluster game and look for a way to suck as much money out of the playerbase as they can.

 

Or did nobody play Starwars Galaxy? Don't get me wrong, it's a great franchise and all, but being a Jedi loses it's significance when EVERYONE is a friggin Jedi. And that game was done by Sony working with Lucas Arts...

[LadyMilla]

My bet is that EA will stoop to a new low having not only monthly payments, but also a wide assortment of powerups and special equipment available for micropayments. And not the reasonable kind (have to pay extra for levels or any race other than human or some other sillyness that people will still pay because they WANT the game to be fun). I'm skeptical that they will do anything other than create a lackluster game and look for a way to suck as much money out of the playerbase as they can.

 

Microtransactions were rumored in 2008 due to a botched Riccitiello interview. Later EA said it was misinterpreted. In general, in the current MMO games there are two varieties of MT items: those that give you an effective boost (like some of the items sold in LOTRO's MT store but they are mostly useful e.g. to reduce the tedious grind when you do slayer deeds (you have to kill a number of monsters to gain a stat increase)) and those that are purely cosmetic (like the various in-game pets and mounts available in Blizzard's store). There is no final word (neither affirmative or negative) from BioWare/EA so it is something that we have yet to see but considering that the EVE lost about 50.000 players when plans about microtransactions were leaked to the public, and that about 75% of the future SW:TOR players (or at least those who care to express their opinion on the forums) frown at MTs (I know, when did such a thing bother a publisher, certainly SOE was not influenced by the players' opinion when they pushed out the New Game Enhancements) I think it is unlikely that they will venture beyond offering vanity items (at least initially).

 

A player posted clarification about the vendor that comes with the CE version:

 

On one of the comic con panels it has been announced that there will be vanity items but there will also be weapons and armor.

 

The good news is comparable levels of this gear are available to everyone at the same level, the gear is just there to look different.

 

It has also been announced this is not a vendor that we call or even stationed at a city but is located in what is a 'vip area'.

 

 

Or did nobody play Starwars Galaxy? Don't get me wrong, it's a great franchise and all, but being a Jedi loses it's significance when EVERYONE is a friggin Jedi. And that game was done by Sony working with Lucas Arts...

 

Yes, I played it, in fact it was my first MMO. I also played the KoTOR games. While in SWG, the number of Jedi who literally overran the game was plain ridiculous, in the KoTOR games bumping into a Jedi at every turn did not seem out of place.

 

My bad feelings are due to something else: Jedi are supposed to be demigods (I know, the bounty hunter simply shot a Jedi in the Attack of the Clones), more of an elite class than a starter one. In SWG, before the Village was introduced, Jedi were overpowered but rare. Then they introduced the 'iconic classes' and the Jedi became foot soldiers. But what did you expect from a game where you have a fully Rebel controlled town just a few miles from the Emperor's high-security Retreat, guarded by elite troopers, walkers and electrified kitchen sinks.

 

 

 

 

 

[Vagrant0]

It has also been announced this is not a vendor that we call or even stationed at a city but is located in what is a 'vip area'.

Yep, a 'VIP' area... located in every outpost, right between the market and the field, with NPCs who run up and ambush the player with an unavoidable cutscene that drags them to a terminal for the ingame shop, for 'convenience'. Can see it all now.

 

Frankly, given EA's past behavior, I would expect nothing less.

[JimboUK]

I think I'll wait and see how much it'll cost per month, the beta showed real promise so I may be tempted to part with a fee as long as they don't add a bunch of micro transactions on top of it.

[hoofhearted4]

i have no problem with a monthly fee. i will pay it, i always expected it and never once ever thought there might not be one, doesnt bother me in the least. microtransactions dont bother me either. im not playing the game to be the best, if ppl wanna spend even more money to buy items to make themselves better, so be it, idrc. if there are some cosmetic items, i might buy some, for the fun of it. i did it on Champions Online.

 

i think its funny how many ppl complain bout monthly payments, or about MTs. if you complain, then youve obviously never played another MMO. even a lot of MMOs that are F2P now, were once monthly payments. now more are becoming F2P, but id rather have a small monthly payment, and have quality, then have F2P, have everything be MTs and have no support for the game. i mean obviously, having a game that is F2P AND fully supported AND has high quality gaming and isnt overrun with MTs, ya id love that, but i dont expect it, and it never even crossed my mind until i read the comments in this thread, and i could care less now that ive thought about it lol.

 

im ready for monthly payments, im rdy to enjoy some MTs. i would only get the CE if it included lifetime play OR a real light saber so ill be getting the standard edition. might not even get it until after the game comes out, but we will see.

[Vagrant0]

i think its funny how many ppl complain bout monthly payments, or about MTs. if you complain, then youve obviously never played another MMO. even a lot of MMOs that are F2P now, were once monthly payments.

On the contrary, I've played many MMOs, both subscription and F2P. Before subscription games weren't so bad, but now a days, almost every one of them tries to milk you for additional upgrades or enhancements, usually temporary. Although, yeah, with F2P games, ingame shops are par for the course, but there are some which are clearly out to milk players dry if they want to do most of the end-game content. I would be tempted to say that Perfect World was the worst of these, where it was almost necessary to constantly have a cash shop item that restored your health/magic to do anything past level 20 content due to the amount of damage that things did to you and the limited potency of many other recovery items... Not to mention the bits related to bank space. Some of the people I used to play with would regularly spend $100 a month in cash shop items just so that they could grind their levels with any sort of speed. Been playing Champions Online lately, and noticing a similar situation where many things just related to a character require a subscription or want to pay through the nose.

 

But mostly here, EA's reputation precedes itself.

[hoofhearted4]

champions online was always monthly, it became F2P recently, i played it monthly for a bit. loved it actually. stopped before it went F2P. if i went back id go back to monthly. in a lot of cases games that went from monthly to F2P or have both options, screw you in one way or another in F2P. Free is a gimmick. nothing is free. there has to always be a way for them to make money.

 

 

i kinda wanna go back to champions online now lol....hmmmm

[LadyMilla]

Free is a gimmick. nothing is free. there has to always be a way for them to make money.

 

Kinda agree. People tend to forget that

 

 

- running the servers and paying for bandwidth costs money;

- there are wages to be paid to staff (support, server maintenance, etc.);

- developers (coders, game architects, 3D artists, QA staff, game testers, etc.) do not work for free;

 

Now, GW2 box sales may generate a hefty initial revenue once the game is released but even ArenaNet acknowledged that a game cannot be maintained without a steady stream of revenues:

 

Rick Ellis from ArenaNet said: "We had micro-transactions in Guild Wars 1 and of course we’ll have them in Guild Wars 2. It’s in everyone’s best interest for Guild Wars 2 to have a strong ongoing revenue stream. Earning money post-launch isn’t primarily to pay for bandwidth or servers; it’s to continue to extend your game experience in fun and compelling ways. If you love your game experience, you’ll certainly want us, the developer, to continue to work on it so you can enjoy your experience for a longer period of time.

The reason this stirs such controversy is that micro-transactions CAN be evil, and in some games it IS evil. As you can clearly see from our actions in Guild Wars 1, it’s certainly NOT our intention to have evil micro-transactions in Guild Wars 2 or any of our games."

 

(source)

Evil or not, a completely free game is a pipe dream, the developer needs to generate revenues, if not from monthly subscription then by using other methods.