randomness

[Tecknik]

[Sared]

Catch the three wise monkeys at 1:41. (See no Evil, Say no Evil, Hear no Evil)

[Da6onet]

I love my new TI-89 (yes I've gone years without using a graphing calculator). It's like having matlab in your pocket.

Example:

1. AC Circuit
2. Mesh/Nodal setup
3. Reduced Row Echelon Form (rref)
4. $$$$
5. Profit

Solving by hand is for suckers!

[Longboard]

Catch the three wise monkeys at 1:41. (See no Evil, Say no Evil, Hear no Evil)

That has Los Angeles written all over it! If APB Reloaded was like that, it would be EPIC!

[Manic Velocity]

Dat look gooooood.

[Subb]

The Walken Dead

[Tecknik]

So, what're the chances that Disney decides, "Hey, there is no reason two Star Wars MMOs can't exist at the same time," and brings back SWG?

A guy can dream.  I long for the days of JTL space combat and large planet maps on which you could build your own cities.

[Manic Velocity]

So, what're the chances that Disney decides, "Hey, there is no reason two Star Wars MMOs can't exist at the same time," and brings back SWG?

A guy can dream.  I long for the days of JTL space combat and large planet maps on which you could build your own cities.

Even Disney, as a primarily film enterprise, could do better than Bioware's debacle.

I never played SWG pre-NGE, but the stories people tell make me wish I had.  They talk about the businesses they started, or the cities they built and defended.  It's always about how they created their own world within the game, rather than just letting the game exist around them.

At any rate, I think TOR has started the ball rolling on the genre abandoning the same-old-same-old themeparks that it has been churning out for over a decade.  ~$200 million from two industry giants spent on something that only roughly half a million people felt was worth paying for?  That is just not sustainable.

SOE is now looking into sandbox gameplay, and I really hope more developers follow suit.  The genre can do better than always building a bigger gear treadmill.

[Sared]

List of reasons I'm okay with Disney owning Lucasfilm:

Maniac Mansion
Full Throttle
Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle
Escape from Monkey Island
Loom
Curse of Monkey Island
The Dig
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders

HOLY FUCKING HOT TAMALES THAT SOME SWEET-ASS IP YOU GOT DERR BOY. DO SOMETHING WITH THIS SHIT DISNEY. GOD DAMN.

[Manic Velocity]

A detailed breakdown of TOR's F2P (more like "pay to enjoy") system:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFDESAIkmlE

Highlights:

- Previous subscribers looking to come back need to resub by Dec. 20th if they want their "complimentary" cartel coins.  In other words, pay money in order to get your "free" cartel coins.  This probably gives EA the chance to pad their subscriber numbers for the next quarterly earnings call.
- Non-subs are limited to 2 quickslot bars.  Additional bars can be purchased for $3.50 per bar, per character.
- 2 character slots with race limitations.  So while you get the leveling content for free, 90% of which is side quests, you'll need to delete several characters you spent 60+ hours on in order to play through all the class stories.
- 1 chat message per minute.
- Non-subs pay an extra 25% in credits and commendations for in-game items.
- Credits and commendations caps.  Additionally earned credits go into an escrow account that can only be access by subscribing.
- Only 2 crew skills for non-subscribers.  This makes crafting impossible.
- $3.50 per character to unlock "hide headslot" and "unify colors" features.
- Can't display titles without purchasing the unlock per character.
- Can't customize companions (meh).
- Can't wear purples.  As far as I'm concerned, this makes it pay-to-win.
- Non-subs are limited to 3 loot rolls (not loot wins) per week.
- Can't run operations without purchasing a weekly pass.  You're S.O.L. if you buy a weekly pass and your ops group fails to show up that week.
- 5 flashpoints and warzones per week with limited rewards.  Full rewards and more flashpoints/warzones can be purchased with a weekly pass.  Ranked warzones are completely unavailable to non-subs.
- Non-subs are severely limited to certain emotes and other animations without buying them individually.

Fantastic.  Rather than making the game better for subscribers, they're just making it worse for potential new customers.

[Tbone]

This seems pretty in line with other games I've played that have gone f2p. The quick bar, chat limit, and loot limit seems excessive. Everything else I've seen in other games.

Just a note - crafting is definitely viable with 2 crafting professions only.

[Manic Velocity]

Just looks like you're not so much buying into a richer experience, as much as you are paying your way out of a shitty one.

[Anamodiel]

A detailed breakdown of TOR's F2P (more like "pay to enjoy") system:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFDESAIkmlE

Highlights:

- Previous subscribers looking to come back need to resub by Dec. 20th if they want their "complimentary" cartel coins.  In other words, pay money in order to get your "free" cartel coins.  This probably gives EA the chance to pad their subscriber numbers for the next quarterly earnings call.
So, giving someone another incentive other than all the new content they've released to come back is seen as "paying money"? Sorry, you've lost me. It doesn't cost EA/Bioware to give anyone these Cartel Coins. So, yes, they're free. I don't see why this is a big deal.
- Non-subs are limited to 2 quickslot bars.  Additional bars can be purchased for $3.50 per bar, per character.
Until I reached level 50 I never really needed to use more than 2 hotbars. I look at my level 42 Guardian and, while he has 4 quickbars, there is a lot of unused space. It hardly impacts of the quality of life in the game.
- 2 character slots with race limitations.  So while you get the leveling content for free, 90% of which is side quests, you'll need to delete several characters you spent 60+ hours on in order to play through all the class stories.So, you're telling me that someone who isn't eventually going to subscribe, is going to level more than 2 characters to 50 and continue to not subscribe? Sound logic on that one, Manic.
- 1 chat message per minute.Gold farmers.
- Non-subs pay an extra 25% in credits and commendations for in-game items. Good incentive to subscribe.
- Credits and commendations caps.  Additionally earned credits go into an escrow account that can only be access by subscribing. I still have caps on commendations and everything as a subscriber. The only thing I don't have a cap on is my credits.
- Only 2 crew skills for non-subscribers.  This makes crafting impossible. I can do plenty of crafting with just 2 crew skills.
- $3.50 per character to unlock "hide headslot" and "unify colors" features. Boo-fucking-hoo.
- Can't display titles without purchasing the unlock per character.See above.
- Can't customize companions (meh). See above.
- Can't wear purples.  As far as I'm concerned, this makes it pay-to-win. I leveled most of my characters to 50 using blues and below. The only person this really affects is a level 50 trying to min-max... and if you're trying to min-max, you're probably eventually going to subscribe.
- Non-subs are limited to 3 loot rolls (not loot wins) per week. Meh. A little excessive. I don't know in what context you mean loot rolls, however, so I'm reserving judgment on that.
- Can't run operations without purchasing a weekly pass.  You're S.O.L. if you buy a weekly pass and your ops group fails to show up that week. Boo fucking hoo.
- 5 flashpoints and warzones per week with limited rewards.  Full rewards and more flashpoints/warzones can be purchased with a weekly pass.   Ranked warzones are completely unavailable to non-subs. Boo-fucking-hoo.
- Non-subs are severely limited to certain emotes and other animations without buying them individually.Boo-fucking-hoo.

Fantastic.  Rather than making the game better for subscribers, they're just making it worse for potential new customers.

Manic, I'm going to say this as nicely as possible. You stopped playing the game in February. Since then, they have made the game better for subscribers. Actually, a lot better. The quality of life in the game is much better now than it was in February, so your underlying assertion that the game hasn't become better is moot. Why are you still talking about the game 10 months later like you have any sort of clue what's going on? You talking poorly about SWTOR doesn't make me want to come to play EVE or Secret World anymore than I did before I saw your post. I know you don't like us playing SWTOR. That's fine. But don't talk about the game like you know the ins and outs of exactly what's going on.

In addition, if you actually knew anything about the game, you would know that they have a separate team working on all of this stuff so as to not distract from actual game development. Since their promise to release content every 6 weeks, they have actually stuck to it. I think it might have been 7 weeks this cycle, but I as a subscriber am happy.

The point of free to play is to give people a taste of the game so that they eventually end up paying the $15 a month. It is not to give them the full game for free. In fact, this F2P model is probably one of the biggest free leases non-subscribers could ever have to a major MMO. I played LOTRO as free to play, and you couldn't even get past level 20 without either spending a ton of time grinding to get unlocks or paying for additional content. There is nothing like this in WoW, GuildWars, or any other major game right now. Seriously. You can level all the way to 50 just fine and enjoy literally hours of entertainment for free.

Notice - nothing has changed for subscribers. Literally, nothing. Nothing affects how I, as a subscriber, will do warzones or raids or flashpoints or leveling alts or hanging out with my friends in FA. In fact, my quality of life has FURTHER increased from this because I was given free cartel coins to buy shit instead of spending my credits. BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED FOR US AS SUBSCRIBERS. I don't see, in any way, how opening up the game to even MORE people and having a larger market could somehow make the game worse or be seen as a bad thing.

Now, I know you didn't assert that, but there seems to be a stigma attached to games going F2P and you posted this list of changes that make Bioware/EA look like greedy robber barons sucking the lives out of the people that can't be fucking arsed to pay $15 a month for a game that has hours upon hours of content. F2P is not meant to be a viable option to fully enjoying everything SWTOR has to offer - it is simply a mechanic to attract an even wider customer base in order to make more money and potentially enlist further subscribers.

[Strod]

Well I guess the thing to take away here is, we all have our own opinions. I wouldn't agree you need play a game to be able to pass judgment on it, if you dedicate some serious research and YouTube trolling, but it is still impractical.

I have a Love/Hate relationship with the game personally, but I don't have enough free time to dedicate to the game anyways. If I did, I would still play just because It's where we are currently at.

I do agree with A lot of Manic's points, but it's how the current game industry does things. The best experience always comes from Paying for a PTP game, the FTP aspects of the same game will always be lack luster and not ideal. However, I have never seen so many options to buy little parts of the game such as Chat, Quick bars etc. That's a money grab plain and fucking simple, however if you are going to pay half a months sub for a few features on one character, just sub for a month.

At the end of the day, the reason we are all not named Tbone, Broin, Manic, Ana, or Mharz is because we all different and not the same and have variable preferences on well... everything.

[Tbone]

I think there's a difference between a free to play game with a cash shop (like Guild Wars 2, though I haven't looked to see if they have that) and a p2p game that adds a limited f2p option.