Posts Tagged ‘electronic arts’

Changes to Star Wars: The Old Republic’s F2P Restrictions

26 October 2012 | 1 Comment » | iTZKooPA

Having to take a title designed as a subscription game from the start and morph it into a free-to-play game cannot be easy. Nothing can be shoehorned or half-assed. You don’t want to alienate customers – new, old or current – yet you can’t have the game be too open or two velvet roped. BioWare is juggling this exact problem with Star Wars: The Old Republic right now. Lead Designer Damion Schubert has just announced some changes ahead of the November (re)launch.

  • Free players receive two quickbars, up from one.
  • Free players can participate in five PvP Warzones a week, up from three.
  • All players will see reduced Cartel Coin item locks (cash shop cooldown timers). Free players have been reduced to three days while subscribers are down to two days.

The changes have been made after analysis of the action on the test server.

Schubert spends a substantial amount of the post explaining the delicate balancing act of the subscriber vs. free-to-play experience. In fact, he believes that the PvP Warzone queue should increase despite the restriction, since many titles have seen subscriber numbers increase after converting business models. The past doesn’t guarantee future results, so Schubert was quick to state that if Warzone queues do go the other way, the restriction will be modified to correct it.

Still have questions? Check out the extensive “expansion to F2P” FAQ.

Official: Star Wars: The Old Republic Going F2P [Update]

31 July 2012 | 5 Comments » | iTZKooPA

It’s been discussed from here to the sun for a few months now, the idea of Star Wars: The Old Republic being taken to the free-to-play model. Electronic Arts and BioWare made it official moments ago, throwing up a new landing page to announce the change to the community.

A F2P TOR experience isn’t going to be too different from the former subscription experience. Players can hit level 50 and enjoy any of the eight classes. Some restrictions will apply, but can be overcome with a microtransaction. As with many subscription to F2P transitions, a subscription option will remain for those dedicated players. Subscribers will be given monthly stipends for the cash shop. Previous and returning subscribers will be given special rewards including a backpay of Cartel Coins and a Fan’s Choice item.

Currently undisclosed is if additional content will cost Cartel Coins or be available for players as it is released. From the looks of it, gameplay content will be included in all models. If you’re a new or returning player, any subscription before August 1, 2012 – that’s tomorrow! – will earn some perks. More information at the F2P FAQ.

The announcement included some teasers to upcoming content, including the new operation on Asation, Terror From Beyond, and the new PvP warzone, Ancient Hypergate.

[Update]

The full transition is expected to be completed for a November launch.

Star Wars: The Old Republic ‘Going to embrace free’ Model

18 June 2012 | No Comments » | iTZKooPA

After a rather poor cover-up by Electronic Arts/BioWare, the original GamesTM story breaking the news of a F2P Star Wars: The Old Republic has been confirmed from the highest ranks of Electronic Arts. EA Labels president Frank Gibeau clarified the company’s intentions as a long term standpoint. Meaning the company will make whatever changes necessary to keep SW:TOR profitable.

“We’re going to be in the business from a long term standpoint so absolutely we’re going to embrace free access, free trial, ultimately some day we can move in and embrace that model. It’s all a matter of timing and thinking things through.”

Gamers looking to experience a F2P SW:TOR – yours truly among that contingent – will have to wait awhile. Gibeau doesn’t see the writing on the wall quite yet. Continue Reading

Star Wars: The Old Republic Investigating F2P Transition; Or Is it?!

15 June 2012 | 7 Comments » | iTZKooPA

With BioWare and Electronic Arts reassuring players and analysts that Star Wars: The Old Republic is doing fine – both in terms of content and growth – the company has shown quite the opposite. Actions like free time, server mergers and layoffs generally point to disgruntled players and underpopulated servers. Clearly, the companies have taken actions to stem the bleeding, but few expected the idea of free-to-play to come out of Lead Designer Emmanuel Lusinchi’s mouth.

In a since-pulled interview with GamesTM, Lisinchi stated that “We are looking at free-to-play, but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.”

Talk about a bombshell.

Lisinchi goes on to say that the investigation isn’t specifically related to the drop in subscription numbers. The main issue is competition coming from the F2P sector. Perhaps the first outright admission by a AAA game, Lisinchi states that “there are definitely good games out there and good games coming out.”

I’ll say. Firefall, the subscriptionless Guild Wars 2, SMITE, End of Nations and many more point to the F2P business model finalizing its stance as a disruptive innovation. Ushering in MMOGs as piecemeal consumption items instead of a retail product with Software as a Service (SaaS) attached.

Why the article was pulled? That’s a completely different story. Without a specific retraction coming from GamesTM, the safe bet is that the news wasn’t supposed to get out in this fashion.

E3 2011: Pre-show Trailers — Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3

6 June 2011 | 1 Comment » | pixiestixy

When Electronic Arts took the stage at E3, we knew big things were coming. And man, were we right. Take a look at this beauty of a trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, from Blur Studio, just released live at the show, and now making its quick way around the internet.

You can watch the trailer at Origin, EA’s online store, but thanks to video cameras at the show, we also can show you directly from here. Take a look:

We also have a new opening cinematic, entitled “Return.” Excitement! Click through for that and several more SW:TOR- and Mass Effect 3-themed videos. Continue Reading

$350 Million for a Majority Share of League of Legends’ Money, I Mean Developer

9 February 2011 | No Comments » | iTZKooPA

There’s a really good chance that you missed this bit of news from last week. I did, and I tend to follow companies that develop games I enjoy so much. Tencent Holdings, predominately a Chinese Internet service company, has acquired a majority stake in Riot Games, the creator of the F2P battle arena game League of Legends. Tencent reportedly paid $350 million to buy out other venture capitalists and put itself in a great position to soak up all of Riot’s money as it continues to innovate its genre.

Obviously, I believe that Riot Games has found a winning formula. The company releases new content weekly, be it champions or the occasional map reskin (which is entertaining for some reason). It levies the new champions against skin sales to generate revenue. A scheme that has cleaned the moths out of many a friends’ pockets. It employs daily rewards for the first win to keep us coming back and has an incredibly deep universe for a game that has no open world. It’s no shock that a company was willing to pay nine figures for a piece of that action. Considering its growth – the company has been on a hiring spree since LoL launched in late 2009 – the profits haven’t peaked yet.

If only I had $351 million… Continue Reading

Battlefield Enters the F2P Market

5 November 2010 | 1 Comment » | Amatera

OK, so according to the title of the game, it’s actually Battlefield “Play4Free,“ but that’s nit-picking. It’s still a bit of an interesting revelation. We may not normally consider DICE’s seminal shooter much of an MMORPG, but if we’re lumping games like Global Agenda into the mix, it’s really not that far off from matching the classification. The Battlefield series has always focused on dynamic, large-scale battles, but the most recent ones have adopted an experience and level-based system, which seems to be lock-and-stock for the first/third-person-shooter ever since Modern Warfare became a breakout hit. Meeting new benchmarks naturally unlocks new equipment and new abilities for you to use in combat.

While lacking in a grindy single-player experience with loads of quests and story to unravel, to a PvP-minded MMO player, building up a soldier in Battlefield Bad Company 2, for instance, is not that big of a leap.

Now, to be technical, this is not the franchise’s first foray into the free-to-play market. That would be Battlefield Heroes, a comical and simplistic take on the formula meant primarily for younger players whose visual style takes liberal cues from Team Fortress 2, Nintendo’s Advance Wars, and Saturday morning action cartoons like G.I. Joe. And while you could argue that most shooters come with a free online mode (well, these days, it’s more like you’re getting the single-player gratis), it’s presumed in this case you won’t have to make that initial game purchase.

Battlefield P4F is taking the more traditional, semi-realistic tack that the series is known for, though the graphics seem to have been run through the stripper to remove that fine sheen of polish recent entries have been slathered with. I have a pretty beefy machine, and even I had trouble making Bad Company 2 run efficiently without really sacrificing some of the game’s visual splendor. The impetus for going completely free with a game would be to reach as big of an audience as possible, and that means making sure most of them can play it reliably.

This may also be explained by the fact that the predecessor it is most closely modeled upon is Battlefield 2, an entry in the series that is, let’s face it, a few years old at this point. I’m also presuming a lack of destructible terrain, which was introduced in Bad Company, but I suppose we’ll find out when the Closed Beta starts on November 16th.

That said, most of the series’ other hallmarks seem to have remained intact, including extensive use of vehicles (16 total) in battle and ticket-based, capture-the-point gameplay. The initial trailer, and more speculation, follows after the jump. Continue Reading

Old Republic E3 News Live From EA Press Conference

14 June 2010 | 10 Comments » | Amatera

UPDATE: New Trailer Added To Post

The Old Republic was shown off as the last of ten games during Electronic Arts’ E3 presentation today. Here’s what we learned:

  • Each player will get their own, customizable starship.
  • PvP will feature massive battles in classic Star Wars battlegrounds (like Alderaan). Empire vs. Republic, Jedi vs. Sith.
  • New trailer being shown, titled “Hope.”
  • Republic soldiers ambush an Empire battalion in a forested area. Lead Sith beats the snot out of the Republic general with Force Lightning and attempts to cut his head off via lightsaber as humiliation.
  • As one might predict, a fellow Jedi shows up to stop this from happening. Beautiful female warrior with a dual-bladed saber.
  • The two fight for a bit, and the Jedi uses her Force powers to engage in a little “deforestation” as a distraction.
  • Sith cuts the Jedi’s saber in two and attempts to stab her through the chest, but she uses her hand (and presumably the Force) to hold it off under great strain.
  • The Republic general, having regained some of this strength, runs up and sets off a bomb in close proximity to the Sith, knocking them both back.
  • The Jedi recovers, pushes him into a cliff and then hadoken’s the dude with a concentrated ball of Force, shattering both the Sith and the rock wall behind him.
  • General stands up, generic message of hope, cue epic shot of the planet, ships entering from behind the screen in true Star Wars fashion, aaaaand logo.
  • The trailer was, like the previous one, not gameplay.

Well, apparently that’s all we’re getting at this conference. Considering what exists of the gameplay out there, I’m not surprised they went with a pre-baked trailer instead. It’s hard to make an MMORPG looks really exciting in front of a large audience, anyway. Still, I would’ve hoped for more information on the content anyway, and the few details we got barely scratched the surface. An announcement of PvP, but no specifics?

Luckily, the game will be on the show floor tomorrow, and with iTZKooPA in attendance, we may be able to bring you more interesting footage in the coming days (assuming they allow footage to be taken of it, and he can make the time).