The Old Republic now has a release date!

[Woodsey]

Definitely will be.

Got my pre order ready and itchy fingers to get in the headstart.

Yeah, because forcing players to pay money every month to play your game rather than giving them the option to pay for aesthetics is TOTALLY the right way to go about it.

For one, you are not 'forced' to pay. You have a choice, either pay or don't play. No-one is holding a gun to your head.

And microtransactions end up costing more than a monthly sub to get the same content. Look at all P2P games that went F2P and they have increased their income by a hell of a lot because they charge a lot for the extras.

And no where near is it only aesthetics.

A lot of that could be attributed to the increased player-base, although I agree they're shit. I'd rather know instantly how much is going from my account each month, and I'd rather not have to think about what I'm using real money on whilst fucking playing.

 

[SniperMacFox]

Nice to know it's coming, but SCREW YOU ANNOUNCEMENT EMAIL.
Titling an email "It's what you've been waiting for" to a guy who's signed up for beta, been waiting patiently and heard news of them recommensing the beta test weekends in Europe. That's just cruel.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

i had hoped there would be no subscription, because im not payin £9 a month for a game ive already bought
so i'll wait a few years until it goes f2p

 

[iFail69]

I will be to wrapped up in my spree of Gears of War 3, Dead Island and Saints Row the Third to bother getting The Old republic... yet...

I will get it in the future, but as a P2P MMO, it's going to be beaten by the three above games until I really really want to play it.

 

[twistedheat15]

This being a MMO I can't help but to think that so many ppl will log on the first week it'll break the servers and end up spending most it's time in emergency maints, patches, and such to be rly enjoyed the first couple weeks. I wish the best for ppl who got the game, but my experience with getting big MMO's day one is always bleh.

 

[slacker09]

Ayup, 2 days before christmas... Good thing I got that 3 day pre-launch gametime.

I will be playing!

Nice to know it's coming, but SCREW YOU ANNOUNCEMENT EMAIL.
Titling an email "It's what you've been waiting for" to a guy who's signed up for beta, been waiting patiently and heard news of them recommensing the beta test weekends in Europe. That's just cruel.

And I feel you man. My heart raced aswell...

Same here, there could have been better wording on that announcement.

 

[RuralGamer]

Unless this game breaks a lot of previous MMO records, there is a distinct possibility of epic failure;
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107477-Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Profitable-With-500-000-Subs
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100967-Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-is-EAs-Most-Expensive-Project-in-History

£9 a month subscription? That's pretty steep even for an MMO no? No matter how good it looks or how awesome its supposed to be, no thanks; MMOs and I disagree, well its more my internet connection disagrees with any form of online gaming.

Edit: I'd like to play it, but £9 is just bit too much for me, considering my currently financial situation as a student (i.e. broke) and I really don't have the time to get hooked on an MMO.

 

[Hiphophippo]

Ayup, 2 days before christmas... Good thing I got that 3 day pre-launch gametime.

I will be playing!

Nice to know it's coming, but SCREW YOU ANNOUNCEMENT EMAIL.
Titling an email "It's what you've been waiting for" to a guy who's signed up for beta, been waiting patiently and heard news of them recommensing the beta test weekends in Europe. That's just cruel.

And I feel you man. My heart raced aswell...

Same here, there could have been better wording on that announcement.

Just chiming in to say I also had the same experience.

 

[2xDouble]

Definitely will be.

Got my pre order ready and itchy fingers to get in the headstart.

Yeah, because forcing players to pay money every month to play your game rather than giving them the option to pay for aesthetics is TOTALLY the right way to go about it.

For one, you are not 'forced' to pay. You have a choice, either pay or don't play. No-one is holding a gun to your head.

And microtransactions end up costing more than a monthly sub to get the same content. Look at all P2P games that went F2P and they have increased their income by a hell of a lot because they charge a lot for the extras.

And no where near is it only aesthetics.

Yes you are forced to pay. You pay or you can't play. It's just like buying a ticket to get in to an amusement park, then having to pay to ride the rides. Nobody's forcing you to pay anything, you're just not allowed to do anything fun unless you pony up.

Microtransactions are essentially a way to run a game on donations. You decide how much you like a game, how much you want to give the developer, and whether the "special prize" you get for donating is worth the price. In this model, nobody is going to take your game away from you for not buying a costume or storage upgrades.

So-called "Freemium" games are the worst of both worlds. LOTRO, WoW, DCUO... all of these games that literally withhold content unless you pay or subscribe. It's worse than "project ten dollar" by several orders of magnitude, because in addition to simply withholding content, you have to continue paying in order to keep it. Its like the theme park example before, only now they kick you out of the park if you don't ride.

Granted, there's potential on all sides for some serious evil. The mere mention of Zynga is proof enough if that.

OT: This is old news. They announced in March they would have a Q4 2011 release, with the possible window including up to but not later than April 2012... which means they were aiming square at the holiday purchasers for early adoption, which means somewhere around Dec 14-21. The Tuesday in that window this year is the 20th.

 

[Mikkelet]

Sounds sweet, but I gonna wait for Guild Wars 2 no matter how long I must wait.

 

[Sixcess]

2 days before Christmas for Europe? So, uh... if anything does go wrong it's not like there's going to be a lack of support or a delay in the response or...

Strikes me as a really weird date to launch, for much the same reason that MMOs don't tend to patch immediatly before a weekend. Oh well, at least it's got a launch date. Finally.

 

[Slash Dementia]

Eh, I've been done with MMOs for a long time. I was thinking about playing this one, but the fees killed it. There's no way I'm paying a monthly fee for a single game.

If this was Knights of the Old Republic 3 and single-player, then I'd buy it.

 

[rsvp42]

I'll be there with my Collector's Edition. I know it's probably not worth paying $150 for, but I just couldn't resist.

The question for me is whether to pre-order a physical copy or to buy it digitally. Physical copy means more hassel and probably playing it a few days after release (so that whole "early access" thing goes right down the pisser). Digital means fucking Origin.

True, but you only need Origin for the purchase. Actually playing the game doesn't require it to be installed, from what I understand. In that way, you may not even need it for the download, since they're doing the whole early access thing.

 

[jonyboy13]

Meh, I bet they gonna delay it and piss everyone off, again.

You know, at first I really liked it since they promised all the changes and it's SW but in the bottom line, it's WoW with lasers.
At this point I just hope it fails miserably, and it most likely will, so EA will stop buying good companies:<
I'll just wait for GW2.

I'll be there with my Collector's Edition. I know it's probably not worth paying $150 for, but I just couldn't resist.

I'm sorry, 150$?... You can buy half of Steam for that price._.

 

[Vrach]

2 days before Christmas for Europe? So, uh... if anything does go wrong it's not like there's going to be a lack of support or a delay in the response or...

Strikes me as a really weird date to launch, for much the same reason that MMOs don't tend to patch immediatly before a weekend. Oh well, at least it's got a launch date. Finally.

Agreed, it's a weird date to launch, but I'd say it's a lot less weird when you consider which MMO we're talking about, a story-driven one. People will need to put in some 200 hours into this game to get to max level and for that time, you'll be able to (I'm not saying forced) play it pretty much like a single player game - and those do pretty fine around Christmas holidays.

Support/delayed responses aren't gonna be an issue. BioWare is well aware of how important the launch is. For every worked unwilling to work Christmas (and them Christmas bonuses are super fun in a shitty economy), you'll have that many hundreds of thousands of people spending Christmas away from the game.

 

[rsvp42]

Microtransactions are essentially a way to run a game on donations. You decide how much you like a game, how much you want to give the developer, and whether the "special prize" you get for donating is worth the price. In this model, nobody is going to take your game away from you for not buying a costume or storage upgrades.

Yeah, but in a subscription game, those upgrades are obtainable in game at no extra charge, save for one's time and/or in-game currency. I think MTs are a legitimate way to run a game and in the ever-growing MMO market, it's almost a requirement that many be F2P because most folks won't have more than one sub at a time. However, it can be frustrating to be nickel-and-dimed over every feature in the game, especially if it's one's primary MMO and therefore played often. "Why not have a F2P/sub hybrid?" Because then almost all "non-essential" items get relegated to a cash shop, even for the subscribers. I guess some folks just prefer a simple, straightforward payment plan.

OT: This is old news. They announced in March they would have a Q4 2011 release, with the possible window including up to but not later than April 2012... which means they were aiming square at the holiday purchasers for early adoption, which means somewhere around Dec 14-21. The Tuesday in that window this year is the 20th.

This is definitely new news, but that (hindsight) speculation you did there has been going on for ages now.

 

[rsvp42]

it's WoW with lasers.

or... OR... was WoW just TOR without lasers?

MIND = BLOWN

 

[Vault101]

hmm well mabye it might be worht trying an MMO...oh wait I CANT we arnt getting it over here...

Yes, they seem quite intent on keeping it out of Australian hands.

Our internet is shitty enough without having to use foreign servers; I was going to give this game a fair go, but now it will never be.

well I think theres always a chance that if it becomes popular enough...a chance