117483-open-letter-to-carbine-just-for-a-bit-of-honestyclarification

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This is just a simple letter to CARBINE, from a devoted fan and player of WS, and I know this probably won't get an answer (or even probably a response) but would you please at least let your devoted subscribers know which way you INTEND ( I know nothing is certain when another company owns you) to do in the WS model? People are antsy about buying CREDD because of F2P and I know alot of people are antsy about staying subbed because they don't want to waste their time and invest in a game thats going to go F2P (myself included along with alot of guildies)
 
Please don't pull a TRION and Scott Hartsman on us and lie to your entire userbase and then screw us over. Thats all i'm asking. It happened to me once with RIFT and TRION, and I'd like it not to happen again with CARBINE and WS.
 
Kind Regards-Wrath	
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			Oh, look! F2P thread again!	
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			How much more honest/clear can they be?	
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Oh, look! F2P thread again!
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			Not sure what needs clarifying. They're keeping the current business model until they decide to change it. They're not going to say anything about whether they're considering changing it until the decision is made. Neither of those things means they'd be lying if they changed it, or lying if they kept it the same forever. You're not paying for the future, you're paying for your time right now. If you're not having fun now, don't pay.	
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			There's already a post with this exact same topic......why the need to open another one? Also why the need to title it, "open letter?" I see you reddit >.>	
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Well it's more of a "Please tell us if you're planning to f2p or not" thread.
 
I mean, do you want to stock up on CREDD if the game is planning on being f2p?
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			Just go look over the Glassdoor reviews and think about who at Carbine will be making the decisions as to the future of the game's pay model and you'll be able to come to your own conclusion as to whether or not they're trustworthy pretty quickly.	
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Do you really believe that someone here wants to tell you the truth? they just tell you what you want to hear and they'll try their best to not lose a single member, If (and i say IF) they are going Buy to play of Free to play, they will refound you for sure so don't worry about it..But don't waste time here for a real answer...they will tell you something just to keep you calm till the time comes  PS: they already told in a review that they are not going free to play, but in the same review they also told that population were okay, and game was healty... to trust or not to trust is up to youHere's an exemple	
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Just go look over the Glassdoor reviews and think about who at Carbine will be making the decisions as to the future of the game's pay model and you'll be able to come to your own conclusion as to whether or not they're trustworthy pretty quickly.
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It's not going free to play, period.
 
And there is *nothing* eye opening about Glassdoor... feel free to search any studio. 
Think on your own.
			
				
	Edited November 2, 2014 by BusterCasey	
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Quite frankly, it could save this game from oblivion.  If Drop 3 comes and goes and subs continue to plummet, I will be very surprised if this isn't an option.  I know, many of you are just hanging on for dear life to an outdated concept of the sub-based MMO.  Yes, World of Warcraft has a sub.  Yes, it is bleeding subs too (because the game sucks now) but it's really the only MMO that can get away with it because it has a history, a legacy, and people will continue to pay for it.  The thing is, people want to play multiple MMOs (including WoW, even if it sucks) and the sub model restricts that from happening.  I personally cannot justify to pay two subs at once and I think a lot of people don't want to do that either (for financial reasons or otherwise).
 
So here's the thing:  swallow your pride and go F2P.  And people playing this game, do the same.  Admit defeat and realise that going F2P could save the game and breathe new life into it.  SWtoR was absolutely panned on release and they very quickly realised that it was F2P or fail completely.  Guess what?  Their revenue has doubled since they gave people the option of F2P or sub.  And there's the key:  the game isn't completely F2P.  You can choose to be F2P or pay to sub and have full access to the game.  What this game desperately lacks at the moment is a way to give people an experience of the game without subbing and buying it upfront.  The upfront cost isn't going to go, so GIVE PEOPLE THE ABILITY TO TRIAL THE GAME.  Give them a taste of the game and a way to play for free while restricting access to certain features etc, and you'll see a huge increase in the playerbase.  From there, they might even sub (they will) and you'll have a healthy player base rather than 3 hour PvP queues.
 
For all those people who throw their hands up the air and go 'I QUIT IF THIS GAME GOES F2P!' just gather yourself for one moment and realise that a F2P model done well could save your game and even make it better. Having a F2P option is just that, an option to give people choice.  Swallow your pride, admit defeat, go F2P with your sub model still intact.	
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"Oh, a random guy telling constantly, in multiple posts, that we need to go F2P. Thats it, we have no choice"
 
This is what they are all thinking. Every time there comes a new F2P post from you guys, this is what they think.	
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Strange how many people whine complain about F2P, and yet ignore the fact that the game is already F2P. Or pay once to play, to be precise. Simply buy CREDD with in-game money, and voila! Free to play.
 
(and honestly, with so many people running around past midnight on a Sunday and getting in my way, I sometimes wish there were less players here, not more.) :P	
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			You have to wonder if people will ever realize that they're crucifying themselves and the game they supposedly care about with the attitudes many carry on these forums that resonate by word of mouth.	
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And you think that CREDD just appears from nowhere?
I wonder how ppl wont see that playing with CREDD is even better for carbine since it more expensive than the normal monthly fee.	
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It's not going free to play, period.
 
And there is *nothing* eye opening about Glassdoor... feel free to search any studio. 
Think on your own.
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			As a prior subscriber, I am keeping tabs on the forums in hope of seeing positive feedback that it is worth returning to the game I loved and hope rebounds.   As for useless currency I think your completely wrong.  Just because it goes F2P, doesn't mean there isn't benefits from subscribing.  If you subscribe to most F2P games you unlock everything and not get nickled and dimed, and severely limited in you experience.  Why could they not keep CREDD as what it is, a substitute for subscribing have full benefits of the game for 1 month?  So...you can pay per month, pay with CREDD, or go with the F2P model paying as you go.	
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			I love how people point to games like Rift and SWTOR as examples of 'successful' F2P games. Financially successful, no doubt, but the communities on both those games are horrible and the content updates are few and lackluster. Not to mention that most F2P games end up falling into the P2W scheme. No thanks. Sub or die, imo.	
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This is just a simple letter to CARBINE, from a devoted fan and player of WS, and I know this probably won't get an answer (or even probably a response) but would you please at least let your devoted subscribers know which way you INTEND ( I know nothing is certain when another company owns you) to do in the WS model? People are antsy about buying CREDD because of F2P and I know alot of people are antsy about staying subbed because they don't want to waste their time and invest in a game thats going to go F2P (myself included along with alot of guildies)
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I love how people point to games like Rift and SWTOR as examples of 'successful' F2P games. Financially successful, no doubt, but the communities on both those games are horrible and the content updates are few and lackluster. Not to mention that most F2P games end up falling into the P2W scheme. No thanks. Sub or die, imo.
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			Worst it can happen is NCsoft pulling another maneuver like the one they did to Paragon a couple of yrs ago.	
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			Wild Star should go F2P three years after WoW does and I mean completely F2P until 90 or whatever the level cap there is.	
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The community here isn't exactly a bright summer day at the beach, and we all have to subscribe to post.
 
And SWTOR's content updates since they went F2P include 10 levels, housing and a space combat system. Hardly "lackluster".
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I'm admittedly biased when it comes to SWTOR, since that game is the biggest disappointment ( to me) in the last decade or so. That has nothing to do with the F2P model though. Rift has ( or had, last I saw it) about the best F2P model I've seen, but I've heard rumors that it's going P2W. Seems like most F2P games start out with the whole " Don't worry guys, we're only offering cosmetic/quality of life stuff in the cash shop!" to gating basic MMO functionality and better gear. 
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I love how people point to games like Rift and SWTOR as examples of 'successful' F2P games. Financially successful, no doubt, but the communities on both those games are horrible and the content updates are few and lackluster. Not to mention that most F2P games end up falling into the P2W scheme. No thanks. Sub or die, imo.
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Generally in current state game has to go F2P or be closed. DK how profits of Carbine looks ATM, but player base is not big enough to sustain a game for long period of time.
 
The question is when and how?
For the first - I would say not sooner, than Drop4.... Currently even after Drop3 the game is not ready, as it will be one big failure. F2P players will leave game for the same reasons players are leaving now. Even that Drop3 address many issues (some IMO badly), the vast of the remains, so we will have many disappointed  F2P players, that will join, leave and never come back - something that we do not want.
For the second - hopefully there will not be a cash shop, as it will kill some aspect of this game (and many players will quit), actually it will also flip around whole economy, current players (vast majority of them) can not imagine anything that will give in-game advantage in cash shop, so mounts, dyes and costumes, but currently only expensive thing in game are mounts, dyes and costumes, so after introducing them in cash shop we will have in-game inflation and really not a single thing to farm gold for.... But we have already implemented CREED system, that works perfectly. So from there instead of subscription, we can have premium account and basic with restrictions, as lower limit of AH/CX items, some limitation of gold amount (maybe XP/Gold buffs for premium), 70 EG/week instead of 140, GA reset every 2 weeks or possibility to reset it more often for premium (same with DS), dungs for basic only 1/day (as 1x each - still plenty of time to play), limitation in bag and bank tabs. Some futures like instances reset can be from guild ex. 70% players with premium = premium guild and all can be happy of faster resets of things. Actually with premium guild there can also be restriction with loot, as basic would get less items from same bosses with same RNG.
 
Furthermore premium system will not change anything for current playerbase... Well there can be faster grind or more raids resets, but those ale rather advantages to them. The only big difference will be that some F2P can join, that will make playerbase bigger. Many of the will stay and at least some will subscribe. Of course game has to be ready for that. So as for player oriented point of view lots of rooster problems, as for publisher profits way below expectations or loss. In both situations game has to be ready to attract new players and IMO it is not yet ready enough. The question here is how bad situation is for publisher, as for players I would say it is not so bad and game will sustain for next 6-12m without much problems with current development pattern.	
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My opinion.
 
Megaservers did nothing to stop the bleeding of subs. The server Entity feels more empty now than Stormtalon did 3-4 weeks before the mergers.
Drop 3 despite needing to be a hail mary type save all patch will not be. #1 reason is that gear incentives/stats will still be horribly broken until drop 4 in Jan/Feb/whenever per J-Tal. Until they can get in correctly itemized gear, fix loot tables, and give people a reason to re-run dungeons for said gear the queues will continue to be the ghost town it is now.
Drop 4 is too far away to save the game. I keep losing more and more people in the guild I am in to other games (such as FFXIV and AA) and losing more neighbors in game to 2, 3, 4+ weeks without logging in as I have to clear out room for more active people. The servers are emptying too fast to sustain the game being viable till Jan/Feb.
The game will likely go FTP, despite hardcore white knights here vowing it will never happen. If it doesn't go FTP, it will more likely go the route of Tabula Rasa than stay open with less than 100K people.	
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I don't understand the "I'll quit if it goes F2P" mindset. If the game goes F2P, it'll probably be a hybrid model, where subbing gives you exactly the same experience you have now (or even better, with advantages for subscribers that F2P players don't get). CREDD would undoubtedly convert over to sub time or cash shop currency.
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Generally in current state game has to go F2P or be closed. DK how profits of Carbine looks ATM, but player base is not big enough to sustain a game for long period of time.
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Not sure what needs clarifying. They're keeping the current business model until they decide to change it.
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Quite frankly, it could save this game from oblivion.  If Drop 3 comes and goes and subs continue to plummet, I will be very surprised if this isn't an option.  I know, many of you are just hanging on for dear life to an outdated concept of the sub-based MMO.  Yes, World of Warcraft has a sub.  Yes, it is bleeding subs too (because the game sucks now) but it's really the only MMO that can get away with it because it has a history, a legacy, and people will continue to pay for it.  The thing is, people want to play multiple MMOs (including WoW, even if it sucks) and the sub model restricts that from happening.  I personally cannot justify to pay two subs at once and I think a lot of people don't want to do that either (for financial reasons or otherwise).
 
So here's the thing:  swallow your pride and go F2P.  And people playing this game, do the same.  Admit defeat and realise that going F2P could save the game and breathe new life into it.  SWtoR was absolutely panned on release and they very quickly realised that it was F2P or fail completely.  Guess what?  Their revenue has doubled since they gave people the option of F2P or sub.  And there's the key:  the game isn't completely F2P.  You can choose to be F2P or pay to sub and have full access to the game.  What this game desperately lacks at the moment is a way to give people an experience of the game without subbing and buying it upfront.  The upfront cost isn't going to go, so GIVE PEOPLE THE ABILITY TO TRIAL THE GAME.  Give them a taste of the game and a way to play for free while restricting access to certain features etc, and you'll see a huge increase in the playerbase.  From there, they might even sub (they will) and you'll have a healthy player base rather than 3 hour PvP queues.
 
For all those people who throw their hands up the air and go 'I QUIT IF THIS GAME GOES F2P!' just gather yourself for one moment and realise that a F2P model done well could save your game and even make it better. Having a F2P option is just that, an option to give people choice.  Swallow your pride, admit defeat, go F2P with your sub model still intact.
 
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My opinion.
 
Megaservers did nothing to stop the bleeding of subs. The server Entity feels more empty now than Stormtalon did 3-4 weeks before the mergers
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This is just a simple letter to CARBINE, from a devoted fan and player of WS, and I know this probably won't get an answer (or even probably a response) but would you please at least let your devoted subscribers know which way you INTEND ( I know nothing is certain when another company owns you) to do in the WS model? People are antsy about buying CREDD because of F2P and I know alot of people are antsy about staying subbed because they don't want to waste their time and invest in a game thats going to go F2P (myself included along with alot of guildies)
 
Please don't pull a TRION and Scott Hartsman on us and lie to your entire userbase and then screw us over. Thats all i'm asking. It happened to me once with RIFT and TRION, and I'd like it not to happen again with CARBINE and WS.
 
Kind Regards-Wrath
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So, about CREDD. You own CREDD because 1) you bought it in game with plat, or 2) you bought it with real money, or 3) someone gave you CREDD they bought with real money. 2) and 3) are really the same, for the purpose of this discussion, there is a CREDD for which someone dropped $20.
 
If F2P happens, people in 1) won't get hurt IF Carbine just implements a buy-back option. Just make CREDD a vendor item, set the price to X, whatever, (max buy-out price at time of switch to F2P minus 10%). This doesn't cost Carbine anything - as opposed to reimbursing people for the CREDD -, but the work to put this vendor stuff in.
 
The people in 2) (and 3)) are in a slightly different boat, because someone paid actual money for the CREDD. But what was the purpose of their purchase? They either bought CREDD to i) sell for plat, ii) use it for sub, or iii) to gift it to someone.
 
i) is covered by the above group 1), you can still sell your CREDD for plat.
 
ii) is a bit weird if you yourself actually bought the CREDD for $20 instead of just paying the $15 sub. I guess you are trying to give Carbine some extra $$, because you enjoy Wildstar? Well, Carbine still got your money and now you don't even have to use the CREDD for the sub, but can turn it into plat! Everybody wins! Yeay!
 
People in iii) got the gift of CREDD from someone to use with the same purpose people have in groups i) and ii). Either sell it for plat or use it to pay your sub, and so they are still covered.
 
So, there really is no impact on CREDD holders.	
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I personally try to purchase CREDD with my in-game money every chance I get.  For one, I get to pretty much play the game for free and all it cost me was some ingame Platinum.  The second reason I purchase CREDD though, is because I want to make sure that people feel justified in purchasing CREDD for $20 from Carbine.  
 
It seems to me that if people are overly concerned with whether the game will go F2P, and are basing their decision to not purchase CREDD on the uncertainty of F2P, then $20 CREDD purchases will eventually come to a "slow-trickle" situation because the ingame demand for CREDD purchases will also slow down drastically.  For those who haven't thought of it in these terms, Carbine actually makes an extra $5 for every CREDD purchase every month (which stacks up predictably) and leads to more revenue for the company and further helps to stave off the possibility of the introduction of F2P (ironic, I know).
 
Taking into account that every 3 CREDD purchases for RL money equates to 1 extra Subscription payment, I would like to encourage those who are willing to spend $35 as opposed to their usual $15 that month so that I can play for free by paying them an adequate amount of ingame money (in other words, to keep the system working the way it was intended).
 
If the game does go F2P, well, the person that sold me the CREDD still has the cash, Carbine still has the extra $5 from each and every individual sale, and I'm only short some Platinum in the game.  All in all, it's a risk that I'm willing to take, and if taking that risk ultimately reduces the risk, then the risk eventually becomes negligible.  
 
The problem fixes itself if a large enough number of people are willing to stop worrying about the problem and just use the system as it was intended (this is one of the very few occasions in life where "ignoring the problem until it goes away" actually works - does not apply to all situations!).
 
On the subject of ironic concerns and problems that will fix themselves if ignored... the number of people I find saying that they're "not sure if they want to play the game because they don't know how many other players there are".  Clearly the concern is:  "If I buy the game, will I have anyone to play with?"
 
Strangely, the only way to fix that problem is by not worrying about "how many players there are" and instead "just playing the game" which becomes a self-fixing or self-sustaining problem driven solely by the concerns of "whether or not there are other people" - there will be people if people would worry less about whether there are people and just play... /end rant.	
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The community here isn't exactly a bright summer day at the beach, and we all have to subscribe to post.
 
And SWTOR's content updates since they went F2P include 10 levels, housing and a space combat system. Hardly "lackluster".
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Housing that is about 1/100th as flexible as Wildstar's was at launch, and 10 times the money sink. 10 levels, 5 aren't out yet, and the other 5 can be played through in a day, and have no individual Class stories. A space combat system that is PvP only, and has killed any development or improvements to the original space combat system they had.
 
Let's be real, the stuff added to SWTOR since it went F2P is adequate only if you stay out of the game for 12 months at a time and come back for two months to play everything you missed, then unsub again.
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And yet, for some reason, it's the largest and fastest-growing chapter in my guild, and has been since launch, with raids 3 times a week. YMMV of course, but switching to a hybrid sub/F2P mode hasn't killed the enthusiasm for the game for a great many people.
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And yet, for some reason, it's the largest and fastest-growing chapter in my guild, and has been since launch, with raids 3 times a week. YMMV of course, but switching to a hybrid sub/F2P mode hasn't killed the enthusiasm for the game for a great many people.
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As the owner of AskAJedi.com, I can tell you with absolute certainty that enthusiasm is absolutely *nothing* like it was at launch :)
 
Edit: I let Apple take too much control of my typing.
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As the owner of AskAJedi.com, I can tell you with absolute certainty that enthusiasm is absolutely *nothing* like it was at launch :)
 
Edit: I let Apple take too much control of my typing.
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And yet, for some reason, it's the largest and fastest-growing chapter in my guild, and has been since launch, with raids 3 times a week. YMMV of course, but switching to a hybrid sub/F2P mode hasn't killed the enthusiasm for the game for a great many people.
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 SWTOR lost me when it went with the whole 'every class a pet class' approach to companions. Being reliant on an AI with the intellect of a turnip gets pretty old, fast. I haven't played since perhaps a few months after launch, but the whole experience left such a bad taste in my mouth, I never had any desire to go back.
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Hey bro Lamaurian is the real deal... even one of the dev's even admitted he was right once. His opinion is worth 1000x more of anyone else's just like Lethality's.
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This is just a simple letter to CARBINE, from a devoted fan and player of WS, and I know this probably won't get an answer (or even probably a response) but would you please at least let your devoted subscribers know which way you INTEND ( I know nothing is certain when another company owns you) to do in the WS model? People are antsy about buying CREDD because of F2P and I know alot of people are antsy about staying subbed because they don't want to waste their time and invest in a game thats going to go F2P (myself included along with alot of guildies)
 
Please don't pull a TRION and Scott Hartsman on us and lie to your entire userbase and then screw us over. Thats all i'm asking. It happened to me once with RIFT and TRION, and I'd like it not to happen again with CARBINE and WS.
 
Kind Regards-Wrath
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I know. It's almost enough to make one think that not every game has the same level of appeal to everyone.
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Not wanting to drag around dead weight to quest isn't a matter of personal taste. The companion idea when I played was horribly implemented and frustrating to play around. Not to mention, a lot of classes' 'ideal' companion may not come until later on, meaning you're stuck with completely useless companions for a bulk of the leveling experience. Not exactly the best way to win fans.
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Since SWTOR has half a million subscribers two years after going F2P, clearly there are people who disagree with you enough to continue to pay a monthly fee. And then there are the other half a million F2P players - which undoubtedly include people who subbed before and quit because they found either the time they spent, or the content (or both), not worth paying a monthly fee for.  I don't know how many of them are paying or how much, or what they're buying, but at least a million people think it's a good enough game to play it every month.
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Except the swTOR userbase is a fan-crazy one that will swallow anything thrown at them as long as it has Star-Wars labeled on top of it.
And the fact there is no alternative for Star Wars anymore except swTOR. It's not as if they actually have a choice.
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Yes. It is a matter of personal taste. For example, you found it "horribly implemented and frustrating to play around" and I didn't. There were a few times when I had to swap out companions and had to gear them up, but it really wasn't that big of a deal. Most of the time I enjoyed it, as it gave me the chance to experiment with different roles. I could level as a healer with a DPS or tank companion and a tank with a DPS or healer companion.
 
 
Since SWTOR has half a million subscribers two years after going F2P, clearly there are people who disagree with you enough to continue to pay a monthly fee. And then there are the other half a million F2P players - which undoubtedly include people who subbed before and quit because they found either the time they spent, or the content (or both), not worth paying a monthly fee for.  I don't know how many of them are paying or how much, or what they're buying, but at least a million people think it's a good enough game to play it every month.
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And yet, for some reason, it's the largest and fastest-growing chapter in my guild, and has been since launch, with raids 3 times a week. YMMV of course, but switching to a hybrid sub/F2P mode hasn't killed the enthusiasm for the game for a great many people.
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Except the swTOR userbase is a fan-crazy one that will swallow anything thrown at them as long as it has Star-Wars labeled on top of it.
And the fact there is no alternative for Star Wars anymore except swTOR. It's not as if they actually have a choice.
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Except the swTOR userbase is a fan-crazy one that will swallow anything thrown at them as long as it has Star-Wars labeled on top of it.
And the fact there is no alternative for Star Wars anymore except swTOR. It's not as if they actually have a choice.
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Maybe Tera, Rift and Aion would be better examples. As of July, Tera, Rift and Aion are in the top 10. And most of the others on that list are also games that started with a sub and went F2P.  Granted, this is counting revenue, not players, but without players, there's no revenue, and I very much doubt that all that money comes from a handful of whales with an unlimited bank account.
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SWTOR is going F2P - "it's a fail game in spite of being Star Wars"
SWTOR is successful as a hybrid sub/F2P game - "it's still a fail game. It's only successful because it's Star Wars"
 
How about SWG? People go on and on about it like it was the best thing since sliced bread and yet claim that NGE ruined the game (yet they continued to play it for another 6 years).
 
I won't deny that the popularity of Star Wars is a big part of what's keeping/kept those games alive, but in the case of SWTOR, it probably wouldn't even be around today if it hadn't switched its business model. And if SWTOR couldn't keep enough subscribers in spite of being Star Wars, what makes you think a new IP like Wildstar can?
 
Maybe Tera, Rift and Aion would be better examples. As of July, Tera, Rift and Aion are in the top 10. And most of the others on that list are also games that started with a sub and went F2P.  Granted, this is counting revenue, not players, but without players, there's no revenue, and I very much doubt that all that money comes from a handful of whales with an unlimited bank account.
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SWTOR is going F2P - "it's a fail game in spite of being Star Wars"
SWTOR is successful as a hybrid sub/F2P game - "it's still a fail game. It's only successful because it's Star Wars"
 
How about SWG? People go on and on about it like it was the best thing since sliced bread and yet claim that NGE ruined the game (yet they continued to play it for another 6 years).
 
I won't deny that the popularity of Star Wars is a big part of what's keeping/kept those games alive, but in the case of SWTOR, it probably wouldn't even be around today if it hadn't switched its business model. And if SWTOR couldn't keep enough subscribers in spite of being Star Wars, what makes you think a new IP like Wildstar can?
 
Maybe Tera, Rift and Aion would be better examples. As of July, Tera, Rift and Aion are in the top 10. And most of the others on that list are also games that started with a sub and went F2P.  Granted, this is counting revenue, not players, but without players, there's no revenue, and I very much doubt that all that money comes from a handful of whales with an unlimited bank account.
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No they did not.
The majority of people left SWG when CU and NGE hit the game. There were major threads on the forum about it and people followed up.
Youtube was filled with goodbye movies and guilds screening their disband/break up. Those 2 updates ruined the game.
It's also when the projects like SWGemu started up to revert the game back to it's original state.
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To give you an example of the "population" from SWG:
 
 
Pre-CU Upgrade:
17 US servers all on Medium to Heavy population
5 EU servers all on Heavy population
 
Post CU Upgrade, Pre NGE:
17 US servers, 2 on Heavy, 5 on Medium, 10 on low
5 EU servers, 3 on medium, 2 on low
 
Post NGE:
17 US servers, 15 on low, 2 on medium
5 EU servers, 5 on low
 
I've played the game myself from day one, and that game had an awesome community and was extremely fun to play for a sandbox MMO.
The community warned what would happen if those updates were pushed through. Petitions were made, special dedicated sites were put up to get the message across.
The main reason was not even the upgrades themselves as they also brought a lot of good things. The updates were not ready. The CU upgrade was released first, and 10 updates later the NGE.
The problem was that when NGE hit, all bugs and issues from CU were still ingame and not being adressed. And that's something Carbine for example has been doing a lot better.
 
Sure they released bad stuff as well, but they're way faster on fixing things and being open about it.
SOE Tried it as well...but too late.
In 2006, Smedley made this announcement:
 
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That other lesson is the infamous "New Game Experience" the team put into Star Wars Galaxies in 2005. On that, he was completely frank.
"With the NGE, I'm sorry about the mistake we made," he told us. "We screwed up and didn't listen to the fans when we should have, and it's not a mistake we're going to make again."
The NGE completely altered Star Wars Galaxies, a game that had launched in cooperation with LucasArts over two years before. Classes disappeared and the game fundamentally changed in almost every way. It came as no surprise to observers that this change was massively unpopular among the playerbase.
And what was the mistake SOE made that Smedley is sorry for?
"[The mistake was] to not just think we know the right direction without bringing the fans into the mix," he explained. "We made the cardinal sin of not listening, but assuming and we were wrong."
He went on to point out that after two years, the game is once again stable and growing. They continue to update the game with new content and those fans, old and new, who enjoy the current incarnation of the game are being listened to. The old game won't come back - to change now would be as unfair as the first time they did it - but he believes SWG still has a solid future.
Read more at http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/2301-John-Smedley-Exclusive-Interview-with-the-SOE-CEO.2#3iVzrk0c4JgEjLqt.99
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Well, they're not the same people then. But there were plenty of people on the SWTOR forums who had previously played SWG until the servers closed, but were also extolling the virtues of the pre-CU/NGE days.
 
 
Both Tera and Aion are Korean games, but Rift is a Western game. If you want to remove all the Korean games from that list, you'd find that there are more Western games on there that are F2P or made a transition to a hybrid model from a sub model.
 
 
It was called TORtanic by 4chan long before it launched because 4chan. It's a catchy name and it stuck because people like to mock things, especially by publishers they don't like, and since going F2P is saddled with the stigma of being the place where bad games go to die, it was used to brand SWTOR as "the epitome of a failed game" - which, as it turns out, isn't the case.
 
Plenty of games have gone F2P before and since; EQ2, DCUO, STO, LOTRO, TSW, ArcheAge, Rift, Aion, the list goes on. All of them still have their audiences. Many of them are still getting content. All of them went F2P when subscriptions dipped, but none of them are "bad gamestm". None of them have gotten the drubbing that SWTOR has. SWTOR is just the "oh how the mighty have fallen" that people like to point and laugh at. In the same way that there are people in these forums and on reddit who are mocking Wildstar's troubles because of "#HARDCORE!"
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You can keep trying, but you'll never convince me that paying for basic services a la carte is somehow better than a flat monthly fee for a full featured game. 
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Now, correct me if I'm wrong, I never really dug into SWTOR so I only know what I've heard from others regarding its business model, but:
 
Doesn't SWTOR along with every other F2P game I've seen offer the option to Subscribe to the game for $15 a month, and in return you gain unmitigated access to all of the game's content?  
 
Wouldn't this essentially make playing the F2P game as a Subscriber the same experience as being a Subscriber to any P2P game?
 
It seems to me that now the only major difference is that you are now sharing the game world with people who do not have access to all of the game's content, meanwhile you do, as opposed to a P2P game where either you are a Subscriber or you're not playing at all.  Well, that and there's a button in some corner labelled "cash-shop", but then again, there are P2P games *cough WoW cough* that do the same thing...
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That is not necessarily the case for all those games.
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What are the differences?
 
I played TSW for a while and they used a paid DLC/cosmetic cash shop system (B2P, but w/e) where if you were a Subscriber you would be given Subscriber Points (don't know what they were actually called) each month and you could use those to purchase the one-time, account bound, DLC or you could pay cash for them (similar to the companies charge for expansion packs, but smaller) if you wanted to use your points on other things.  The other games seem even less obtrusive if you are a Subscriber.
 
For example, I understand that the cosmetic items purchased from SWTOR's cash-shop can be placed on the Auction House and can be purchased that way for in-game cash by anyone, including Subscribers - so they can get the items in the cash shop for in game cash by purchasing it from other players (sounds remarkably similar CREDD now that I think about it).
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It's not the same as CREDD because subscribers aren't paying any extra to buy the items using their stipend of starbux before selling it on the AH.  CREDD costs extra in addition to a sub.
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Oh, heh, that sounds even better than CREDD actually.  It sounds to me like it offers 2 different options, either you can purchase things from the cash-shop with RL money and sell them to other players for in-game money, or as a Subscriber you can use your Subscriber Points [starbux] to purchase items off the cash-shop and sell them to other players for in-game cash.
 
Sounds like a pretty sweet deal.  Offers quite a bit of flexibility for both F2P and P2P players (but more so for the Subscribers).
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To give you an example of the "population" from SWG:
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The problem is that F2P players have their maximum credits capped, and I can't imagine all of the stuff is priced under that credit cap, which results in the F2P people being forced to buy stuff for real money, in order to them be able to buy stuff for in game money.
 
It's a psychological trap.  I want that! I can get it on the AH! Oh shit I can't carry that much money (pay real money to carry more money).  Repeat.
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I can assure you that the plight of those who willingly choose to play a limited access version of an MMORPG, in exchange for not having to pay a dime to the company that produced it, elicits nothing less than a solitary glistening tear on my cheek on a daily basis; but I am actually more interested in the experiences of those who choose to pay a Monthly Subscription Fee while playing a "Free to Play" game:
 
Are the Subscribers also credit capped?
 
Are the Subscribers subjected to any other restrictions?
 
How is paying a Subscription Fee in a F2P game any different from paying a Subscription Fee in a P2P game?
 
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Because in a F2P game, the people who literally aren't playing as a result of someone putting actual additional money into the system are a drain on resources.  Parasites.
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			Bandwidth and server hosting aren't free.	
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Bandwidth and server hosting aren't free.
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Interesting.  And the company is charged based on individual users?  I always imagined something like that would be based on a flat-rate charge, or several different flat-rate plans, in a fashion similar to how my internet provider charges me for the various internet speeds.  With the way it works for my internet usage, it doesn't matter how much or how little of it I use, I pay the same rate according to my contract/plan each month.
 
Are you sure that this is not the case for the bandwidth and server hosting charges?
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I am thinking that the decision as to whether they go ftp or not, is not made by people within the company who would have an inclination to post on these boards. The transition would take dev time to implement though, and if it were to happen, or was imminent, I am sure there would be a leak of information...somewhere. That kind of transformation is very difficult to keep under wraps, and they would really have no reason to keep it secret anyway.
 
I am pretty sure they have quite a number of contingency plans in place, ftp possibly being one of them, but there could be many others.	
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No they did not.
The majority of people left SWG when CU and NGE hit the game. There were major threads on the forum about it and people followed up.
Youtube was filled with goodbye movies and guilds screening their disband/break up. Those 2 updates ruined the game.
It's also when the projects like SWGemu started up to revert the game back to it's original state.
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			SWG is probably the biggest blunder in the history of mmo's,  such a shame.	
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Bandwidth and server hosting aren't free.
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Operational cost per user is pennies if that.  Kinda like soda from McDonalds, virtually pure profit.
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