I’ve written about SWTOR before, illustrating my trepidation regarding the unholy marriage of Bioware’s storytelling and the relatively mindless MMO genre. Perhaps it’s just delusional, but I think I found a happy place to hope for in regards to the whole project.
Bioware loves story. I love story. MMOs as a genre aren’t amenable to strong stories, since they are ostensibly meant for players to tell their own stories, and they benefit from a static world that people can call home. Bioware has stated that their work on the SWTOR MMO will be the rough equivalent of several single player Bioware RPGs, with each class having a storyline.
What if they sold the game that way?
What if Bioware sold SWTOR like Guild Wars? The GW base game had six classes and a fairly strong storyline. Factions and Nightfall each added two more classes and another storyline. Eye of the North didn’t introduce classes, but had a story. Players would buy the game, and play it online, with no fee to do so beyond the initial purchase. It made sense; the game is highly instanced, and players see the story mostly independent of other players. There’s no justification for charging for what the industry laughingly calls “MMO” game mechanics when you’re largely playing a single player game that just happens to be online. (At least GW is honest about it, while other games, not so much…)
With GW as an example, what if SWTOR sold their game as a series of standalone products with no monthly fee? Players could buy the Jedi box, or the Sith box, and just go play the Jedi or Sith stories… with optional multiplayer MMO mechanics. If one class isn’t good value for the box price, lower the price to $20, or include a few classes like GW did. Say, a Light Side box, a Dark Side box and a Grey Box. (Neutral? Other? Fringe? What do you call characters in the SW universe who aren’t involved in the Force mythology? Mercenary?)
That’s a product I can and would support. Bioware tells stories well. MMOs aren’t a stage for such, but GW hits a sweet spot between typical MMO mechanics and strong narrative. (At least in the balance; I’m aware that there will be those who think the story itself is lousy… this discussion is more concerned with the potential of storytelling in MMOs and the monetization thereof, rather than story quality itself.) That’s part of why I’ve spent more money on Guild Wars than I’ll ever spend on WoW or any other subscription based game.
If SWTOR goes that route, which I feel is entirely in keeping with their design goals, I’m likely to pick up the game. If they go the Age of Conan route and try to shoehorn story into a typical DIKU-flavored MMO loot and level treadmill, I really don’t think that they will be the WoW competitor they hope to be. AoC and WAR haven’t been able to compete with WoW on even terms, and Bioware’s skill just isn’t going to be enough without tackling some core concepts differently, like the business model and core game mechanics.
This makes perfect sense to do it that way. With EA at the helm however, I think we are both living in a dream world if we think that would be the case. With all the recent EA DRM failings and backlash most major EA single game products are going to be disguised as MMO going forward. Count on it, unfortunately.
Go make an MMO with a common-sense sub model, will you?! Enough with the consoles already!
Ah, I forgot about the EA puppeteer. Bleargh.
Common sense? Heh, if I had the money, I’d develop at least three MMOs that I think would be commercially viable. I’ve commented on them here and over on Capn’ John’s blog; his Warhammer Squad game and Harvest Moon Online sound promising to this geek, and I still like my Time Spiral concept. I even have a tactical/strategic game design that could work as an MMO with a few twists. I don’t have the engineering skill to do them on my own (though I could likely handle any of the art side and even the money side), so for now, it’s just a couple of dreams. Common sense and dreams don’t always carry products to market, sadly.
That said, I do work on my ideas when I can. Maybe if the economy breaks completely, I’ll be stuck with a month or two of unemployment, so I can spend some time really hammering out some ideas and proposals. When the venture capital guys get bored again, they can throw some money my way. 😉
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I think that the idea of having seperate box-sets makes complete sense and no monthly fee… it would make me buy it!
i have played World of Warcraft and i think its ok, i probably would have board it if it wasn’t for the monthly fee! me and all of my mates say and agree to the same reason.
we would have joined if no monthly fee, so if Star Wars: The Old Republic did sell there game in two box-sets and have no monthly fee! i would buy both box-sets and spend all of my time playing it.
and my friends agree with me! we have all read this article and totally agree. I wish they do, do it like that. but there is this problem in the world called Profit/Loss and all they care about is making a HUGE profit! so they will charge monthly! 😀
Guild Wars managed to make a profit charging for content rather than for time. It’s a proven business model, you just have to work with different expectations than the subscription market. If the last year has taught the industry anything, it should be that competing toe to toe with WoW is stupid. Blindly assuming that the $15/month subscription model is optimal is setting your company up for some painful awakenings down the road.
Thanks for stopping by, Sapphire!
I really hope SWTOR doesn’t have a monthly fee. I’m 14 and don’t have a steady cashflow. One month I may have $200, the next $2. I really want to know the release date. I’ll probably end up being a Trooper or less likely a Jedi Knight. Go Republic!!!!!
LOTRO calls its content updates with some story “volumes”, “books” and “chapters”. Volumes are usually expansions, Siege of Mirkwood is the first to charge (quite some money) for a chapter instead of a book or volume. It contains some new mechanics and the skirmishes.
I think your idea for SWTOR is sound, in fact I believe it would be FAR superior to the generic subscription model, and probably also be more user friendly.
We are not used to pay for “updates” and expect new stuff to be delivered for free in sub games, and rightfully so – EVE Online shows how it is done, they don’t charge their long-time players extra, they already pay over their subscription.
While WoW does the standard “double dipping”, i.e. pay for time played and pay for new content.
Guild Wars 1 is used by ArenaNet to test various kinds of microtransactions at the moment. At the moment they charge a bit too much for not very much content (the two dresses, Grenth/Dwayna e.g.). This is not really way to go.
Their idea to charge for every new “story”, aka Prophecies/Factions/Nightfall and Eye of the North once is a very fair business model. I probably never had more bang for the buck.
I wish they continue along these lines with GW2, and I hope they don’t make too many features “optional”. There is a fine line where people feel taken advantage off.
My idea would be that SWTOR offers a basic starter box, advanced classes boxes and then story/content boxes. These would advance the game’s story and provide new content, as the name suggests.
I think you are right with your analysis, I personally think this would help them to top WoW in an aspect that WoW is sorely lacking in: A compelling storyline/universe. Yeah folks, kill me, but the Warcraft universe is not the most complex our outstanding “world” out there, the background and the general story are primitive to boot. I even dare to say some more mature – not in the sense of blood, sex and guts – content like in Dragon Age is what Bioware does definitely better than Blizzard with its generic Hollywood-Blockbuster appeal and attitude towards story.
Agree with it completley, although I doubt they will sell four classes for £40, but maybe if they sell one class for £20 each, that would be great for the players and bioware. even if that does sound a lot each class is suppose to take 200 hours to finish
I think that have a monthly fee is just fine, and that’s how they should do it. Having a monthly fee is better because of the amount of content you get. I played GW for about a year when it released. I got to the end pretty quick and found out the only thing to do is pvp? How lame. With WoW you get what you pay for, and some might not think so. It’s all about how you choose to spend your time in-game. A lot of people think that WoW doesnt give their customers enough content for the monthly price, but those are the same people who get on for an hour and jump around the main cities. With GW it was nice because of the F2P, but there wasn’t much as far as character progression. That is huge when talking about a “MMO”. GW was just a multiplayergame to me. WoW is a MMO. FFXI is a MMO. Rift, although it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, is a MMO.
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