Star Wars: The Old Republic launching Dec. 20, starts at $15 per month

@Dionkey

(shrug) I've played the beta as well, and the game seems like a polished-up version of WoW set in space. Why should it do any worse? Bioware has lost a lot of their creative talent over the years, but they still work hard and keep throwing money at a project until it's done. I have to give them credit for that.

I feel the game will succeed because the Star Wars fans will take something over nothing, and the WoW refugees will find these to be greener shores than Azeroth has to offer. It's certainly not a "WoW-killer", (as stated a multitude of times previously, only Blizzard can kill WoW) but it will do fairly well because the game is fairly well designed and looked like a finished product months ago.

Yeah, there's stupid and ridiculous stuff in there, (hurr, durr, huttball) but it's only going to drive away the hardcore lore zealots. Everyone else will overlook it, because it's a well-polished alternative to WoW with lightsabers everywhere.

In today's market, that's probably enough.

@Dionkey Thank you for your honesty. I can't seem to find the spoilers anywhere, but I'm going to take your word for it. I can't honestly say I'm surprised.

If the prices are the same, I'm going to go ahead and stay on messing around with WoW until GW2 comes out. Because honestly, if the price point is the same and it's another WoW clone... forget it. I mind as well just play WoW. Touching Rift(my first "WoW" clone) made me see that.

And it's amazing the amount of people that come back from the clones and just play WoW again. I know I'm now in that statistic, which I never thought I would've been last March.

Somehow I feel my post is missing a Clone Wars joke.

But anyways, I hope the TOR people have fun. It's what MMOs are about anyhow. I'll pass.:)

@LordPoncho Well, this game has looked pretty bad so far, so I think they have a right to complain

Plus no one actually wants to pay $15 a month or whatever

@Vuvuzelas

Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of preorders, and also tell that to the millions who play subscription MMOs, including myself. 15 bucks a month is 50 cents a day. That's hardly a tall price.

And, dunno if you're just biased, which I think you are, but previews and leaks have been making this game look leaps and bounds beyond what any MMO before has offered.

@LordPoncho They may be "industry standard" or whatever, but I personally think $10 for year-at-a-time subs are ideal.

And not absolutely needed, as ArenaNet shows with Guild Wars.

@Accessgranted I dont think that word means what you think it means...

@jynxycat

what you don't think it's cruel/ exceedingly harsh to charge 15 bucks a month after the initial 60 dollar fee? It would have been better to go with the micro-transaction route...

@Accessgranted

What's $15 a month? Unless you're having to go through your mother for the CC digits, $15 isn't an obstacle to anyone who can legally work. Skip a couple fast food meals and make a sandwich instead, or cut down on your cigarette/alcohol consumption for a single weekend. Or god forbid, ask your boss for a single extra shift and you'll have your subscription covered for the next three months. Hell, mow a neighbor's lawn.

Subscription fees are problems for the underage and those too lazy to earn their own way.

@freaparn Rather, playing Devil's Advocate, what could you turn $15 a month into?

$180 a year. Just about enough for a game console, or even better, saving the money back and whatnot.

I'm not against MMO fees, but I earnestly do think about what I'm spending on games. $5 for coffee isn't a lot until you get it every single day.

@freaparn i think you're missing the point. Not willing to pay doesn't necessarily mean one can't afford it, i can also mean that one doesn't see the value. $15/month subscription is an antiquated business model for MMO's. At $15 a month, it feels like I'm flushing money down the toilet. It's simply not worth it for me.

@MrCompletely

It's not an antiquated model, it's an existing model. That only a few MMOs can reach the level of standard where gamers feel that model is valid does not render it obsolete, it only means the market is filled with low-quality MMOs that cannot hope to compete on that standard.

If the game doesn't interest you, if it has no value to you, that's well and good, but that has nothing to do with the subscription fee. My point was that if the game does interest you, the subscription is no barrier to accessing it. Obviously the OP is interested in the game, or he wouldn't feel the subscription is "cruel/harsh", because he wouldn't give a damn otherwise.

You and Orange and the ones missing the point of this particular debate, I'm afraid.

@freaparn

I think it is a little outdated.

When $10-15 a month was the standard for MMO monthly costs, players were more likely to only be playing that one MMO. In doing so, they'd play a ton of that MMO.

In my experience, the bulk of the MMO/MMORPG market is trying to move toward smaller time investments. That's fine for someone who is only playing one MMO and only has a very limited amount of time to spend with that MMO each month, but for anyone with a bit more time it causes problems.

I have a bit more time. This puts me in a situation where I can run out of compelling things to do in between raids in one MMO, which has two distinct impacts:
1) It doesn't feel worth $15 a month anymore.
2) I have the time and desire to consider trying a different MMORPG.

If I'm playing more than one MMORPG, I don't want to be paying monthly for each one.

So, as I see it, that's the predicament the MMO market finds itself in. They either have to offer enough quality content to devour all of your time and justify the monthly fee, or they have to leave the value proposition for every single element of the game up to "freemium" users.

@freaparn

I work part time and go to college full time for your information, jerk. People like you who are brainwashed sheep willing to pay the 15/month are the reason that WoW some mmo's are still using that archaic model. I am willing to bet that you are just like "that guy" from the wow southpark episode, a fat lazy dirty jerk that plays mmos' all day. No life. I for one am not willing to pay that so much for an mmo that will likely crash and burn under WoW's wrath anyhow. Not with so many great games that don't charge for multiplayer coming out this year. You're a pretty decent troll though so I'll give you that.

@Accessgranted

Apparently I am a decent (if unintentional) troll, as you're visibly frothing and gnawing on the keyboard. The sour grapes routine made me chuckle, so kudos for that.

Between the job and the higher education it doesn't sound like you have time in your life right now for MMOs, so perhaps this is all for the best.

@mietha

It never required origin.

@deejrandom
what have you heard about the quality of the story?

@gevenstaines It looks to be along the lines of Bioware's usual. If you don't like the Bioware way of telling a story, it probably won't be for you. But if you do like games such as KOTOR, Dragon Age, Mass Effect - it'll continue to be at the same quality level. Bioware's stories have always kept me going despite flaws in actual gameplay. If you want to see the quality -there are several videos floating around the net that show it off.

@deejrandom

I'm hoping BioWare can surprise me, but this whole proposition of "story" being the driving element in an MMO just sounds absurd to me. It's largely what killed WoW for me in Cataclysm- splintering the world in to tiny tiny fragments so that each individual can experience their own "epic" story progression. It goes against everything I'd come to love in MMORPGs.

I'll try to hit the two major issues I have with the idea as briefly as I can (prepare for disappoint).

First: Will the choices matter? If I choose to kill a guy during a quest and you choose to let him live, which of our choices counts? If mine counts, do you stop existing in my world where that guy is dead? If you still exist in my world where he's dead, did my decision have any real impact? I have a feeling that none of the "choices" made in the story will amount to anything more than stats on your character sheet.

Also: How much story are they offering? How many choices? In WoW, the story is fun to watch once. After that, everyone starts getting antsy waiting for the NPCs to shut up so we can get back to killing the same boss for the 20th time. Is there going to be a new story for every single thing I do in TOR? That's how its being sold to me. It still appears to be a loot driven game, though, and that usually means killing the same boss repeatedly until you get what you want. That means the loot is either going to bare no significance to where it drops, so you won't have to farm a boss, or you'll get what you want every time.

I'll have to see it in action for quite a while before I'm convinced that story can sustain the kind of long term investment that an MMO requires.

@Wykydtron86

People are complaining about the price because MMOs are moving away from the $15 a month.

Most are dropping to $10/month or doing some kind of tiered subscription model with f2p, micro, and subs as the tiers.

@SirUrza This.

@Vuvuzelas

You pay $60 for games with 5 hour campaigns right? SWTOR has easily over 200 hours between the different class stories and world arcs.

@Vuvuzelas

LOLing at all the lazy poverty stricken bastards who think that $15/month is "out the ass".

@Wulf

Because if you mention that, you'd piss off the ignorant fanboys who didn't like our easy accurate sensible prediction that Bioware was waiting for Blizzard to make a move of some kind.