The Old Republic adheres to different 'standard' than F2P MMOs

BioWare heads Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk talk about the company's plan to stagger The Old Republic for server stability, and why they feel The Old Republic will buck the free-to-play trend.

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BioWare's long-awaited MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic finally has a solid release date of December 20, but you won't necessarily get in on that day. The developer has talked about staggering the release, even of online orders, to assure the servers don't get overcrowded.

Now as the game prepares to launch, BioWare heads Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk are explaining that decision, and sharing thoughts on the increasing popularity of free-to-play games.

"It comes from a desire to have a high quality service for our fans, really stable and scalable and accessible and really fun, and make sure it's performing well," Muzyka told GamesIndustry.biz. "You have to build the infrastructure to support a certain size launch and we're also thinking really long term at Bioware EA for this, there's going to many many consumers coming to the game over time and we're going to be expanding it out. We want to make sure that the service is really high quality, that's the commitment we have to the launch of The Old Republic."

Zeschuck added that since it's always connected to the servers, "we want to just ensure that we've got a nice smooth, reliable game, everyone can get in when they want." He says the company will "increase it over time, our anticipation of course is to keep selling after that." BioWare hasn't specified how small the pieces will be, but with heavy pre-orders, it's probably a wise choice.

Meanwhile, the doctors are acutely aware of the market trends. One game designer recently predicted that The Old Republic would be the last large-scale subscription-based MMO. More and more games are adopting the free-to-play model, including those that previously relied on subscriptions like DC Universe Online and Star Trek Online. Even World of Warcraft has dabbled in the method, though some call it more of an extended demo than a true F2P model.

Zeschuk seems unphased by the trend. "It's just another option," he said. "It's obviously, from a developer's perspective, really nice because you can create very easy to sample stuff. You kind of rely on the quality of the build because people with stick with you or they won't, and then monetising is a whole other kettle of fish. It's not a threat, it's just part of the reality. Every business model you make, the game has to merit it, in other words a free-to-play game probably has a different standard and different expectation than a subscription based game for example."

"I think the quality of volume and content that we provide I think fans will say 'yeah, this is the kind of game that merits a premium subscription,'" Muzyka added. He says they "believe in the play for free model too" with Wrath of Heroes, but thinks The Old Republic is on "the other end of the spectrum, equally high quality but in a different way."

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  • reply
    September 27, 2011 12:30 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, The Old Republic adheres to different 'standard' than F2P MMOs.

    BioWare heads Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk talk about the company's plan to stagger The Old Republic for server stability, and why they feel The Old Republic will buck the free-to-play trend.

    • reply
      September 27, 2011 12:31 PM

      Yeah, I'm willing to bet a few years from now, this game will be F2P.

    • reply
      September 27, 2011 12:51 PM

      From what I've seen, the whole game seems like a mediocre single-player game with a shared world space. It doesn't seem like the kind of game that will have good retention numbers.

      • reply
        September 27, 2011 1:19 PM

        They have been showing off the typical MMO end-game elements like dungeons, raids and pvp. I am sure they will continue to pump out as much of that crap as they can to keep subs.

        • reply
          September 27, 2011 1:22 PM

          yeah but EA wants WoW numbers, not Warhammer Online numbers, and I just don't think what's been shown has been compelling enough for people to make the switch. Not Even Darth Maul.

          • reply
            September 27, 2011 1:36 PM

            I agree with you. I am still interested in how this turns out overall, but from what I've seen and read about this game I really get the feeling that it is basically WoW in Star Wars clothing. The only major difference being everything has voice overs and the story (stories) are more player focused. Everything else looks very WoW like, the play mechanics continue the need for the "holy-trio" of tank-healer-dps and the graphics look very dated already. Don't get me wrong, I like the art direction for the most part and the environments look pretty good, but this pales in comparison to even Age of Conan let alone Guild Wars 2. I'm a huge Star Wars fan for sure but (especially after Galaxies) this will definitely be a wait and see game for me.

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            September 27, 2011 2:37 PM

            EA actually came out and said their target is 500,000 user base. I am sure they want to grow it beyond that but I am pretty sure they're not expecting WoW numbers.

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              September 27, 2011 2:46 PM

              That game can make that easy if it is stable at launch. There is a lot of content to work through and at least two entirely unique story-lines. For Lore fans that's already significantly more than WoW offers.

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              September 28, 2011 4:27 AM

              ^^^^ This man knows his shit.

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            September 27, 2011 3:27 PM

            They don't need to steal people from WoW.

            "There are more people that played World of Warcraft but no longer play World of Warcraft than currently play World of Warcraft"

            http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2433-Patch-4.3-Interviews-Blue-Posts-Diablo-III-Beta-Art-Gallery-Update

            This tells us that the market for MMOs is huge, and even WoW has less than 50% retention rate. The revolving door effect is stronger than the loyal customer. The Star Wars and Bioware names are likely to get new people into the genre too.

    • reply
      September 27, 2011 3:46 PM

      I like the setting of TOR but that's it. Overall this game looks like complete crap compared to Guild Wars 2 so I highly doubt I'm ever going to cough up $15 a month to rent their product. Yes, "rent", because as soon as you stop paying them you're left with nothing at all.

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        September 27, 2011 8:08 PM

        Exactly! Do you know how many two-dollar hookers you could rent for the $15 a month you throw away on TOR?!

        • reply
          September 28, 2011 2:57 AM

          7.5 a month, duh. Of course strictly adhering to that number may put you in trouble with local law enforcement so I'd round that down if I were you.

    • reply
      September 27, 2011 5:37 PM

      so many mistakes within this article.

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        September 28, 2011 2:58 AM

        As someone who has not been following TOR I say "Such as...?"

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          September 28, 2011 3:01 AM

          Not enough numbers after peoples names

    • reply
      September 27, 2011 7:46 PM

      Free to Play, this will be. Ehehehehe!

      • reply
        September 27, 2011 7:53 PM

        rift is still a paid sub and has a ton of subscribers (i'm not one of them of course, f that game)

    • reply
      September 28, 2011 4:27 AM

      It's been confirmed by the Community Manager that BioWare are NOT staggering entries after the release dates.

      What they are doing is staggering the 'Early Access' adopters - so that those who pre-ordered first are going to get earliest access to the servers. This way they can ramp up load on the servers in a controlled manner during Early Access.

      Anyone who pre-orders (and redemes their early access code at the SWTOR site) will get Early Game Access. How much Early Game Access they get will vary.

    • reply
      September 28, 2011 6:03 AM

      40 Gb install is not a standard.

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        September 28, 2011 6:25 AM

        Considering my WoW install is around 30 gigs and doesn't include voiceovers, I'd say 40 gigs is pretty reasonable.. Especially considering that non-SSD storage space is so cheap.

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