![]() And the fact that they are all being paid to voice what has become essentially the same character is one of the many head-scratching things about SWTOR’s colorful evolution. Those guys don’t come cheap, one must assume. It should be noted that the voice actors in SWTOR are all top talents, with Jennifer “Commander Shephard” Hale, David “Solid Snake” Hayter, and Grey “ Azula” DeLisle being just a few of the bigger names among the stellar cast. This proved jarring for those fans who had enjoyed the class stories as originally intended, and who now found themselves with a variety of characters, all still fully voice acted, but now playing and replaying the same story. In their place was a linear story, or rather a pair of linear stories, one for the Empire and one for the Republic. ![]() Gone were the separate class missions and companions. The eight separate class stories not having grabbed players the way they had initially hoped led to a sudden change in storytelling in later expansions. Final Fantasy 14 has had some success with attracting new players, who often become subscribers, using a similar system.īut this crisis of identity has hindered the game in other ways, too. One wonders if making the initial chapters of the game available for free, without such irritating restrictions, while keeping later chapters for subscribers only might have been a better option. Needless to say, this did nothing to endear the game to those who sampled it. The option to sprint was reserved for subscribers. The main story content for all classes was made available in entirety, but irritations such as not being able to move above jogging pace for a good third of the initial levels was included. #Star wars the old republic online players for freeBut they still wanted those player’s money, of course, so a great many restrictions were implemented to try to inspire people who sampled the game for free to subscribe. The developers wanted SWTOR to be a subscription game, but were forced to add a Free-to-Play option to stabilize the playerbase. The hasty efforts to change course resulted in somewhat of a crisis of identity, one which has characterized the game ever since. This lack of understanding between the developers and many, though not all, of their playerbase was a big part of what led SWTOR to fail to live up to its high expectations. That was something they expected to add later. SWTOR, as it happened, did not come released with much of an end game. They did not anticipate people rushing to the maximum level on a single class in order to experience what MMO veterans call the “end game”. One of the initial errors was that BioWare expected players to focus on levelling up all of these different classes and seeing the stories from their point of view. All of these were fully voice acted, by either a male or female actor depending on the player’s choice, and featured a unique crew of recruitable–and sometimes romanceable–companions. BioWare crafted eight separate stories for the different playable classes, from Jedi Knights to Sith Warriors, Smugglers and Bounty Hunters. Quite why a game made by such respected developers and set in such a popular universe did not end up being counted among the above is a matter of some conjecture. World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 are among the few who have been able to avoid switching to that business model. That, too, is increasingly standard among MMOs. Though initially available to subscribers only, within a year the falling subscription numbers prompted BioWare’s parent company EA to urge that the game add a Free-to-Play option and an in-game store in which players could pay extra for cosmetic items. Published by famed developers BioWare and boasting one of the most popular licenses in the world, it was released to great hype towards the end of 2011 but quickly ran into problems, as MMOs are wont to do. One of the most high-profile MMOs on the market is Star Wars: the Old Republic. So it is only to be expected that people have grown increasingly picky about what they choose to invest their time and money in. Which is true of most forms of entertainment, in this media-saturated age. There are only so many hours in the day, and even the most willing of players could not hope to complete all the games that are on offer. ![]() MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) are a dime a dozen these days, and competition between them is as fierce as could be expected, given the massive time investment that playing one requires. ![]()
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