Is the story worth of it?

TOR has different main stories for all the different classes. That is the good thing about it. No class story is the same. You could experience the story one way, when play a Jedi Guardian, for example, and get a totally different story when playing a Sith. The story of TOR is its strongest part, in my opinion.

 

Locking a vast amount of game features, including preventing non-paying players from hitting the level cap, behind a paywall is not free to play. The system is designed so you can play the game and decide whether or not you want to pay to unlock more features. It's essentially a free trial.

 

Oh grow up. Calling it a free trial because you don't like restrictions doesn't make it one. Anybody that has played an actual free trial vs. a free to play model can tell you this is different. As a business model SWTOR is actually a free to play MMO. Most free to play games vs. subscription only business models have levels of feature access that can be obtained by paying either a subscription or one time fees to unlock them. Free trials are usually much more severely limited in features and are often time limited.

 

While I agree that the notion of restriction is common in free to play MMO, I do think that TOR is pushing it a bit too much. TOR essentially divide the player base (small as it is already) into three groups: free to play, those who purchased/subscribe before and those are still subscribing. I know that it's trying to lure back the old crowd, but it just puts them in a very weird position and the free to play crowd suffers much more (delayed mount, really ?). Sure, you can enjoy the story and do a bit of exploring, but this is not a good way to keep subscribers IMO.

 

Almost every f2p game has that same problem. I play DDO and am in the middle group. I get a lot of advantages over people who never spent a dime... and convesely, the people who subscribe get a lot more than me.

I do not know SWTOR now, but when it first went f2p I almost agree with the other poster that it felt almost as restricting as a trial. SWTOR at launch of F2P was closer to the WOW trial than it was to a game like DDO free2play. Of course it is a gradient and everyone will have different opinions, in the case of SWTOR is probably has to do with how important you think engame is.

 

I think the difference is because Bioware was not that experienced with MMO genre, and making a transition from subscription to F2P proved to be too much for them. At the F2P launch it was a mess, and I agree that it's too much restrictive with free player; again proven my point about Bioware. It is admittedly better now, but endgame is still lacking and by now I feel like TOR doesn't offer much to hold its players. If you play for the story, you've had plenty of time already and if you play for endgame, there are better options out there.
Which is a shame, because I love the universe, and I can't help but thinking it would have been so much better with KOTOR 3 instead.

 

Most people who complain about the free-to-play model are people who've never spent a dime on the game and somehow expect to play all of the content for free... seriously, when did we get so entitled? This is still a company that's trying to make money, they aren't going to give someone who has never spent (or isn't currently spending money) all of the same advantages. Sure, F2P could probably be referred to as an extended demo or trial, but really who's ever heard of a demo that you can play for many, many hours before? Just play the game a bit and if you like it, spend the $15 for a month and really try it out. Then you'll get a true feel for the game and decide if you want to keep playing it. You can easy get 60+ hours of gameplay for your $15, which is more then what you can say about movies and/or standard games.

Anyway, back to the topic of if the story is worth it, it definitely is if you're a fan of Star Wars, and especially SWTOR 1 and 2 (as previous people have mentioned). It's still a game, so yeah some of the story will be average or run-of-the-mill, but for the most part the story is the strongest part of this game.

 

While I understand the sentiment, you can't possibly know that. There are people that have trouble with this specific implementation of the free to play model for other reasons. You don't really know how many objective dissenters vs. cheapskates and it isn't fair to make a generalization like that.

 

Fair enough, let me fix that for you:
Most people that I've encountered in-game or on message boards who complain about not getting more stuff for free out of the free-to-play model are people who've never spent a dime on the game and somehow expect to play all of the content for free.

I see what you're saying, but I just don't see how expecting free stuff and then complaining if there isn't enough is not entitled? I mean, it's $15 a month for hours upon hours of gaming. You can more than make up your mind on subscribing with the free content that is available.

 

I've always really enjoyed the story in this game, and considering its now a F2P, I think its definitely worth playing for that story. It's uniquely story based in the early levels for an MMO and there's fairly unique stories for different groups of classes on both sides.

 

One of the reasons a lot of people play this game is for the story, not solely for the MMO concepts of the game. The story is absolutely great in my opinion compared to other RPGs, and the fact that each class/faction has their own story is great. Being able to create your own choices that affects the story is another great idea.

 

It's one of the best, if not -the- best story in any MMO out there. You can tell that a lot of work was put into creating an engaging narrative for the player to go through, even if you aren't a huge fan of the MMO style of gameplay, I'd say it's worth playing just because of the story.

 

I totally disagree with this. As a person who has spent a ton of money on DDO and a moderate amount on Stronghold Kindoms, there is a certain balance the games must have with their f2p game.... and really, it comes down to this.. Is the free game fun... and for SWTOR, there are just too many hardships imposed on free players with big ´buy me´ buttons to remove them.

The idea is to get free players to love your game, and then want more of that fun. SWTOR died after it went f2p because the free model was not fun. Swtor was outside the norm with the restrictions.

 

SWTOR didn't die with f2p and it is still going strong. I agree that the f2p part is too restrictive to be of use, but claiming the game died is a little ridiculous.