F2p'ers are not jerks and being a subscriber does not ensure you are nice!

Jemcrystal

I am tired of the argument that a game goes to crap when it offers a f2p model BECAUSE OF THE F2P'ERS themselves.  As if people blessed with income to throw away are so much more nicer than those of us who are on a low entertainment budget.  I have met as many trollish subscribers as f2p'ers.   It is very insulting to suggest that your "game went downhill when we let those free to players in."

Quizzical

The game went downhill when we let the free to play gold spammers in.

Certainly, not all free to play players are jerks.  But free to play greatly reduces the barrier to creating a throwaway account to cause trouble until you get banned--and not just by gold spamming.

Albatroes

Only time I usually hear "the game went downhill when it went f2p" usually refers to the devs/publishers doing something. Players are people regardless of their "status" meaning you have arseholes and you have nice people. Its every game. Not every "elitist" thinks they are above everyone just because they dedicate themselves to certain content and not every casual "just doesn't care" just because they decide that they do not want to partake in certain content. People are people...You can't categorize.

botrytis

Quizzical said:

The game went downhill when we let the free to play gold spammers in.

Certainly, not all free to play players are jerks.  But free to play greatly reduces the barrier to creating a throwaway account to cause trouble until you get banned--and not just by gold spamming.

You can have gold spammers in a subscriber game. Having a subscription does not guarantee that you will be free from them.


I think part of the issue is that many subscribers feel 'entitled'.

ConstantineMerus

Jemcrystal said:

I am tired of the argument that a game goes to crap when it offers a f2p model BECAUSE OF THE F2P'ERS themselves.  As if people blessed with income to throw away are so much more nicer than those of us who are on a low entertainment budget.  I have met as many trollish subscribers as f2p'ers.   It is very insulting to suggest that your "game went downhill when we let those free to players in."

I've yet to find a non-toxic community since WoW. I'm sure it has nothing to do with one's income. But it has other factors which F2P has certainly a role.
- Jerks can become bigger jerks because they fear perma-ban less when they can just create another account.
- Children without credit cards roam F2P land and tend to exercise all the new words they've learned and being "cool".
- Players investing their game time in multiple games and sometime resulting in lack of interest and care of the character they represent in one of them. 
- Usually F2P means a real identity is not required to create an account. People behave differently on the net when they are using their real name or not.

But usually going F2P is a sign of going downhill because it means the game couldn't maintain financially using the sub model. They might go uphill after that decision (ex. SWToR) but that has nothing to do with trolling.

Theocritus

Quizzical said:

The game went downhill when we let the free to play gold spammers in.

Certainly, not all free to play players are jerks.  But free to play greatly reduces the barrier to creating a throwaway account to cause trouble until you get banned--and not just by gold spamming.

Gold spammers were around long before F2P....

Gdemami

That is how people roll here - everyone spending different is a jerk. You spent less, you are F2P trash, you spend more, you are P2W scum.

Win-Win scenario....

Theocritus

I ran into way more jerks in WoW (a sub game) than I ever did in any f2p game.....The only f2p game I played that had a bad community was Runescape and many of those were sub players also.....I find that the payment model has absolutely nothing to do with the caliber of the player......Its just a stereotype that really has no merit

Quizzical

Theocritus said:

Quizzical said:

The game went downhill when we let the free to play gold spammers in.

Certainly, not all free to play players are jerks.  But free to play greatly reduces the barrier to creating a throwaway account to cause trouble until you get banned--and not just by gold spamming.

Gold spammers were around long before F2P....

I didn't say that it was impossible for people to cause trouble in buy to play or subscription games.  I only said that having to pay to get access raises the barrier to causing trouble.

It's easier for gold spammers to cause trouble if they can easily create as many free accounts as they want than if they have to rely on stolen accounts or credit card fraud to get access.  There are a number of factors that make things easier or harder on gold spammers, and making it harder for gold spammers tends to mean a game gets less of them.  Not necessarily none, but less.

Wizardry

OP...

It has NOTHING at all to do with the personality of a f2p LEGIT player,it is the OTHERS we are talking about.
It is also NOT just the players we are talking about either but also the business model and how it affects a game.
So how did the OP come to the conclusion this knock on f2p was all about f2p people and their personalities or better yet their INCOME?

As a matter of fact,i often  defend the lower income player and have done so on many occasions while disgruntled about the way Blizzard runs their business inside of hearthstone and their business in general.
Also should fix the title because being a f2p also does NOT ensure you are nice either,so it comes off sounding rebellious,like you hate people with money or something.

Distopia

Quizzical said:

Theocritus said:

Quizzical said:

The game went downhill when we let the free to play gold spammers in.

Certainly, not all free to play players are jerks.  But free to play greatly reduces the barrier to creating a throwaway account to cause trouble until you get banned--and not just by gold spamming.

Gold spammers were around long before F2P....

I didn't say that it was impossible for people to cause trouble in buy to play or subscription games.  I only said that having to pay to get access raises the barrier to causing trouble.

It's easier for gold spammers to cause trouble if they can easily create as many free accounts as they want than if they have to rely on stolen accounts or credit card fraud to get access.  There are a number of factors that make things easier or harder on gold spammers, and making it harder for gold spammers tends to mean a game gets less of them.  Not necessarily none, but less.

A F2P simply gets more of every type coming and going on a whim, nice gals/guys, jerks, spammers..etc...  That's the nature of the beast as they say. To me the gold spammers are no different than the guild invite, duel, Chuck Norris/crude joke or trade spammers... at least in factor of annoyance. So no matter what I'm left with the same result P2P or otherwise. 

CrazKanuk

Wizardry said:

OP...

It has NOTHING at all to do with the personality of a f2p LEGIT player,it is the OTHERS we are talking about.
It is also NOT just the players we are talking about either but also the business model and how it affects a game.
So how did the OP come to the conclusion this knock on f2p was all about f2p people and their personalities or better yet their INCOME?

As a matter of fact,i often  defend the lower income player and have done so on many occasions while disgruntled about the way Blizzard runs their business inside of hearthstone and their business in general.
Also should fix the title because being a f2p also does NOT ensure you are nice either,so it comes off sounding rebellious,like you hate people with money or something.

*slow clap* way to work Blizzard into the conversation.... JUST when you were making some valid points, too. 

I'd agree that the model has little or nothing to do with the personality and that income has even less to do with it. Being that I'm sure there are some people on welfare spending way more than $15 a month on their bad habits, I don't think that income is a limiting factor. That being said, WoW still, for whatever reason, seems to have the greatest concentration of assholes per square mile (only because EVE is so massive). I just started playing Legion like 2 weeks ago and I'm ganked at least once every other play session (couple hours), and at least once a week, I'm camped until I just log out for the sake of time and my own sanity. Maybe it's a product of the population of the game? 

Also, with regards to gold selling, WoW and Blizzard have done a fantastic job in filtering these gold spammers. If more people operated the way Blizzard does, and concentrated on real concerns of their users, then I think that gold spammers would be much less of a problem. 

nerovergil

brainwashing to demonize f2p players.

Jill52

I agree with the OP.  There are some really great free players and some really horrible subscribers. How (or if) you pay doesn't determine how you act in the game.

Also, an exceptionally popular subscription game I used to play (which I won't name) had a toxic community while there have been free games with plenty of nice people (Mabinogi comes to mind). After playing my share of both free to play and subscription games I've seen the payment model doesn't have anything to do with how the community behaves.

Anarchy Online was a great example. I was already a subscriber there when they started the free play program. Some of us welcomed the chance to get more new players while other subscribers chose to be jerks saying these "froobs" had no place in our game. The free players eventually embraced the once discriminatory term and began calling themselves froobs. There were good and bad people on both sides sharing the same game.
AO didn't go downhill because of the free players. Some even argue the froobs saved the game, I personally don't think it made much impact at all on AO's overall fate. It went downhill because it was showing its age, players were disappointed with recent (at the time) expansions, people were leaving for other games as result, and Funcom thought it was a good idea to add a cash shop (with an ugly eyesore of a cash shop island in the middle of Newland Lake!).  Those were the real reasons for the decline of AO. Free players had nothing to do with it.

The same applies to some other games too. Their game goes downhill in subscriptions then, as a way to save it, the company opens it for free players. Then the free players become the scapegoat for the company not doing enough to turn the game around. After all, It's cheaper to blame players than to fix a bug-filled game, admit an unpopular expansion was a bad idea, etc. At least that's how I see it.

Wizardry

I don't remember EVER seeing anyone cal la LEGIT free player a BAD PERSON as the OP is inferring.

Also refused to look at the flip coin,like sometimes it IS possible a f2p player is a bad person ,it never has anything to do with money,well i shouldn't say never as usually money buys power and power brings out the worst in people.
Still i would think it is OBVIOUS that personalities can vary anywhere anytime,but to use a phrase like "I am tired of it" infers it happens a LOT to which i would argue,you will see more meaningless spam threads created on sponsored Crowfall than you will see someone talking about poor people and their money.

PS...There ya go,i didn't use Blizzard this time but i will almost always use some reference to my point because i see a lot,game a lot and pay attention a lot.

Ceironx

So why not just make 2 servers in one game where in one is P2P and the other F2P. Then let's see how long that P2P lasts.

VengeSunsoar

What is a non legit free player?

Burntvet

More people tend to play/try a game when they do not have to spend anything on it, thus the fact that there are more a-hole F2P players. It is not a function of them being "free", so much as there are more people playing/trying the game, and with nothing to lose if they misbehave.

Kothoses

It has next to nothing to do with a games business model and more to do with the changing attitudes of humans towards other humans, and the fact that most game companies are too soft on people that set out to be trolls.

Its why "old school" mmos are niche markets now, because a large amount of people don't want to have to consider their actions may have consequences beyond the next few moments.

Dagon13

In my experience, the worst have been in the subscription games.  In the F2P games, I usually feel invisible to the point where people don't even acknowledge I exist let alone stop to harass me.

Thebeasttt

Jemcrystal said:

I am tired of the argument that a game goes to crap when it offers a f2p model BECAUSE OF THE F2P'ERS themselves.  As if people blessed with income to throw away are so much more nicer than those of us who are on a low entertainment budget.  I have met as many trollish subscribers as f2p'ers.   It is very insulting to suggest that your "game went downhill when we let those free to players in."

In a world without consequence, more people act like scumbags, it's common sense. F2P players have less consequences to being banned than P2P players. Thus F2P games have higher cesspool rates. That doesn't mean every F2P'er is a douche but the chances are far greater.

Aelious

Distopia said:

Quizzical said:

Theocritus said:

Quizzical said:

The game went downhill when we let the free to play gold spammers in.

Certainly, not all free to play players are jerks.  But free to play greatly reduces the barrier to creating a throwaway account to cause trouble until you get banned--and not just by gold spamming.

Gold spammers were around long before F2P....

I didn't say that it was impossible for people to cause trouble in buy to play or subscription games.  I only said that having to pay to get access raises the barrier to causing trouble.

It's easier for gold spammers to cause trouble if they can easily create as many free accounts as they want than if they have to rely on stolen accounts or credit card fraud to get access.  There are a number of factors that make things easier or harder on gold spammers, and making it harder for gold spammers tends to mean a game gets less of them.  Not necessarily none, but less.

A F2P simply gets more of every type coming and going on a whim, nice gals/guys, jerks, spammers..etc...  That's the nature of the beast as they say. To me the gold spammers are no different than the guild invite, duel, Chuck Norris/crude joke or trade spammers... at least in factor of annoyance. So no matter what I'm left with the same result P2P or otherwise. 

Exactly, and the "undesirables" have more of an impact on the player base at large than the good ones do unfortunately so that net gain of bad apples can equal a worse overall experience. I think the problem presented here is perception, that this is seen as a social issue rather than a logistical one and even the thread title is arguing something different than the body. I would argue that the issue at hand is the integrity of the environment in a F2P vs Sub/B2P model rather than the players themselves, which is what I think @Quizzical was saying.

Phry

I think the main difference between P2P and F2P games and how the players often differ, is that players who are paying, because they are investing their money into the game are more likely to be thinking about playing the game long term, and as such are more likely to be a bit more circumspect when interracting with other players as they are less likely to desire a certain reputation that will affect how others treat them in the game long term, getting onto block/ignore lists of other players is going to put players at a disadvantage when trying to get into dungeon groups etc. after all.
With F2P there is less consequence to players actions, accounts are very much disposable, though even then, players with any desire to play the game long term, and usually that means making numerous purchases from the cash shop to unlock features etc. are probably going to consider their reputation and how their actions affect it, after all, once you've spent money on an account in a F2P game, disposing of that account to create a new one means that money is wasted. Players who don't have long term intentions in the game, and also don't intend to spend any of their money are less likely to be 'restrained' in their outbursts or behaviour in a game, their accounts are truly disposable with very little loss involved, they are also more likely to suffer jealousy outbursts due to interracting with others in the game who have 'nice' things, and watching others 'walk around like lords', its just the green eyed monster colouring their perceptions however, and sometimes that kind of thing just brings out the worst in people.

Scot

Not sure I see a lot of F2P players are jerks posts. Its the model not the players, but remember the model only exists because you as a F2P type supported it. The mind set of such players allowed an awful revenue model to come to being.

We have moved on now, its hard to find a MMO that is not F2P, they are the overwhelming majority in the world of MMOs, their behaviour is the norm. If I have a pop at the players it is purely to note the transient nature of their existence in any MMO or the entitlement that they can expect games for free. That does not mean they are "jerks".

kitarad

I feel that many people are angry with the demand for F2P and indirectly the players who lead to the popularity of this pay model because it lead to the cash shop. There is a direct link between the deterioration of games from the subscription based model where a subscriber obtained everything in the game by merely subscribing to being nickel-and-dimed to exhaustion.

The introduction of F2P lead to the destruction of the subscription and gave rise to the greedy cash shop method that has been evolving faster than you can say Charles Darwin. There is a resentment that the F2P players are to blame for this and even if it is the companies that are to blame for the cash shops this does not negate the impression.

Further it is noted without exception that every time a game tries to break the mould and try to stick only to a subscription the F2P advocates will try to shake the foundation with their endless campaigns and when the game eventually goes F2P some sort of victory is proclaimed. Is it any wonder they are demonized?

TENTING

MMORPGs are the one kind of luxury entertainment in the world, that people pay way to little for.

 On top of that this luxury entertainment is also the only entertainment that practically have an inside political scene, made up by customers that have an extreme amount of power to shape the future of these games.
 Not only that, but they actually believe, that purely by being customers, they have the right to decide what goes on and should go on.

 Gone are the days, where creators had the freedom to decide over their own products, without customers barking up the fence demanding things being made to cater to their individual needs.

 Developers these days are degraded to nothing but slaves, regardless of F2P or P2P arguments.
They have to fight to survive, while people, the consumers, sit comfortably and cant decide if they should buy 5 games or 6 games this month. Or should they sub to 2 or 3 MMORPGs this month, so hard to decide.
 
 How long do you guys think you can keep pushing the prices down, before there eventually will not be produced any quality games at all?
 The production of these games is simply not viable, if you will not pay, its that simple.