If you are talking about B then obviously I don't want 'games' like these within 1000 yards of my PC. They are exploitative, dishonest, and destroy the very essence of what makes a game a game. They are for the stupid and gullible that percieve a sub of £2.50 a week as 'too expensive' but will then spend that in multiples as their addiction driven impulse buys dictate.
Companies have found out that people are stupid when they sit at their computer to make a purchase.
For some reason people are happy with being nickle and dimed for $200 over a 30 day period, but ask them to pay $150 up front for the same group of items, and suddenly those same people accuse you of greed and refuse to buy.
I asked a friend of mine if he would be okay with pay $20 a month to have full access to everything in LoL. he got mad and said that would be the dumbest thing ever. But then i asked him why it was okay for him to spend $175 over a 4 month period for LoL and he tried justifying it by saying the purchases were spread out.
Money spent is money spent. doesnt matter if you spend $100 in a day, or 60 days.
i think what needs to be done to make P2P games more appealing is to stop charging for the box.
I wish folks would understand how buying in game rewards, even just vanity ones, changes the core nature of what defines a game.
I know it's an abstract concept and one that dosent appeal to notions of instant gratification or the laziness of users, but it's one that more people should try to understand because it effects everything. It requires seeing a bigger picture outside of the personal bubble though, and that isnt a strength in many.
The relabelling of games into the vague grey realm of 'entertainment products', and everything that means, should actually worry gamers everywhere.
But then I am a gamer, not a shopper, and I buy these games to play them, not to use a virtual mall to buy pretend product for real cash, so I guess I will never get it.
I wish folks would understand how buying in game rewards, even just vanity ones, changes the core nature of what defines a game.
I know it's an abstract concept and one that dosent appeal to notions of instant gratification or the laziness of users, but it's one that more people should try to understand because it effects everything. It requires seeing a bigger picture outside of the personal bubble though, and that isnt a strength in many.
The relabelling of games into the vague grey realm of 'entertainment products', and everything that means, should actually worry gamers everywhere.
But then I am a gamer, not a shopper, and I buy these games to play them, not to use a virtual mall to buy pretend product for real cash, so I guess I will never get it.
There are also people who have many hours to devote to playing games. They have an ingame advantage. So how do we come up with one system that addresses the imbalances of real world cash, game play time and other factors so that all are the same. If we address one we have to address them all. Otherwise it's just another case of attacking one style or preference to another style of play.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I always do the subscription route over the F2P model but I'm ok with the F2P model existing alongside me as long as:
1) The F2P pay model is only regarding the purchase of content, vanity items, and maybe consumables (e.g., grindables). ABSOLUTELY NO PAY 2 WIN. That is a gamebreaker for me.
2) Vanity items are seperate from in-game vanity rewards. For instance you can buy a vanity crystal horse or something but the one you earn in game looks different. That way those that care about achievements know who earned it and who paid for it.
And my own personal suggestion, would be to allow an auto-emote for a subscription avatar to turn to a F2P player, turn up his nose, and say, "Did somebody fart?" or other witty derogatory comment at the expense of the unwashed masses. LOL.
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind" 1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN 2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
people with lots of money to spend, so they can buy their wins
That's a huge group. No wonder it's successful. I'd always stick to P2P myself. I don't like games where I'm either forced to grind my ass off, unless I pay more thab a subscription would cost each month. And where I am constantly killed by players only because they pay more. It's unbalanced, grindier, slower and more expensive than P2P.
I like the F2P hybrid model, and I do not fall into any of those categories. I like to try a game out and have the option to play as much as I want for free, or to buy the specific things I want, or to subscribe. I guess I like options, rather than only having one choice.
Theres all sorts of free to play models you . The DDO/Lotro model in my opinion is pretty fair in that it offers what amounts to a really long trial before you get to the point where you decide weather to make a micropayment or pay what amounts to a standard subscription .There are only three games in my opinion that can justify a pay to play subscription those being WoW ,EvE and RIFT . I dont like WoW much now though as its far to easy .EvEs ok I like its depth but its hard to get into and RIFT is something I only find worth paying for now and again . So I find myself spending more and more time in other games and with the likes of
Everquest2
Lotro
DDO
Age of Conan
City of Heroes
Fallen Earth
Champions online
I really cant see myself paying for an mmo again in the conventional way for a period of more than a month or two unless something like vanilla wow comes along which I find immersive enough to really grab me .
As far as I can see its pretty obvious where things are going and I predict a point where even new mmos will offer a mix of the Guild Wars and Freemium (DDO) model.
It was never set in stone that people should pay 15 dollars a month for a game . I argued this point several years ago and always got shot down in flames because I could see the status quo was unsustainable .
The conventional subscription based pay to play model is pretty obviously coming to an end (except in a few cases) and some of the f2play games will offer fairer freemium models than others . Its not always going to be buy to win .Much of it will be fluff items or access to areas in the games you cant get to as a free player .
Buy to win can be really only ever applied to a totally pvp centric title and there are very very few of them .
p2p games are successful, when they are fun to a lot of players.
f2p games are successful, when they are so unfun to play, that their most loyal players rather spent a fortune in the shop than playing the game.
Add to that the immersion breaking of permanently advertising (that was the reason I finally quit both eq2 and lotro, though having a sub for both), and the huge impact on the "community" that the word "free" always has, and the conclusion for me is quite clear: if you want to play a quality games for a long time with good friends and fine people around, p2p is the only way to go. I even decided not to try gw2 because of their payment model...
True gamers should avoid f2p. Period.
Ill never understand this ridiculous logic You seriously think that people pay money to save them from having to play a game because its too boring? Ive never met a single person in any of the several dozen F2P games and various guilds ive been in who spend smoney on the game for that reason. They enjoy the game, which is why they spend the money. They spend money on things like potions/scrolls to level up faster, because its faster, not because the game is boring... common sense. They spend money on things like upgrading their equipment, because they can get better equipment, not because the game is boring without that equipment. They spend that money for the same reasons that people spend hours and hours and hours doing that stuff in P2P games. Only some of us have more time than money and others have more money than time. Nearly all the MMOs, both P2P and F2P, play nearly identical to eachother thanks to the horde of WoW/EQ clones. How much more fun is it to do it in a P2P vs a F2P?
Hell ive seen more F2P games add in more invenmtive and fun systems than P2P games over the past few years. Theres only a handful of P2P game sthat have really done anything interesting when it comes to new PvP features, new crafting & equipment enhancing tools, and combat mechanics. And even those havent done very well. meanwhile more F2P games have been adding in and changing/tweaking various features like large scale faction combat and guild vs guild combat, sieges, tweeks to combat mechanics and skill usage, and methods of crafting.
The only P2P game ive had any sort of fun in with PvP in the past 2 or 3 years has been WAR, which went downhill pretty fast after launch. But theres a lot fo PvP focused F2P games out there that are a blast to play, and they have stayed pretty stable populationwise, and in many cases grown larger with each update.
Anyway, its pretty obvious youre blinded by some ridiculous notion that paying a subcscription somehow makes you a "better" person/gamer, even though nearly every subscription based game out there is flooded with just as many asshats as F2P games. Its pretty sad that you would ignore GW2 because it doesnt have a subscription, when theyve already proven with GW1 that you can have a quality game without a sub, and its got 1 of the best communities around. Certainly better than the king of subscription MMOs WoW. Your logic just seems terribly terribly flawed. when you consider that.
i think what needs to be done to make P2P games more appealing is to stop charging for the box.
I got so flamed in some of the forums when I had suggested this. I have paid $360 in monthly fee over two years and I still have to pay $30-$50 for the digital download of the new expansion. When you buy the original game, you at least get one free month of gameplay; not when you buy an expansion.
F2P puts capitalism into my game, thats what I dont like.
I want every player to have equal chances. The only difference should be their skill, including their social skills, and the time they have for playing.
One thing I don't think people remember: Some P2P games have a cash-shop. Remember WoW selling that mount that made millions overnight >.>?
Whenever i step outside, somebody claims to see the light It seems to me that all of us have lost our patience. 'cause everyone thinks they're right, And nobody thinks that there just might Be more than one road to our final destination--
f2p is what I want, especially when it is the Turbine model where I can pay a small cost for content once and never have to pay again. If I had done this in WoW I would have payed for most of the Old Kingdoms in the first year, would likely never have payed for all of Outland, would have paid for all of Northrend within the first few months, and would have had until WoW's servers shut down to play all this content as much as I wanted AND would have saved a ton of money in the process.
I have paid $100 for a year and a half of play in DDO and I have a ton of content and features that I never have to pay for again. I expect to drop another $50 at some point later this year which will still put me at less money than I would pay for a monthly sub. AND there is no pay to win. So yes. I want this.
Sure beats the alternative, too. Xsyon: pay $40 for the game and a $15 monthly to find out what a massive pile of poo the game is. The devs will use your money to eek out a short existance in which they will honestly try to improve their game but they won't be able to do it fast enough to keep anyone around. And - although Xsyon is probably the worst example of, "They charged me for WHAT now?" this is unfortunately the reality of the p2p model lately.
So, yes, more f2p is very welcome. And speaking of that - I'm downloading Vindictus right now, which makes me very happy because I am done paying over $50 just to test a game for a month.
I was pleasantly surprised when I went from Apprentice to full 5 star Elite in under 2 months. I was pleasantly surprised again when I went from Elite to just barely Hardcore in 2 weeks. Apprentice, here I come!
The reason people dislike pay2win, is because we play these games to be part of a fantasy world. It's an escape from reality, and many of us have shitty realities. So when we have an online game in which we have to share with other people, we want everything to be equal, because in the real world it isn't.
Once real world money matters, then we have to face the fact that maybe we're poor and can't afford to win. That's why people hate pay2win, because it ruins their fun. It's tons of fun for people who have money to burn of course. So in the end, this is just a rich versus poor argument, and I'll always support the poor.
I don't dislike pay2win. Given the larger popularity of F2P MMOs, most people don't have a problem with it. Plus, there is NO winning in most PvE F2P games anyway.
Play the game you like. It should be irrelevant what other people like ,and why they like it.
People that like F2P and think it's "better" than P2P will never understand why P2P gamers disagree.
People that like P2P and think it's "better" than F2P will never understand why F2P gamers disagree.
Both models should exist, for both types of players.
You're not a better person, or a better gamer, because you like one, and not the other.
Some people like coke, some people like pepsi.
they are both colas, niether is better, and there is nothing wrong with people that like the one you don't.
Sorry to come raining on your parade, Imotepp, but it's not quite like that from my view point. You forget the business part of MMORPG. It's an industry, and right now it's spewing out games just like the Ford factory. If the majority of players want F2P games, then the majority of games will be just that - built upon the F2P (lies!) model. Thus, excluding people like myself who dont enjoy that model very much because I dont like shopping in real life, and I dont like it in my virtual worlds either.
I'm not forgetting anything.
One of the biggest MMORPGs on the planet is a P2P game, WoW.
TOR is going to be P2P.
How many F2P games being made is irrelevant.
If you don't like them, don't play them.
Doesn't matter if they make one or a million of them.
Developers will make P2P games as long as companies like Blizzard make money of P2P games.
WOW has 11M players, something like 2-3M in the US? By the latest research (and people, the link has been posted many times, you can find it without requesting here again), there are like 47M MMOs players in the US, most playing ONLY F2P games. So WOW is the biggest, but probably only <10% of the players.
But sure, it makes the most money amongst any games.
I personally dislike the entire 'F2P' model, largely because I despise micro-transactions in general. In my experience they have become an excuse for companies to try and squeeze ever more money out of their customers; usually for content that would have been free patches in the past. However, at least in the 'freemium' model, they aren't soaking you up front for the game so I can see why some like it.
What bothers me the most is that far too many companies seem to be rushing to abandon the traditional revenue model, largely because it seems they cannot manage to run a successful product for any length of time. I prefer the traditional model and I am worried that within the next couple of years there will be nothing left for me to even consider playing.
I wish folks would understand how buying in game rewards, even just vanity ones, changes the core nature of what defines a game.
I know it's an abstract concept and one that dosent appeal to notions of instant gratification or the laziness of users, but it's one that more people should try to understand because it effects everything. It requires seeing a bigger picture outside of the personal bubble though, and that isnt a strength in many.
The relabelling of games into the vague grey realm of 'entertainment products', and everything that means, should actually worry gamers everywhere.
But then I am a gamer, not a shopper, and I buy these games to play them, not to use a virtual mall to buy pretend product for real cash, so I guess I will never get it.
There are also people who have many hours to devote to playing games. They have an ingame advantage. So how do we come up with one system that addresses the imbalances of real world cash, game play time and other factors so that all are the same. If we address one we have to address them all. Otherwise it's just another case of attacking one style or preference to another style of play.
There is no sound reason why things have to be fair. We are talking about digital ENTERTAINMENT here. If it is fun, do people really care about if someone can buy their way into epic items, or that others would spend their entire life to get ahead?
Judging by the size of the player base, i would say people don't care.
I wish folks would understand how buying in game rewards, even just vanity ones, changes the core nature of what defines a game.
I know it's an abstract concept and one that dosent appeal to notions of instant gratification or the laziness of users, but it's one that more people should try to understand because it effects everything. It requires seeing a bigger picture outside of the personal bubble though, and that isnt a strength in many.
The relabelling of games into the vague grey realm of 'entertainment products', and everything that means, should actually worry gamers everywhere.
But then I am a gamer, not a shopper, and I buy these games to play them, not to use a virtual mall to buy pretend product for real cash, so I guess I will never get it.
Bravo.
Changes the core nature?
MMOs are just about stuff.
There's no complicated game mechanics going on. Phsyics play a minor role. You're best achievement is reducing a few hundred thousand k HP to 0. That's the epitome.
Games are about enjoyment.
Going Free to Play (as in no box purchase) and giving people the ability to BUY and PLAY the portions of the game they wish to access is just choice. Gaming should be about more choice. Paying one fee constantly to meet the same singular end... Yeah that's gaming in a way. But buying access to what you want and being able to take time to access it is gaming too.
You're no more a gamer than someone who buys the CORE AD&D book and doesn't get every single suppliment that comes out for it.
You're no more a gamer than someone who chooses to buy their paintball equipment, rather than rent it every other weekend.
You're no more a gamer than kids using chalk to make hopscotch squares on a sidewalk and who don't cry when the rain washes it away and they have to make a new one.
The traditonal model has run its course because you used to obtain a LOT of content for $15 per month, but now it has been a steady decline. Let use CoX which recently announced it would become F2P/P2P hybrid. All CoX for the most part was free, but with the booster packs that changed, and it made no sense to continue a P2P model if there were charging for new costumes, powers, and etc.
What the F2P movement does is promotes competition with F2P games as the pool increases to offer more content, but also more content for P2P games to keep up.
WoW devs are under pressure to deliver content with 4.2 given it has been a long time since the launch of the expansion. Rift is in the same boat, as well as Eve Online, and the remaining P2P. Lineage 2, and Aion of NCSOFT are also under pressure to offer more to support their P2P models.
I personally dislike the entire 'F2P' model, largely because I despise micro-transactions in general. In my experience they have become an excuse for companies to try and squeeze ever more money out of their customers; usually for content that would have been free patches in the past. However, at least in the 'freemium' model, they aren't soaking you up front for the game so I can see why some like it.
What bothers me the most is that far too many companies seem to be rushing to abandon the traditional revenue model, largely because it seems they cannot manage to run a successful product for any length of time. I prefer the traditional model and I am worried that within the next couple of years there will be nothing left for me to even consider playing.
Then don't use them. Who says you HAVE to buy stuff from a cash shop playing F2P games. In fact, research has shown that MOST players don't pay a dime.
I welcome the rush to F2P. All games should be F2P so I can hop around and play with zero commitment.
I just cancelled by last P2P sub (WOW .. good game, but all good things become boring at some point) and play to just do F2P (and of course non-MMO) from now on.
I personally dislike the entire 'F2P' model, largely because I despise micro-transactions in general. In my experience they have become an excuse for companies to try and squeeze ever more money out of their customers; usually for content that would have been free patches in the past. However, at least in the 'freemium' model, they aren't soaking you up front for the game so I can see why some like it.
What bothers me the most is that far too many companies seem to be rushing to abandon the traditional revenue model, largely because it seems they cannot manage to run a successful product for any length of time. I prefer the traditional model and I am worried that within the next couple of years there will be nothing left for me to even consider playing.
Then don't use them. Who says you HAVE to buy stuff from a cash shop playing F2P games. In fact, research has shown that MOST players don't pay a dime.
I welcome the rush to F2P. All games should be F2P so I can hop around and play with zero commitment.
I just cancelled by last P2P sub (WOW .. good game, but all good things become boring at some point) and play to just do F2P (and of course non-MMO) from now on.
Yeah... part of the problem with the 'then don't buy RMT items' arguement, is that the developer design the game counter to that... otherwise they wouldn't make any money. They do this by artificially creating demand for item mall items, whether it's making ridiculously tedious grinds with 'potions' to help speed you through, or selling cool looking cosmetic gear in the item mall and completely neglecting to add any decent non item mall options avaialble through gameplay.
The point is, RMT infects game design by causing developers to intentionally create problems in the game where the solution is conveniently sold in the item mall.
I wish folks would understand how buying in game rewards, even just vanity ones, changes the core nature of what defines a game.
I know it's an abstract concept and one that dosent appeal to notions of instant gratification or the laziness of users, but it's one that more people should try to understand because it effects everything. It requires seeing a bigger picture outside of the personal bubble though, and that isnt a strength in many.
The relabelling of games into the vague grey realm of 'entertainment products', and everything that means, should actually worry gamers everywhere.
But then I am a gamer, not a shopper, and I buy these games to play them, not to use a virtual mall to buy pretend product for real cash, so I guess I will never get it.
There are also people who have many hours to devote to playing games. They have an ingame advantage. So how do we come up with one system that addresses the imbalances of real world cash, game play time and other factors so that all are the same. If we address one we have to address them all. Otherwise it's just another case of attacking one style or preference to another style of play.
There is no sound reason why things have to be fair. We are talking about digital ENTERTAINMENT here. If it is fun, do people really care about if someone can buy their way into epic items, or that others would spend their entire life to get ahead?
Judging by the size of the player base, i would say people don't care.
Would you care if you joined a chess tournament and other players were able to pay $10 more to get an extra queen on the board?
Would you care if you joined a chess tournament and other players were able to pay $10 more to get an extra queen on the board?
Yet people join poker games where people can buy extra chips in the middle of a tournement.
Apples to oranges. Poker tournaments are gambling, and chips are expended/won based on performance. You can also only buy back in after you've lost, not during a game, if I'm not mistaken.
Chess, along with many other games, are about starting on an even playing field, and progressing based on personal performance. A lot of people feel MMOs should play this way.
Granted a lot of people want to be able to pay to achieve, that's not necessarily wrong either. However, trying to say that P2P and/or non-RMT games are inferior is nonsense. No matter how much you may rationalize the existence of RMT in an MMO, there are others who can equally rationalize counter, and you ca both be right. It comes down to personal preference.
I doubt that the entire industry will go F2P. If it does, there will be a considerable number of people who would just stop playing MMOs altogether, myself included. It would make far more sense if more MMOs simply offered parallel gameplay options with separate servers, where if you want F2P with an item mall, you can play that version, or if you want a more level playing field, a P2P subsction version where there was absolutely no RMT and everything was available through gameplay.
Comments
Companies have found out that people are stupid when they sit at their computer to make a purchase.
For some reason people are happy with being nickle and dimed for $200 over a 30 day period, but ask them to pay $150 up front for the same group of items, and suddenly those same people accuse you of greed and refuse to buy.
I asked a friend of mine if he would be okay with pay $20 a month to have full access to everything in LoL. he got mad and said that would be the dumbest thing ever. But then i asked him why it was okay for him to spend $175 over a 4 month period for LoL and he tried justifying it by saying the purchases were spread out.
Money spent is money spent. doesnt matter if you spend $100 in a day, or 60 days.
i think what needs to be done to make P2P games more appealing is to stop charging for the box.
Bravo.
Greystaff Legends RPG
There are also people who have many hours to devote to playing games. They have an ingame advantage. So how do we come up with one system that addresses the imbalances of real world cash, game play time and other factors so that all are the same. If we address one we have to address them all. Otherwise it's just another case of attacking one style or preference to another style of play.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I always do the subscription route over the F2P model but I'm ok with the F2P model existing alongside me as long as:
1) The F2P pay model is only regarding the purchase of content, vanity items, and maybe consumables (e.g., grindables). ABSOLUTELY NO PAY 2 WIN. That is a gamebreaker for me.
2) Vanity items are seperate from in-game vanity rewards. For instance you can buy a vanity crystal horse or something but the one you earn in game looks different. That way those that care about achievements know who earned it and who paid for it.
And my own personal suggestion, would be to allow an auto-emote for a subscription avatar to turn to a F2P player, turn up his nose, and say, "Did somebody fart?" or other witty derogatory comment at the expense of the unwashed masses. LOL.
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
I like the F2P hybrid model, and I do not fall into any of those categories. I like to try a game out and have the option to play as much as I want for free, or to buy the specific things I want, or to subscribe. I guess I like options, rather than only having one choice.
Theres all sorts of free to play models you . The DDO/Lotro model in my opinion is pretty fair in that it offers what amounts to a really long trial before you get to the point where you decide weather to make a micropayment or pay what amounts to a standard subscription .There are only three games in my opinion that can justify a pay to play subscription those being WoW ,EvE and RIFT . I dont like WoW much now though as its far to easy .EvEs ok I like its depth but its hard to get into and RIFT is something I only find worth paying for now and again . So I find myself spending more and more time in other games and with the likes of
Everquest2
Lotro
DDO
Age of Conan
City of Heroes
Fallen Earth
Champions online
I really cant see myself paying for an mmo again in the conventional way for a period of more than a month or two unless something like vanilla wow comes along which I find immersive enough to really grab me .
As far as I can see its pretty obvious where things are going and I predict a point where even new mmos will offer a mix of the Guild Wars and Freemium (DDO) model.
It was never set in stone that people should pay 15 dollars a month for a game . I argued this point several years ago and always got shot down in flames because I could see the status quo was unsustainable .
The conventional subscription based pay to play model is pretty obviously coming to an end (except in a few cases) and some of the f2play games will offer fairer freemium models than others . Its not always going to be buy to win .Much of it will be fluff items or access to areas in the games you cant get to as a free player .
Buy to win can be really only ever applied to a totally pvp centric title and there are very very few of them .
Ill never understand this ridiculous logic You seriously think that people pay money to save them from having to play a game because its too boring? Ive never met a single person in any of the several dozen F2P games and various guilds ive been in who spend smoney on the game for that reason. They enjoy the game, which is why they spend the money. They spend money on things like potions/scrolls to level up faster, because its faster, not because the game is boring... common sense. They spend money on things like upgrading their equipment, because they can get better equipment, not because the game is boring without that equipment. They spend that money for the same reasons that people spend hours and hours and hours doing that stuff in P2P games. Only some of us have more time than money and others have more money than time. Nearly all the MMOs, both P2P and F2P, play nearly identical to eachother thanks to the horde of WoW/EQ clones. How much more fun is it to do it in a P2P vs a F2P?
Hell ive seen more F2P games add in more invenmtive and fun systems than P2P games over the past few years. Theres only a handful of P2P game sthat have really done anything interesting when it comes to new PvP features, new crafting & equipment enhancing tools, and combat mechanics. And even those havent done very well. meanwhile more F2P games have been adding in and changing/tweaking various features like large scale faction combat and guild vs guild combat, sieges, tweeks to combat mechanics and skill usage, and methods of crafting.
The only P2P game ive had any sort of fun in with PvP in the past 2 or 3 years has been WAR, which went downhill pretty fast after launch. But theres a lot fo PvP focused F2P games out there that are a blast to play, and they have stayed pretty stable populationwise, and in many cases grown larger with each update.
Anyway, its pretty obvious youre blinded by some ridiculous notion that paying a subcscription somehow makes you a "better" person/gamer, even though nearly every subscription based game out there is flooded with just as many asshats as F2P games. Its pretty sad that you would ignore GW2 because it doesnt have a subscription, when theyve already proven with GW1 that you can have a quality game without a sub, and its got 1 of the best communities around. Certainly better than the king of subscription MMOs WoW. Your logic just seems terribly terribly flawed. when you consider that.
I got so flamed in some of the forums when I had suggested this. I have paid $360 in monthly fee over two years and I still have to pay $30-$50 for the digital download of the new expansion. When you buy the original game, you at least get one free month of gameplay; not when you buy an expansion.
F2P puts capitalism into my game, thats what I dont like.
I want every player to have equal chances. The only difference should be their skill, including their social skills, and the time they have for playing.
One thing I don't think people remember: Some P2P games have a cash-shop. Remember WoW selling that mount that made millions overnight >.>?
Whenever i step outside, somebody claims to see the light
It seems to me that all of us have lost our patience.
'cause everyone thinks they're right,
And nobody thinks that there just might
Be more than one road to our final destination--
f2p is what I want, especially when it is the Turbine model where I can pay a small cost for content once and never have to pay again. If I had done this in WoW I would have payed for most of the Old Kingdoms in the first year, would likely never have payed for all of Outland, would have paid for all of Northrend within the first few months, and would have had until WoW's servers shut down to play all this content as much as I wanted AND would have saved a ton of money in the process.
I have paid $100 for a year and a half of play in DDO and I have a ton of content and features that I never have to pay for again. I expect to drop another $50 at some point later this year which will still put me at less money than I would pay for a monthly sub. AND there is no pay to win. So yes. I want this.
Sure beats the alternative, too. Xsyon: pay $40 for the game and a $15 monthly to find out what a massive pile of poo the game is. The devs will use your money to eek out a short existance in which they will honestly try to improve their game but they won't be able to do it fast enough to keep anyone around. And - although Xsyon is probably the worst example of, "They charged me for WHAT now?" this is unfortunately the reality of the p2p model lately.
So, yes, more f2p is very welcome. And speaking of that - I'm downloading Vindictus right now, which makes me very happy because I am done paying over $50 just to test a game for a month.
I was pleasantly surprised when I went from Apprentice to full 5 star Elite in under 2 months. I was pleasantly surprised again when I went from Elite to just barely Hardcore in 2 weeks. Apprentice, here I come!
I don't dislike pay2win. Given the larger popularity of F2P MMOs, most people don't have a problem with it. Plus, there is NO winning in most PvE F2P games anyway.
WOW has 11M players, something like 2-3M in the US? By the latest research (and people, the link has been posted many times, you can find it without requesting here again), there are like 47M MMOs players in the US, most playing ONLY F2P games. So WOW is the biggest, but probably only <10% of the players.
But sure, it makes the most money amongst any games.
I personally dislike the entire 'F2P' model, largely because I despise micro-transactions in general. In my experience they have become an excuse for companies to try and squeeze ever more money out of their customers; usually for content that would have been free patches in the past. However, at least in the 'freemium' model, they aren't soaking you up front for the game so I can see why some like it.
What bothers me the most is that far too many companies seem to be rushing to abandon the traditional revenue model, largely because it seems they cannot manage to run a successful product for any length of time. I prefer the traditional model and I am worried that within the next couple of years there will be nothing left for me to even consider playing.
There is no sound reason why things have to be fair. We are talking about digital ENTERTAINMENT here. If it is fun, do people really care about if someone can buy their way into epic items, or that others would spend their entire life to get ahead?
Judging by the size of the player base, i would say people don't care.
Changes the core nature?
MMOs are just about stuff.
There's no complicated game mechanics going on. Phsyics play a minor role. You're best achievement is reducing a few hundred thousand k HP to 0. That's the epitome.
Games are about enjoyment.
Going Free to Play (as in no box purchase) and giving people the ability to BUY and PLAY the portions of the game they wish to access is just choice. Gaming should be about more choice. Paying one fee constantly to meet the same singular end... Yeah that's gaming in a way. But buying access to what you want and being able to take time to access it is gaming too.
You're no more a gamer than someone who buys the CORE AD&D book and doesn't get every single suppliment that comes out for it.
You're no more a gamer than someone who chooses to buy their paintball equipment, rather than rent it every other weekend.
You're no more a gamer than kids using chalk to make hopscotch squares on a sidewalk and who don't cry when the rain washes it away and they have to make a new one.
The traditonal model has run its course because you used to obtain a LOT of content for $15 per month, but now it has been a steady decline. Let use CoX which recently announced it would become F2P/P2P hybrid. All CoX for the most part was free, but with the booster packs that changed, and it made no sense to continue a P2P model if there were charging for new costumes, powers, and etc.
What the F2P movement does is promotes competition with F2P games as the pool increases to offer more content, but also more content for P2P games to keep up.
WoW devs are under pressure to deliver content with 4.2 given it has been a long time since the launch of the expansion. Rift is in the same boat, as well as Eve Online, and the remaining P2P. Lineage 2, and Aion of NCSOFT are also under pressure to offer more to support their P2P models.
Then don't use them. Who says you HAVE to buy stuff from a cash shop playing F2P games. In fact, research has shown that MOST players don't pay a dime.
I welcome the rush to F2P. All games should be F2P so I can hop around and play with zero commitment.
I just cancelled by last P2P sub (WOW .. good game, but all good things become boring at some point) and play to just do F2P (and of course non-MMO) from now on.
Some of us can't afford to pay 15 dollars monthly or have the time to play our money's worth.....
Pay-to-Play MMORPG EVE Online is selling in-game monocle for $70 in the store:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/21/controversy-brewing-over-eve-online-microtransaction
Both the F2P and P2P business models try to squeeze as much money out of you as they can. It is not a downside of one particular business model.
Yeah... part of the problem with the 'then don't buy RMT items' arguement, is that the developer design the game counter to that... otherwise they wouldn't make any money. They do this by artificially creating demand for item mall items, whether it's making ridiculously tedious grinds with 'potions' to help speed you through, or selling cool looking cosmetic gear in the item mall and completely neglecting to add any decent non item mall options avaialble through gameplay.
The point is, RMT infects game design by causing developers to intentionally create problems in the game where the solution is conveniently sold in the item mall.
Would you care if you joined a chess tournament and other players were able to pay $10 more to get an extra queen on the board?
Yet people join poker games where people can buy extra chips in the middle of a tournement.
Apples to oranges. Poker tournaments are gambling, and chips are expended/won based on performance. You can also only buy back in after you've lost, not during a game, if I'm not mistaken.
Chess, along with many other games, are about starting on an even playing field, and progressing based on personal performance. A lot of people feel MMOs should play this way.
Granted a lot of people want to be able to pay to achieve, that's not necessarily wrong either. However, trying to say that P2P and/or non-RMT games are inferior is nonsense. No matter how much you may rationalize the existence of RMT in an MMO, there are others who can equally rationalize counter, and you ca both be right. It comes down to personal preference.
I doubt that the entire industry will go F2P. If it does, there will be a considerable number of people who would just stop playing MMOs altogether, myself included. It would make far more sense if more MMOs simply offered parallel gameplay options with separate servers, where if you want F2P with an item mall, you can play that version, or if you want a more level playing field, a P2P subsction version where there was absolutely no RMT and everything was available through gameplay.
Prefer the BTP (buy to play) formula like Guild Wars 2
I don´t like the FTP model with those annoying cash shops they sells tons of potions to keep going...
I rather pay a subscription to a game that deserves it