I've played games, such as card games over at other people's homes before. Sometimes I don't like those games. I can tell you why. Didn't cost me a dime. Every SINGLE person in existence has probably done this. That means you.
But for some reason video games, if you are playing for free, oh well that's taboo. Don't complain about that. Except for something like Farmville. You can bash that and get thumbs up all around even though that never cost you a dime either. See the problem here?
People complain about Facebook. People complain about Twitter. People complain about Youtube. All free. You never hear, " Yea but your opinion doesn't matter because you're a free user..." .
But don't dream of being critical of a F2P game where a FAN has spent some money on it. Because that incites malice. That's the difference. It's not the free players who are the problem, even if they didn't pay a dime.
Its those that have spent money on the game, that can't stand to hear anything critical being said about it, especially from one of the lowly free players. It's an entitlement thing. No one likes hearing something overly critical about something they love. The only thing worse than that is hearing something overly critical about something you love AND something you've spent money on.
Free players being critical is not the problem. Entitled players who've spent money and can't stand critique from the lowly free players are the problem.
One thing every fanboy will try to do is discredit any negative comments about a game. When F2P games emerged, it gave them a tool in that quest. The dreaded, " It's free for you, so you have no right to complain....". A powerful weapon in the fanboy arsenol. It doesn't apply to much else in existence. Just mmos that happen to be free.
+1
you've earned your avatar sir -salutes-
Also to reduce the debate to absurdity (the debate over if you can complain about something which is free or not) I posit the following question:
If you were starving, you went to someone asked for food but had nothing to give them, and they come back with a plate full of their own shit would you A) not complain and eat the shit? or complain and tell everyone about their behaviour so in future no one else suffers such a event?
Hmmm, do you live in the US? Yeah they have the right, technically, to their freedom of speech to complain.....Whether anyone has
to heed their call another topic for another day.
Have you considered the possibility that when someone says "right to complain", they aren't mounting a constitutional challenge, but rather are asking whether people think those complaints should be given equal attention to the feedback of paying players?
Simple question inspired by the "Free players get what they deserve" thread.
I'll weigh in on this one. No they do not.
I think the word "right" as in "you do/don't have the right to do something" is not really the correct word to use. I honetly don't know what the correct word is, but the "rights" an individual has is laid out by whatever country they live in not by forum commentors. If a forum allows open discussion on a topic regardless of who is subscribing to a game (like the forums at mmorpg.com) we have whatever rights the forum allows for discussion based on the TOS. So, based on the TOS of mmorpg.com we have the right to say pretty much whatever we want about a mmo wether we sub to it or not. If people don't like that, then they should either petition mmorpg.com to only allow those that have put money toward a game to duscuss it (good luck getting the logistics down on that one) or ignore them. Why do so many people around here want to prevent negative threads about games? These are not fan forums. They are not for the sole purpose of discussing why we like a game.
Have you considered the possibility that when someone says "right to complain", they aren't mounting a constitutional challenge, but rather are asking whether people think those complaints should be given equal attention to the feedback of paying players?
In that case, they should say "whether people think those complaints should be given equal attention to the feedback of paying players" instead of "Do free players have the right to ...".
Why should i guess all the possibility of how the OP could have miscommunicated?
No such thing as "free". Your freedom of speech is paid for by those that serve and died in our military that protect you and your freedoms. And in most cases freedom of speech has its limits. Try going into court and telling the judge you can say what you want because you have freedom of speech and see how long it takes before you are in the county jail for contempt.
Its Subscription free option, not really 100% free. You are not contributing anything to the developement, upkeep, and success of said game. If i were to move in with you and start telling you what to do and how to do it in your own home, and i pay no bills or rent............ how long before you boot me out?
Sure people have the right to voice issues with a game, but trying to change it, have less restrictions, and make it easier for them over paid customers....no. To voice concern over bugs, the gameplay, and free content.... yes.
You dont have "rights" in video games, you waivered that once you signed their agreement to play.
I would say yes, they have the right to complain. What they do not have is an expectation of satisfaction for their complaint.
Speach is free, solutions to problems are not. You get what you pay for. If you are not paying then you get the right to the free speach, since it is free, but you don't have a right to the solution in a timely manner. Paying customers are always served first.
Originally posted by Zooce Valid critisim is valid no matter who utters the words.
About as true a statement as you will get on these forums.
And about as smart and wise statement as saying round circle is round.
No shit sherlocks!
This is not about valid criticism. It's about gamers getting something for free without giving anything back at all.
Except:
- their presence which is there for purely egoistical reasons anyway, which is personal fun.
- complaints
Yes, complaints MAY or MAY NOT be valid. Again, this is not really about certain complaints being valid or not.
This is about ethics and morality.
A gamer that ONLY takes and never gives back is esentialy a leecher. I hope you guys realise if everyone on this world would only take there would soon be nothing left.
If the only thing someone is able to give back is complaints than I can with certainty claim they don't have the right to do it. They are only doing it to gain more for themselves anyway.
So there we go, it's immoral to do it.
Will people still do it? Of course! People are immoral, they don't give a shit about things like this, especialy when under safety of internet immunity.
That said, smart developers will still be able to pull the best out of it and weed out the good from the bad.
I would say yes, they have the right to complain. What they do not have is an expectation of satisfaction for their complaint.
Speach is free, solutions to problems are not. You get what you pay for. If you are not paying then you get the right to the free speach, since it is free, but you don't have a right to the solution in a timely manner. Paying customers are always served first.
Well said, nothing to add. :-))
Excuse my rather inflated example, I am not trying to equalise murder with complaining, just want to make a clear example (refer to my previous post why I think complaints in this case are immoral):
By your logic I have the right to kill someone but I don't have the right to expect to be free and to not sit in jail?
Free speech? Don't make me lol. Saying this on heavily moderated forums definitely sounds special. Get out of that fairy tail you live in guys.
However, one should clearly understand the difference between technical issues (where all players are equal: lag/bug affects everyone), proposals (where only logic should rule, keeping in mind that company should get profit) and just screaming ("gimme shiny horse for free!", "make anything free!"). Screaming should not be heared, no matter who screams, paying or free customer.
Topic "f2p get what they deserve" - is a matter of another discussion. As one forum says - "you get what you pay for". What comes in mind – my two played games: Istaria and Lord of the rings online. Both have restrictions for free-players, but both are willing to hear free ones like me.
After all, free player may become paying customer - but only if he is heared. If he's ignored, he may just move to another mmorpg.
Apparently freeloaders complain regardless of whether they have the right to do so or not. They are mostly ignored by the devs though - as are paying customers for that matter.
Seems to me a lot of people are living in some fantasy world where they are the center of the universe and where their opinions are really important, even when it comes to such meaningless things as computer games. I literally laughed out loud when people in this thread started drawing parallells to starvation, air pollution and presidential elections; what the hell does that has to do with entitled brats whining because they don't get enough free entertainment? Get out of your bubbles guys.
The ftp trend has brought this stupid idea into people's minds that games "need" freeloaders. They don't. They need paying customers, and you only matter as long as you're willing to pull out your credit card.
A paying customer in law has more rights than a non paying one in fact a non paying member of the public has what I can think of as only accident liability while on the premsis.
So yeah, everyone has the right to complain. About anything.
And if a company wants a f2p player to pay for their services, they would probably want to listen about complains and check out if these complains are reasonable.
Originally posted by Zooce Valid critisim is valid no matter who utters the words.
About as true a statement as you will get on these forums.
And about as smart and wise statement as saying round circle is round.
No shit sherlocks!
This is not about valid criticism. It's about gamers getting something for free without giving anything back at all.
Except:
- their presence which is there for purely egoistical reasons anyway, which is personal fun.
- complaints
Yes, complaints MAY or MAY NOT be valid. Again, this is not really about certain complaints being valid or not.
This is about ethics and morality.
A gamer that ONLY takes and never gives back is esentialy a leecher. I hope you guys realise if everyone on this world would only take there would soon be nothing left.
If the only thing someone is able to give back is complaints than I can with certainty claim they don't have the right to do it. They are only doing it to gain more for themselves anyway.
So there we go, it's immoral to do it.
Will people still do it? Of course! People are immoral, they don't give a shit about things like this, especialy when under safety of internet immunity.
That said, smart developers will still be able to pull the best out of it and weed out the good from the bad.
Gotta ask... how many times were you dropped on your head as an infant? Morality has nothing to do with the discussion but just to nail you to the cross with your own words: Players are content, an MMO without players not matter how fun and innovative is a ghost town no one will likely play because running around in a large open world in a social game where no one else is around is something few people do and most of whom I'd strongly suggest psychiatric help to. So as a free player you have every right to bitch, moan and complain when you have valid reasons to as much as those who sub or pay for the game via microstransactions, why? Because you are one of the reasons why the people who pay the devs do so (you being a part of a community and contributing, for good or ill, to the general feel of said community).
Just a few examples for the Hell of it:
DDO without a large community would present no reason for you as a free player to invest money into the game because the content offered for free is more than enough but once you get friends and wanna start doing runs through dungeons which need content pack purchases... well then you start considering it.
World of Tanks without a massive community would have no drive to be number 1 or at least close to nr 1, why? because in a limited group of people competition is gonna be understandbly lax but with the millions already playing it a new or even veteran player such as me feels the need to get an edge in-game or to get that next tank a little bit faster so you can be the guy who saves the day for a team .
Star Trek Online without a decent sized community would have no reason for guilds ergo most of the C-store stuff would go unused.
Path of Exile without a fierce and competitive community would have no reason for players to want to feel unique ergo buy more cosmetics items to make themselves stand out amongst the crowd.
Yeah it is a matter of you can voice your opinion, yet weither your opinion is heard or such is well based on how much the company or devs have to gain. It woud come to doing what a free-playing characters wants in the game for them, and how it would affect the paying customers, and if it would net them a loss largely or gain. Such as implimenting a change that brought alot of free-players into subbing, but than caused twice that amount of paying customers to un-sub for that same reason. It is also that a free-player should never have as much weight in their opinions, and such as a paying customer, since the paying customer is not potential income like the free-player but is actually largely a stable income for the game.
Have you considered the possibility that when someone says "right to complain", they aren't mounting a constitutional challenge, but rather are asking whether people think those complaints should be given equal attention to the feedback of paying players?
In that case, they should say "whether people think those complaints should be given equal attention to the feedback of paying players" instead of "Do free players have the right to ...".
Why should i guess all the possibility of how the OP could have miscommunicated?
If common sense was actually common I wonder what we'd call it.
Originally posted by Zooce Valid critisim is valid no matter who utters the words.
+1
It shouldn't matter if you are a paying player if your criticism is valid. However, "complaining" is pretty much always ignored regardless of how much money you spend on a game.
this and this i agree completely..
I love how subscribers that hate f2p think their voices are always heard by devs.... then cry when the game never get better or instead ironically end up with free model to survive.
fair enough. then why do we keep seeing threads and polls and rants about Free Players who spend not a penny in the cash shops, when it is most likely less then 1% of the playerbase ? In a way you reinforced my original point even more.
I have no idea what percentage of players totally free players form. I think it is very hard to judge in most games who has paid something or who has subscribed. I have noticed though, at least from my time in ToR and EQ2, that most players pay something by the time they hit 3/5 of the leveling process.
Anyhow, I was not disputing anything you said. I agree with you. I think most people do spend some money on the games they play. Some à la carte players pay more than subscribers...
every F2P game I am currently playing I spend my money on. So, that makes me a paying customer. Im sure it isnt a reach for some of you to grasp that I am not the only F2P gamer out there that drops my fair share of $$$ in said cash shops. Sorry to have to point out the painfully obvious but for some people its kinda needed.
FREE PLAYERS SPEND MONEY IN CASH SHOPS. make sense ? good.
You are not a free player if you spend money in the cash shop. You are just paying à la carte.
fair enough. then why do we keep seeing threads and polls and rants about Free Players who spend not a penny in the cash shops, when it is most likely less then 1% of the playerbase ? In a way you reinforced my original point even more.
less than 1% ....are you kidding ? Maybe in older pay to win games where the freeloaders have all moved on, but in the newer ones that sell mostly cosmetic and boost items like tera. They make up the bigger portion and they complain about everything that cost money. That's the whole point of the thread.
They're everywhere and they're annoying and they make no secret of the fact that they will never spend a dime on the game. THAT is the type of person that this is about. You are just a typical customer that f2p is marketed at.
In Asia upwards of 10% may pay for a game. In the western markets, it is more like 5%. F2P developers/publisers realize that the vast majority of players are NEVER going to pay anything for the game. Because they except that, they cater to the 5-10% that are going to pay, and provide them with the goods and services that will cover the cost of the game.
Feedback from free players is just general feedback on the game. It has merit, but may not have relevance. Feedback from the paying players has relevance, as they are the lifeblood of the game. Free players are needed to provide the MMO atmosphere and content that draws the paying players. The more active and engaged free players you have, the more likely you are to draw in those paying players.
Life is never going to be fair for the free players. The paying players will always have it better (that is what they are paying for). Complaints about this imbalance may be valid, but they are not really relavant. They only become relevant when the imbalance becomes too large and it causes a decrease in the free players (which will eventually cause a decrease in the paying players).
A good F2P game keeps the game imbalanced just enough to justify the money that the paying players are spending, but not enough to drive away the free players.
Free players just like free people don't have the right to complain about anything. So you're correct.
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There is alot of prejudice on this site towards f2p games and their players.....Its almsot as if people who pay to play MMOs have an elitist attitude and feel they are entitled while players who don't pay are crap and unworthy of being human beings.....It is just a reflection of society where people who think that those who have money are great and admired while those who don't are scum.
Comments
+1
you've earned your avatar sir -salutes-
Also to reduce the debate to absurdity (the debate over if you can complain about something which is free or not) I posit the following question:
If you were starving, you went to someone asked for food but had nothing to give them, and they come back with a plate full of their own shit would you A) not complain and eat the shit? or
complain and tell everyone about their behaviour so in future no one else suffers such a event?
I nervously hope that this post is a subtle joke about American stereotypes.
Hmmm, do you live in the US? Yeah they have the right, technically, to their freedom of speech to complain.....Whether anyone has
to heed their call another topic for another day.
Have you considered the possibility that when someone says "right to complain", they aren't mounting a constitutional challenge, but rather are asking whether people think those complaints should be given equal attention to the feedback of paying players?
About as true a statement as you will get on these forums.
I think the word "right" as in "you do/don't have the right to do something" is not really the correct word to use. I honetly don't know what the correct word is, but the "rights" an individual has is laid out by whatever country they live in not by forum commentors. If a forum allows open discussion on a topic regardless of who is subscribing to a game (like the forums at mmorpg.com) we have whatever rights the forum allows for discussion based on the TOS. So, based on the TOS of mmorpg.com we have the right to say pretty much whatever we want about a mmo wether we sub to it or not. If people don't like that, then they should either petition mmorpg.com to only allow those that have put money toward a game to duscuss it (good luck getting the logistics down on that one) or ignore them. Why do so many people around here want to prevent negative threads about games? These are not fan forums. They are not for the sole purpose of discussing why we like a game.
Unfortunately, not everyone has that right. Fortunately though, most do.
In that case, they should say "whether people think those complaints should be given equal attention to the feedback of paying players" instead of "Do free players have the right to ...".
Why should i guess all the possibility of how the OP could have miscommunicated?
Pretty much my sentiments on this issue. +1
Because telepathy has not yet been perfected?
Well said, nothing to add. :-))
And about as smart and wise statement as saying round circle is round.
No shit sherlocks!
This is not about valid criticism. It's about gamers getting something for free without giving anything back at all.
Except:
- their presence which is there for purely egoistical reasons anyway, which is personal fun.
- complaints
Yes, complaints MAY or MAY NOT be valid. Again, this is not really about certain complaints being valid or not.
This is about ethics and morality.
A gamer that ONLY takes and never gives back is esentialy a leecher. I hope you guys realise if everyone on this world would only take there would soon be nothing left.
If the only thing someone is able to give back is complaints than I can with certainty claim they don't have the right to do it. They are only doing it to gain more for themselves anyway.
So there we go, it's immoral to do it.
Will people still do it? Of course! People are immoral, they don't give a shit about things like this, especialy when under safety of internet immunity.
That said, smart developers will still be able to pull the best out of it and weed out the good from the bad.
Excuse my rather inflated example, I am not trying to equalise murder with complaining, just want to make a clear example (refer to my previous post why I think complaints in this case are immoral):
By your logic I have the right to kill someone but I don't have the right to expect to be free and to not sit in jail?
Free speech? Don't make me lol. Saying this on heavily moderated forums definitely sounds special. Get out of that fairy tail you live in guys.
Yes, of course.
However, one should clearly understand the difference between technical issues (where all players are equal: lag/bug affects everyone), proposals (where only logic should rule, keeping in mind that company should get profit) and just screaming ("gimme shiny horse for free!", "make anything free!"). Screaming should not be heared, no matter who screams, paying or free customer.
Topic "f2p get what they deserve" - is a matter of another discussion. As one forum says - "you get what you pay for". What comes in mind – my two played games: Istaria and Lord of the rings online. Both have restrictions for free-players, but both are willing to hear free ones like me.
After all, free player may become paying customer - but only if he is heared. If he's ignored, he may just move to another mmorpg.
http://www.mmoblogg.wordpress.com
Seems to me a lot of people are living in some fantasy world where they are the center of the universe and where their opinions are really important, even when it comes to such meaningless things as computer games. I literally laughed out loud when people in this thread started drawing parallells to starvation, air pollution and presidential elections; what the hell does that has to do with entitled brats whining because they don't get enough free entertainment? Get out of your bubbles guys.
The ftp trend has brought this stupid idea into people's minds that games "need" freeloaders. They don't. They need paying customers, and you only matter as long as you're willing to pull out your credit card.
A paying customer in law has more rights than a non paying one in fact a non paying member of the public has what I can think of as only accident liability while on the premsis.
Its called free speech.
Its a human right, thus a birthright of everyone.
So yeah, everyone has the right to complain. About anything.
And if a company wants a f2p player to pay for their services, they would probably want to listen about complains and check out if these complains are reasonable.
Gotta ask... how many times were you dropped on your head as an infant? Morality has nothing to do with the discussion but just to nail you to the cross with your own words: Players are content, an MMO without players not matter how fun and innovative is a ghost town no one will likely play because running around in a large open world in a social game where no one else is around is something few people do and most of whom I'd strongly suggest psychiatric help to. So as a free player you have every right to bitch, moan and complain when you have valid reasons to as much as those who sub or pay for the game via microstransactions, why? Because you are one of the reasons why the people who pay the devs do so (you being a part of a community and contributing, for good or ill, to the general feel of said community).
Just a few examples for the Hell of it:
DDO without a large community would present no reason for you as a free player to invest money into the game because the content offered for free is more than enough but once you get friends and wanna start doing runs through dungeons which need content pack purchases... well then you start considering it.
World of Tanks without a massive community would have no drive to be number 1 or at least close to nr 1, why? because in a limited group of people competition is gonna be understandbly lax but with the millions already playing it a new or even veteran player such as me feels the need to get an edge in-game or to get that next tank a little bit faster so you can be the guy who saves the day for a team .
Star Trek Online without a decent sized community would have no reason for guilds ergo most of the C-store stuff would go unused.
Path of Exile without a fierce and competitive community would have no reason for players to want to feel unique ergo buy more cosmetics items to make themselves stand out amongst the crowd.
If common sense was actually common I wonder what we'd call it.
this and this i agree completely..
I love how subscribers that hate f2p think their voices are always heard by devs.... then cry when the game never get better or instead ironically end up with free model to survive.
I have no idea what percentage of players totally free players form. I think it is very hard to judge in most games who has paid something or who has subscribed. I have noticed though, at least from my time in ToR and EQ2, that most players pay something by the time they hit 3/5 of the leveling process.
Anyhow, I was not disputing anything you said. I agree with you. I think most people do spend some money on the games they play. Some à la carte players pay more than subscribers...
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
In Asia upwards of 10% may pay for a game. In the western markets, it is more like 5%. F2P developers/publisers realize that the vast majority of players are NEVER going to pay anything for the game. Because they except that, they cater to the 5-10% that are going to pay, and provide them with the goods and services that will cover the cost of the game.
Feedback from free players is just general feedback on the game. It has merit, but may not have relevance. Feedback from the paying players has relevance, as they are the lifeblood of the game. Free players are needed to provide the MMO atmosphere and content that draws the paying players. The more active and engaged free players you have, the more likely you are to draw in those paying players.
Life is never going to be fair for the free players. The paying players will always have it better (that is what they are paying for). Complaints about this imbalance may be valid, but they are not really relavant. They only become relevant when the imbalance becomes too large and it causes a decrease in the free players (which will eventually cause a decrease in the paying players).
A good F2P game keeps the game imbalanced just enough to justify the money that the paying players are spending, but not enough to drive away the free players.
Free players just like free people don't have the right to complain about anything. So you're correct.
This message is brought to you by your friendly and benevolent leader.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED