F2P article and my thoughts on Jade Dynasty.

reanor

Hmm, interesting thoughts. Good article. Not sure about developers switching to F2P mode as a way to attract more players or just a last straw before the closing of the project. What I am sure about is that F2P games were popular 1-2 years ago on the western market and this year especially. There has been at least 5 new F2P games released and I would say that Jade Dynasty will hold the top and will steadily grow and most likely outgrow Runes of magic and Atlantica Online.

There are people who deeply hate F2P games because of their Item Malls. And there are others who actually like to play those games specifically because of the Item Mall. Some players like to have an upper hand in PvP by spending hundreds of dollars, others like to just enjoy the PvE part of the game while remain casual and not pushing themselves too much thanks to Item Mall again.

What I've noticed is that formula of success for F2P games is reasonable prices on Item Mall and challenging environment for those who play for free. I want to use Jade Dynasty again as an example and I think between the last 4 F2P games I've played JD has reached that golden solution that allows to keep players engaged on the daily basis. A bit steep learning curve that may throw off the balance a regular WoW player who used to be 'taught' everything but game still has a lot of options and things to do. I think that somewhat challenging learning curve actually attracts players in their late teens and leaves behind the main WOW playerbase.

Any of these F2P games I've played for the last 2 years I can tell you without a doubt that there will be more of them and competition will be pretty big. Not all, but some games make really serious steps to make the product attractive and very appealing to the casual players with some extra buck in their wallets. JD is still in "Open Beta" (well they better fix all the bugs and finish the game and finally release it) and there are already tons of people. I mean TONS, on the daily basis. Especially on the weekends all the realms are full. Sometimes game feels a bit too small for all the people and their "vending monkeys" around. Will it continue like this? It depends of course. PWI better work on this game hard if they want people to stay. Maybe after "leveling marathon" is over a lot of kids will leave, but nobody knows anything much about end game content yet. People are getting close to level 90 and devs only now are talking about putting in the content. Thats what rumors are about at least.

dragulea

You know (talking in general, not as a specific reply targeted at the OP), IMO it's strange that P2P fans diss the F2P + cash shop games so much because paying a weekly/monthly fee won't grant you instant success and the valuable items (such as powerful or unique armos or weapons) will still be sold between players for a ton of cash (and frequently real cash) in these P2P games. They act like something is wrong with the cash system, but I don't understand why they keep playing such games if they don't like 'em (nor why they'd be interested in such MMOs in the 1st place).
The F2P MMOs do give the player a choice: you can play the game and decide later on whether you wanna keep playing and start buying cash shop items, or you can move to a different game - but in this case you'd still be in advantage, 'cause playing that game for a while didn't cost you a dime. Sure, usually the cash shop users have an advantage, but it's one well paid with real cash so as long as you're not willing to do the same financial effort as them I don't understand why you'd be pissed about it

Now back to the topic: I've played a few good MMOs during the last few years. Some were realy good content wise. And yet after a while some went dead. Like I've said, the conent was good enough to keep ppl hooked so why those failed to attract new players and keep their loyal veterans? Well it was the publisher that put the gun to the MMOs' head and pulled the trigger. You see, IMO it's useless to have a good team of devs to produce a good and entertaining game if you're gonna handle the bussiness to a bunch of ignorant and greedy publishers. It's usually the publiser's fault for not being open enough and attentive enough to pll's complaints and also the responsible for forcing ppl to leave by overpricing the cash shop items or intentionally altering game content in order to force ppl to start using the cash shop (in most cases this means altering the crafting/refining success rate, altering char stats to make them buy special pots or gear enhancement items, and so on).
Now for once JD's team struck gold: instead of ending up with a game full of botters and gold traders, they've found a way to get rid of such pests (that you normally find in any MMO and especially in the asian ones). They've implemented the esper system that makes botting obsolete, lowered the mob gold drops & item drops, gave the high lvl players a purpose and advantage for powerleveling lowbies, but most important, they introduced the jaden trade system which allowes players to buy the coins for the cash shop only with game gold, and not real money - so they'd still be competitive. And funny thing, it works! I was able to buy any cash shop item I wanted (including several mounts, pets, fashion outfits, etc) without spending my real cash which to me was the most important aspect. And once you reach higher lvl maps and get the hang of the daily events, you'll make enough money wo but such items

personalbiz

Interesting discussion.  I also don't quite get the debate between subscription-based games and free-to-play games.  For subscription-based games, gamers can always trade virtual items for real money (and they often do).  I've heard about gold farms (in Asia) whose sole purpose is to accumulate virtual items for sale.  So what's the difference between FTP games and subscription-based games?

The main reason some people hate FTP games is probably game balance as you both pointed out.  Some FTP games probably don't have good balance.  I think gamers will leave those games after a while (as those games will likely be dominated by players with the deepest pocket).  The ones that last would be FTP games with good balance. 

The reason I really like FTP is that it provides us gamers a choice to pay or not.  I as a gamer can choose to pay or not.  With so much free entertainment on the Internet, why should I pay for online gaming?  However, just like other forms of entertainment, online gaming can and probably should charge for premium content as the devs need to be paid.  I am willing to pay for premium content such as some virtual items in online games if I like the game.  FTP is particularly attractive under the current tough economic environment.

I'd venture to say that, with the exception of blockbuster titles such as World of Warcraft and some sort of platform where you can play multiple games with a subscription, most online games will be FTP in the future.  We'll see how Jade Dynasty does.  I am hopeful that Jade Dynasty as a FTP game will last.

My 2 cents.

reanor

I think that bigger companies will still use Pay to Play formula as a way to accumulate the funds for further game support and additional game content like expansions etc. It seems that companies that develop better promoted games with aggressive marketing campaign on US market have a bigger budget that allows them to better develop their games in the first place and attract more potential players with their advertising and promotions. Those games are usually better developed and "polished", with more complex content then just a stream line of quests to grind the mobs, they usually target wide audience of players to get as many subscriptions as possible in the first place, so even if someone buys a boxed version of their game there is a big chance that they will pay at least for 1 month subscription until they get to the point where grind becomes an issue and start looking for another game.

F2P games on the other hand they are all built on the concept of grind. As many F2P I've played as most of them had nothing else much to do but grind or PvP which was pretty basic as well. And the whole game consisted of getting to higher levels to get better gear so that you can PvP against higher level players. In other words - race for a few first places on the leader boards either they are present or imagined. The only attractive point in those games were always Item Malls that gave you some kind of an advantage against other players if you PvPed or agaisnt the "time" if you did casual PvE. Latest games, however, seem to be much better developed, probably the popularity of F2P games on the western market attracted bigger investors to the Asian gaming market.

3 recent F2P games in my opinion have brought pretty interesting content within itself. Atlantica Online is literally a huge game. You get consumed by the size of maps, instances etc. Their battle mode - tactical turn based combat has attracted a lot of people who lovs RPG games on gaming consoles, those are usually turn based too, like a Final Fantasy series on Playstation. Atlantica Online also have a great system of mercenaries that you can hire and develop. There is a good choice of mercenaries that you can chose from to develop your "perfect" build. And a PvP mode called Free League allows stress free turn-based combat, you can even do almost fully automatic combats and develop your mercenaries specific to auto-mode skills.

The problem with Atlantica is their Item Mall. They have a system based purely on gambling. On a regular basis they release a new Item Box that contains 16 different items and only 1-2 of those items present any real interest, like a new mount, etc. Some people have spent thousands of dollars during only a few months while being dragged by this system, others spend thousands of dollars to develop their "formation" group of mercenaries as high as money allows, since you can improve quality of your equipment to up to +10. Failures even with the enchanting crystals from the Item Mall however make some people to pay small fortunes that would give them few years of play time in P2P games. Also every box costs 10$, its just crazy expensive with the very little success chance of getting say that new mount of the box with other 16 items. Some people spent 400$ to finally get a "lucky" roll for that mount out of the box, which I think has a questionable "random number generator". It felt at least to me based on the feedback that players have to spend 300$-400$ at least before they get "lucky" roll. Can't be proven of course. Then again others got what they wanted on a 2nd or 3rd box. But still even if its only 5 boxes - that 50$ worse of junk that will yield in game maybe few hundred thousand gold. No wonder gold sellers prosper in games like that since you can get 1 million gold for just 5$,

Runes of Magic is another example of a pretty well adopted by US gamers P2P game which has very good support and Item Mall of course. Prices on their Item Mall are pretty high too, but comparing to the Atlantica you can actually get a mount without gambling for around 15$. And they have good promotions such as 50% bonus when you buy crystals that can be later exchanged to a local Item Mall currency. Without promotions though their prices are quite steep too.

Jade Dynasty captured my attention most of all and I focused my choise on it until recently. Game is very beautiful. There are quite a few events that you can participate on a daily basis based on your character level. So you won't be mindlessly grinding your sanity out of your daily life by doing dumb quests like in previous 2 games. Quests are enjoyable and challenging. Game doesnt have any guide or tutorial so it will be fun to spend first 10-20 levels simply learning the game. But as any other F2P game or any other P2P game in fact its all about play style. Casual folks usually prefer to spend some hard earned dollar to get some items from the Marketplace that makes life a bit easier. Events yield a lot of exp and if you do them on a daily basis you level up pretty fast. I think it took only about 1.5 months, or even less than that for some people to get to level 150.

Game offers a different kind of fun, starting from doing quests and ending with PvP battle grounds. So whatever your preferences are PvP, or PvE - its still fun in JD. I have played it for a while and about level 99, not really rushing anywhere, game has everything you need for casual style - you can even legally "bot" in there. Invigorate feature of your esper weapon allows you to fight enemies while you sleep, eat, watch movies. In other words taking everything in account its probably the most casual friendly game I've ever played. You can actually level there without even touching a keyboard or logging into the game - Dream Scrolls from Item Mall will do it for you. Doing events, however, on a daily basis will make leveling faster, smoother and more fun of course. Another fun thing in JD is a pet system.

You can actually grow pets and change their shape when they reach certain level. When pets mature their abilities strengths increase and they become bigger after shape change process. The best thing for casuals is a very affordable Marketplace (JD Item Mall) in JD. You can by a mount for 20$, it sounds pricier than in RoM but overall you still save more money on day to day items. And no gold sellers. JD has a banker where you can exchange in game currency against the Marketplace currency. Also it seems that banker balances the in-game economy. If someone wants to buy something from marketplace for gold from other players they are being charged based on that exchange rate that is currently on the banker. I think its about 25 gold per Jaden right now, which equals 25 in game gold per US dollar.

JD however offers numerous ways for people with a lot of time on their hands to make ingame gold. You can make literally thousands of gold in about a month of game play. You can either exchange them for marketplace currency on banker and buy what you want or just find someone who maybe selling things a bit lower. JD does have gambling boxes from time to time as well, which may not be as fun as it seems, but those boxes cost 10x times cheaper and bring into the game other useful and VERY valuable items like - beens which you can't really improve your pet without. Devs mentioned that those boxes contain items that will be in the game in some future updates. They do add mounts without boxes as well.

Phew.. I wrote a lot . Had a little break at work. But overall I hope I've covered some points and concernes raised in this thread.Hope that game descriptions will help people to make a right choice.

personalbiz

Wow, that's quite some thoughts!  I think PWE or some gaming company should make you an offer.  Then you can play games for a living...

I think you made an excellent case for Jade Dynasty and the free-to-play model.  Interesting point on better support and expansions of subscription based games (than FTPgames).  I think that might be true for most FTP games in US right now.  What I heard from some of my Chinese friends is that most online games there are FTP with the same level of support and content update.  China is supposedly ahead of US in online gaming even though they don't have such global titles as World of Warcraft.  Their argument is that, pay to play or FTP, gamers have other choices if your services or content updates are not on par.  So by gamer selection and competition, the games that last (and profitable) are the ones with good service and content, regardless of pay-to-play or FTP.  My Chinese friends told me that, on average, there is one new game per day in China.  That's insane, but just shows you how much competition there is in China.

Competition in online gaming is probably gonna get fierce as we had (and still have) Japanese games and Korean games besides US games.  Now we have games developed in China.  Recent history seems to suggest that price for anything made in China is likely to drop.  As a gamer, I am all in for that.  A friend who went to E3 this year told me that Perfect World Entertainment made a big statement there to show their commitment to the US market.  PWE supposedly invested in Runic Games to co-develop Torchlight Online.  The Runic team seems to be quite impressive (http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/)  with guys who worked on Diablo 2 and Mythos.  Hopefully more competition will sort out the games, forcing the publishers to provide greater services and content, but that might take time as the FTP model seems to be quite nascent here.

That said, we'll see how often PWE updates JD.  I like JD in its current form, but just like you, I feel localization is not 100% complete even though it might be 90-95% there.  Maybe that's why JD only has a 7.7 rating.  I thought it deserved a 8.2+.

Oh, one more point for FTP, casual gamers like me have more flexibility in when to play the game.  Under a subscription model, I just feel that I wasted my money if I don't play the game for a month or two (as I might be playing other games).

reanor

Localization is not complete thats for sure. Some NPCs, like an unknown scholar in Sunstream still have some text that hasn't been translated to english. To be honest, at this point, the way things are and how games are developed I do like games developed by major US developers better. They just seem more completed and not so directly based on grind. Asian games are fun to play a bit for a variety, especially for me who can't saty "attached" to one single game for more than 1-2 months and gets bored easily. The only exception so far was EQ2 and LOTRO with LOTRO going on 2.5+ years. And then again I need my breaks, sometimes they last up to a month.

There are of course some games that don't deserve to be released but then again as you've mentioned everyone now is rushing their product due to a constantly increasing competition. I understand China, they have probably 3 times as many people as live in US, but 1 game every day? Maybe they mean every single game released. Can't be an MMO every day .

To be honest I like P2P formula better, even though now and then I play some F2P game and even spend some money. Whats good in P2P - you pay 15$ a month and you know that you won't be wasting any more money. In F2P games sometimes you get driven by this feeling that there are so many cool items on the Item Mall and its ok if you spend another 50$, since you use money for yourself etc, but in the end you spend a lot more money comparing to those 15$ that you've paid for a whole month of entertainment in P2P. Or like in case of LOTRO. A lot of people at this point are already playing for free. They've paid their 199$-250$ as a life subscription when the option was available and now after 2 years its a free game for them. But that only should be done if you 100% sure that you'll play the game for so long. Both my wife and I been playing LOTRO since Closed Beta 2 and still playing it on quite a regular basis. With breaks for me of course.

I am looking forward to a new Bioware MMORPG - Star Wars: The Old Republic. I love StarWars same way I do Lord of the Rings and am quite excited about that new MMORPG planned to release in 2010.

Also personally for me I like P2P better because they keep me from wasting more than 15$ a month, while if I play F2P If game is new I can end up spending 100$ in a single month. You know 50$ here, 50$ there... Seems like not a big deal to spend 50$ off of each paycheck. But comparing to P2P games 100$ equals more than 6 months of play.

personalbiz

Fair enough.  I think this free-to-play and pay-to-play thing might be personal preference and there is no reason why they can't co-exist.

By the way, I just noticed that ZAM did a comprehensive review of Perfect World International, the 1st FTP 3D game PWE launched in the US, at  http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=19485 .  I thought it was a pretty compelling, objective piece.  It also has an interesting discussion on FTP vs. P2P.  Hopefully ZAM will do a systematic review of Jade Dynasty.  I personally like JD more.