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Why pay every month if you can play free
Larry2298
Member Posts: 865
I have been playing MMORPG since Acheron's Call 2, Final Fantasy, EQ2, WOW, and the last was LOTRO. When I quit LOTRO I supposed to wait for Age of Conan, but there was a period of time without game. Then the first time that I took a closer look on MMORPG website, I noticed that there are so many FREE MMORPGs available, yeah, those games are selling actually certain in-game treasures or other stuffs. But what the heck, it's free. And in the end, I can't take my uber armor set, daggers with me when I quit WOW or sell my WOW account for money.
The first free game is full of bugs which guides me why the game is free. So I browse MMORPG website again and download another game, and this one I am playing now (Cabal Online) seems have good quality and more like a functional game. Graphics are much better than the 9D. But their core design are different from those paid game.The main differences between them are free games do not have or not good enough group instances, and free game usually designed with skill levels makes you to train skill levels which is the most boring part in game. But grinding is the common thing between paid or free game.
Anyway, those FREE games are improved more and more, so who is going to pay monthly to play a online game? Now, I am playing Cabal online, so I do not think I am going to buy Age of Conan in next month. Because I think if you play one game for about 7-12 months then it is about time to change to another new game for continuously online entertainment.
Comments
graphics in general suck, game play in general suck and you end up paying more when you get hocked to the game ( cash shop items) and they are a extremely boring grinds. ad rather pay monthly for a quality game which people cant cheat to the top with cash shop items.
I think that if someone is just looking for something to keep them busy, then free MMOs are a great option if you can get past translation issues, buggy play and/or dated game play. By dated game play I mean that many free games seem to be just translated versions of Korean games from several years ago. They also appear to be just simple grinding with little or no sense of belonging to an overall community.
I have tried many free MMOs (admittedly for only a couple of weeks at a time) and experienced the same with each: towns full of player "shops" with large amounts of spam, overly populated starting areas, sparsly populated later areas. I joined groups but it was pretty much just to make grinding faster and those were far between due to most invites being just group invite pop ups with no conversation beforehand, this is just a personal pet peeve of mine. And of course there is the "free play" model that sells the players the ability to get and use the better items in the game. Which accomplishes two things to me, it trivializes the work you put into a character when someone just buys there way up, or even worse makes you a second class citizen because you can never equip the better items and therefore will never reach your full potential unless you shell out the cash for it.
This being said, I have played MMOs that do truly shine. An example is Anarchy Online, the free version of that is a fully complete retail experience with the only limitation is being limited to the original content. The game still runs into some of issues above but it was just much more tolerable for me. I am not a big fan of sci-fi or sci-fantasy but the game is well worth a look.
In closing I think you get what you pay for and in retail pay MMOs, you are paying for polish and continuous improvement. There is also a better chance to find a good sense of community in a more mainstream game just because there is a much larger player base.
The first free game I have play really makes me feel being cheated. The game is full of bugs. I cant imagine when they solved a bug but create another two bugs in the meantime. But the second game I have downloaded to play now is much less bugs. One thing about the in game coins, you do not have to buy them. Usually, it cost you more money if you bought the in game items compare with monthly subscription fee.
But think of that, what will be the population started to play free game if free game gain more quality.
I do not mind to pay monthly fee to play a game, but when I read in the forum that Warhammer is just a big BG of WOW then it stop me to think about that. Age of Conan seems to be the only choice I could have at the moment. When you browse AOC website then you are required to confirm your age somehow makes me feel like I am about to browse a porn website. Hopefully it's also a porn game.
Community is usually better on Monthly Sub games.
Free(Item mall) games always make me feel like all the other players are botters.
The Anti Social Gamer
Some of us feel that RMT and microtransactions are an abomination to the MMOG genre and defeat the purpose of playing in a virtual world.
Normally (although this has started to change) F2P games never have mutch quality. They are basic, bad graphics, poor gameplay, lots of bugs, lack of features, untill recently almost every single one of them was an asian grind fest. But like i said this is starting to change. But still not that many with a good quality out there.
Second, and for me the most important, and something you problably cant understand untill you meet certain conditions, is:
the "mall" system. In theroy seems nice, you play for free, but can drop a few $ every now and then on some item, it all seems perfect... untill, you find a game that sells more then just 'costumes', flowers, pets, cool items like fireworks... and sells something that either is VERY good gear, or something to make the gear you already have, better.
What? you must think, whats the diference... the diference is for you to play, normally, lets say you even slap a few $ on the mall every now and then, but suddently the guy next to you just spent 1000 dollars on items, making him have such a stupidly imba gear compared to others, it's not funny anymore.
Ok, so the guy has the right to use his money has he see fit... and he does, because in the next week he slaps 1000$ more on the mall, making him have even more stupidly crazy gear. Well, ok, he is paying for the server, you think... and he is, because the week after that he spends ANTOHER 1000 dollars on gear...
You know what? That is a true story, i've seen it, on the very last weeks i played F2P games seriously.
Now, every game that comes out, i can try it, i can even play it some, but sure as hell wont take it serious.
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Senhores da Guerra
LOL. Guys, open your eyes and stop dreaming. If you still don't get it search the web for "mmo online gold".
At least the cash shops are a fair system for everyone, those who want to use it can use it and those who don't want to don't have to. At least nobody is cheating anyone, and thanks to the people who spend cash in the shops the others can play for free.
IM currently working on an article about F2P games and how they are not so "Free". However, I will add that in my experience F2P games generally lack the depth provided in a more mainstream game. Quests and storeyline are not as well thought out, etc.
Also, every F2P game Ive tried (with very few exceptions) I get the " I did this before" feeling. Although this is also true of Some P2P games, Its not so strong
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Thanks to you... and people like you, that's why the gold selling exist.
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
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Senhores da Guerra
Except that most Pay MMO's are designed so that everyone can have fun equally...and most Free ones are designed around giving everyone fun for the first handful of levels, and then only allowing paying members to enjoy the game without devoting 5000 hours to playing catch up. That assumes the game even allows you TO catch up. Many do not, and leave the free players floundering. Silk Road even goes so far as to NOT improve their servers in an effort to force you to buy their gold tickets. Gold tickets cost 15-20$ a month and are the only way to ensure you can EVER log on.
RMT is not a bad ideal. The problem is that companies abuse it, and create a situation that forces the use of them...which in turn forces players to pay as much money on a free game as they would a super polished AAA game like WoW. It is wrong, and its exploitation on a base level.
Well theres a lot of private servers from popular games coff*wow*coff with 3k population and slighter higher rates so you can enjoy stuff faster without having to put up the enourmous amount of time you had if you were playing in a oficial server.
Infact there was some kind of a fuss over a certain server, since in 1 year time it made a profit of over 40k dollars, when the emulator software was supose to be 'free to use and free to play'.
Also, most of those people have no idea what "balance" means, and make 'costum gear' that is pathetic.
Ok, its fun to 1 hit kill any Boss, anywhere... for 5 minutes... then what? That's it.
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Senhores da Guerra
Thanks to you... and people like you, that's why the gold selling exist.
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
So now you are assuming that I am purchasing online gold ? As I said dude, you really need to open your eyes...
Until F2P games are on the same level as P2P games I doubt I will make the switch. I've tried 2Moons, Cabal, Rappelz, and a bunch of other crap I can't remember right now. None of them seemed like the effort put into leveling would be worth it.
I've done my more then fair share against gold selling/buying... what have you done?
And about the "open your eyes" bit... 4 months after WoW was launched in EU i was selling gold/accounts.
(yes, it sounds against my own words above, but in the all, isnt... i 'could' give more details, but it's about illegal activities...)
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Senhores da Guerra
Infact there was some kind of a fuss over a certain server, since in 1 year time it made a profit of over 40k dollars, when the emulator software was supose to be 'free to use and free to play'.
Also, most of those people have no idea what "balance" means, and make 'costum gear' that is pathetic.
Ok, its fun to 1 hit kill any Boss, anywhere... for 5 minutes... then what? That's it.
Not all servers are like that, those are called "Fun Servers" isntant lvl 70 bla bla , those are fun for like 1 hour, im talking about servers trying to emulate Blizzard but with less grind time needed, ofc theres donators cause servers dont run for free, but normaly its still preety fun.
Sorry to break your little world but wow wasnt the first mmorpg... and wow HAD NOTHING NEW IN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Every thing wow had HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE. so now tell me. why do you believe the words of someone who will lie to you?
That's what they call a stupid question. Because a P2P game in generally has more content:quests, monsters, NPCs, etc.. P2P games have a more mature community aswell.
I dislike everything about typical F2P games.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
You get what you pay for.
I like change but I can only afford to pay for one game a month. So, I pay for LoTRO because I love Tolkien as well as the full immersive atmosphere of the game and the community which is (for the most part) fairly mature.
When I want something different, I go after a F2P game. I put up with a lot of nOOb talk and immature people in the community for the novelty of a different kind of game with a different type of graphics. (Cabal Online is one of the free games I like very much). However, when I get tired of the massive grind, I go back to LoTRO where at least the grinds included quests and there is plenty of country to explore that looks different then all the rest as well as a fair amount of difference in what the mobs look like.
So I like both, F2P because its nice not to pay when i just want a break and P2P because they have better and more complete systems and better communities.
I play pay-to-play because a subscription keeps the players in the game serious, so to speak. People playing the game should be in it for serious competition, not just so they can post ASCII art of phalli in the chat.
Also, to an extent, requiring credit card payment keeps the playerbase mature; the game won't be filled with an abundance of 13 yearolds who just picked the game up from Walmart. There will be the odd one who stole their parents credit card, but they can be easily blocked.
I also want to play a game that I know it going to continue to be updated, that I know offers support to its players. If you are paying, then the company should be able to do this. If it's free, you get what you pay for and have no right to complain about the (lack of) content.
Overall, when I play an MMO I want a really good game that I can immerse myself heavily in. If I have to throw $15 a month at the game company to make that happen, so be it.
My first F2P was 9Dragons, not to mention about the game qaulity here but the game selling premium service so you can chat on one channel, however, you paid to the word you have type, after a handful of words then you need to buy the service again. The best thing about that game was the censorship, which I think why China capable to control and censor the whole China internet. ie, the game censored many words such as <ass>. So if your chat contains ass then it will covered by xxx, I never realize that the word like <passage> will be censored to pxxxxxx, and considered <lick> is sexual relevant word so <Click> will also censored to cxxxx. So why peoepl still want to pay.
Another game, Cabal Online, which has much better quality, the game is also funny. You pay to get premium service so you can punch dummy to increase your skill level and you can do it on AFK. Why people paying a game to hit on a dummy?
As other said already that F2P lack of in-depth contents but still a lot of people paid for premium service anyway and I have counted once that if you are rely on buying premium service in a continuous basis to play then it will cost you a fortune in the end and it could be few times more expensive than playing on a paid game.
I think F2P game could be profitable business in another way. It's curious to know what is F2P strategy on the market.
I'm just looking for a good MMO to play, free or otherwise. I have to say that I was surprised to find out that Requiem (playrequiem.com) was going to be free. Lots of people think that it's the way all mmo's will be run in the future...