not only people who plays 5-8 hours, many other people also despises it.
Okay, the game is free to play, but... this has really great disvantages.
Because it's free, you usually gain less exp, can obtain worse weapons and have less chance to those that pays money for items, so... if everyone pays a monthly fee for playing, everyone will have equal chances, and the game experience is way better, your exp doesn't get nerfed to make you buy exp + items, and you can obtain every weapon by yourself.
not only people who plays 5-8 hours, many other people also despises it.
Okay, the game is free to play, but... this has really great disvantages. Because it's free, you usually gain less exp, can obtain worse weapons and have less chance to those that pays money for items, so... if everyone pays a monthly fee for playing, everyone will have equal chances, and the game experience is way better, your exp doesn't get nerfed to make you buy exp + items, and you can obtain every weapon by yourself.
Erm - since when does monthly fee mean equal playing ground ? Those that can play more get more right?
Equal playing ground would be - you pay a sub for 24 hours per month and ALL play 24 hours per month.
And since when is an MMO played over the internet a game based on equal grounds? You do know that distance from the server is the MAIN factor in determining the quality of gameplay? Specially in those more "challenging" P2P including raids and high end PVP. Do ppl not pay extra for better computers and more bandwhith ?
Have you ever wonder why majority of good PVP groups are less than 500 miles from the servers ? Ever wonder why there is no top 5 PVP group coming from Iceland ? And you talk about equal playing grounds? Seriously ?
I have to admit I use to smirk at F2P games until I gave PWI a try, I found it to be surprisingly fun....I think people should not be turned off just because a game has a different income method than the traditional subscription based game. F2p games are evolving just like other types of MMO's.
This sword here at my side dont act the way it should Keeps calling me its master, but I feel like its slave Hauling me faster and faster to an early, early grave And it howls! it howls like hell!
Good and fair question. The answer is also pretty simple. The ppl that despite Free2play games are those that play MMOs 5-8 hours per day and have no job - no life and couldn't handle other players beeing allowed to enjoy a game without same amount of playing time. In other words. They are loosers - and loud mouths that have plenty of time to talk on forums on why they despise F2P games. Many of the better F2P games out today are actually really good but could spend more time on polishing and preventing bots and cheaters. Micropayments are actually quite good in my sence cause that way NORMAL ppl can buy "time" to enjoy a game while the LOSERS of real life spend their 5-10 hours on P2P.
Just like people that like Free to play games are uncoordinated, skilless losers that can't be good at a game unless they pull out their wallets and pay for the best of everything so that they can stroke their e-peen by being better than everyone simply because they have more money and can afford to?
Anyways, I don't despise free to play, I just avoid it. For me, the entire point of a game is to actually play the game, and earn stuff based on playing it. Microtransactions and cash shops eliminate the whole "playing" necessity, which seems really dumb to me. I don't think real world money should have any direct impact on in game events.
Now, I know free to play games need their income from somewhere, and that income is cash shops. That's fine with me, I just don't play them. On the other hand, big name companies that charge a subscription and offer a cash shop are just greedy, pure and simple. They are essentially removing things from the game that should come with the subscription, and then charging you to get them back. Anyone that supports that model, or companies that are doing it are complete idiots.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike Loved: Star Wars Galaxies Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
On a basic level it is because MMO veterans are tired of getting scammed by MMO companies. You play MMOs long enough and you will have a story of a MMO company breaking a promise, doing a bait-and-switch on a cool feature and generally making your gameplay experience less fun for the sake of making more money of you.
F2P by its very nature means that the company will have to entice you to spend actual money on the game. In a way they are like salesmen working on commission. They need to make a sale and the more desperate (or just plain greedy) they get, the more agressive their tactics will be. So we start of with a fundamental lack of trust where the customers expect the devs to 'trick' them out of their money.
ummm #5...how is that different with P2P games? How many times have you gone and bought a $50 box, with an unfinished product? Again, I play F2P games, all the time, I enjoy them, and I don't pay a dime. If anyone thinks that you have to pay, then you're missing the point of these games. I don't have to have the coolest n best gear. I don't need it. I don't need the cool looking accessories. And I don't want the power ups. None of those things are worth my money. I'm to old to try to be "cool". When I get into a game, whether its p2p or free, my whole goal is to have fun, meet people, and advance my character/story (in that order) I don't try to "win" because outside of pvp (which i don't do) there is no "winning" in MMORPG's. These games are about the sense of an adventure, not about the end of it.
Very true. All this crowd is doing by blindly dismissing F2P games as a whole (forget the fact that most of the reasons are purely myth and misinformation) is insuring that they never have input into the direction of these games as they have proven they are not a target market. Basically, they are disenfranchising themselves among MMO gamers.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
One huge difference between most Free to Play and Pay to Play games is customer service. On the few F2P games I played, customer service was so badly managed that most experienced players considered a player to be a 'newbie' unless they'd been punished by CS. When a game has rampant inconsistencies between stated policies and a staff that practice favoritism, personal objectives, and widely varying personal interpretations of the policies, there's a huge problem that has nothing to do with whether the game's income is based on an item mall or subscription.
I don't think that most people dispise F2P its just they prefer subscription based models because they percieve there being more vaule to them. If I'm between games and short on cash then I'll happily jump on a F2P game to pass the time, but most have a distinctly "free" feeling to them. The communities aren't usually very friendly (from my experience) and they usually quickly give up all pretense of being quest driven stories in favor of mindless grind sessions to unlock better gear.
Subscription based games simply have more options and, typically, a more regulated user base. I also dislike cash shops because if you want to really play for free you have to bypass a lot of customization options that are readily available to pay members so even if the items don't give a real advantage in game play I still get tired of looking exactly like everyone else who doesn't want to pay for better gear.
Like someone else mentioned, F2P can be a nice diversion, but if you want to find a game to really be part of then do yourself a favor and pay a monthly fee to have access to all the extras and service F2P are lacking.
if you dont pay you dont compete at the same level.
if i didnt want to compte against other players, i would play single player games. I want to compete with and against other people. At a flat rate everyone is garunteed a fair shot. In F2P if i dont spend money i always have some form of disadvantage. My real life wallet changes my level of enjoyment in my entertainment.
I dont care if people say im shallow, or that you shouldnt compare yourself to someone else. Its human nature to test, to see who is better, who is faster, who has learned quicker. Once someone can just plop a 50 down it takes out anything that resembles an even playing field.
You have a fair shot. Your dollar is just as mighty as the next guy's dollar. You compete not in time played, but in money.
I don't think that most people dispise F2P its just they prefer subscription based models because they percieve there being more vaule to them. If I'm between games and short on cash then I'll happily jump on a F2P game to pass the time, but most have a distinctly "free" feeling to them. The communities aren't usually very friendly (from my experience) and they usually quickly give up all pretense of being quest driven stories in favor of mindless grind sessions to unlock better gear.
Subscription based games simply have more options and, typically, a more regulated user base. I also dislike cash shops because if you want to really play for free you have to bypass a lot of customization options that are readily available to pay members so even if the items don't give a real advantage in game play I still get tired of looking exactly like everyone else who doesn't want to pay for better gear.
Like someone else mentioned, F2P can be a nice diversion, but if you want to find a game to really be part of then do yourself a favor and pay a monthly fee to have access to all the extras and service F2P are lacking.
I can agree with that. But lately there haven't been any P2P games worth my money. So I'll happily be enjoying SMT:Megaten, while I wait.
People despise FTP MMO's mainly cuz of two things and at least one of them is more often than not intuitive, that is to say they haven't really analysed it, they just sense that there is something terribly wrong with them.
1: A proper FTP MMO is built around the transactions that the company wants the players to make in order to make money. (And sometimes these transactions are very far from micro).
Most if not all mechanics are designed towards this purpose. And while all MMO's contain a certain level of design control with regards to what players do and how long they have to spend doing it to get results, a FTP is really just one giant mathematical equation that strictly controls every aspect of your playing in order to create viable models for revenues calculation and to successfully funnel as many players as possible into the transactions mall.
It goes without saying that this basis for game design is completely different than a design that mostly doesn't care about these things since it generates the same revenues from all players wether they do things this way or that way. The result is that a SUB MMO has a lot more freedom with regards to artistic integrity than a FTP.
Moreover, the transaction model creates a problem that a subscription model doesn't: Some people spend so much money on the game, they lose control of their personal finances. This is a moral aspect and may not mean much to some people but in my opinion one should always be on the lookout for excessive cynisism.
2: People feel that paying FTP customers can buy themselves to fame and power.
While the argument that some people make money and would rather pay to skip some grind and leave that to those with little money and more time holds some validity, things are not quite that simple. While many developers trying to ease us into this business model tells us that it's not a big deal, a fully fledged FTP will definately hold massive potential for what money can do for you and I'm afraid saving a little grind time or covering some cosmetical elements is only the beginning.
And who said only people with money can have the coolest looking gear? Didn't we play MMO's partly to escape these boundries? People don't play MMO's to be reminded of the same harsh reality that they have to deal with in everyday real life and the class divide and struggle can get awefully apparent in a FTP.
Still, of the 2 above arguments against FTP, I think the first one is the most important.
I despise them because they are too easy, not challenging. AND, if all the companies go down that road, I'll have no more MMOGs to play, which will make me very sad, as I love the massive multiplayer experience of gaming.
I apologize if I state anything already mentioned, but just my views on F2P.
I started my game life on an F2P MMO, RuneScape, so I owe F2P otherwise I would still be playing FPS 24/7.
But anyways, now-a-days most if not all F2P games out there have a built in "Cash Shop" function. These Cash-Shops have really stupid scale factors, you actually end up paying more for the company's cash than you would playing a subscription.
Another thing I dont like about F2P is the really horrible work that goes into making it. I can list atleast 10, possibly more, games off the top of my head that if analyzed fully could be considered exact copies of each other.
Just some things that ALOT of F2Ps have in common:
Character creation - Choose male/female, choose Face 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 (Sometimes they're alpabetical ;o), choose Hair style 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5
A really horrible, if any, tutorial for newbies or people who have never played an MMO in their life.
Class - (this is sometimes in character creation) at X level go to Y and do Z quest to achieve Q title. Either way its always that cheap heroic melee sword class, a magic user, an assassin or "dark arts" user, and sometimes a healer.
Click-and-Move - Seriously, at least 90% of the F2Ps I've played have been click and move, it's not entirely bad but that's like taking DO Online and adding better graphics then calling it Martial Heroes, it's only making every game the same.
Just some of the extremely common factors of F2P that have made me dislike F2P MMOs, I admit there are several good ones out and about but the vast majority are them are a company's excuse to get more money via cash shops.
and btw.. "free2play cashshpop to win right? well monthly is buy ingame currency to win." Not everyone buy's ingame currency.
Many of us don't "hate" F2P as a genre, we dislike it as a business model and do not wish to participate in it. We "hate" the degree to which advertisements for F2P spam everywhere and the degree to which certain authors here constantly shill for the F2P model.
We chose not to play most F2P games because they are old tech, low graphics quality pieces of junk. I have a high-end gaming PC for a reason and it's not to play junk that I could have played on a 10yr old computer.
Many of us also dislike the trend for most F2P released in the NA market to be barely rehashed retreads of older Asian F2P games.
to me its not different from monthly. free2play cashshpop to win right? well monthly is buy ingame currency to win. either way it is currupted on both model. im kindda laylow on mmo now. i mostly play psn and waiting for ff14 see how it do in ps3. hopfully console is less curruption.
so since both model is no difference.... runes of magic is pretty good.
ive only tried aa few F2P mmo's but they all seem to look terrible. It feels like some college kids who made a game in their garage over one summer.
and its never free either. the devs are asking for money to buy virtual items or the players are. either way it feels like my cruise to jamaica all over again where you get bombarded with people wanting to sell you anything the second you leave the boat
For me, even if the game were great and the premium options offered for the game were reasonable... It boils down to the players.
Subscriptions keep out a lot of the riff-raff, plain and simple. When the subscriptions aren't there, any ol' kid can get on there, and more often than not, those kids make you want to mute every chat channel within 5 minutes of playing. Heck, look at Guild Wars... No subscription there, just buy it and you're good to go... But that game has the -WORST- playerbase of any game I have ever played. I've rarely had good playerbase interactions in F2P games, but that's not to say I haven't played some that were actually pretty decent games. Granted, the ones that fall in that category had premium subscription options for full content, such as Dofus, but yeah... A poor playerbase is an immediate turn off on a game for me.
f2p are always grinders, gotta make the grind suck, and add time sinks. without these things there would be no need to sell cash shop items to remove them.
they all have a much lower quality feel as well.
plus endgame pvp with people who buy better pots, stat boosts, more protect scrolls to make better upgrade, ect....
f2p are always grinders, gotta make the grind suck, and add time sinks. without these things there would be no need to sell cash shop items to remove them. they all have a much lower quality feel as well. plus endgame pvp with people who buy better pots, stat boosts, more protect scrolls to make better upgrade, ect....
That's pretty much my biggest objection - the most obvious way of making a profit in an F2P game is making it a linear grinder that's fast at first and then painfully slow, or an endgame PvP game where you can't win without item shop stuff. Both of those designs are zero fun to me.
If an F2P game isn't designed that way then the MT item money has to come from elsewhere and I was thinking about how that's normally done and how it might be done better (at least for someone like me).
(I'll use "diamonds" to mean the in game currency bought with RL cash as opposed to "gold" by which i mean the game currency you can earn in game.)
Mounts
Option 1: It's in the game's interest to keep inventing more and more mounts and to make them as funky looking and unique as possible. So there is an incentive to create all these creatures that have no place in the actual world itself. Also, for me anyway, having a button for the item shop and then a mount arriving in the mail is just... blurg.
Option 2: Starting zones have a stable NPC where you can get short rents of a mount for gold or buy the "normal" mount for your starting race with diamonds. There could be various options of the normal mount e.g armored or whatever but no weird mounts.
However, somewhere else in the game is a stronghold for some portal-travelling wizards. They could already be part of the normal game in that wizard players have to go there to buy teleportation spells or something. There's lore and back-story in the game about this faction and how they create portals to strange planes and explore them. In their castle is a kind of intergalactic beastmaster NPC whose story is he travels through the portals to find weird beasties for his zoo. He has a lot of cages and compounds containing the creatures he has found and he is the mount seller. So no item shop button killing the immersion instead have an actual NPC with a coherent backstory as to how he collected these mounts.
The back-story covers any amount of weirdness in the creatures and them not fitting in the game world.
An actual zoo so people could see the different mounts might even sell more.
Gear
Similar thing as mounts. Get rid of the item shop and give the normal merchants two tabs, a gold tab and a diamond tab. Also make the gear they sell fit the NPC - so the dwarf merchant sells normal dwarf armor for gold and an enhanced version for diamonds. If you want the elf armor you need to travel to the elf city. Other factions might have other options e.g the wizard stronghold mentioned above, their guards might have a particular style of armor which you could buy from the blacksmith there.
Another example, the "allods" game is apparently going to sell ship customization. They could do it through an item shop and mail delivery (if they wanted it to suck) or they could have an actual shipyard zone where you sail your ship into dry dock, buy your customization from an NPC with your diamonds and then there's a little cut-scene of dwarves (or whatever) working on your ship and then your customization is applied.
In a nutshell - integrate it into the game. Do all the actual diamond buying outside of the game and then in-game have the stuff you buy with the diamonds sold by NPCs that make sense for what's being bought.
either way it feels like my cruise to jamaica all over again where you get bombarded with people wanting to sell you anything the second you leave the boat
Sounds like my trip to Malawi, Africa. But yeah, lots of MMOs are like this, even have huge sections on their websites to advertise the shops to new players
Comments
not only people who plays 5-8 hours, many other people also despises it.
Okay, the game is free to play, but... this has really great disvantages.
Because it's free, you usually gain less exp, can obtain worse weapons and have less chance to those that pays money for items, so... if everyone pays a monthly fee for playing, everyone will have equal chances, and the game experience is way better, your exp doesn't get nerfed to make you buy exp + items, and you can obtain every weapon by yourself.
Erm - since when does monthly fee mean equal playing ground ? Those that can play more get more right?
Equal playing ground would be - you pay a sub for 24 hours per month and ALL play 24 hours per month.
And since when is an MMO played over the internet a game based on equal grounds? You do know that distance from the server is the MAIN factor in determining the quality of gameplay? Specially in those more "challenging" P2P including raids and high end PVP. Do ppl not pay extra for better computers and more bandwhith ?
Have you ever wonder why majority of good PVP groups are less than 500 miles from the servers ? Ever wonder why there is no top 5 PVP group coming from Iceland ? And you talk about equal playing grounds? Seriously ?
I have to admit I use to smirk at F2P games until I gave PWI a try, I found it to be surprisingly fun....I think people should not be turned off just because a game has a different income method than the traditional subscription based game. F2p games are evolving just like other types of MMO's.
This sword here at my side dont act the way it should
Keeps calling me its master, but I feel like its slave
Hauling me faster and faster to an early, early grave
And it howls! it howls like hell!
Just like people that like Free to play games are uncoordinated, skilless losers that can't be good at a game unless they pull out their wallets and pay for the best of everything so that they can stroke their e-peen by being better than everyone simply because they have more money and can afford to?
Anyways, I don't despise free to play, I just avoid it. For me, the entire point of a game is to actually play the game, and earn stuff based on playing it. Microtransactions and cash shops eliminate the whole "playing" necessity, which seems really dumb to me. I don't think real world money should have any direct impact on in game events.
Now, I know free to play games need their income from somewhere, and that income is cash shops. That's fine with me, I just don't play them. On the other hand, big name companies that charge a subscription and offer a cash shop are just greedy, pure and simple. They are essentially removing things from the game that should come with the subscription, and then charging you to get them back. Anyone that supports that model, or companies that are doing it are complete idiots.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
On a basic level it is because MMO veterans are tired of getting scammed by MMO companies. You play MMOs long enough and you will have a story of a MMO company breaking a promise, doing a bait-and-switch on a cool feature and generally making your gameplay experience less fun for the sake of making more money of you.
F2P by its very nature means that the company will have to entice you to spend actual money on the game. In a way they are like salesmen working on commission. They need to make a sale and the more desperate (or just plain greedy) they get, the more agressive their tactics will be. So we start of with a fundamental lack of trust where the customers expect the devs to 'trick' them out of their money.
Very true. All this crowd is doing by blindly dismissing F2P games as a whole (forget the fact that most of the reasons are purely myth and misinformation) is insuring that they never have input into the direction of these games as they have proven they are not a target market. Basically, they are disenfranchising themselves among MMO gamers.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
One huge difference between most Free to Play and Pay to Play games is customer service. On the few F2P games I played, customer service was so badly managed that most experienced players considered a player to be a 'newbie' unless they'd been punished by CS. When a game has rampant inconsistencies between stated policies and a staff that practice favoritism, personal objectives, and widely varying personal interpretations of the policies, there's a huge problem that has nothing to do with whether the game's income is based on an item mall or subscription.
-w
I don't think that most people dispise F2P its just they prefer subscription based models because they percieve there being more vaule to them. If I'm between games and short on cash then I'll happily jump on a F2P game to pass the time, but most have a distinctly "free" feeling to them. The communities aren't usually very friendly (from my experience) and they usually quickly give up all pretense of being quest driven stories in favor of mindless grind sessions to unlock better gear.
Subscription based games simply have more options and, typically, a more regulated user base. I also dislike cash shops because if you want to really play for free you have to bypass a lot of customization options that are readily available to pay members so even if the items don't give a real advantage in game play I still get tired of looking exactly like everyone else who doesn't want to pay for better gear.
Like someone else mentioned, F2P can be a nice diversion, but if you want to find a game to really be part of then do yourself a favor and pay a monthly fee to have access to all the extras and service F2P are lacking.
You have a fair shot. Your dollar is just as mighty as the next guy's dollar. You compete not in time played, but in money.
I can agree with that. But lately there haven't been any P2P games worth my money. So I'll happily be enjoying SMT:Megaten, while I wait.
People despise FTP MMO's mainly cuz of two things and at least one of them is more often than not intuitive, that is to say they haven't really analysed it, they just sense that there is something terribly wrong with them.
1: A proper FTP MMO is built around the transactions that the company wants the players to make in order to make money. (And sometimes these transactions are very far from micro).
Most if not all mechanics are designed towards this purpose. And while all MMO's contain a certain level of design control with regards to what players do and how long they have to spend doing it to get results, a FTP is really just one giant mathematical equation that strictly controls every aspect of your playing in order to create viable models for revenues calculation and to successfully funnel as many players as possible into the transactions mall.
It goes without saying that this basis for game design is completely different than a design that mostly doesn't care about these things since it generates the same revenues from all players wether they do things this way or that way. The result is that a SUB MMO has a lot more freedom with regards to artistic integrity than a FTP.
Moreover, the transaction model creates a problem that a subscription model doesn't: Some people spend so much money on the game, they lose control of their personal finances. This is a moral aspect and may not mean much to some people but in my opinion one should always be on the lookout for excessive cynisism.
2: People feel that paying FTP customers can buy themselves to fame and power.
While the argument that some people make money and would rather pay to skip some grind and leave that to those with little money and more time holds some validity, things are not quite that simple. While many developers trying to ease us into this business model tells us that it's not a big deal, a fully fledged FTP will definately hold massive potential for what money can do for you and I'm afraid saving a little grind time or covering some cosmetical elements is only the beginning.
And who said only people with money can have the coolest looking gear? Didn't we play MMO's partly to escape these boundries? People don't play MMO's to be reminded of the same harsh reality that they have to deal with in everyday real life and the class divide and struggle can get awefully apparent in a FTP.
Still, of the 2 above arguments against FTP, I think the first one is the most important.
I despise f2p cause I'm too poor to be the best and botting is too hard.
----ITS A TRAP!!!----
Subscription games give you the entire game for $15 a month.
F2P games split it up and give you the entire game for $200 (or more) a month.
I play subscription games because I understand basic math.
I despise them because they are too easy, not challenging. AND, if all the companies go down that road, I'll have no more MMOGs to play, which will make me very sad, as I love the massive multiplayer experience of gaming.
I apologize if I state anything already mentioned, but just my views on F2P.
I started my game life on an F2P MMO, RuneScape, so I owe F2P otherwise I would still be playing FPS 24/7.
But anyways, now-a-days most if not all F2P games out there have a built in "Cash Shop" function. These Cash-Shops have really stupid scale factors, you actually end up paying more for the company's cash than you would playing a subscription.
Another thing I dont like about F2P is the really horrible work that goes into making it. I can list atleast 10, possibly more, games off the top of my head that if analyzed fully could be considered exact copies of each other.
Just some things that ALOT of F2Ps have in common:
Character creation - Choose male/female, choose Face 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 (Sometimes they're alpabetical ;o), choose Hair style 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5
A really horrible, if any, tutorial for newbies or people who have never played an MMO in their life.
Class - (this is sometimes in character creation) at X level go to Y and do Z quest to achieve Q title. Either way its always that cheap heroic melee sword class, a magic user, an assassin or "dark arts" user, and sometimes a healer.
Click-and-Move - Seriously, at least 90% of the F2Ps I've played have been click and move, it's not entirely bad but that's like taking DO Online and adding better graphics then calling it Martial Heroes, it's only making every game the same.
Just some of the extremely common factors of F2P that have made me dislike F2P MMOs, I admit there are several good ones out and about but the vast majority are them are a company's excuse to get more money via cash shops.
and btw.. "free2play cashshpop to win right? well monthly is buy ingame currency to win." Not everyone buy's ingame currency.
Others have mostly said it, but just to add:
Many of us don't "hate" F2P as a genre, we dislike it as a business model and do not wish to participate in it. We "hate" the degree to which advertisements for F2P spam everywhere and the degree to which certain authors here constantly shill for the F2P model.
We chose not to play most F2P games because they are old tech, low graphics quality pieces of junk. I have a high-end gaming PC for a reason and it's not to play junk that I could have played on a 10yr old computer.
Many of us also dislike the trend for most F2P released in the NA market to be barely rehashed retreads of older Asian F2P games.
ive only tried aa few F2P mmo's but they all seem to look terrible. It feels like some college kids who made a game in their garage over one summer.
and its never free either. the devs are asking for money to buy virtual items or the players are. either way it feels like my cruise to jamaica all over again where you get bombarded with people wanting to sell you anything the second you leave the boat
For me, even if the game were great and the premium options offered for the game were reasonable... It boils down to the players.
Subscriptions keep out a lot of the riff-raff, plain and simple. When the subscriptions aren't there, any ol' kid can get on there, and more often than not, those kids make you want to mute every chat channel within 5 minutes of playing. Heck, look at Guild Wars... No subscription there, just buy it and you're good to go... But that game has the -WORST- playerbase of any game I have ever played. I've rarely had good playerbase interactions in F2P games, but that's not to say I haven't played some that were actually pretty decent games. Granted, the ones that fall in that category had premium subscription options for full content, such as Dofus, but yeah... A poor playerbase is an immediate turn off on a game for me.
f2p are always grinders, gotta make the grind suck, and add time sinks. without these things there would be no need to sell cash shop items to remove them.
they all have a much lower quality feel as well.
plus endgame pvp with people who buy better pots, stat boosts, more protect scrolls to make better upgrade, ect....
That's pretty much my biggest objection - the most obvious way of making a profit in an F2P game is making it a linear grinder that's fast at first and then painfully slow, or an endgame PvP game where you can't win without item shop stuff. Both of those designs are zero fun to me.
If an F2P game isn't designed that way then the MT item money has to come from elsewhere and I was thinking about how that's normally done and how it might be done better (at least for someone like me).
(I'll use "diamonds" to mean the in game currency bought with RL cash as opposed to "gold" by which i mean the game currency you can earn in game.)
Mounts
Option 1: It's in the game's interest to keep inventing more and more mounts and to make them as funky looking and unique as possible. So there is an incentive to create all these creatures that have no place in the actual world itself. Also, for me anyway, having a button for the item shop and then a mount arriving in the mail is just... blurg.
Option 2: Starting zones have a stable NPC where you can get short rents of a mount for gold or buy the "normal" mount for your starting race with diamonds. There could be various options of the normal mount e.g armored or whatever but no weird mounts.
However, somewhere else in the game is a stronghold for some portal-travelling wizards. They could already be part of the normal game in that wizard players have to go there to buy teleportation spells or something. There's lore and back-story in the game about this faction and how they create portals to strange planes and explore them. In their castle is a kind of intergalactic beastmaster NPC whose story is he travels through the portals to find weird beasties for his zoo. He has a lot of cages and compounds containing the creatures he has found and he is the mount seller. So no item shop button killing the immersion instead have an actual NPC with a coherent backstory as to how he collected these mounts.
The back-story covers any amount of weirdness in the creatures and them not fitting in the game world.
An actual zoo so people could see the different mounts might even sell more.
Gear
Similar thing as mounts. Get rid of the item shop and give the normal merchants two tabs, a gold tab and a diamond tab. Also make the gear they sell fit the NPC - so the dwarf merchant sells normal dwarf armor for gold and an enhanced version for diamonds. If you want the elf armor you need to travel to the elf city. Other factions might have other options e.g the wizard stronghold mentioned above, their guards might have a particular style of armor which you could buy from the blacksmith there.
Another example, the "allods" game is apparently going to sell ship customization. They could do it through an item shop and mail delivery (if they wanted it to suck) or they could have an actual shipyard zone where you sail your ship into dry dock, buy your customization from an NPC with your diamonds and then there's a little cut-scene of dwarves (or whatever) working on your ship and then your customization is applied.
In a nutshell - integrate it into the game. Do all the actual diamond buying outside of the game and then in-game have the stuff you buy with the diamonds sold by NPCs that make sense for what's being bought.
Maybe it's not that they despise it but rather they think that if it is f2p, it may not be a good game. Obviously thats not true. Just my 2cents.
Sounds like my trip to Malawi, Africa. But yeah, lots of MMOs are like this, even have huge sections on their websites to advertise the shops to new players