This is pretty much exactly what I expected Wildstar to do which was why I was a bit confused when they said a few months ago their model would be "hybrid". I guess this falls into into that category even if it's not a really new concept.
Wildstar is planting itself firmly at the raider and old school MMO player. An audience who has no desire to deal with the downsides of the F2P and B2P market. Love it or hate it there can be no denying that F2P and B2P games tend to have a much more transient population than sub games do. When you lower the barrier to entry on a game like that you also end up lowering how bought into the game a person is to making it much easier to leave on a whim.
I am a bit put out by the idea of being able to buy time with ingame money though. While yes it does take the third party gold seller largely out of the equation it also puts the developer into that role which I believe cause conflict of interest issues when developing content. I also think it can change how people play the game and interact with the world in a often negative manner.
SWTOR had 2M people lined up ready willing and able to pay for an ongoing subscription when the game released. Most of those players knew full well, that by purchasing SWTOR, they'd have to pay 15 bucks/month to keep playing it. Still, they bought it. It went F2P because it failed to deliver on a long term investment. Not because it was P2P to start.
At the time of SWTOR, the craze was all about no monthly fees as GW2 was doing. There were so many calls for them to go B2p as soon as the discussion started. The market has taken another shift recently ( basically since FFXIV) to go back to sub only models. I'm talking collective voices here. It's rather confusing really. People as a whole have been flip-flopping back and forth for quite a while now.
I mean the big argument against TOR being P2P, was that it was too much like WOW and did little to deviate from that path. Yet FFXIV and now WS have done little to deviate either. Overall quality is subjective and hard to put a measure on.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Not interested then. Glad those who really want a P2P model have something they can spend money on. I still say it is just part of tradition and not a necessity at this point in time. The maintanace items like gear and bandwidth have decreased in cost so that this model isn't needed to be successful. Having played P2P games I do not see the quality, responsiveness or the increase in the amount of game play that some say is there. I don't expect to play every MMO on the market and I hope they are successful.
Buy to play...you know...what GW2 and TSW are?....please dont tell me you frequent this site and didnt know that?
Let me guess, you are going to imply B2P and F2P are the same thing now in order to save face? lol
What's the difference? I've always felt they're essentially the same thing because long term sales are garnered through the same avenue, cash shops. There's also no reason to be so damn snarky we're just having a conversation here.
"saving face",that would mean I've changed my stance which I haven't, it's just a semantics game.
"I've always felt" doesnt in turn make B2P and F2P the same....Rift, SWTOR and Neverwinter are F2P...you dont have to pay a single cent to play them.....GW2 and TSW are B2P...you have to put money down to play them....see? Just because you incorrectly feel something, doesnt mean they are the same thing.
And regarding the "saving face".....twisting your logic to imply B2P and F2P are the same thing, is exactly like changing your stance....
If that was the case I would have thought of B2P as an option they could have gone with, did I? No because I feel they're the same thing. Which is what brought us to this point in the conversation, nice try though.
Anyway I'm done here, as I really don't care about F2P vs p2p vs B2P etc, not enough to have a back and forth about semantics anyway.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
B2P and F2P share a common defining trait in that they are both sub-free where as P2P is sub-locked. They aren't identical, but share the common paradigm that sub-locked does not. When a company like Blizzard says it's probably not P2P they can only mean sub-free in one form or another.
Then again, until I heard Wildstar tryinig to pass of a PLEX system as a hybrid payment model, I would have thought this to be fairly straight forward.
It's really sad you had to spell that out. Just shows the depravity level of those that require subsidized gaming.
Buy to play...you know...what GW2 and TSW are?....please dont tell me you frequent this site and didnt know that?
Let me guess, you are going to imply B2P and F2P are the same thing now in order to save face? lol
What's the difference? I've always felt they're essentially the same thing because long term sales are garnered through the same avenue, cash shops. There's also no reason to be so damn snarky we're just having a conversation here.
"saving face",that would mean I've changed my stance which I haven't, it's just a semantics game.
"I've always felt" doesnt in turn make B2P and F2P the same....Rift, SWTOR and Neverwinter are F2P...you dont have to pay a single cent to play them.....GW2 and TSW are B2P...you have to put money down to play them....see? Just because you incorrectly feel something, doesnt mean they are the same thing.
And regarding the "saving face".....twisting your logic to imply B2P and F2P are the same thing, is exactly like changing your stance....
If that was the case I would have thought of B2P as an option they could have gone with, did I? No because I feel they're the same thing. Which is what brought us to this point in the conversation, nice try though.
Anyway I'm done here, as I really don't care about F2P vs p2p vs B2P etc, not enough to have a back and forth about semantics anyway.
You see, its not semantics though....the post you quoted me on (which started all of this), I specifically stated titan wouldnt be sub, but blizz didnt confirm if it would be B2P or F2P....you then linked me an article with the headline of "Titan will be F2P", with you actually quoting the headline, but the actual article went on to say exactly what I had just said (you know, the thing you wanted to argue with), that it prob wont have a sub, but its up in the air as to weather it would be F2P or B2P.....when i called you out for only reading the headline and not the article, now all of a sudden we are arguing about semantics? If that were the case, you woulndt have threw that article at me in the first place....
B2P and F2P share a common defining trait in that they are both sub-free where as P2P is sub-locked. They aren't identical, but share the common paradigm that sub-locked does not. When a company like Blizzard says it's probably not P2P they can only mean sub-free in one form or another.
Then again, until I heard Wildstar tryinig to pass of a PLEX system as a hybrid payment model, I would have thought this to be fairly straight forward.
It's really sad you had to spell that out. Just shows the depravity level of those that require subsidized gaming.
Doesn't the gold selling part go on whether or not it is provided by the game developer? So does that make a P2P a third-world subsidizing model? I had not thought about how noble it is to be a P2P purist.
11 pages of discussion so far on a post that basically said "Wildstar will require a subscription."
I love it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You see, its not semantics though....the post you quoted me on specifically stated titan wouldnt be sub, but didnt confirm B2P or F2P....you then linked me with an article with the headline of "Titan will be F2P", with you actually quoting the headline, but then the article went on to say exactly what u were "back and foruthing" me on, that it prob wont have a sub, but its TBD weather it would be F2P or B2P.....when i called you out for only reading the headline and not the article, now all of a sudden we are arguing about semantics? If that were the case, you woulndt have threw that article at me....
SIGH lol
The only reason this started was because someone said F2P is going away in favor of monthly payments or something like that.I pointed out Blizzard and SOE's approaches as going the f2p route, which when I think of F2P i'm thinking in terms of monthly, not a one time payment or free up front cost. Just to show where my head was at. Not that I expect you to see reason, as it seems your goal is to win; where as I'm not thinking in terms of winning or losing, I'm just trying to explain my mindset.
Anywho yes /sigh....
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
While on-level in terms of tech, the art assets in TF2 (similar style) are more lovingly detailed and cohesive. This essentially rips styles from Pixar and TF2, and falls short of both.
The fact that I'm comparing it to a 6-year old Source Engine title? That's a problem!
I don't know many people willing to pay monthly for tech that is so outdated, it makes World of Warcraft look flashy!
Well that settles it. I won't be getting it. I have so many quality games that are F2P that there is no reason to pay a monthly fee. That model is old and dated. The typical "13.99" a month? Really? Why not some random arbitrary number like 5.99? It's not the price that makes me shy away. It's the fact that I don't want to pay anything unless I want some "skins" or mounts or housing stuff or bag slots.
The game looks great and fun and I don't care if the game is a "WoW clone" (I hate that term)
I am kind of happy this is their model choice. It's one less game I have to worry about getting. With Elder Scrolls Online and EQNext on the horizon I can just now follow them.
Peace!
Why do you worry about getting a game? Its literally people like you, who hop form F2P game to F2P game and utterly kill the community, that P2P gamers are hoping to avoide. This isnt Call of Duty or Unreal Tournament....
P2P people always say this (I guess that was your MMORPG.com logic eh), but then when a game crashes and burns and has to go F2P they always pull out excuses how the devs did this and that to ruin the game or they would still sub. However, they're very excited for the next game on the horizon which they hope will be P2P so they can dump it 3 months after release.
If P2P people were so plentiful and committed there wouldn't be a debate over payment models because P2P would have already won. But they aren't plentiful, and most of all they aren't committed, and their game hopping is just as bad as the F2P players.
Except there is still a really solid argument to be made for it though.
SWTOR had 2M people lined up ready willing and able to pay for an ongoing subscription when the game released. Most of those players knew full well, that by purchasing SWTOR, they'd have to pay 15 bucks/month to keep playing it. Still, they bought it. It went F2P because it failed to deliver on a long term investment. Not because it was P2P to start.
This game will fail to deliver on the long term investment as well. I don't see any game being able to pull this off outside of niche titles (I could see CU doing a sub and it working out for them). I would need to see some really convincing evidence to the contrary. When everyone ditches this game, people will say the same thing and will haul out a laundry list of reasons (some good and some bad) why they abandoned the game.
My bigger point is that "P2P" folks aren't really any more reliable than "F2P" folks so blaming them for the woes of the industry is ludicrous (that's what I responded to). Not only that, but I think there is a reasonable chunk of people that fit into both categories so there isn't really an "us" and a "them".
I can agree with you on this. If this game doesn't deliver a long term experience that is worth paying for, then it doesn't deserve the P2P model.
As for the reliability factor of the player. I don't really have an opinion on that. If the value is there, players will pay for it. As long as the business model matches the game. SWTOR launched with the wrong model. FF14 (hopefully) has it right. Difference being who has developed their for the long haul? SWTOR was highly developed for the short term.
But this game is also double dipping from the start. Huge "no-no" in my book and thus will get nothing from me. It's not a hybrid model. It's a subscription with Gold Selling. buh-bye.
P2P games aren't about dungeons and raids. Rift focused too much on that. They had an excellent dungeon and raid system. What did they lack? Options. TBC was so successful because there were so many different things any player could be doing at any given time in the game. This is something that almost every MMO released since has been missing.
I wish I could write that I thought they were pushing a good idea forward. However, in today's market it is nearly impossible for any game to justify a subscription on top of the digital / box purchase fee. There are simply too many other free to play options just as good in their own way and in a genre where the typical game lasts the average user two to three months tops before they move on to the next big thing there is simply no incentive to subscribe. It is a deterrent. Being a jaded old bast.. er coot I figure they know this and are cashing in on subscriptions for as long as they feel they can get away with it before having a free to play re-launch somewhere in the foreseeable future.
With this garbage model they won't even come close to a fraction of GW2's box sales.
I certainly hope they're thinking far past box sales for this games business plan, in the world of MMO's box sales are meaningless. We're talking services that run for years (or at least they are built to). What happens at release in sales means nothing 10 years from now.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
You see, its not semantics though....the post you quoted me on specifically stated titan wouldnt be sub, but didnt confirm B2P or F2P....you then linked me with an article with the headline of "Titan will be F2P", with you actually quoting the headline, but then the article went on to say exactly what u were "back and foruthing" me on, that it prob wont have a sub, but its TBD weather it would be F2P or B2P.....when i called you out for only reading the headline and not the article, now all of a sudden we are arguing about semantics? If that were the case, you woulndt have threw that article at me....
SIGH lol
The only reason this started was because someone said F2P is going away in favor of monthly payments or something like that.I pointed out Blizzard and SOE's approaches as going the f2p route, which when I think of F2P i'm thinking in terms of monthly, not a one time payment or free up front cost. Just to show where my head was at. Not that I expect you to see reason, as it seems your goal is to win; where as I'm not thinking in terms of winning or losing, I'm just trying to explain my mindset.
Anywho yes /sigh....
Let me refresh your memory as to what actually started this:
YOU: You're forgetting about the upcoming big-kids on the block, EQn and Titan, both of which are slated for F2P.
ME: Titan was confirmed as not being sub based, but they mentioned nothing about it being "F2P".
"Blizzard’s Upcoming MMO, Titan, will have a free to play model!"
So lets recap, when the actual article you linked went on to say exactly what I had just said (you know, the thing you wanted to argue with), that it prob wont have a sub, but its up in the air as to weather it would be F2P or B2P.....when i called you out for only reading the headline and not the actual article, now all of a sudden we are arguing about semantics? If that were the case, you woulndt have threw that article at me in the first place with a snarky "you were saying?", because it 100% said exactly what I previously did..
B2P and F2P share a common defining trait in that they are both sub-free where as P2P is sub-locked. They aren't identical, but share the common paradigm that sub-locked does not. When a company like Blizzard says it's probably not P2P they can only mean sub-free in one form or another.
Then again, until I heard Wildstar tryinig to pass of a PLEX system as a hybrid payment model, I would have thought this to be fairly straight forward.
It's really sad you had to spell that out. Just shows the depravity level of those that require subsidized gaming.
Doesn't the gold selling part go on whether or not it is provided by the game developer? So does that make a P2P a third-world subsidizing model? I had not thought about how noble it is to be a P2P purist.
In-game currency selling and payment models are two different subjects. They're obviously not mutually exclusive, but to say that because gold selling happens in P2P that it is therefore subsidized gaming, doesn't follow. You still need to pay real money to play the game. With in Warcraft specifically, there's really no end-game benefit through gold. It's there to obtain mounts and transmog gear. So it's spent in the auction house or the in-game black market (a gold sink), or at the end of an expansion by paying guilds for heroic mode mount runs, as was the case at the end of Cataclysm.
I'm extatic! The best games I've played were subs and I have no problems paying 140 bucks a year to play the game as long as it's well made and has great playability, which most do.
For those saying P2P is obsolete im going to have to disagree with you. A few reasons why
1. If it was obsolete then World of Warcraft would not still be the reigning champ.
2. Its not that companies do F2P for the players they do it because it is a faster more direct way of making money. What F2P allows a company to do is work less on new content and more on profit. When you have to spend the time to make these items on the Item mall you are using the term "content" in its truest form.
Please dont take this as me saying f2p is bad, by no means do I think that I just think people should be educated that P2P and F2P are the same general buisness ideas just one is direct profit and the other is gradual profit. Neather one is by any means obsolete and they never will be.
Yay a subscription game! I'm in, to heck with EQN and SOE greed FTP model that gouges and nickles and dimes at every corner. For "cartoony" games Wildstar will be my game of choice. Hopefully TESO, or black desert can be my more realistic less cartoony game of choice. (yes I really am that tired of the WoW/freerealms/EQN cloned cartoon style.)
Comments
This is pretty much exactly what I expected Wildstar to do which was why I was a bit confused when they said a few months ago their model would be "hybrid". I guess this falls into into that category even if it's not a really new concept.
Wildstar is planting itself firmly at the raider and old school MMO player. An audience who has no desire to deal with the downsides of the F2P and B2P market. Love it or hate it there can be no denying that F2P and B2P games tend to have a much more transient population than sub games do. When you lower the barrier to entry on a game like that you also end up lowering how bought into the game a person is to making it much easier to leave on a whim.
I am a bit put out by the idea of being able to buy time with ingame money though. While yes it does take the third party gold seller largely out of the equation it also puts the developer into that role which I believe cause conflict of interest issues when developing content. I also think it can change how people play the game and interact with the world in a often negative manner.
At the time of SWTOR, the craze was all about no monthly fees as GW2 was doing. There were so many calls for them to go B2p as soon as the discussion started. The market has taken another shift recently ( basically since FFXIV) to go back to sub only models. I'm talking collective voices here. It's rather confusing really. People as a whole have been flip-flopping back and forth for quite a while now.
I mean the big argument against TOR being P2P, was that it was too much like WOW and did little to deviate from that path. Yet FFXIV and now WS have done little to deviate either. Overall quality is subjective and hard to put a measure on.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If that was the case I would have thought of B2P as an option they could have gone with, did I? No because I feel they're the same thing. Which is what brought us to this point in the conversation, nice try though.
Anyway I'm done here, as I really don't care about F2P vs p2p vs B2P etc, not enough to have a back and forth about semantics anyway.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's really sad you had to spell that out. Just shows the depravity level of those that require subsidized gaming.
Discuss. Reason. Society.
Become a Dragon. Take your world back.
You see, its not semantics though....the post you quoted me on (which started all of this), I specifically stated titan wouldnt be sub, but blizz didnt confirm if it would be B2P or F2P....you then linked me an article with the headline of "Titan will be F2P", with you actually quoting the headline, but the actual article went on to say exactly what I had just said (you know, the thing you wanted to argue with), that it prob wont have a sub, but its up in the air as to weather it would be F2P or B2P.....when i called you out for only reading the headline and not the article, now all of a sudden we are arguing about semantics? If that were the case, you woulndt have threw that article at me in the first place....
I hope its clear now.....SIGH lol
Doesn't the gold selling part go on whether or not it is provided by the game developer? So does that make a P2P a third-world subsidizing model? I had not thought about how noble it is to be a P2P purist.
11 pages of discussion so far on a post that basically said "Wildstar will require a subscription."
I love it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
"Let destruction rain!" from Asbel Tales of Graces f
The only reason this started was because someone said F2P is going away in favor of monthly payments or something like that.I pointed out Blizzard and SOE's approaches as going the f2p route, which when I think of F2P i'm thinking in terms of monthly, not a one time payment or free up front cost. Just to show where my head was at. Not that I expect you to see reason, as it seems your goal is to win; where as I'm not thinking in terms of winning or losing, I'm just trying to explain my mindset.
Anywho yes /sigh....
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The graphics...are...awful. >_>
While on-level in terms of tech, the art assets in TF2 (similar style) are more lovingly detailed and cohesive. This essentially rips styles from Pixar and TF2, and falls short of both.
The fact that I'm comparing it to a 6-year old Source Engine title? That's a problem!
I don't know many people willing to pay monthly for tech that is so outdated, it makes World of Warcraft look flashy!
I can agree with you on this. If this game doesn't deliver a long term experience that is worth paying for, then it doesn't deserve the P2P model.
As for the reliability factor of the player. I don't really have an opinion on that. If the value is there, players will pay for it. As long as the business model matches the game. SWTOR launched with the wrong model. FF14 (hopefully) has it right. Difference being who has developed their for the long haul? SWTOR was highly developed for the short term.
But this game is also double dipping from the start. Huge "no-no" in my book and thus will get nothing from me. It's not a hybrid model. It's a subscription with Gold Selling. buh-bye.
P2P games aren't about dungeons and raids. Rift focused too much on that. They had an excellent dungeon and raid system. What did they lack? Options. TBC was so successful because there were so many different things any player could be doing at any given time in the game. This is something that almost every MMO released since has been missing.
I wish I could write that I thought they were pushing a good idea forward. However, in today's market it is nearly impossible for any game to justify a subscription on top of the digital / box purchase fee. There are simply too many other free to play options just as good in their own way and in a genre where the typical game lasts the average user two to three months tops before they move on to the next big thing there is simply no incentive to subscribe. It is a deterrent. Being a jaded old bast.. er coot I figure they know this and are cashing in on subscriptions for as long as they feel they can get away with it before having a free to play re-launch somewhere in the foreseeable future.
Pathetic.
With this garbage model they won't even come close to a fraction of GW2's box sales.
I certainly hope they're thinking far past box sales for this games business plan, in the world of MMO's box sales are meaningless. We're talking services that run for years (or at least they are built to). What happens at release in sales means nothing 10 years from now.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Let me refresh your memory as to what actually started this:
YOU: You're forgetting about the upcoming big-kids on the block, EQn and Titan, both of which are slated for F2P.
ME: Titan was confirmed as not being sub based, but they mentioned nothing about it being "F2P".
YOU: You were saying?
http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/blizzards-titan-looking-at-a-f2p-model/
"Blizzard’s Upcoming MMO, Titan, will have a free to play model!"
So lets recap, when the actual article you linked went on to say exactly what I had just said (you know, the thing you wanted to argue with), that it prob wont have a sub, but its up in the air as to weather it would be F2P or B2P.....when i called you out for only reading the headline and not the actual article, now all of a sudden we are arguing about semantics? If that were the case, you woulndt have threw that article at me in the first place with a snarky "you were saying?", because it 100% said exactly what I previously did..
In-game currency selling and payment models are two different subjects. They're obviously not mutually exclusive, but to say that because gold selling happens in P2P that it is therefore subsidized gaming, doesn't follow. You still need to pay real money to play the game. With in Warcraft specifically, there's really no end-game benefit through gold. It's there to obtain mounts and transmog gear. So it's spent in the auction house or the in-game black market (a gold sink), or at the end of an expansion by paying guilds for heroic mode mount runs, as was the case at the end of Cataclysm.
For those saying P2P is obsolete im going to have to disagree with you. A few reasons why
1. If it was obsolete then World of Warcraft would not still be the reigning champ.
2. Its not that companies do F2P for the players they do it because it is a faster more direct way of making money. What F2P allows a company to do is work less on new content and more on profit. When you have to spend the time to make these items on the Item mall you are using the term "content" in its truest form.
Please dont take this as me saying f2p is bad, by no means do I think that I just think people should be educated that P2P and F2P are the same general buisness ideas just one is direct profit and the other is gradual profit. Neather one is by any means obsolete and they never will be.