"Free Games" vs Paid Games

amithist

Hello

Just a quick question. It crossed my mind as  I was surfing the site and because I play alot of this type of game. Which do you think has more potentia for a long life, an increasing player base, and the people behind the game really and are serious about the game if its a game like 9Dragons,  Tales of Pirates, Myth Wars etc, where you have an item mall rather then a monthly or one time fee? I am enjoying both types of game at the moment but the ability to keep playing without paying has made a real differance at times due to a fixed income. But just curious as to which people prefer and why and the pervious question. Thanks in advanced for reading and/or answering.

ladyattis

I think there is enough market for both types of games, but I think micro-credit/cash-shop games are going to have it harder as now the general awareness of their existence will make competition for each game under such a model more harrowing. Such games depend on the constant use of their cash-shop items, such as items that increase xp gains and drop rates, more so than they depend on the weapons/costumes they sell as well, being that the former are often consumable items and the latter are not. Plus, many such games seem to copy each other either in theme, or even in specific class load-outs. Mages seem to be almost always female, and never allow for customization the types of skills you can focus upon. Warriors can't learn ranged skills. Ranged characters can't learn some melee. And so on. This forced partitioning of skill sets and abilities make these games also a bit stale as well, but then again many pay-to-play games have such paritions, so it's not just "a F2P thing."

As for quality of graphics, the fact that computers are faster and the 3d rendering engines are dime-a-dozen as for your license (Torque being a cool 100 USD, and OGRE3D being LGPL) you can pick up, and that 3d modelling/editing software is either GPL or very low cost, these games are almost par with their P2P counterparts, but their lack of gameplay depth and forethought in endgame (oddly this is a similar issue for P2P, imo) make them seem shallow, and thus their "life expectacy" of play can vary if players are more interested in multiple hours of regular gameplay.

I will have to say some F2P games are getting better. 9dragons ia very fun game, even though it can be a bit grindy at times. The fact I have to actually use the skills I earn to make them better is a good choice by its developers as it keeps the more idiotic button mashers away from me (and my friends). I expect games like 9dragons to start becoming the norm for F2P as their primary developers in other countries start to actually study the art of games from the context of problem solving rather than purely graphical splendor and min/max-ing.

-- Brede

Airspell

Both appear to be very long lasting. Once a pay to play game breaks even its shelf life increases dramatically. Free to Play games are hard to kill cause theres always a new person who wants to at least try them , and their costs are much less than p2p games.  They usually have limited or almsot non existant customer support and the dev team consists of some guy who comes in once in a while to reset the servers if they crash.

Renith

I played 1 year l2 private server, a couple of months retail(official, monthly fee). It 's just what you think the game really requires. Private servers were bugged, yes, but they weren't crappy. Private didnt had more lag than retail, it just missed a couple of features but it was still lineage 2 imo. I don't know if there are any good free mmo's out there that don't have a monthly fee. 

Liliane

I don't care a fuck is mmorpg paid or free. Only think what I care is the game any good. At the moment paid games just seem to be generally a lot better than free ones.

AbIeL

Originally posted by Liliane


I don't care a fuck is mmorpg paid or free. Only think what I care is the game any good. At the moment paid games just seem to be generally a lot better than free ones.

i agree with him, paid games are a lot better then free ones

nomadian

You generally pay for a better quality with paid games.

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