After Runes of Magic, which is a game you HAVE to pay up unless you don't want to do about 75% of the content or have a great chance of being ripped off. Frogster removed the ability for players to trade cash shop points for in game gold and vice versa.
They boned me, so I left. F2P tends to be more grindy, boring, and poorly constructed. (Runes of Magic for example) Do note that F2Ps can make more money than P2Ps. Can you guess why? Because they bone you out of your money. They add in gambling items. In Runes of Magic you could by these gems that would increase the power of your items, but they had a good chance of failing, and if you wanted decent gear, you had to get these gems.
I don't think it's fair for them to do that. I paid money, I expect something out of it. With P2Ps, I know what I'm getting, and I know that it will be of a higher tier than almost all F2P's. I guess it would slightly depend on the P2P MMO, but most are just better in general.
I'm leery of f2p, too, but Runes of Magic is a TERRIBLE example, and I'm not sure you should judge all f2p games by it. RoM is possibly the worst of its kind, at least as far as PvP goes, and removing the option to buy diamonds with gold, and how gearing up at later levels screws you over if you're not spending a ton of money in the cash shop. But I can't blame you, if that had been my first and only f2p experience, I probably would never have tried another one, either.
For the record, I didn't spend money in RoM because I went and read up on the game before I got too many levels in it. And so I'm going by what players who did spend money (lots and lots of money!) said. But I have no reason to think the hundreds of posts in various forums I browsed were inaccurate in any way.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
LOTRO, DDO, and EQ2 are getting all thrown around this thread. It should be stated that these are not truly F2P games. These games provide options, and also have "Standard" subscriptions. I think its important to note, for the purposes of this thread, that successful future business models will include more options, not just F2P. Different ways to buy into the game. Whether that is a lifetime sub, B2P, whatever.
Games, in the future, should provide options based on the interest level of the user. Maybe a person only wants to play an hour or two a week. Why not a pay by the hour rate for those with less interest? The point is, to allow a plan that allows anybody to jump into your game and set their own starting/continuing costs.
Ultimately, F2P does not fit this mold 100%. It is simply one option of many possibilities. Is it the business model of the future? Aboslutely not. It is only one choice of many. Games that employ the best entry model into their games will succeed, that is not always F2P. Just look at the other responses in this thread. These are paying gamers >>
*like* This is essentially what companies like turbine and SOE are attempting to provide.
Playing: Ever quest 2 Played: MS,GW,EVE,LOTRO,WoW,Allods,Aion, CO,CoH,CoV,TQ Digital games, Darkfall,AoC,RS2. Liked: Dungeon fight online, GW, Darkfall and, Runescape. Waiting for: Link Realms(can't get my damn beta invite) KOTOR and, GW2
the only wrong thing with f2p is that it doesnt limit how much money people spend on and how much advantage people can get from the cash shop items...
once they mature and prevent people from spending more than 15 bucks, or getting more than 15 bucks worth of value out of the cash shop, not transferable, per character... then we have a positives of it, without the negatives.
the only wrong thing with f2p is that it doesnt limit how much money people spend on and how much advantage people can get from the cash shop items...
once they mature and prevent people from spending more than 15 bucks, or getting more than 15 bucks worth of value out of the cash shop, not transferable, per character... then we have a positives of it, without the negatives.
Developers of "F2P" would never adopt such a restriction to their model. F2P systems are inherently designed so that the minority of subscribers who are loose with their wallet, will pay out the nose in order to support the game under the weight of the legions of players who don't pay a dime. If it wasn't for those few players who go overboard on buying RMT, the developers wouldn't make anywhere near enough money to stay afloat, because there's too few players who pay anything at all.
That is why the entire system is flawed, because you cannot properly balance the playing field with regards to RMT, while maintining quality, and still being profitable in a F2P game.
This utopian dream of how F2P games should be is nothing more than a deluded pipedream.
You lost me at "the top online RPGs, such as Everquest II, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online have all made the leap towards the free-to-play model."
I would suggest changing it to something more like "a few MMOs, with steadily declining populations, have recently made the leap towards the free-to-play model."
Comments
I'm leery of f2p, too, but Runes of Magic is a TERRIBLE example, and I'm not sure you should judge all f2p games by it. RoM is possibly the worst of its kind, at least as far as PvP goes, and removing the option to buy diamonds with gold, and how gearing up at later levels screws you over if you're not spending a ton of money in the cash shop. But I can't blame you, if that had been my first and only f2p experience, I probably would never have tried another one, either.
For the record, I didn't spend money in RoM because I went and read up on the game before I got too many levels in it. And so I'm going by what players who did spend money (lots and lots of money!) said. But I have no reason to think the hundreds of posts in various forums I browsed were inaccurate in any way.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
F2P isn't the future. I hybrid model may be though, as much as I despise it too.
Separate those who value equality and challenge from those who just want to buy their power.
What change? You can buy as many items in cash shop games as you want.
*like* This is essentially what companies like turbine and SOE are attempting to provide.
Playing: Ever quest 2
Played: MS,GW,EVE,LOTRO,WoW,Allods,Aion, CO,CoH,CoV,TQ Digital games, Darkfall,AoC,RS2.
Liked: Dungeon fight online, GW, Darkfall and, Runescape.
Waiting for: Link Realms(can't get my damn beta invite) KOTOR and, GW2
the only wrong thing with f2p is that it doesnt limit how much money people spend on and how much advantage people can get from the cash shop items...
once they mature and prevent people from spending more than 15 bucks, or getting more than 15 bucks worth of value out of the cash shop, not transferable, per character... then we have a positives of it, without the negatives.
Developers of "F2P" would never adopt such a restriction to their model. F2P systems are inherently designed so that the minority of subscribers who are loose with their wallet, will pay out the nose in order to support the game under the weight of the legions of players who don't pay a dime. If it wasn't for those few players who go overboard on buying RMT, the developers wouldn't make anywhere near enough money to stay afloat, because there's too few players who pay anything at all.
That is why the entire system is flawed, because you cannot properly balance the playing field with regards to RMT, while maintining quality, and still being profitable in a F2P game.
This utopian dream of how F2P games should be is nothing more than a deluded pipedream.
F2P is the dystopian future of MMOs.
You lost me at "the top online RPGs, such as Everquest II, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online have all made the leap towards the free-to-play model."
I would suggest changing it to something more like "a few MMOs, with steadily declining populations, have recently made the leap towards the free-to-play model."
Close. There will be multiple hybrid models, I'm predicting 2-4 basic styles, depending on the structure of the games themselves.
Give me liberty or give me lasers