Its not actually FTP. They give you a taste of the game for free but if you want to play the whole thing you gotta pay. Thats their benefit - new subs.
Not entirely true for DDO. NOt sure about lotro yet.
In DDO you can concievably get EVERYTHING for free. But it would take a huge amount of grinding characters across all servers.
In the end it is more of an issue of fun and how much you think your time is worth. You can just to do favor runs over and over if you want.
Keep in mind DDO Store purchases usually apply to all servers. You can "purchase" the Vet status for a pretty small amount of in game earned favor. Vet status lets you start a character 4th level. You could easily get vet status. Then farm favor over and over across all servers (to get the extra free points for unlock certain amounts of favor per server).
All of this without paying a dime. Now I personally do not want to do this as it sounds like a huge grind that is not that fun in an RPG perspective.
But you can concievably achieve everything in DDO without ever paying a dime. I wouldn't really reccomend it though. Although I would reccomend the farm method up to a certain point if you are on a limited budget.
So the options are to pay for content, or spend countless hours grinding the same content over and over again to get things for "free".
Doesn't sound free to me, because you have to work to get it. Even though you can get it for "free" monetarily, there is still a very high cost associated to taking that route to strongly dissuade players from choosing not to pay to unlock rewards.
Its not actually FTP. They give you a taste of the game for free but if you want to play the whole thing you gotta pay. Thats their benefit - new subs.
Not entirely true for DDO. NOt sure about lotro yet.
In DDO you can concievably get EVERYTHING for free. But it would take a huge amount of grinding characters across all servers.
In the end it is more of an issue of fun and how much you think your time is worth. You can just to do favor runs over and over if you want.
Keep in mind DDO Store purchases usually apply to all servers. You can "purchase" the Vet status for a pretty small amount of in game earned favor. Vet status lets you start a character 4th level. You could easily get vet status. Then farm favor over and over across all servers (to get the extra free points for unlock certain amounts of favor per server).
All of this without paying a dime. Now I personally do not want to do this as it sounds like a huge grind that is not that fun in an RPG perspective.
But you can concievably achieve everything in DDO without ever paying a dime. I wouldn't really reccomend it though. Although I would reccomend the farm method up to a certain point if you are on a limited budget.
So the options are to pay for content, or spend countless hours grinding the same content over and over again to get things for "free".
Doesn't sound free to me, because you have to work to get it. Even though you can get it for "free" monetarily, there is still a very high cost associated to taking that route to strongly dissuade players from choosing not to pay to unlock rewards.
Nothing is free in this world.
This is what the Cash Shop games depend on. Making it hard to get to the goal without the CS item. It is how they design content and what makes the F2P model undesireable to some of us. Best example is grind. Introduce grindy content then sell a potion to alleviate the grind. The sad thing is, its content quality that suffers from this payment model. They are more intent on forcing a purchase than on quality.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
They're not free, they're just shifting the revenue model from subscription based to micro-transaction based.
The "Free" is marketing spin used to lure people to the game in hopes they'll get hooked and then bleed money via MT.
^This^. Pretty much it with LOTRO. You hit level 20 and you pretty much have to start paying in order to really do anything in game. It is an extended demo and NOT f2p. Yes, you hit the nail on the head.
No this is misleading. If you sub to LOTRO or DDO you get exactly what you got before. In fact you get more as you also get 500 store points per month. So you essentially get a 1 hour xp boost per month (or whatever you want to buy). Now this "more" is completely made up pretend stuff so whatever, but pre-orders work the same way you get some pet or a one time xp token etc.
Yes most likely most people are going pay something. But that does not mean they will pay MT at all. Or that they will pay a never ending addiction of MT. They may sub just like WoW or they may be smart and make a few strategic purchases and never pay again.
Look just log into DDO and ask on public chat "What are the essential modules I need to level? And much does that cost/how much favor do I need to earn it?". You will get an answer very quickly that will consist of a fairly small list of roughly 5 modules that would be a purchase of something like I dunno $35, I haven't done the math myself. And if you use your in game earned points probably half that money. People ask this everyday. Its a well known plan/phenomenon. Some people never pay money and just favor farm to get the essential modules.
LOTRO may not be as easily done as DDO I am not too sure. But yes while its not free. There are ALOT of people who do a finite and small number of Microtransations.
In LOTRO if you subbed for a few months you could actually purchase the last expansion with the 500/month "free" store point. Under the sub model you pay for first game, sub, pay for expansion.
If you are bleeding MT all over the place in DDO or LOTRO you might as well be subbing initially then use your in-game earned points from favor/deeds to unlock a few content pieces.
YOU can easily play DDO and sub for 3 months and then use all your points to purchase about 4 Key modules and never have to sub again or do any MT ever again.
I am not trying to say that DDO and Turbine do not tempt people with some store purchases. Mainly the big ones in DDO are Respec tokens and +2 tomes.
I suspect these are the major sellers. But I also suspect these are mainly bought by people who spend inordinate amounts on MMOs to being with.
In general the model milks people far less than a normal sub game does. I believe some very well off people are getting milked quite a bit via +2 tomes and Reincarnation tokens.
It's like a drug dealer. If he had no addicts to deal to, he'd be out of the job. If he starts passing out free samples, people get addicted and will come back for more, only he'll charge you more when you do. The subsequent sales to those people and even perhaps their pals who also get hooked will more than make up for the loss of handing out a few "samples".
Turbine's F2P models are set up in a very similar fashion. Get you hooked, then once you're sucked in, charge you for your new habit. Laugh all the way to the bank*.
*Disclaimer: Not critisizing the games themselves.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde
Most of you probably got the news letter from mmorpg this week...
this news letter mensioned that lotro became a ftp game in north america. Most continents will follow, i think. For us, as mmorpg players, this is a good thing to hear.
but my question is, what kind of profit does a company have of making their ptp game a ftp game? probably more players... but the monthly fee is a huge income for the company.
so what do you think about it..
If nothing else, the regular influx of players keeps the game world alive which, in turn, makes people more likely to stay and get invested in the game. In most subscription MMOs, after the first 6 months to a year, the low level zones have very few people in them. A game that a player might otherwise find enjoyable starts off as a lonely and empty experience. With Freemium or F2P models, there is a regular influx of new players, which means that there is a good amount of players distributed through all levels and not just in the high level zones.
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
They're not free, they're just shifting the revenue model from subscription based to micro-transaction based.
The "Free" is marketing spin used to lure people to the game in hopes they'll get hooked and then bleed money via MT.
^This^. Pretty much it with LOTRO. You hit level 20 and you pretty much have to start paying in order to really do anything in game. It is an extended demo and NOT f2p. Yes, you hit the nail on the head.
No this is misleading. If you sub to LOTRO or DDO you get exactly what you got before. In fact you get more as you also get 500 store points per month. So you essentially get a 1 hour xp boost per month (or whatever you want to buy). Now this "more" is completely made up pretend stuff so whatever, but pre-orders work the same way you get some pet or a one time xp token etc.
...
Actually, your statement is the misleading one.
As a subscriber you get everything you got before, minus access to all content, like you previously would (excluding expansions of course).
Yes, you get a pittance of "points" to spend each month, but the amount you get is miniscule compared to the amount of "content" and perks and items locked up in the item mall that were introduced with the inclusion of the "Free" to play option.
And... subscribers now have to put up with competing against the "free" players, in both spawns, server space, and server performance. From what I've been hearing, server performance has taken a huge nose dive since the F2P option was added.
Sounds pretty lose-lose for subscribers after the change, than before.
Its not actually FTP. They give you a taste of the game for free but if you want to play the whole thing you gotta pay. Thats their benefit - new subs.
Not entirely true for DDO. NOt sure about lotro yet.
In DDO you can concievably get EVERYTHING for free. But it would take a huge amount of grinding characters across all servers.
In the end it is more of an issue of fun and how much you think your time is worth. You can just to do favor runs over and over if you want.
Keep in mind DDO Store purchases usually apply to all servers. You can "purchase" the Vet status for a pretty small amount of in game earned favor. Vet status lets you start a character 4th level. You could easily get vet status. Then farm favor over and over across all servers (to get the extra free points for unlock certain amounts of favor per server).
All of this without paying a dime. Now I personally do not want to do this as it sounds like a huge grind that is not that fun in an RPG perspective.
But you can concievably achieve everything in DDO without ever paying a dime. I wouldn't really reccomend it though. Although I would reccomend the farm method up to a certain point if you are on a limited budget.
So the options are to pay for content, or spend countless hours grinding the same content over and over again to get things for "free".
Doesn't sound free to me, because you have to work to get it. Even though you can get it for "free" monetarily, there is still a very high cost associated to taking that route to strongly dissuade players from choosing not to pay to unlock rewards.
Nothing is free in this world.
This is what the Cash Shop games depend on. Making it hard to get to the goal without the CS item. It is how they design content and what makes the F2P model undesireable to some of us. Best example is grind. Introduce grindy content then sell a potion to alleviate the grind. The sad thing is, its content quality that suffers from this payment model. They are more intent on forcing a purchase than on quality.
Its not as simple or black and white as either of you make it out to be.
In the course of normal leveling in DDO to about level 5 or 6 a player should have very little trouble finding as much content as they want.
Do that content will earn you favor and one-time per server bonuses that reward store points. You should be able to buy a content module of your choice.
The DDO community has already mapped out what is a good route for purchasing modules if you only care about leveling. You will probably be directed to purchase the Delara's Tomb.
Delara's is great XP and you can easily get some very good gear and reach level 9 or 10 from that free pruchase and the other content available in the level range.
If you ran a number of quests on Elite to get extra favor and XP (and hopefully liked the challenge) you may have earned enough points to buy another module. If not you may need to supplemnt those point with about $5 worth of points. You will most likely buy Giant hold next.
The progression continues on in this way. You will do anything from paying $20 to paying nothing. You will reach max level and have access to 80% of the really good gear.
Now if you wanted EVERYTHING for COMPLETELY free then yes you would need to do a lot of grinding. If you wanted to buy a +2 to all stats tome in addition to having all content yes you would need to grind.
But it is hardly being held hostage like some people make it out to be. In fact its considerably cheaper in DDO to get max level than any sub based game.
It is possible to not pay at all and do very little extra grinding while getting to max level. But if you want certain perks like the Monk class or the Warforged race and also do that and NOT pay any money at all then yes the grinding starts to become pretty serious.
But you could have paid for those two things for about $25. That is a flat fee. It applies to all servers, forever. That is 1.5 months worth of sub in another game.
The only "very high" cost is when you want EVERY SINGLE option. We are talking about grinding out hundreds of dollars worth of things.
You can play the game and make a VERY strong chracter without paying a dime and only doing a very minimal (by MMO standards) amount of grind. You will not have all content doing this though. At least not the first time through. But yuou will be max level and probably have unlocked the Favored Soul class are ready for a replay and during this replay you will earn more favor and more free store points.
One of the things to realzie is most people who play DDO do ALOT of alts. There are tons of builds. People playing on 3 servers and playing 3 different characters is not really much a of a grind. Its common and normal.
Now LOTRO is more like EQ or WoW in that people have a true main character. Perhaps the store points earned in game will not work out as well. I dunno.
They're not free, they're just shifting the revenue model from subscription based to micro-transaction based.
The "Free" is marketing spin used to lure people to the game in hopes they'll get hooked and then bleed money via MT.
^This^. Pretty much it with LOTRO. You hit level 20 and you pretty much have to start paying in order to really do anything in game. It is an extended demo and NOT f2p. Yes, you hit the nail on the head.
No this is misleading. If you sub to LOTRO or DDO you get exactly what you got before. In fact you get more as you also get 500 store points per month. So you essentially get a 1 hour xp boost per month (or whatever you want to buy). Now this "more" is completely made up pretend stuff so whatever, but pre-orders work the same way you get some pet or a one time xp token etc.
...
Actually, your statement is the misleading one.
As a subscriber you get everything you got before, minus access to all content, like you previously would (excluding expansions of course).
Yes, you get a pittance of "points" to spend each month, but the amount you get is miniscule compared to the amount of "content" and perks and items locked up in the item mall that were introduced with the inclusion of the "Free" to play option.
And... subscribers now have to put up with competing against the "free" players, in both spawns, server space, and server performance. From what I've been hearing, server performance has taken a huge nose dive since the F2P option was added.
Sounds pretty lose-lose for subscribers after the change, than before.
Huh?
Subscribers get access to all content in DDO. Including the newly released content. I was subbed to DDO before F2P. I canceled my sub.
I resubbed 2 months ago. I have access to everything.
You are simply wrong.
Edit:
Hold on what is this about competeing for spawns? Do you even understand how DDO content works? That statement makes no sense in context. And how are they competeing for server performance? DDO revenue has climbed by a factor of 5. Yes there is more lag on some servers. But clearly Turbine can afford considerably more server than they could before. They certainly do not need 5 times the servers. Absolutely not.
While Turbine hasn't necessarily shown a lot of great sense in MMO development in recent years, it appears they're market leaders when it comes to creating a hybrid P2P/Micro transaction model that is satisfactory to a broad player community.
Someday people will write dissertations on their impact on the MMORPG payment model landscape.
A great deal of contemporary games uses innovations or standards pioneered by turbine. Just FYI. Instiant attacks, aimed attacks, the standard MMG GUI... list goes on.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
They're not free, they're just shifting the revenue model from subscription based to micro-transaction based.
The "Free" is marketing spin used to lure people to the game in hopes they'll get hooked and then bleed money via MT.
^This^. Pretty much it with LOTRO. You hit level 20 and you pretty much have to start paying in order to really do anything in game. It is an extended demo and NOT f2p. Yes, you hit the nail on the head.
No this is misleading. If you sub to LOTRO or DDO you get exactly what you got before. In fact you get more as you also get 500 store points per month. So you essentially get a 1 hour xp boost per month (or whatever you want to buy). Now this "more" is completely made up pretend stuff so whatever, but pre-orders work the same way you get some pet or a one time xp token etc.
...
Actually, your statement is the misleading one.
As a subscriber you get everything you got before, minus access to all content, like you previously would (excluding expansions of course).
Yes, you get a pittance of "points" to spend each month, but the amount you get is miniscule compared to the amount of "content" and perks and items locked up in the item mall that were introduced with the inclusion of the "Free" to play option.
And... subscribers now have to put up with competing against the "free" players, in both spawns, server space, and server performance. From what I've been hearing, server performance has taken a huge nose dive since the F2P option was added.
Sounds pretty lose-lose for subscribers after the change, than before.
Huh?
Subscribers get access to all content in DDO. Including the newly released content. I was subbed to DDO before F2P. I canceled my sub.
I resubbed 2 months ago. I have access to everything.
You are simply wrong.
Edit:
Hold on what is this about competeing for spawns? Do you even understand how DDO content works? That statement makes no sense in context. And how are they competeing for server performance? DDO revenue has climbed by a factor of 5. Yes there is more lag on some servers. But clearly Turbine can afford considerably more server than they could before. They certainly do not need 5 times the servers. Absolutely not.
This thread is specifically about LOTRO, not DDO. DDO's been mentioned, but the main focus of the discussion is LOTRO.
In LOTRO as a subscriber you get "access" to all of the general content, but you're still locked out of the item mall content. In other words, you're locked out of access to all possible content within the game, which includes 'perk items', unless you pull your CC out. And as I understand it, a number of the purchasable 'items' are virtues, which are only otherwise obtainable from boring and tediously long in-game grinding. Now you can avoid the work by paying, good deal right? Wrong. If the design is so flawed that it's practically work, then the mechanic should be removed, not exploited to milk more money out of players. Purchasing virtues only encourages the developer to add more content that's even more tedious to grind, so they can add a "pay to skip" option for it... which believe me, they will without a doubt do so.
DDO's reveneue jumped 500%, sub DOUBLED, after going F2P.
That is what is expected of LOTRO.
I keep seeing these figures thrown around by those trying to justify the F2P move. Anyone have any numbers of what the population of DDO was before it went F2P? Double subs sounds like a lot but the lower the number before it doulbed the less impressive it gets. Same with the revenue. A 500% increase would be a lot if you were making a fortune to start with but again, the lower the base figure the less impressive it gets.
If DDO had 30k subs when it went F2P that was a lot. It was a dying game that was getting nearly nothing done to it for huge chunks of time. As you have observed the percentages keep getting tossed around to avoid using the real numbers. Turbine has traded in its long time loyal customers for the fast buck and the content they have released in the last year is the proof. I myself have moved on since I no longer feel like the target audience.
Its not actually FTP. They give you a taste of the game for free but if you want to play the whole thing you gotta pay. Thats their benefit - new subs.
Not entirely true for DDO. NOt sure about lotro yet.
In DDO you can concievably get EVERYTHING for free. But it would take a huge amount of grinding characters across all servers.
In the end it is more of an issue of fun and how much you think your time is worth. You can just to do favor runs over and over if you want.
Keep in mind DDO Store purchases usually apply to all servers. You can "purchase" the Vet status for a pretty small amount of in game earned favor. Vet status lets you start a character 4th level. You could easily get vet status. Then farm favor over and over across all servers (to get the extra free points for unlock certain amounts of favor per server).
All of this without paying a dime. Now I personally do not want to do this as it sounds like a huge grind that is not that fun in an RPG perspective.
But you can concievably achieve everything in DDO without ever paying a dime. I wouldn't really reccomend it though. Although I would reccomend the farm method up to a certain point if you are on a limited budget.
So the options are to pay for content, or spend countless hours grinding the same content over and over again to get things for "free".
Doesn't sound free to me, because you have to work to get it. Even though you can get it for "free" monetarily, there is still a very high cost associated to taking that route to strongly dissuade players from choosing not to pay to unlock rewards.
Nothing is free in this world.
This is what the Cash Shop games depend on. Making it hard to get to the goal without the CS item. It is how they design content and what makes the F2P model undesireable to some of us. Best example is grind. Introduce grindy content then sell a potion to alleviate the grind. The sad thing is, its content quality that suffers from this payment model. They are more intent on forcing a purchase than on quality.
Its not as simple or black and white as either of you make it out to be.
In the course of normal leveling in DDO to about level 5 or 6 a player should have very little trouble finding as much content as they want.
Do that content will earn you favor and one-time per server bonuses that reward store points. You should be able to buy a content module of your choice.
The DDO community has already mapped out what is a good route for purchasing modules if you only care about leveling. You will probably be directed to purchase the Delara's Tomb.
Delara's is great XP and you can easily get some very good gear and reach level 9 or 10 from that free pruchase and the other content available in the level range.
If you ran a number of quests on Elite to get extra favor and XP (and hopefully liked the challenge) you may have earned enough points to buy another module. If not you may need to supplemnt those point with about $5 worth of points. You will most likely buy Giant hold next.
The progression continues on in this way. You will do anything from paying $20 to paying nothing. You will reach max level and have access to 80% of the really good gear.
Now if you wanted EVERYTHING for COMPLETELY free then yes you would need to do a lot of grinding. If you wanted to buy a +2 to all stats tome in addition to having all content yes you would need to grind.
But it is hardly being held hostage like some people make it out to be. In fact its considerably cheaper in DDO to get max level than any sub based game.
It is possible to not pay at all and do very little extra grinding while getting to max level. But if you want certain perks like the Monk class or the Warforged race and also do that and NOT pay any money at all then yes the grinding starts to become pretty serious.
But you could have paid for those two things for about $25. That is a flat fee. It applies to all servers, forever. That is 1.5 months worth of sub in another game.
The only "very high" cost is when you want EVERY SINGLE option. We are talking about grinding out hundreds of dollars worth of things.
You can play the game and make a VERY strong chracter without paying a dime and only doing a very minimal (by MMO standards) amount of grind. You will not have all content doing this though. At least not the first time through. But yuou will be max level and probably have unlocked the Favored Soul class are ready for a replay and during this replay you will earn more favor and more free store points.
One of the things to realzie is most people who play DDO do ALOT of alts. There are tons of builds. People playing on 3 servers and playing 3 different characters is not really much a of a grind. Its common and normal.
Now LOTRO is more like EQ or WoW in that people have a true main character. Perhaps the store points earned in game will not work out as well. I dunno.
The main reason people have no real main in DDO is because Turbine never provided enough content to play any one character long term. If DDO had high level content mains would be more common.
Most of you probably got the news letter from mmorpg this week...
this news letter mensioned that lotro became a ftp game in north america. Most continents will follow, i think. For us, as mmorpg players, this is a good thing to hear.
but my question is, what kind of profit does a company have of making their ptp game a ftp game? probably more players... but the monthly fee is a huge income for the company.
so what do you think about it..
Sad fact is, item mall games have proven over and over that per retained customer (concurrent subscriber) will spend far more a month in an item mall game than they can get $15 a month per subscriber. As such, more and more games are going F2P, because even if it's less numbers over all, the profit margin per player is vastly higher in F2P games than traditional monthly subscription games.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Most of you probably got the news letter from mmorpg this week...
this news letter mensioned that lotro became a ftp game in north america. Most continents will follow, i think. For us, as mmorpg players, this is a good thing to hear.
but my question is, what kind of profit does a company have of making their ptp game a ftp game? probably more players... but the monthly fee is a huge income for the company.
so what do you think about it..
Sad fact is, item mall games have proven over and over that per retained customer (concurrent subscriber) will spend far more a month in an item mall game than they can get $15 a month per subscriber. As such, more and more games are going F2P, because even if it's less numbers over all, the profit margin per player is vastly higher in F2P games than traditional monthly subscription games.
Actually I'm pretty sure it's the exact opposite. With studies that have been quoted here in these forums, most people (people it was around 85%) never spend a dime in FTP games. The games just make a lot of money of that last 15%.
Venge Sunsoar
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
While Turbine hasn't necessarily shown a lot of great sense in MMO development in recent years, it appears they're market leaders when it comes to creating a hybrid P2P/Micro transaction model that is satisfactory to a broad player community.
Someday people will write dissertations on their impact on the MMORPG payment model landscape.
A great deal of contemporary games uses innovations or standards pioneered by turbine. Just FYI. Instiant attacks, aimed attacks, the standard MMG GUI... list goes on.
Well, while they may have pioneered some features (most of those with their 1st game) they sure haven't shown an ability to put it all together into a great game since then. Too much stumbling around with poor launches and other factors keep them from greatness.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
While Turbine hasn't necessarily shown a lot of great sense in MMO development in recent years, it appears they're market leaders when it comes to creating a hybrid P2P/Micro transaction model that is satisfactory to a broad player community.
Someday people will write dissertations on their impact on the MMORPG payment model landscape.
A great deal of contemporary games uses innovations or standards pioneered by turbine. Just FYI. Instiant attacks, aimed attacks, the standard MMG GUI... list goes on.
Well, while they may have pioneered some features (most of those with their 1st game) they sure haven't shown an ability to put it all together into a great game since then. Too much stumbling around with poor launches and other factors keep them from greatness.
It is amazing to me that they forgot to put the good things they pioneered into the rest of their games. Makes you wonder if they know some of the good things they had once done.
Most of you probably got the news letter from mmorpg this week...
this news letter mensioned that lotro became a ftp game in north america. Most continents will follow, i think. For us, as mmorpg players, this is a good thing to hear.
but my question is, what kind of profit does a company have of making their ptp game a ftp game? probably more players... but the monthly fee is a huge income for the company.
so what do you think about it..
Lotro's free to play system is a bit different than the typical free to play game. It is a lot more restrictive and you can't get access to all content unless you pay. The reason it goes free to play is probably to appeal to a wider audience. A lot of people don't like having to pay a monthly fee for a game in which they have no or little experience with. A player is much more likely to invest in an experience they are already invested a lot of time in.
people say "ooooo looky free to play!!" they download it and get suckered into using the CS. and you wouldn't believe the crap they buy in there. every single new costume/mount/exp pot/house item/anything else you can think of they buy. diamond studded horse poo for $15? what a steal!
It has a lot to do with human psychology. Traditional P2P MMOs have a steeper up-front cost in terms of buying the box and then paying ~ $15 a month for a subscription. People generally look at both of these costs as something they would not be willing to pay unless they were sure (or at least very confident) that they will enjoy the product. Furthermore, joining a subscription-based game locks you in to an agreement where you automatically pay each month to continue playing. Because of this, people often hesitate and decide not to 'take the plunge' and try a new game if these costs are involved. For MMORPGs, this is especially harmful because these games rely on healthy populations to thrive and to attract new would-be customers to the game. Unless your MMO is the hottest thing since sliced bread (aka WoW), getting a truly healthy population willing to throw down on all upfront and subscription costs is a difficult thing to do... especially after the launch-time hype had died down. A low population causes new players to decide not to try the game or continue subscribing, and retention suffers in a downward trend as a result.
The F2P model solves all of these problems by allowing ANYONE to try the game for free. This completely bypasses the decision to 'take the plunge' because there is nothing to lose. Players pick up the game with 0 monetary risk and the population in-game increases dramatically. If they like the game, they will easily justify paying a small amount of money for items that will enhance their experience. The higher population then results in more people willing to join the game and actually spend money on it. This results in an upward trend in population growth and an overall increase in the health of the game.
Ultimately I think we are going to see a lot more companies following suit and making their games F2P from here on...
It has a lot to do with human psychology. Traditional P2P MMOs have a steeper up-front cost in terms of buying the box and then paying ~ $15 a month for a subscription. People generally look at both of these costs as something they would not be willing to pay unless they were sure (or at least very confident) that they will enjoy the product. Furthermore, joining a subscription-based game locks you in to an agreement where you automatically pay each month to continue playing. Because of this, people often hesitate and decide not to 'take the plunge' and try a new game if these costs are involved. For MMORPGs, this is especially harmful because these games rely on healthy populations to thrive and to attract new would-be customers to the game. Unless your MMO is the hottest thing since sliced bread (aka WoW), getting a truly healthy population willing to throw down on all upfront and subscription costs is a difficult thing to do... especially after the launch-time hype had died down. A low population causes new players to decide not to try the game or continue subscribing, and retention suffers in a downward trend as a result.
The F2P model solves all of these problems by allowing ANYONE to try the game for free. This completely bypasses the decision to 'take the plunge' because there is nothing to lose. Players pick up the game with 0 monetary risk and the population in-game increases dramatically. If they like the game, they will easily justify paying a small amount of money for items that will enhance their experience. The higher population then results in more people willing to join the game and actually spend money on it. This results in an upward trend in population growth and an overall increase in the health of the game.
Ultimately I think we are going to see a lot more companies following suit and making their games F2P from here on...
Lets also not forget that when you pay lets say $50 up front for a game you generally have expectations, if the game is mediocre you are more likely to say it sucks if you paid $50 then you are if you downloaded it for free. I would agree that much of the F2P is aimed at the psychological side.
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So the options are to pay for content, or spend countless hours grinding the same content over and over again to get things for "free".
Doesn't sound free to me, because you have to work to get it. Even though you can get it for "free" monetarily, there is still a very high cost associated to taking that route to strongly dissuade players from choosing not to pay to unlock rewards.
Nothing is free in this world.
This is what the Cash Shop games depend on. Making it hard to get to the goal without the CS item. It is how they design content and what makes the F2P model undesireable to some of us. Best example is grind. Introduce grindy content then sell a potion to alleviate the grind. The sad thing is, its content quality that suffers from this payment model. They are more intent on forcing a purchase than on quality.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
No this is misleading. If you sub to LOTRO or DDO you get exactly what you got before. In fact you get more as you also get 500 store points per month. So you essentially get a 1 hour xp boost per month (or whatever you want to buy). Now this "more" is completely made up pretend stuff so whatever, but pre-orders work the same way you get some pet or a one time xp token etc.
Yes most likely most people are going pay something. But that does not mean they will pay MT at all. Or that they will pay a never ending addiction of MT. They may sub just like WoW or they may be smart and make a few strategic purchases and never pay again.
Look just log into DDO and ask on public chat "What are the essential modules I need to level? And much does that cost/how much favor do I need to earn it?". You will get an answer very quickly that will consist of a fairly small list of roughly 5 modules that would be a purchase of something like I dunno $35, I haven't done the math myself. And if you use your in game earned points probably half that money. People ask this everyday. Its a well known plan/phenomenon. Some people never pay money and just favor farm to get the essential modules.
LOTRO may not be as easily done as DDO I am not too sure. But yes while its not free. There are ALOT of people who do a finite and small number of Microtransations.
In LOTRO if you subbed for a few months you could actually purchase the last expansion with the 500/month "free" store point. Under the sub model you pay for first game, sub, pay for expansion.
If you are bleeding MT all over the place in DDO or LOTRO you might as well be subbing initially then use your in-game earned points from favor/deeds to unlock a few content pieces.
YOU can easily play DDO and sub for 3 months and then use all your points to purchase about 4 Key modules and never have to sub again or do any MT ever again.
I am not trying to say that DDO and Turbine do not tempt people with some store purchases. Mainly the big ones in DDO are Respec tokens and +2 tomes.
I suspect these are the major sellers. But I also suspect these are mainly bought by people who spend inordinate amounts on MMOs to being with.
In general the model milks people far less than a normal sub game does. I believe some very well off people are getting milked quite a bit via +2 tomes and Reincarnation tokens.
Without reading the entire thread but skimming...
It's like a drug dealer. If he had no addicts to deal to, he'd be out of the job. If he starts passing out free samples, people get addicted and will come back for more, only he'll charge you more when you do. The subsequent sales to those people and even perhaps their pals who also get hooked will more than make up for the loss of handing out a few "samples".
Turbine's F2P models are set up in a very similar fashion. Get you hooked, then once you're sucked in, charge you for your new habit. Laugh all the way to the bank*.
*Disclaimer: Not critisizing the games themselves.
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If nothing else, the regular influx of players keeps the game world alive which, in turn, makes people more likely to stay and get invested in the game. In most subscription MMOs, after the first 6 months to a year, the low level zones have very few people in them. A game that a player might otherwise find enjoyable starts off as a lonely and empty experience. With Freemium or F2P models, there is a regular influx of new players, which means that there is a good amount of players distributed through all levels and not just in the high level zones.
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It's hardly free and that's coming from a subscriber.
It's more or less an extended trial.
Actually, your statement is the misleading one.
As a subscriber you get everything you got before, minus access to all content, like you previously would (excluding expansions of course).
Yes, you get a pittance of "points" to spend each month, but the amount you get is miniscule compared to the amount of "content" and perks and items locked up in the item mall that were introduced with the inclusion of the "Free" to play option.
And... subscribers now have to put up with competing against the "free" players, in both spawns, server space, and server performance. From what I've been hearing, server performance has taken a huge nose dive since the F2P option was added.
Sounds pretty lose-lose for subscribers after the change, than before.
Its not as simple or black and white as either of you make it out to be.
In the course of normal leveling in DDO to about level 5 or 6 a player should have very little trouble finding as much content as they want.
Do that content will earn you favor and one-time per server bonuses that reward store points. You should be able to buy a content module of your choice.
The DDO community has already mapped out what is a good route for purchasing modules if you only care about leveling. You will probably be directed to purchase the Delara's Tomb.
Delara's is great XP and you can easily get some very good gear and reach level 9 or 10 from that free pruchase and the other content available in the level range.
If you ran a number of quests on Elite to get extra favor and XP (and hopefully liked the challenge) you may have earned enough points to buy another module. If not you may need to supplemnt those point with about $5 worth of points. You will most likely buy Giant hold next.
The progression continues on in this way. You will do anything from paying $20 to paying nothing. You will reach max level and have access to 80% of the really good gear.
Now if you wanted EVERYTHING for COMPLETELY free then yes you would need to do a lot of grinding. If you wanted to buy a +2 to all stats tome in addition to having all content yes you would need to grind.
But it is hardly being held hostage like some people make it out to be. In fact its considerably cheaper in DDO to get max level than any sub based game.
It is possible to not pay at all and do very little extra grinding while getting to max level. But if you want certain perks like the Monk class or the Warforged race and also do that and NOT pay any money at all then yes the grinding starts to become pretty serious.
But you could have paid for those two things for about $25. That is a flat fee. It applies to all servers, forever. That is 1.5 months worth of sub in another game.
The only "very high" cost is when you want EVERY SINGLE option. We are talking about grinding out hundreds of dollars worth of things.
You can play the game and make a VERY strong chracter without paying a dime and only doing a very minimal (by MMO standards) amount of grind. You will not have all content doing this though. At least not the first time through. But yuou will be max level and probably have unlocked the Favored Soul class are ready for a replay and during this replay you will earn more favor and more free store points.
One of the things to realzie is most people who play DDO do ALOT of alts. There are tons of builds. People playing on 3 servers and playing 3 different characters is not really much a of a grind. Its common and normal.
Now LOTRO is more like EQ or WoW in that people have a true main character. Perhaps the store points earned in game will not work out as well. I dunno.
Huh?
Subscribers get access to all content in DDO. Including the newly released content. I was subbed to DDO before F2P. I canceled my sub.
I resubbed 2 months ago. I have access to everything.
You are simply wrong.
Edit:
Hold on what is this about competeing for spawns? Do you even understand how DDO content works? That statement makes no sense in context. And how are they competeing for server performance? DDO revenue has climbed by a factor of 5. Yes there is more lag on some servers. But clearly Turbine can afford considerably more server than they could before. They certainly do not need 5 times the servers. Absolutely not.
A great deal of contemporary games uses innovations or standards pioneered by turbine. Just FYI. Instiant attacks, aimed attacks, the standard MMG GUI... list goes on.
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This thread is specifically about LOTRO, not DDO. DDO's been mentioned, but the main focus of the discussion is LOTRO.
In LOTRO as a subscriber you get "access" to all of the general content, but you're still locked out of the item mall content. In other words, you're locked out of access to all possible content within the game, which includes 'perk items', unless you pull your CC out. And as I understand it, a number of the purchasable 'items' are virtues, which are only otherwise obtainable from boring and tediously long in-game grinding. Now you can avoid the work by paying, good deal right? Wrong. If the design is so flawed that it's practically work, then the mechanic should be removed, not exploited to milk more money out of players. Purchasing virtues only encourages the developer to add more content that's even more tedious to grind, so they can add a "pay to skip" option for it... which believe me, they will without a doubt do so.
An unlimited time trial with some content locked up ... sounds good.
The game is not free, you have to spend money at some point unless you want to grind your way to 50 without any quests.
If DDO had 30k subs when it went F2P that was a lot. It was a dying game that was getting nearly nothing done to it for huge chunks of time. As you have observed the percentages keep getting tossed around to avoid using the real numbers. Turbine has traded in its long time loyal customers for the fast buck and the content they have released in the last year is the proof. I myself have moved on since I no longer feel like the target audience.
The main reason people have no real main in DDO is because Turbine never provided enough content to play any one character long term. If DDO had high level content mains would be more common.
Sad fact is, item mall games have proven over and over that per retained customer (concurrent subscriber) will spend far more a month in an item mall game than they can get $15 a month per subscriber. As such, more and more games are going F2P, because even if it's less numbers over all, the profit margin per player is vastly higher in F2P games than traditional monthly subscription games.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
nothing screams marketing like FREE.
Actually I'm pretty sure it's the exact opposite. With studies that have been quoted here in these forums, most people (people it was around 85%) never spend a dime in FTP games. The games just make a lot of money of that last 15%.
Venge Sunsoar
Well, while they may have pioneered some features (most of those with their 1st game) they sure haven't shown an ability to put it all together into a great game since then. Too much stumbling around with poor launches and other factors keep them from greatness.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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It is amazing to me that they forgot to put the good things they pioneered into the rest of their games. Makes you wonder if they know some of the good things they had once done.
Lotro's free to play system is a bit different than the typical free to play game. It is a lot more restrictive and you can't get access to all content unless you pay. The reason it goes free to play is probably to appeal to a wider audience. A lot of people don't like having to pay a monthly fee for a game in which they have no or little experience with. A player is much more likely to invest in an experience they are already invested a lot of time in.
people say "ooooo looky free to play!!" they download it and get suckered into using the CS. and you wouldn't believe the crap they buy in there. every single new costume/mount/exp pot/house item/anything else you can think of they buy. diamond studded horse poo for $15? what a steal!
It has a lot to do with human psychology. Traditional P2P MMOs have a steeper up-front cost in terms of buying the box and then paying ~ $15 a month for a subscription. People generally look at both of these costs as something they would not be willing to pay unless they were sure (or at least very confident) that they will enjoy the product. Furthermore, joining a subscription-based game locks you in to an agreement where you automatically pay each month to continue playing. Because of this, people often hesitate and decide not to 'take the plunge' and try a new game if these costs are involved. For MMORPGs, this is especially harmful because these games rely on healthy populations to thrive and to attract new would-be customers to the game. Unless your MMO is the hottest thing since sliced bread (aka WoW), getting a truly healthy population willing to throw down on all upfront and subscription costs is a difficult thing to do... especially after the launch-time hype had died down. A low population causes new players to decide not to try the game or continue subscribing, and retention suffers in a downward trend as a result.
The F2P model solves all of these problems by allowing ANYONE to try the game for free. This completely bypasses the decision to 'take the plunge' because there is nothing to lose. Players pick up the game with 0 monetary risk and the population in-game increases dramatically. If they like the game, they will easily justify paying a small amount of money for items that will enhance their experience. The higher population then results in more people willing to join the game and actually spend money on it. This results in an upward trend in population growth and an overall increase in the health of the game.
Ultimately I think we are going to see a lot more companies following suit and making their games F2P from here on...
YOU SHAAAL NOT PAY!!!
Lets also not forget that when you pay lets say $50 up front for a game you generally have expectations, if the game is mediocre you are more likely to say it sucks if you paid $50 then you are if you downloaded it for free. I would agree that much of the F2P is aimed at the psychological side.