And enter the F2P genre of the far east. Unlike LOTRO, they start out with a F2P model. Actually, unlike LOTRO, the cash shop and the game play are closely connected. The very way the cash shops cater to your "needs", is thought out well in advance of release. Your "needs" are a result of not even very suble psychology. If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt... Why dont you let go of your constant arguments for LOTRO, and instead face reality:
That may be the most brilliantly concise and eloquent metaphor I have ever read regarding F2P/Cash Shops.
Sums it up beautifully.
I'm going to set that as a quote in my signature, if you don't mind .
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
F2P isn't bad as long as it doesn't become Pay2Win, which is the pitfall many of the F2P games fall into. What I hate the most are the "F2P" converts that are nothing more than extended trials with tiered membership plans, such as EQ2.
F2P isn't bad as long as it doesn't become Pay2Win, which is the pitfall many of the F2P games fall into. What I hate the most are the "F2P" converts that are nothing more than extended trials with tiered membership plans, such as EQ2.
In the end, I prefer B2P like Guild Wars.
I don't get the pay to win arguement.
Sounds too similar to the people who do the monthly fee and act all angsty about those who can spend 30 to 50 hours a week.
Bleh, too many people in other's bidness. The King would declare this illegal.
F2P is what we want when we don't understand what we'll get. No developer is going to put decent money into a game with a ? for income. You get what you pay for and the current F2P options show us this. Are there good F2P games? Sure, for a F2P game. Do those F2P at some point ask for money. Yes, most do and in some cases more than a sub based game. Now you've paid money to play a sub-par F2P game.
F2P isn't bad as long as it doesn't become Pay2Win, which is the pitfall many of the F2P games fall into. What I hate the most are the "F2P" converts that are nothing more than extended trials with tiered membership plans, such as EQ2.
In the end, I prefer B2P like Guild Wars.
I don't get the pay to win arguement.
Sounds too similar to the people who do the monthly fee and act all angsty about those who can spend 30 to 50 hours a week.
Bleh, too many people in other's bidness. The King would declare this illegal.
Thats what always amuses me about some of these arguments people get into. People complain about "pay 2 win", yet theyre ok with "dedicate the majority of your life to playing a video game 2 win". You would think they would be a bit more ashamed to brag that "hey, i have nothing more important in my life than this video game. its not fair that these other people with succesful jobs & families and such are able to have the same fake things as me"
They always try to use arguments of people not "earning" things.... but im pretty sure i did more to earn my money that i spent on the cash shop going to work everyday while also providing for my family, than some lazy bum who spends 20 hours a day in a game pressing a few buttons. Whats sad is, they could have gotten off their asses for even just a few hours a week and made enough money to not only buy whatever they spent 80 hours that week working for, but maybe even pay some of their own bills and stuff instead of mommy or the local welfare office paying their way.
I don't like a lot of small fees you get constantly... Paying a buck there and 50 cents there will be more expensive than 15 bucks a month.
Nothing is free and anyone saying so have some kind of agenda.
What gave me most for my money was however neither F2P nor P2P, it was Guildwars.
The real advantage with F2P games and B2P games is that you don't have to pay for not playing. With P2P you still pays even if you for some reasons can't or wont pay for a week or 2.
I still think B2P will be the future of MMOs, it already rules all other kind of games that you play online (except games that lives on adds) like FPS games. Guilwars 2 will prove the concept for good even if GW1 already should have done that.
F2P isn't bad as long as it doesn't become Pay2Win, which is the pitfall many of the F2P games fall into. What I hate the most are the "F2P" converts that are nothing more than extended trials with tiered membership plans, such as EQ2.
In the end, I prefer B2P like Guild Wars.
I don't get the pay to win arguement.
Sounds too similar to the people who do the monthly fee and act all angsty about those who can spend 30 to 50 hours a week.
Bleh, too many people in other's bidness. The King would declare this illegal.
Thats what always amuses me about some of these arguments people get into. People complain about "pay 2 win", yet theyre ok with "dedicate the majority of your life to playing a video game 2 win". You would think they would be a bit more ashamed to brag that "hey, i have nothing more important in my life than this video game. its not fair that these other people with succesful jobs & families and such are able to have the same fake things as me"
They always try to use arguments of people not "earning" things.... but im pretty sure i did more to earn my money that i spent on the cash shop going to work everyday while also providing for my family, than some lazy bum who spends 20 hours a day in a game pressing a few buttons. Whats sad is, they could have gotten off their asses for even just a few hours a week and made enough money to not only buy whatever they spent 80 hours that week working for, but maybe even pay some of their own bills and stuff instead of mommy or the local welfare office paying their way.
I just think in the end these people fear change. They live for the status quo. I think that's why item tiers and paying for uber mounts is okay them. It's meeting the quo.
F2P is free... To... Play. I didn't pay any money for LotRO's box. I bought a 20 dollar card and increased my space and sat myself up to gain 30 levels of play. I did this and it took me 7 months to get there. 20 dollars in 7 months.
Had I paid 15 bucks a month. For the time that I have to play a game like that I would have spent.
15, 15 (30)(45)(60)(75)(90) 90 dollars..... Who is getting scammed?
Oh you're at cap in WoW or RIFT and you're progressing? How? How many more 15 buck ticks did you take to get to cap level and a new tier of armor?
I've spent 40 dollars now in LotRO and I've taken my sweet time RPing, reading the quests, learning how to be the best damn Cappy and King that I can be.
People who say the F2P model is a scam; they MIGHT be doing themselves a favor by know that personally they'd waste all their money and not pay for what they see worth paying for.
BTW for 20 more dollars (total of 60) I'll be able to play 4 characters questing from level 1 to 75, and I average each week of play enough free Turbine points to buy a cool hat or cloak.
Free to play isn't a rip off. If you're of sound mine. Like the King.
LoTRO was developed with the "status quo" in mind and only changed to F2P because it could get them more income than all the lifetime memberships. Yes, it's a great deal now that its pay as you go but it's after the fact. A game developed with F2P in mind is not going to be as good as LoTRO.
Is it only me, or has the F2P actually made the content more expensive?
Yes, you can grind, and usually in a very lab rat, monotonous way (which actually ISNT my idea of fun after 10 hours of real life work), or you can end up paying MORE than what you did with the subscription model.
Dungeon and Dragons Online: You can buy a single race for about 900 ingame tokens. 1200 tokens cost about 15 dollars. To get a nice race + class combo, you have to pay around 1800 tokens. See what they did there? In less than 5 minutes you spent twice the amount you would have paid to subscribe a whole game universe.
Now who's the god damn punk that asked for this? X(
it is only you.
Research (the links have been posted again and again ... it is a pretty well known fact now) shows that a MAJORITY of F2P players pay NOTHING.
Thus, f2p makes content LESS expensive (i.e free) to MOST of their players.
I just cancelled my last P2P games. It is all free for me from now on.
F2P isn't bad as long as it doesn't become Pay2Win, which is the pitfall many of the F2P games fall into. What I hate the most are the "F2P" converts that are nothing more than extended trials with tiered membership plans, such as EQ2.
In the end, I prefer B2P like Guild Wars.
I don't get the pay to win arguement.
Sounds too similar to the people who do the monthly fee and act all angsty about those who can spend 30 to 50 hours a week.
Bleh, too many people in other's bidness. The King would declare this illegal.
Thats what always amuses me about some of these arguments people get into. People complain about "pay 2 win", yet theyre ok with "dedicate the majority of your life to playing a video game 2 win". You would think they would be a bit more ashamed to brag that "hey, i have nothing more important in my life than this video game. its not fair that these other people with succesful jobs & families and such are able to have the same fake things as me"
They always try to use arguments of people not "earning" things.... but im pretty sure i did more to earn my money that i spent on the cash shop going to work everyday while also providing for my family, than some lazy bum who spends 20 hours a day in a game pressing a few buttons. Whats sad is, they could have gotten off their asses for even just a few hours a week and made enough money to not only buy whatever they spent 80 hours that week working for, but maybe even pay some of their own bills and stuff instead of mommy or the local welfare office paying their way.
I have no problem with pay to win. I don't have to win. There is NO winning in PvE. And if someone wants to pay for some stuff and subsidize my games, GREAT!!!
The reason people dislike pay2win, is because we play these games to be part of a fantasy world. It's an escape from reality, and many of us have shitty realities. So when we have an online game in which we have to share with other people, we want everything to be equal, because in the real world it isn't.
Once real world money matters, then we have to face the fact that maybe we're poor and can't afford to win. That's why people hate pay2win, because it ruins their fun. It's tons of fun for people who have money to burn of course. So in the end, this is just a rich versus poor argument, and I'll always support the poor.
Having developers code in hindrances that make you have to use the Cash Shop to get any real enjoyment out of our games. Is that really what MMO's are moving into?
Who asked for this? It sure as hell wasnt me!
Not all F2P games are like that. Some of them which are designed for the F2P+cash shop model are. But not the ones that were sub based and went F2P in their twilight years.
Also I expect to see more hybrid models. Where you can sub or play for free in a limited way. Just like EQ2X and upcoming Age of Conan as F2P.
i view the whole f2p thing this way....it opens up mmos to alot of people who normally wouldn't play due to the cost of subscriptions. wherether that taints the player pools ...yeah it kinda does. does it force more competition yeas it does. I have had more fun in f2p titles as of recent than aaa sub mmos. As I get older i have less time to game..i work 50 hrs a week and have a house to upkeep, subscriptions don't work as they don't justify the time i spend ingame...and alot of the casual f2p titls like free realms, appease my gaming needs,
Free to play doesn't matter. Won't matter. Will you still be playing it 4 years from now..? If not then why bother investing ANY time into a character, unless that character can grow & prosper.
I dont agree with this argument
I play plenty of new mmos on launch and even tho I dont stay beyond the 1st 30 days
-- I still have fun with them
dont to have to invest your time in any game for years and years ... to be satisfied
Four and a half years later, James has learned a lot -- that the average revenue per user (ARPU) is between one and two dollars a month, but only about 10% of his player base has ever paid him anything. As a result, he says, approximately 5,000 gamers are generating the $230,000 in revenue he sees each month.
Someone has already said this, but the biggest thing I like about buy to play games or free-to-play games is that I don't feel obligated to log in. One of the biggest factors that made me question my subscription to WoW was that I was only logging in to raid and the just logging off at 12 am right when the raid was over. Bottom line, I didn't feel like I was getting my money's worth. It wasn't Blizzard's fault, it's more the nature of where my life is right now. I don't have the time to play that I used to.
With free-to-play games I feel no obligation, no pressure. I just log in when I have time and play for as long as my schedule allows.
p2p games are successful, when they are fun to a lot of players.
f2p games are successful, when they are so unfun to play, that their most loyal players rather spent a fortune in the shop than playing the game.
Add to that the immersion breaking of permanently advertising (that was the reason I finally quit both eq2 and lotro, though having a sub for both), and the huge impact on the "community" that the word "free" always has, and the conclusion for me is quite clear: if you want to play a quality games for a long time with good friends and fine people around, p2p is the only way to go. I even decided not to try gw2 because of their payment model...
This thread has been a good read but saddly the only people who are wrong are the ones that feel free to play is going away anytime soon. Atleast here in the US quality does not win over price. Want a wonderful example of how much free to play will leave its mark on this industry look no farther then Facebook, Zynga is now worth more then EA (yes we can consider them evil but atleast what they make can actually be considered games). People are willing to pay cash to get the chance to click on a few more tiles. That last line should be bold and underlined, but thats not my style. My real fear is how these facebook games will change this industry, not if somebody spends a thousand dollars to kill me.
Think of this as your next popular mmo, you just killed your 50th mob you begin to walk back to the quest giver(or collected your last piece of wood to finish your virtual house for you sandboxers), oh wait now your out of energy. Now you can log off and wait till you have more, ask your friends/guild for enough to get you 4 steps closer, or buy some. The scary thing is the amount of real game devolopers that are jumping ship to join companys who are making this style of game. Someone is making money to be able to tempt talent to jump ship.
Free to play in its current form is a good deal for some, back 2-3 years ago I was often finding myself sub'd to 2-3 games, because honestly no game has everything I want and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. I would could cancel a game because while I enjoyed playing it, I always felt I was wasting money if I was playing one of the three more then the other 2 which often happened. Now alot of those games have gone f2p.
Right now I don't have a p2p mmo, though at this point I think its time for me to give Eve some real play. Now when it goes down or I just feel like a change of pace I have quite a few f2p options of games I put in the category, of not bad but not something I'd pay a monthly fee for. Right now for me my f2p option of these games lotro, champions, tier 1 via warhammer, and strangely enough Forsaken World (for a real ground up cash shop I never feel like i'm missing something buy not spending money in the cash shop).
tldr: I think the future of where this industry is going with f2p could be alot worse then the current models we have now.
Im sorry, but I have a feeling that some of the advocates here for f2p models arent really grasping something quite essential that is happening these days: New F2P MMORPGs are NOT the games that were previously P2P and went "free" to play. It's a whole BUNCH of games that were made to accommodate the F2P model from the ground up. Lotro has a rich storyline, and it has depth. I still find it booring, but that's me and it's a matter of taste. It going F2P has nothing to do with me not playing it. I am currently playing a lil of D&DO, and Im quite enjoying myself. I have of course subscribed so I dont have to have my GAMING experience be hindered by those pot holes in the road they've made for freebies. It still irritates me that spell point pots ("manapots") are rarely found in dungeons and you end up still having to buy them from the cash shop even after you subscribe.
What I am asking in my OP isnt really so much having previously P2P games going F2P. Most of the ones mentioned in this thread are hybrid, and you can subscribe. What I am asking is if you really want the new generation of MMORPGs that are made from the ground up as a F2P. Pot holes and all. If you really want this, then I'm getting the hell out of this litterbox.
Play the game you like. It should be irrelevant what other people like ,and why they like it.
People that like F2P and think it's "better" than P2P will never understand why P2P gamers disagree.
People that like P2P and think it's "better" than F2P will never understand why F2P gamers disagree.
Both models should exist, for both types of players.
You're not a better person, or a better gamer, because you like one, and not the other.
Some people like coke, some people like pepsi.
they are both colas, niether is better, and there is nothing wrong with people that like the one you don't.
Sorry to come raining on your parade, Imotepp, but it's not quite like that from my view point. You forget the business part of MMORPG. It's an industry, and right now it's spewing out games just like the Ford factory. If the majority of players want F2P games, then the majority of games will be just that - built upon the F2P (lies!) model. Thus, excluding people like myself who dont enjoy that model very much because I dont like shopping in real life, and I dont like it in my virtual worlds either.
I'm not forgetting anything.
One of the biggest MMORPGs on the planet is a P2P game, WoW.
TOR is going to be P2P.
How many F2P games being made is irrelevant.
If you don't like them, don't play them.
Doesn't matter if they make one or a million of them.
Developers will make P2P games as long as companies like Blizzard make money of P2P games.
Im sorry, but I have a feeling that some of the advocates here for f2p models arent really grasping something quite essential that is happening these days: New F2P MMORPGs are NOT the games that were previously P2P and went "free" to play. It's a whole BUNCH of games that were made to accommodate the F2P model from the ground up. Lotro has a rich storyline, and it has depth. I still find it booring, but that's me and it's a matter of taste. It going F2P has nothing to do with me not playing it. I am currently playing a lil of D&DO, and Im quite enjoying myself. I have of course subscribed so I dont have to have my GAMING experience be hindered by those pot holes in the road they've made for freebies. It still irritates me that spell point pots ("manapots") are rarely found in dungeons and you end up still having to buy them from the cash shop even after you subscribe.
What I am asking in my OP isnt really so much having previously P2P games going F2P. Most of the ones mentioned in this thread are hybrid, and you can subscribe. What I am asking is if you really want the new generation of MMORPGs that are made from the ground up as a F2P. Pot holes and all. If you really want this, then I'm getting the hell out of this litterbox.
It comes down to choice. Do you want to invest time, or money. You favor time, while the F2P proponents favor money.
What I am asking is if you really want the new generation of MMORPGs that are made from the ground up as a F2P. Pot holes and all. If you really want this, then I'm getting the hell out of this litterbox.
See ya buddy, I'll be enjoying Super Flash Quest Online!
Seriously though, I've played my fair share of F2P MMOs and some are okay but I always come back to a sub game. The quality is just better IMO. I would love to have my game of choice F2P and if that's the case for someone then great. For me, 15.00 is the lowest bill I have for the month. What else can you do for .50 a day for the whole month....wait, don't answer that!
Im sorry, but I have a feeling that some of the advocates here for f2p models arent really grasping something quite essential that is happening these days: New F2P MMORPGs are NOT the games that were previously P2P and went "free" to play. It's a whole BUNCH of games that were made to accommodate the F2P model from the ground up. Lotro has a rich storyline, and it has depth. I still find it booring, but that's me and it's a matter of taste. It going F2P has nothing to do with me not playing it. I am currently playing a lil of D&DO, and Im quite enjoying myself. I have of course subscribed so I dont have to have my GAMING experience be hindered by those pot holes in the road they've made for freebies. It still irritates me that spell point pots ("manapots") are rarely found in dungeons and you end up still having to buy them from the cash shop even after you subscribe.
What I am asking in my OP isnt really so much having previously P2P games going F2P. Most of the ones mentioned in this thread are hybrid, and you can subscribe. What I am asking is if you really want the new generation of MMORPGs that are made from the ground up as a F2P. Pot holes and all. If you really want this, then I'm getting the hell out of this litterbox.
The thing is, as f2p becomes more sophisticated it will get to the point where you are happy to pay £10 a month, at which point there is absolutely no difference. There is also no difference between a bad f2p and a bad sub mmorg, and vice versa. Bad is bad regardless of reason.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Playing $15 a month to play a mmo is really not that much when you think about it. I for one will never play free to play games ever again, had too many bad experiences with them. By the time most tripple A titles goes free to play there are going to be better pay to play games out. So, I won't give a dime to free to play games even boycotting valve games now.
Comments
That may be the most brilliantly concise and eloquent metaphor I have ever read regarding F2P/Cash Shops.
Sums it up beautifully.
I'm going to set that as a quote in my signature, if you don't mind
.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
F2P isn't bad as long as it doesn't become Pay2Win, which is the pitfall many of the F2P games fall into. What I hate the most are the "F2P" converts that are nothing more than extended trials with tiered membership plans, such as EQ2.
In the end, I prefer B2P like Guild Wars.
I don't get the pay to win arguement.
Sounds too similar to the people who do the monthly fee and act all angsty about those who can spend 30 to 50 hours a week.
Bleh, too many people in other's bidness. The King would declare this illegal.
Just not worth my time anymore.
Thats what always amuses me about some of these arguments people get into. People complain about "pay 2 win", yet theyre ok with "dedicate the majority of your life to playing a video game 2 win". You would think they would be a bit more ashamed to brag that "hey, i have nothing more important in my life than this video game. its not fair that these other people with succesful jobs & families and such are able to have the same fake things as me"
They always try to use arguments of people not "earning" things.... but im pretty sure i did more to earn my money that i spent on the cash shop going to work everyday while also providing for my family, than some lazy bum who spends 20 hours a day in a game pressing a few buttons. Whats sad is, they could have gotten off their asses for even just a few hours a week and made enough money to not only buy whatever they spent 80 hours that week working for, but maybe even pay some of their own bills and stuff instead of mommy or the local welfare office paying their way.
I don't like a lot of small fees you get constantly... Paying a buck there and 50 cents there will be more expensive than 15 bucks a month.
Nothing is free and anyone saying so have some kind of agenda.
What gave me most for my money was however neither F2P nor P2P, it was Guildwars.
The real advantage with F2P games and B2P games is that you don't have to pay for not playing. With P2P you still pays even if you for some reasons can't or wont pay for a week or 2.
I still think B2P will be the future of MMOs, it already rules all other kind of games that you play online (except games that lives on adds) like FPS games. Guilwars 2 will prove the concept for good even if GW1 already should have done that.
I just think in the end these people fear change. They live for the status quo. I think that's why item tiers and paying for uber mounts is okay them. It's meeting the quo.
F2P is free... To... Play. I didn't pay any money for LotRO's box. I bought a 20 dollar card and increased my space and sat myself up to gain 30 levels of play. I did this and it took me 7 months to get there. 20 dollars in 7 months.
Had I paid 15 bucks a month. For the time that I have to play a game like that I would have spent.
15, 15 (30)(45)(60)(75)(90) 90 dollars..... Who is getting scammed?
Oh you're at cap in WoW or RIFT and you're progressing? How? How many more 15 buck ticks did you take to get to cap level and a new tier of armor?
I've spent 40 dollars now in LotRO and I've taken my sweet time RPing, reading the quests, learning how to be the best damn Cappy and King that I can be.
People who say the F2P model is a scam; they MIGHT be doing themselves a favor by know that personally they'd waste all their money and not pay for what they see worth paying for.
BTW for 20 more dollars (total of 60) I'll be able to play 4 characters questing from level 1 to 75, and I average each week of play enough free Turbine points to buy a cool hat or cloak.
Free to play isn't a rip off. If you're of sound mine. Like the King.
Who is a talking fruit that's quite orange.
Just not worth my time anymore.
it is only you.
Research (the links have been posted again and again ... it is a pretty well known fact now) shows that a MAJORITY of F2P players pay NOTHING.
Thus, f2p makes content LESS expensive (i.e free) to MOST of their players.
I just cancelled my last P2P games. It is all free for me from now on.
I have no problem with pay to win. I don't have to win. There is NO winning in PvE. And if someone wants to pay for some stuff and subsidize my games, GREAT!!!
The reason people dislike pay2win, is because we play these games to be part of a fantasy world. It's an escape from reality, and many of us have shitty realities. So when we have an online game in which we have to share with other people, we want everything to be equal, because in the real world it isn't.
Once real world money matters, then we have to face the fact that maybe we're poor and can't afford to win. That's why people hate pay2win, because it ruins their fun. It's tons of fun for people who have money to burn of course. So in the end, this is just a rich versus poor argument, and I'll always support the poor.
Not all F2P games are like that. Some of them which are designed for the F2P+cash shop model are. But not the ones that were sub based and went F2P in their twilight years.
Also I expect to see more hybrid models. Where you can sub or play for free in a limited way. Just like EQ2X and upcoming Age of Conan as F2P.
i view the whole f2p thing this way....it opens up mmos to alot of people who normally wouldn't play due to the cost of subscriptions. wherether that taints the player pools ...yeah it kinda does. does it force more competition yeas it does. I have had more fun in f2p titles as of recent than aaa sub mmos. As I get older i have less time to game..i work 50 hrs a week and have a house to upkeep, subscriptions don't work as they don't justify the time i spend ingame...and alot of the casual f2p titls like free realms, appease my gaming needs,
so say we all
BTP > PTP > FTP
I dont agree with this argument
I play plenty of new mmos on launch and even tho I dont stay beyond the 1st 30 days
-- I still have fun with them
dont to have to invest your time in any game for years and years ... to be satisfied
EQ2 fan sites
while I do agree with you in general -- an analysis of Puzzle Pirates shows how free can work heh
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4046/what_are_the_rewards_of_.php
Four and a half years later, James has learned a lot -- that the average revenue per user (ARPU) is between one and two dollars a month, but only about 10% of his player base has ever paid him anything. As a result, he says, approximately 5,000 gamers are generating the $230,000 in revenue he sees each month.
EQ2 fan sites
Someone has already said this, but the biggest thing I like about buy to play games or free-to-play games is that I don't feel obligated to log in. One of the biggest factors that made me question my subscription to WoW was that I was only logging in to raid and the just logging off at 12 am right when the raid was over. Bottom line, I didn't feel like I was getting my money's worth. It wasn't Blizzard's fault, it's more the nature of where my life is right now. I don't have the time to play that I used to.
With free-to-play games I feel no obligation, no pressure. I just log in when I have time and play for as long as my schedule allows.
p2p games are successful, when they are fun to a lot of players.
f2p games are successful, when they are so unfun to play, that their most loyal players rather spent a fortune in the shop than playing the game.
Add to that the immersion breaking of permanently advertising (that was the reason I finally quit both eq2 and lotro, though having a sub for both), and the huge impact on the "community" that the word "free" always has, and the conclusion for me is quite clear: if you want to play a quality games for a long time with good friends and fine people around, p2p is the only way to go. I even decided not to try gw2 because of their payment model...
True gamers should avoid f2p. Period.
Currently playing: EverQuest
Waiting for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
This thread has been a good read but saddly the only people who are wrong are the ones that feel free to play is going away anytime soon. Atleast here in the US quality does not win over price. Want a wonderful example of how much free to play will leave its mark on this industry look no farther then Facebook, Zynga is now worth more then EA (yes we can consider them evil but atleast what they make can actually be considered games). People are willing to pay cash to get the chance to click on a few more tiles. That last line should be bold and underlined, but thats not my style. My real fear is how these facebook games will change this industry, not if somebody spends a thousand dollars to kill me.
Think of this as your next popular mmo, you just killed your 50th mob you begin to walk back to the quest giver(or collected your last piece of wood to finish your virtual house for you sandboxers), oh wait now your out of energy. Now you can log off and wait till you have more, ask your friends/guild for enough to get you 4 steps closer, or buy some. The scary thing is the amount of real game devolopers that are jumping ship to join companys who are making this style of game. Someone is making money to be able to tempt talent to jump ship.
Free to play in its current form is a good deal for some, back 2-3 years ago I was often finding myself sub'd to 2-3 games, because honestly no game has everything I want and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. I would could cancel a game because while I enjoyed playing it, I always felt I was wasting money if I was playing one of the three more then the other 2 which often happened. Now alot of those games have gone f2p.
Right now I don't have a p2p mmo, though at this point I think its time for me to give Eve some real play. Now when it goes down or I just feel like a change of pace I have quite a few f2p options of games I put in the category, of not bad but not something I'd pay a monthly fee for. Right now for me my f2p option of these games lotro, champions, tier 1 via warhammer, and strangely enough Forsaken World (for a real ground up cash shop I never feel like i'm missing something buy not spending money in the cash shop).
tldr: I think the future of where this industry is going with f2p could be alot worse then the current models we have now.
Im sorry, but I have a feeling that some of the advocates here for f2p models arent really grasping something quite essential that is happening these days: New F2P MMORPGs are NOT the games that were previously P2P and went "free" to play. It's a whole BUNCH of games that were made to accommodate the F2P model from the ground up. Lotro has a rich storyline, and it has depth. I still find it booring, but that's me and it's a matter of taste. It going F2P has nothing to do with me not playing it. I am currently playing a lil of D&DO, and Im quite enjoying myself. I have of course subscribed so I dont have to have my GAMING experience be hindered by those pot holes in the road they've made for freebies. It still irritates me that spell point pots ("manapots") are rarely found in dungeons and you end up still having to buy them from the cash shop even after you subscribe.
What I am asking in my OP isnt really so much having previously P2P games going F2P. Most of the ones mentioned in this thread are hybrid, and you can subscribe. What I am asking is if you really want the new generation of MMORPGs that are made from the ground up as a F2P. Pot holes and all. If you really want this, then I'm getting the hell out of this litterbox.
I'm not forgetting anything.
One of the biggest MMORPGs on the planet is a P2P game, WoW.
TOR is going to be P2P.
How many F2P games being made is irrelevant.
If you don't like them, don't play them.
Doesn't matter if they make one or a million of them.
Developers will make P2P games as long as companies like Blizzard make money of P2P games.
It comes down to choice. Do you want to invest time, or money. You favor time, while the F2P proponents favor money.
See ya buddy, I'll be enjoying Super Flash Quest Online!
Seriously though, I've played my fair share of F2P MMOs and some are okay but I always come back to a sub game. The quality is just better IMO. I would love to have my game of choice F2P and if that's the case for someone then great. For me, 15.00 is the lowest bill I have for the month. What else can you do for .50 a day for the whole month....wait, don't answer that!
Just not worth my time anymore.
The thing is, as f2p becomes more sophisticated it will get to the point where you are happy to pay £10 a month, at which point there is absolutely no difference. There is also no difference between a bad f2p and a bad sub mmorg, and vice versa. Bad is bad regardless of reason.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Playing $15 a month to play a mmo is really not that much when you think about it. I for one will never play free to play games ever again, had too many bad experiences with them. By the time most tripple A titles goes free to play there are going to be better pay to play games out. So, I won't give a dime to free to play games even boycotting valve games now.
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