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Why i love Turbines FTP model
itgrowls
Member Posts: 2,951
I wish every game had this model. It gives me the chance to play how i wish when i wish, free points from completing deeds to spend in their store for anything i want. Temporary sub to unlock the areas i need for a short leveling period to get my toon to the level needed for end game content while still allowing play after completing the leveling process. Right now i can still login even though content is not available for their newest upcoming expansion, talk to my friends, gather and complete crafting/ reputation grinding etc without spending unnecessary monthly fees. If i get bored with the game i can switch to another with the same model, DDO for example. Right now (since i have a lifetime sub to STO) i switch between all three just to keep the fun fresh.
Turbines model has minor non-game changing gear available, their best gear comes from drops and crafting tho and that's great to me since i don't want to play a game where the best gear can be bought for RL money. It's one of the reasons i left Allod's.
They allow for earning free points for the store by deeds, lottery (lottery has been down for some time now disappointing sigh).
Rep grinding on this game is nothing compared to the other games i've played. Had a long history with World of Warcraft for example, and while they did manage to change it slightly when Cata launched it still takes like three months minimum to gain rep.
Point grinding for buying gear on lotro's model is nice too. You don't have to spend half a year to get the gear you want. It is literally a fraction of the time it took me on World of Warcraft to get the gear i wanted. Some of this gear comes from Lotro's epic storyline quests which are completely soloable for the most part thanks again turbine!
If more games held this model not only would they receive more revenue as shown by Turbines numbers, they'd have more players because let's face it. The majority of players are casual and care more about cosmetics and social aspects they we do about who has the latest temporary raid gear.
World of Warcraft was only mentioned because it's the first mmo i've ever played being a late bloomer to the mmo gaming world.
Finally, my point is that without buying these extra items i could essentially play 3 months do the deeds in the game and have about 3500 points to use for the content i needed for end game. It's ENORMOUSLY better then paying a sub for two years in WoW to complete end game content per expac. And one doesn't have to deal with Sub only developers throwing junk into the game that requires entirely too much time to complete just to force players to pay more monthly fees.
Comments
Out of curiosity, how much money have you spent?
I ask because technically, they do need to make money. I've always been curious about those who were proponents for the free to play model.
Is it because you can spend your money at an even pace depending on your budget or is it because you don't have to spend any money?
and if companies dont' make any money then they can't really make games.
Of course, there are always people who are willing to pay for the extras in free to play games but I wonder if most people are just looking to "always" play for free.
and I wonder how they expect companies to make games if they don't at least pitch in.
In any case that's just what came to mind.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
lets see, i had a 6 month sub for leveling purposes on three occasions i bought points just for the extras i wanted to have immediately (which were about $60 total) and i've prepurchased the legendary expansion set for their upcoming Isengard event. All in all that was $170 really this year and that was one account. My partner plays on his and we've spent almost the same. Many of the points i have tho are due to my altoholic practice so that added up to about 2k points for free from leveling/deeding two toons. (really about three months each i estimated).
If you look at the numbers Turbine is bringing in impressive revenue right now.
Sorry but restricting content is not the way to go. Still waiting on a Free To Play model that does it right.
apparently you haven't played it recently or seen what Season 5 has in store. STO is in the process of correcting the horrible mistakes they made, their ground combat speaks volumes about just how intent they are on changing the project. It's slow and most people would like it to be faster but they have to realize this change came with the purchasing of Cryptic by Perfect World Ent. I don't like PWE other games but i can say it's definitely had a positive impact on STO.
well apparently they are doing it right, they are choosing the balanced approach. I do not agree with only one restriction and that is the dungeons of the older areas being cut off if you don't have them unlocked, the rest is hardly noticible at best. to me turbine balanced their freemium model so they could continue to receive revenue while allowing the solo aspect of the game to be free.
Well Im sure if people like rip offs and pay 2 win modells they might love Turbines model. Personally I hate it, when you dont know if somebody is a good player or just bought his way up and yes with xp, stat potions you CAN buy your way up.
Not talking about the negative community aspect of such games but sure if you like it, fine. Id never play a game with such a sub plus full item shop.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Really? Pay 2 win? In a PVE game? What a joke! Their 'model' makes no difference with player skill levels...since even with ALL the stat potions on the world, you STILL have to finish that PVE (yeah, not PVP) content. And OMG...if that person doesn't know what they're doing? Get another. It's not like ANY of the NA servers (at least) are dead right now.
As for me? I originally beta'd the game - but I was pretty heavily into DAOC and WoW at the time, so let it go. I got an invite for the FTP beta, and stayed, in fact in June I took the $99 12 month deal. I figure at 8 dollars per month, even if I don't play it it's only a coffee per week
!
doesnt matter its still pay 2 win if the company is offering xp, stat potions in FPS games dare I say...cheating.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Yeah, you don't play do you? Your definition of Pay to win needs a little work there though!
Out of this one!
Dare to tell me why?
For me the definition of pay to win is simple:
If you can use $ to become better its pay to win for me.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
you are sadly mistaken about the pay 2 win model, turbine doesn't have it because you can't buy gear from the store, only minor temporary enhancements (accept recent legacies but even those aren't as good as the game drops/rewards) claiming something is pay 2 win just because you can buy books that let you increase a certain aspect of the leveling experience temporarily is like claiming that WoW has a pay 2 win model because in order to play AT ALL you have to pay a monthly fee. it's rediculous.
The question is will people not group with you if you dont have some paid item or paid content?
170 dollars for a "free to play" game? You don't see a problem with that?
So for 10 dollars less than a year of 15/mo sub you get less than the whole package and you have to decide what specifically it is you want to get and what you can do without, as opposed to knowing you've got it all and just playing? Factor in that a lot of games provide discounts for purchasing subs in 3, 6 or 12 months blocks it doesn't look like a good deal to me.
That *is* Pay 2 Win.
Any advantages that can be bought in a cash / item shop and not earned in-game *is* Pay 2 Win. It doesn't matter if it's PvE or PvP based, but it very, VERY much affects PvP the most.
If you're bringing up subscription based, "P2P" that *is* fair? You know why? Because all the players are paying the same fees to play the game. With payment for the service, aka being able to play the MMORPG, *all* the customers / players have access to the same, exact content. The only catch is you gotta go earn it via questing, looting, crafting, etc. Earn stuff from actual in-game activities. Character progression is driven by what kind of successful efforts in the game, that you as a player, have done with that character.
The only addition with P2P is expansion packs. Usually big additions to the game, traditionally costing $20-30 USD. To get access to any of that, you buy the expansion pack. After the purchase and activation of such a pack, then the rest of any goodies and content from these additions is earned in-game.
Indeed. As a matter of fact, I'm bookmarking this thread to show exactly how deceptive F2P/P2Win is.
It's a godsend for future forum flamewars
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Apprently you didn't read very closely he said that included the upcoming expansion he has already pre purchased it not to mention anything he were to buy in terms of content unlock with turbine points always stays unlocked to him.Turbine imo has the best model of these types of games out.To people who whine about it give me a break you do realize they have to make money right?
This made me wonder as well. I want to know the answer for that question.
This indeed did happened to Team Fortress 2 when they decided to switch to change TF2 to be free. I know it a entirely different game. When Valve changed it to free, of course, their active players went up. However that came with the cost, many servers start kicking out the free players and only keep the players that paid for the content. This was due to a addon that will detect if the player have a free account, it will autokick and ban it. This lead to outrage on the Steam forum, free players complaining about this. Valve told them that it nothing that they can do because they have a rights to do that since they are the one who hosts their servers to them. So basically, it their rules and they can decided whatever they like to do. If Valve is hosting the server, then Valve will ban that addon. So basically many free players is left to a few server that would allow them to play on the server.
One helluva way to divide a community, that's for damn sure.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I can see that you are biased against Turbine's Freemium model and probably no amount of posts will convince you to believe otherwise, your loss.
As for me, I also love Turbine's payment model. I sub when I feel like playing (chunks of 2-3 months) and drop my sub once I get burned out and go on a haitus from LOTRO. I find the point "earning" deed system one of the best F2P aspects that any MMO delivers up to date.
Sure some F2P companies got those surveys and registering gimmicks that can earn you points but earing Turbine Points in game, while questing/grinding and at the same timeleveling up your traits without having to log out/alt tab to do some misc crap on 3rd party sites is what makes this system better than most if not all other F2P games.
The free monthly points while subbed is just the icing on the cake, like most players I use them for vanity items and fluff while I use the grinded points to unlock content when my sub ends and I hang around for a week or two before taking a break from LOTRO. For the record I have never bought LI legacies from the shop, since I can easily "farm" legacies from leveling up my LIs. I also think that people who spend on legacies are really impatient or clueless IRL cause it takes AT MOST a week to get a LI to lvl 31 and decon a legacy off it while questing/running instances/grinding, thats 1 week for 4-5 LIs lvling up simultaneously for a Very casual player and each LI give 1 legacy so whats the need to buy them off the shop...
FYI, you dont pay to WIN anything. By your definiton every sub based game is a Pay-To-Win where peeps can drop $15 and purchase power for the month. And what XP is that you purchase in this model? Xp mobs give from getting killed or maybe XP you get from completing quests? Another FYI note is that people who PAY A SUB get rested XP, not the first sub based game to have rest XP either, you just end up lvling a few bars faster than others but its just a bonus which you still got to work for.
Stat "Tomes" can drop ingame, which I admit is really really rare (just seen 2 drop while Ive played for around 6 months) but it isnt VITAL or CRUCIAL that you gotta fret and cry about. Having a few extra stats wouldnt mean the difference between a party wipe or instance completed, its only to make those people who love min/maxing happy. There is a class in game that gives the entire party +50 to ALL stats (captain), cash shop tomes pale in comparism to such ingame featuers so get your facts right before dropping generic "I hate F2P cuz..." statements.
Lastly, you`ll find bad players/community in any sub based game. I dint want to mention WoW, but for this point I just Have to. WoW got the highest number of people who sub to it and also the most rotten community of brats and trolls in any game. Most are very offensive ingame and prefer to grief people by messing up instances and such besides the usual name calling. So what is your point again? If it was something along the lines, that every player who pays a sub is the bestest besty player ever, then you probably havent played any subscription based MMO. Period.
I don't know if turbine's model is perfect but I like it the best out of the free-mium or f2p models i've seen.
the fact that you can bypass the cash mall entirely for 10 bucks a month (assuming 3 months sub) is great if you think you're going to be playing a while (i have a 3 monther going here) but if you aren't sure you want to sub you can easily have enough free cash shop points by the time the beginning areas are through to buy content for the next area.
what i woujld like to see added would be more interesting ways for people to get cash shop points; also maybe some "plex like" mechanic whereupon one could buy a months time with turbine points.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
I read and its meaningless. You think Turbine won't have new stuff to sell?
No I am saying the math you did to justify your calculations are off due to that.You were the one spitting out the numbers on how it was only a 10 buck difference.Pretty easy and simple to me as others have said if I plan to be playing for some time i resub for those months then when I am not playing as much or do not have the rl time I still have access to my account and my characters and the bonus turbine points can be used to open up the things I may need/want like more bank space or bag space.
Some people may not like it as you obviously do not but just because you do not like it does not mean it is a bad model atleast as I said you still have access to your account if you decide you don't have time to justify a montly sub but still want to go in and play now and then.
You should ask this question while considering each zone(and the instances and quests that come with it) to be like mini xpacs each. As long as the F2P player has the area pack, he will be able to group up and play the game over there just like a P2P player would. The part where Turbine's Freemium model shines is when F2P players can earn points in game while questing, grinding and bassically completing deeds which will allow them to unlock areas that are given for free to those who paid a sub. Sure Turbine doesnt hand the entier game to a free player on a silver platter but that doesnt put the game out of reach of the even most hardcore Free player, "Nearly" everything can be unlocked if a person feels like they dont owe Turbine a dime by playing on their servers and wishes to grind out the in game Turbine points to unlocked stuff.
The actual game expansions need to be purchased by both F2P and P2P players alike, just like most other games the xpacs cost money BUT they can also be bought using Turbine Points earned in game so even a subscriber can purchase them using the free monthly and/or grinded points if he doesnt choose to pay for the xpacs.
Coming to the point I said about "Nearly" everything can be unlocked by a F2Per. Their PvMP (Player VS Monster Player; PVP LOTRO style) is currently open only to subscribers. But they plan to change that with the expansion coming out next month by opening it to free players as well, how that will work out is something we will have to see when it is finally released.
As for that question, after this small wall of text, you will pretty much be able to answer it yourself. As long as the F2P player got the pack for said group content then they will be able to run it regardless of whether they are P2P or F2P players. If the player doesnt have the area pack, then it can be unlocked after a bit of deed completion so they might immediatly not be able to run it but it doesnt restrict them to run it later after unlocking like a server kick/ban or something similar. The way the free zones are given out, by the time a F2P player enters the level range where he would need to run something that needs to be unlocked, he will have enough points to unlock that area provided he completed most if not all deeds prior in the free areas and did not blow his points away on unwanted fluff.
It was a 10 buck difference at a month per. A smart shopper could have paid for a block sub for a year of play for 120. for a -50 dollar difference. How is my math off? Unless you are assuming, for no particular reason the player won't pay 170 next year. And you'd be right. The player could spend less. Or Turbine could smartly offer things that gets the player to spend MORE.
The point is here we are, arguing about whether a player in free-to-play game is spending more or less than a pay-to-play game and all we know is the player spent a lot more than some, a little less than most and we don't know how much will be spent next year.
Isengard Lengendary edition is 50 bucks He also mentioned he paid a 6 month sub at 60 bucks and he chose to buy points for just random extra stuff.Which he probly realizes he didn't really need to buy because with a 6 month sub he got 3k turbine points plus another 1k with the expansion.Turbines model doesn't force you to buy anything as others have said if you wanna grind stuff out in game do the zone deeds and such you can collect enough points to pretty much unlock every thing you would want so long as your not buying fluff items.
I pay a sub to WoW as alot of us do now if I went to blowing money in the pet shop buying 10 buck pets and 25 dollar mounts and playin for faction and race.class changes I am sure 170 is still cheaper than alot of people who play WoW as many of those 25 buck mounts i see flying around in WoW.
Good enough and just curious.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo