Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Top 5 games that should go FTP
bezado
Member UncommonPosts: 1,127
These games should go FTP based on age, and player base.
#5 City of Heroes
#4 Battleground Europe: WWII
#3 Ultima Online
#2 Dark Age of Camelot
#1 Asheron's Call
These are my top 5 that should be FTP right now. Especially at #1 spot which has over 10 years of existance with limited market shares in terms of subscribers.
I believe if a MMORPG or an MMO has more then 6 years of release and is not doing well based on player base, then it should just go FTP and be backed up by whatever means possible to keep it going.
In case of Asheron's Call you have a very successful and marketable title that could draw in vast numbers of players if it was FTP. These companies are really hurting themselves by keeping low population bases and working so hard to update and add new content to a game that is only appreciated by the limited small subscriber bases, rather then being free and having a large portion of people who would enjoy it.
Dark Age of Camelot is one of those games that has a large successful following in the free emulator MMORPG scene, where thousands play freely and largely outnumber actual subscriber base numbers. The same could be said for Ultima Online in this respect.
I could of entered larger titles such as Everquest but it seems Everquest is doing just fine with the station access pass.
I wonder how some of these titles can still manage to stay afloat as long as they have with tiny subscriber bases.
Comments
posted on mobile this is all bunched up sorry.
FIXED
City of Heroes is going f2p very soon.
Vanguard! That would be so nice.
Ultima Online, DOAC, and Asheron's Call are better off staying subscription based Forever. Going F2P would only serve to chase off the remaining players some of whom have been paying customers for more than a Decade. F2P would be a slap in the face for their years of loyalty while unlikely to attract any new players. Same goes for a lot of the old classics like EQ1.
Free 2 Play should be used on games that are reletively new with declining player bases or on games that are on the verge of closing.
MMORPGs that really should go F2P:
#1 Star Wars Galaxies - Game is closing in November. There were Plans to go F2P with SWG but Lucus said NO! Guess they don't want any competition for TOR release.
#2 Lineage II - This was a good game back in the day and its graphics are still better than WoW. Some would say this game is already F2P with the number of private servers exceeding those those that play officially. Why NCsoft never cashed in on this 5 years sicne they had the FBI close down L2Exteme and its' 100k playerbase is a mystery.
#3 FFXIV - It bombed hard at release and never recovered. They should have done what APB did. Close the servers and reopened several months later as a F2P/ B2P game.
#4 Vanguard - Also had a bad release but after the revamp and fixes many players actually liked it. Game never got any updates after the initial fixes and has just been allowed to wither away. Going F2P and adding some content would revive this game nicely.
#5 TERA - Even though this game is not out yet anyone who has been following it should know its' going to be a flop release. The game continues to be delayed as some of the high profile staff left the game. They should save themselves the trouble and just release as F2P from the get go.
Err, Vanguard got tons of updates. In fact 100% of what you do at maxlevel, once you have been maxlevel for a while, has been added to the game after release, since there was hardly any endgame when the game was released. Even the most famous piece of endgame, the Ancient Port Warehouse, wasnt released before winter 2007, more than half a year after Sigil went bankrupt and SOE got full control over Vanguard.
Warhammer Online
Age of Conan....(no really free)
But yeah, DAoC would be great.
I think half the problem with Vanguard is the population. Going cash shop might bring in new blood, but think they'd be better off doing a turbine system, or an endless trial for x levels so people could have a better grasp on the game before buying.
Warhammer
It could work.
I have a top 3 Games that should be Buy2Play:
#3 - TERA Online
As someone has stated above me, this will be a flop release.
When it began, it certainly seemed like a "next-generation" MMORPG, but simple, subtle things are now actually making it already seem dated. That's a horrible, horrible sign. The fact that it's being release 9 months from now or longer means its fanbase will clearly deteriorate into nothingness and the game will become one of those "Oh, THAT game?" MMO's before it even has a chance to get popular.
#2 - FFXIV
This is what TERA will become if it is released as P2P.
FFXIV has an extremely rough start. For starters, it appealed to those who enjoy FF games AND MMORPGS. Those two categories hardly ever go hand in hand. FF11 was extremely popular and successful, however, disproving that a FF based online game is doomed to fail. FFXIV is a prime example of WHY everyone thinks a FF based online game is doomed to fail. Almost everything is the opposite or strays away from what MMORPG gamers want. Things such as:
- Clean, neat and organized UI and menus
- Clear instruction, introduction and explanation as to WTF is going on
- Things to do
FFXIV has failed. It's appearant. They are, however, trying to fix things, so there is still hope for those who enjoy the enjoyable aspects of the game but are simply bothered by all the flaws.
If FFXIV is B2P, then more players are willing to put up with the problems just to play, and square can still make profit should they release future expansion packs.
#1 - Blade & Soul
I really hope Blade & soul is B2P.
There's no real reason for it not to be P2P, but NCSoft has tasted B2P revenue with Guild Wars. It was so successful, they're developing one of the most successful MMORPG's of our ERA as its sequel. It may be confusing to understand, but if Blade & Soul went B2P, they would be moving forward rather than upward. They're both good, but in the long run, moving forward makes everyone happy. Moving upward is for those who want to make a throne in the sky and sit there forever.
Where is Rift?
The game is made for F2P+shop.
Warhammer should go free.
The others I don't care much
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
Ultima Online , DAOC? lol
You realize that 90% of population of those game are just old fans atm?
F2P in those games would need investment , it would challenge this games "core" and drive away big portion of it's current population. I myself cannot even imagine playing UO F2P , so ridiculous lol
Emulator scene in UO is succesful because many emulator servers don't have any item shops and are totaly free , based on donations and few peeps just funding a server from their private money. Besides many of those servers have totally custom worlds created , frequently with totally diffrent ruleset , with diffrent playable races apart of humans or on the other hand have old UO ruleset which many people was looking for after official expansions ruined UO for many.
Don't really see official UO standing a chance to fight them atm.
Those are old games better to just let them die with honor.
For other mentioned games here , well Warhammer maybe should go F2P , but I don't care that much about it on the other hand , I would propably just play it for a bit and leave anyway as this games is borked anyway and would need massive investments to make it better , f2p or not.
@VoIgore: Your sig made me curious.
According to the net, there is no known source for the statement in your sig. See for example here: http://thedevineevidence.com/skeptic_quotes.html
Therefore I assume your sig is nothing but pure invention.
Definitely Vanguard. It has a huge world and the lack of people really hits you like a sledgehammer unless you find a good guild and get some human contact in the game. Not to mention it's pretty much on life-support as it is.
I might come back to DAOC if it was free to play (I don't do emulators) and I certainly would try AC if it was at least free to try for a resonable length of time.
I sort of wished they made SWG F2P instead of closing it down, always wanted to try it, never made the leap.
Another one would be UO, always wanted to give that a go but never was willing to buy it.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
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
I think as a matter of policy any game over six years old that is not still peaking should adopt some type of f2p element but here's my list.
1.SWG- I wouldn't even play it but being my first mmorpg and one that invokes so many strong emotions I would love to see SOE drop all Star Wars references in the game (which really shouldn't be that hard) and roll this game back to pre NGE this would probably end up being SOE's number one game.
2.DCUO-This game suffers from a disease I call "Cryptic" the game is simply too content light for a company to expect that people will pay a premium box fee, and then sub to consistently. From my experience with it it's a good game for about a month at a time after that there isn't much to hook a player into continually log in so why would someone keep paying for it?
3.Vanguard-Between the main name behind the game and it's sad release state I think this game would have a hell of a time recovering evident in the number of posts we read that claim how much better the game is, well if it is really so much better it seems the only way to find out would be to employ a f2p model here.
4.FFXIV-Do they really think they'll be able to fix this game soon enough to turn the sub back on at some point???Most games that release in the horrible state this game did never recover and on the surface I don't see FFXIV being the type of game to draw in enough casual players to ever become a profitable subscription game.
5.Any game over six years old with half of the population it averaged during first 2.5 years-As stated earlier f2p has saved so many floundering games it's a wonder why devs don't adopt this poilicy with many of the older games that are still going but recieving no new subs.
Interestingly had this post been made say a month a go my list owuld have been populated with games that have been confirmed as going f2p whether AOC, or anything made by Cryptic studios so it seems we may be headed to the age where developers do adopt that strategy, now if only we could convince them to do this with products that weren't totally screwing over the player base out of the box like AOC and STO did then we would be making real progress.
I disagree with you sir 100% and probably a majority of this community would disagree with that logic.
AC, DAOC, and UO going FTP would be the best thing to ever happen right now in the MMORPG world. Where is your evidence that those current paying subscribers would leave? And I would say who cares really. If they did leave good for them, as a paying player of some of those titles still I would remain, I don't think that it would matter if old players quit, why would they quit because it goes free? It makes no sense and besides the player base would definitely increase by at least 200% or more if it went FTP.
Thank you for reading the thread, not........ I read the first opening sentence thanks.
Firstly I already covered this above but who cares about old players if it went FTP? Besides that where again is the evidence you would lose those players to FTP? Take for example DDO, it was major success and vets did not leave it in droves, in fact every vet practically stayed I believe, commented by Devs.
Second thing is they can do whatever they have to do to get funding to go FTP by advertising or by other means, they are capable of making these MMORPG's FTP trust me.
Lastly is the fact a few of the mentioned games above are more populated on emulators with standard rulesets just like the original game. The normal game like ruleset servers are more populated then other rulesets mind you. So this point doesn't matter, it still shows how popular things would be FTP if everyone knew about it. Not everyone knows about emulated servers.
Totally disagree.
I think Trion owns my monthly sub with all the content & effort they are putting in the game every month or so.
Lol wtf are you going on about..? Yes Vanguard has not had an update for a year but it has had content update long after the initial fixes. I have been playing it since release so at least know what you are talking about. The last content patch/update was magi hold.
Warhammer online and EQ