Smedley is a fan of money, and right now does it sounds like F2P games have the potential to bring in more money.
If GW2 becomes big I easily see him change his mind to B2P instead if it potentially brings in more money.
The current MMO trend is more and more DLC, that might continue or change.
But F2P did revitalize games like DDO who was dying so trying it for VG do make sense.
Err, Smedley is not a "fan of money". He is a businessman and a CEO of a BIG company. That means that if he doesnt bring in the money -- he would simply lose his job.
I agree with the evil of all that, but Smedley is the wrong person to blame for it.
And you cannot just convert any game to B2P. It has to be low maintenance - the initial price is all you get to maintain all the hardware and bandwidth etc. The only way to do that is have the price low in the first place and put the money you get on the bank so you can pay the bandwidth (and necessary hardware maintenance, and customer service etc) with the interest.
Thats how B2P worked for Diablo2, and for Guild Wars. GW also had a stream of big and expensive expansions, and an online shop.
Smedley is a fan of money, and right now does it sounds like F2P games have the potential to bring in more money.
If GW2 becomes big I easily see him change his mind to B2P instead if it potentially brings in more money.
The current MMO trend is more and more DLC, that might continue or change.
But F2P did revitalize games like DDO who was dying so trying it for VG do make sense.
Err, Smedley is not a "fan of money". He is a businessman and a CEO of a BIG company. That means that if he doesnt bring in the money -- he would simply lose his job.
I agree with the evil of all that, but Smedley is the wrong person to blame for it.
And you cannot just convert any game to B2P. It has to be low maintenance - the initial price is all you get to maintain all the hardware and bandwidth etc. The only way to do that is have the price low in the first place and put the money you get on the bank so you can pay the bandwidth (and necessary hardware maintenance, and customer service etc) with the interest.
Thats how B2P worked for Diablo2, and for Guild Wars. GW also had a stream of big and expensive expansions, and an online shop.
I agree :The reason the Guild wars model works is that you pay full retail price for each expansion ( and for the initial client ) and then also pay for cosmetic/less cosmetic stuff ( clothes, extra character slots,extra inventory) .Example : I think they asked 5 $ for an extra character slot .Given the fact you only had 4 slots and 6 classes they'd assume a LOT of folks would buy 2 extra slots . That means you automatically get $50+$10 /user . A substantial amount of players bought the fancy clothes they offered in the store as well.
I'm glad some folks found VGSoH after it went into the toilet. I was there when it went out of beta and for the first three months tried hard to stick with it. But there is no server left for me to vote for. Our server was the only 2 faction server in the game - and you know what? They took the far less popular free for all factionless pvp server and merged it's players with ours, and lifted the previous faction model. People quit in droves overnight - even though there were endless pages to Sigil to NOT do this.
Brad McQuaid, the head developer at the time and proverbial "golden boy" from EQ 1's brilliance, bailed and literally disappeared only a month after the game went live. Some folks speculated he'd had a nervous break down. Most were aware that he wanted a game that most developers were not ready to create.
McQuaid wrote of his vision of two massive arnies facing off at one another across a battlefield, and then charging in at horn call. There were threads pointing out the brilliance of Dark Age of Camelot, and though limited by the cut and paste TWO-faction model, VGSoH's superior graphics (just don't pan your camera too close to the back of your toon's head lol), and old school Dungeons and Dragons (table top game not the processed stuff at Turbine Entertainment) environment would in the end give the Dark Age of Camelot fans something to look forward to.
We too would have massive castle spotted frontiers, and epic battles between completely different looking races and realms. Our cultures would have a sense and feel of being a culture along with our own geographical areas and the ability to level to end game with our own race. Ship to ship warfare was going to be the norm as well - it was all very, very exciting.
But everything died very quickly. We lost our server. The few servers remaining were faction free (so your goblin/dark elf and my human paladin or elven ranger got to be in the same group = vanilla and stepping on most concepts of fantasy lore). On top of all of this the bugs were horrible, memory leaks were out of control.
Vanguard has since fixed a ton of issues. They should be applauded for doing a fine job in improving this mmorpg that was very dear to many of our hearts.
I dare say that if the 2 faction server returned -many of her original fans would once again have that good guy vs bad guy empire v empire feel we once had and treasured in the game. Many of us would return.
But here's the grim reality: The OP spoke of a cash shop model. Add this fact to Sony being in control and what VGSoH would become would be a far cry from her original intent. She would have instanced battlegrounds. On top of this, the cash shop would have xp/leveling bonus packs. You would get potiions in the cash shop that would enable you to better perform in pvp, etc., etc., etc. And somewhere in Japan, a corporate head who was in charge of a slew of Online (Facebook quality) mmorpgs, would smile over a piece of sushimi and a bottle of German beer and congratulate himself on his good decision making skills.
I think they'll be giving VG some content updates, but they won't go F2P due to how much dev resources it'd take for them to convert the game into F2P. So I suppose Vanguard players can be happy that there may be something new coming for VG, however small the updates are. But I wouldn't get too excited about F2P as Smed will likely not allow that much resources be put into VG. Remember in order for them to make a game F2P, they'd need to add content and cash shop items for purchase. That's how they get paid with their station cash model. For Vanguard, that's a lot they have to do to implement it.
It never cease to amaze me how much they've been stringing the VG players along though. They keep saying oh yeah you may be surprised, or oh yeah we're looking at the possibilities of ... and ... Then months and months have gone by and nada.
Only if it went Actually free to play , just free , stop charging, absolutly no cash shop ever and yes it would be great ,a free to play model like most mmorpg's now days would be its death .
I would play it not just because it was free, but because of the additional people to play the game with. I don't mind subbing for a game I enjoy; $15/month is a fair price for hours of entertainment a month.
F2P does wonders towards revitalizing populations. I suspect a model with restricted classes/races, and possible not allowing diplomacy and/or crafting for F2P players. These are nice "clean" locations where code can be put into place to lock down by account type without re-building integral systems.
Vanguard is and will always be one of my absolute favorite MMO's. Quite frankly I think only good can come out of F2P and I am usually not very happy with F2P games. LotRO is pretty much my only acception to the rule.
If Vanguard went F2P tomorrow, I think floods of new players/returning players would come and I'd be right alongside them. I get excited just thinking about it! I hope Smed does put this through. It would bring more money in for SoE and give us back a game we love, with actual people developing it.
If VG went F2P, you know Sony would "WoW-ify" the game and ruin it. The best thing for them to do is not touch the game aside from same-difiiculty-as-now content additions.
Is this really a possibility ? Wow ! This could revive Vanguard.
Honestly? I think it's too late.
Cash shop would undoubtedly get the player numbers up. But there are so many alternatives now, and VG is the past.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Even F2P I'm not sure VG would do very well today. For me the glitchly graphics and bugs was enough to turn me off of the game. With the little time I have to play a MMO I don't want to be forced to deal with bugs...espiecally if its P2P. If its a buggy F2P MMO I can deal with it more but over time it starts getting to me.
Generally I don't think VG will ever do very well simply because its a game of the past and gamers tend to look to the future...I don't blame them. Todays MMOs are mostly failsauce and I can't wait to see what the future brings. As the younger crowd of gamers gets older they'll realize that buggy MMOs arnt worth the time anymore. You'll want to play a game you enjoy, not a game that forces you to deal with issues (low pop and bugs in VGs case).
"And Smedley agreed. "You know what, they were absolutely right. We assigned more development resources to it, even though that game is smaller. We're seeing such a huge interest in that game -- it's really been renewed -- that we're taking another close look at it. Vanguard players and people who have never tried might be in for some... interesting news in the near future."
"And yes, I asked for more information, but he's dodged better interviewers than me."
Ha ha ha. Giving ahint but not tellinga freaking thing. I like that, leaving us hanging in the dark
And thanks for pointing it out. This converms that VG ia 'back in business' again @ SOE offices...
About the poll... I'm devided about going F2P. As said before, VG doesn't really support a lot of F2P options as EQ2 goes. but I can imagine that mounts, cosmetical costumes and stuff like that can be dropped in the shop. Perhaps even drop some basic mats (non rare) in the shop for the lazy crafters out there who dislike harvesting (I know from other MMOs that most players dislike harvesting because it's so time consuming...). There's no way to add 'quest packs' IMO, or they should redo the whole game from scratch and label every quest some way. Map is also a problem since where's no instancing. Would mean if you limit players to part of the map, they'd bump in invisible walls..?
Anyhow, I hope if SOE makes VG F2P, they won't ruin the game in it's basics, or drop gear in the shop (like with the start of the EQ2X server).
"Actually free to play , just free , stop charging, absolutly no cash shop ever"
Yeah, that would be it's death, all right. No income = pfft! Guild Wars does by getting a big pay up front.
They have enough income from other places to cover it , specialy considering they do almost nothing for the game as is . Good day , /ignore thread
This is a bizarre idea really... that it should become some kind of charity. If this were the case, that SoE would somehow bleed money off of other businesses that allegedly *do* make money, just to support the few people left that want to be isolated in a dead game that does *not*, then i would say *shut the thing down*. As a continuing EQ and EQ2 player, *why* should resources and $$$$ be stripped away from healty games to help some dead private playground?
This idea of "gaming welfare" really is a first and makes no sense.
Its also funny to see people on this thread say 'well I dont play, but if it went F2P then I would NEVER PLAY!" newsflash... You DONT PLAY and therefore DONT SUPPORT IT. Your opinion is just ridiculously irrelevant. Just think about how stupid that is:
"well I dont pay to play it... but I like looking at it and opining on it... but if it were FREE??? then HELL NO I wouldnt play! then Id PROTEST IT b/c cash shops SUCK!"
yeah, really useful.
Of course they should make it F2P. If they did, I'd pick it up again. But 100% agree that the EQ2 F2P model is total BS. Its a fake F2P. I continue to station sub, but will be canceling it soon for $ reasons. If they actually made these games *real* F2P, meaning you just no longer have to pay a sub, like EVERY OTHER F2P CONVERSION, then it would be good.
The minority loons who feel F2P players "pollute" their pristine environment, and rail against "cash shops" like they were fighting the civil rights revolution, had better be willing to pay like 5x/mth what they do now, b/c the p2P model is dying. No one wants it. SoE implemented F2P in the *worst* way possible though, in an attempt to have it both ways. My guess is that over time they will continue to lose the p2P folks and they *wont* migrate to the F2P side. No way id start over on an F2P server after years and years of building a char.
I kinda like the idea of it going f2p. While I do enjoy playing VG sometimes, it doesn't hold the same appeal for me as other games and so I find myself constantly resubbing, playing for a week or two and and then cancelling again. I end up paying for a lot of game time that I never use. At least if it went f2p I would be able to play if I wanted to without having to mess with a subscription.
As long as they don't dumb down the game, I'm OK with it going F2P and/or using Cash Shops. VG is one of few remaining challenging MMO's out there today and I hope it continues to expand on this.
I'm a Station Pass subscriber and Vanguard player. While a price change doesn't affect me, having it go F2P will open the door for a lot more people to try out vanguard and see how much there really is to that beast of an MMO.
Well, it does affect you. More people in game, even if they aren't paying, eliminates "there aren't enough people to play with" as a raeson for subscribers to stop paying....
I wouldn't mind of the game went free to play. I don't play anymore, but would pop in to see how the F2P system worked. The biggest problem with free to play is the looky loo. The ones who'll pop in, see what it is, and leave. Basically, just non-commital people.
It'd like to see it sort of like the f2p anarchy online model. Full basic content access. All classes, proffessions, and diplomacy open. Catch? have vanguard release an expansion. Expansion requires subscriptions, and payment. You can choose not to play the expansion, and play for free. Sure.. have item shops for flying special mounts, or cosmetic changes, but don't provide any other benefits.
I don't like the idea of a f2p server and a p2p server. the f2p servers don't have anything to look forward to, while the p2p server still dwindles.
"And Smedley agreed. "You know what, they were absolutely right. We assigned more development resources to it, even though that game is smaller. We're seeing such a huge interest in that game -- it's really been renewed -- that we're taking another close look at it. Vanguard players and people who have never tried might be in for some... interesting news in the near future."
Imagine all the people playing f2p, I dont know if you can, a massive amount of diplomats, a brotherhood of man, Imagine all the People whoooo hooooo , You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope one day you will join us and the Vanguard universe will be as one.
Comments
It could only help if it went F2P
The game doesnt deserve the fate its been getting.
it should be seeing a lot more success,which I think F2P would bring it.
Err, Smedley is not a "fan of money". He is a businessman and a CEO of a BIG company. That means that if he doesnt bring in the money -- he would simply lose his job.
I agree with the evil of all that, but Smedley is the wrong person to blame for it.
And you cannot just convert any game to B2P. It has to be low maintenance - the initial price is all you get to maintain all the hardware and bandwidth etc. The only way to do that is have the price low in the first place and put the money you get on the bank so you can pay the bandwidth (and necessary hardware maintenance, and customer service etc) with the interest.
Thats how B2P worked for Diablo2, and for Guild Wars. GW also had a stream of big and expensive expansions, and an online shop.
I agree :The reason the Guild wars model works is that you pay full retail price for each expansion ( and for the initial client ) and then also pay for cosmetic/less cosmetic stuff ( clothes, extra character slots,extra inventory) .Example : I think they asked 5 $ for an extra character slot .Given the fact you only had 4 slots and 6 classes they'd assume a LOT of folks would buy 2 extra slots . That means you automatically get $50+$10 /user . A substantial amount of players bought the fancy clothes they offered in the store as well.
I agree Smed is not a fan of money..neither is SOE. If they were SOE would have fired smed awhile ago.
I'm glad some folks found VGSoH after it went into the toilet. I was there when it went out of beta and for the first three months tried hard to stick with it. But there is no server left for me to vote for. Our server was the only 2 faction server in the game - and you know what? They took the far less popular free for all factionless pvp server and merged it's players with ours, and lifted the previous faction model. People quit in droves overnight - even though there were endless pages to Sigil to NOT do this.
Brad McQuaid, the head developer at the time and proverbial "golden boy" from EQ 1's brilliance, bailed and literally disappeared only a month after the game went live. Some folks speculated he'd had a nervous break down. Most were aware that he wanted a game that most developers were not ready to create.
McQuaid wrote of his vision of two massive arnies facing off at one another across a battlefield, and then charging in at horn call. There were threads pointing out the brilliance of Dark Age of Camelot, and though limited by the cut and paste TWO-faction model, VGSoH's superior graphics (just don't pan your camera too close to the back of your toon's head lol), and old school Dungeons and Dragons (table top game not the processed stuff at Turbine Entertainment) environment would in the end give the Dark Age of Camelot fans something to look forward to.
We too would have massive castle spotted frontiers, and epic battles between completely different looking races and realms. Our cultures would have a sense and feel of being a culture along with our own geographical areas and the ability to level to end game with our own race. Ship to ship warfare was going to be the norm as well - it was all very, very exciting.
But everything died very quickly. We lost our server. The few servers remaining were faction free (so your goblin/dark elf and my human paladin or elven ranger got to be in the same group = vanilla and stepping on most concepts of fantasy lore). On top of all of this the bugs were horrible, memory leaks were out of control.
Vanguard has since fixed a ton of issues. They should be applauded for doing a fine job in improving this mmorpg that was very dear to many of our hearts.
I dare say that if the 2 faction server returned -many of her original fans would once again have that good guy vs bad guy empire v empire feel we once had and treasured in the game. Many of us would return.
But here's the grim reality: The OP spoke of a cash shop model. Add this fact to Sony being in control and what VGSoH would become would be a far cry from her original intent. She would have instanced battlegrounds. On top of this, the cash shop would have xp/leveling bonus packs. You would get potiions in the cash shop that would enable you to better perform in pvp, etc., etc., etc. And somewhere in Japan, a corporate head who was in charge of a slew of Online (Facebook quality) mmorpgs, would smile over a piece of sushimi and a bottle of German beer and congratulate himself on his good decision making skills.
/peace out. No, I wouldn't vote for cash shop.
I think they'll be giving VG some content updates, but they won't go F2P due to how much dev resources it'd take for them to convert the game into F2P. So I suppose Vanguard players can be happy that there may be something new coming for VG, however small the updates are. But I wouldn't get too excited about F2P as Smed will likely not allow that much resources be put into VG. Remember in order for them to make a game F2P, they'd need to add content and cash shop items for purchase. That's how they get paid with their station cash model. For Vanguard, that's a lot they have to do to implement it.
It never cease to amaze me how much they've been stringing the VG players along though. They keep saying oh yeah you may be surprised, or oh yeah we're looking at the possibilities of ... and ... Then months and months have gone by and nada.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Only if it went Actually free to play , just free , stop charging, absolutly no cash shop ever and yes it would be great ,a free to play model like most mmorpg's now days would be its death .
"Actually free to play , just free , stop charging, absolutly no cash shop ever"
Yeah, that would be it's death, all right. No income = pfft! Guild Wars does by getting a big pay up front.
They have enough income from other places to cover it , specialy considering they do almost nothing for the game as is . Good day , /ignore thread
Honestly?
I generally dislike Vanguard.
I consider it a boring dead game.
While it has positives with its world size the game just feels extremely dull.
This is just my opinion but I wouldn't play Vanguard if it was free.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I would play it not just because it was free, but because of the additional people to play the game with. I don't mind subbing for a game I enjoy; $15/month is a fair price for hours of entertainment a month.
F2P does wonders towards revitalizing populations. I suspect a model with restricted classes/races, and possible not allowing diplomacy and/or crafting for F2P players. These are nice "clean" locations where code can be put into place to lock down by account type without re-building integral systems.
Vanguard is and will always be one of my absolute favorite MMO's. Quite frankly I think only good can come out of F2P and I am usually not very happy with F2P games. LotRO is pretty much my only acception to the rule.
If Vanguard went F2P tomorrow, I think floods of new players/returning players would come and I'd be right alongside them. I get excited just thinking about it! I hope Smed does put this through. It would bring more money in for SoE and give us back a game we love, with actual people developing it.
If VG went F2P, you know Sony would "WoW-ify" the game and ruin it. The best thing for them to do is not touch the game aside from same-difiiculty-as-now content additions.
Honestly? I think it's too late.
Cash shop would undoubtedly get the player numbers up. But there are so many alternatives now, and VG is the past.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
If Vanguard goes F2P then its not Vanguard anymore. Its whole design doesnt support MT on a larger scale.
Even F2P I'm not sure VG would do very well today. For me the glitchly graphics and bugs was enough to turn me off of the game. With the little time I have to play a MMO I don't want to be forced to deal with bugs...espiecally if its P2P. If its a buggy F2P MMO I can deal with it more but over time it starts getting to me.
Generally I don't think VG will ever do very well simply because its a game of the past and gamers tend to look to the future...I don't blame them. Todays MMOs are mostly failsauce and I can't wait to see what the future brings. As the younger crowd of gamers gets older they'll realize that buggy MMOs arnt worth the time anymore. You'll want to play a game you enjoy, not a game that forces you to deal with issues (low pop and bugs in VGs case).
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
"And yes, I asked for more information, but he's dodged better interviewers than me."
Ha ha ha. Giving ahint but not tellinga freaking thing. I like that, leaving us hanging in the dark
And thanks for pointing it out. This converms that VG ia 'back in business' again @ SOE offices...
About the poll... I'm devided about going F2P. As said before, VG doesn't really support a lot of F2P options as EQ2 goes. but I can imagine that mounts, cosmetical costumes and stuff like that can be dropped in the shop. Perhaps even drop some basic mats (non rare) in the shop for the lazy crafters out there who dislike harvesting (I know from other MMOs that most players dislike harvesting because it's so time consuming...). There's no way to add 'quest packs' IMO, or they should redo the whole game from scratch and label every quest some way. Map is also a problem since where's no instancing. Would mean if you limit players to part of the map, they'd bump in invisible walls..?
Anyhow, I hope if SOE makes VG F2P, they won't ruin the game in it's basics, or drop gear in the shop (like with the start of the EQ2X server).
This is a bizarre idea really... that it should become some kind of charity. If this were the case, that SoE would somehow bleed money off of other businesses that allegedly *do* make money, just to support the few people left that want to be isolated in a dead game that does *not*, then i would say *shut the thing down*. As a continuing EQ and EQ2 player, *why* should resources and $$$$ be stripped away from healty games to help some dead private playground?
This idea of "gaming welfare" really is a first and makes no sense.
Its also funny to see people on this thread say 'well I dont play, but if it went F2P then I would NEVER PLAY!" newsflash... You DONT PLAY and therefore DONT SUPPORT IT. Your opinion is just ridiculously irrelevant. Just think about how stupid that is:
"well I dont pay to play it... but I like looking at it and opining on it... but if it were FREE??? then HELL NO I wouldnt play! then Id PROTEST IT b/c cash shops SUCK!"
yeah, really useful.
Of course they should make it F2P. If they did, I'd pick it up again. But 100% agree that the EQ2 F2P model is total BS. Its a fake F2P. I continue to station sub, but will be canceling it soon for $ reasons. If they actually made these games *real* F2P, meaning you just no longer have to pay a sub, like EVERY OTHER F2P CONVERSION, then it would be good.
The minority loons who feel F2P players "pollute" their pristine environment, and rail against "cash shops" like they were fighting the civil rights revolution, had better be willing to pay like 5x/mth what they do now, b/c the p2P model is dying. No one wants it. SoE implemented F2P in the *worst* way possible though, in an attempt to have it both ways. My guess is that over time they will continue to lose the p2P folks and they *wont* migrate to the F2P side. No way id start over on an F2P server after years and years of building a char.
Err ... they shouldnt make it F2P. Or if they do, they should make new servers for that. I certainly dont want to play with the typical F2P crowd.
I kinda like the idea of it going f2p. While I do enjoy playing VG sometimes, it doesn't hold the same appeal for me as other games and so I find myself constantly resubbing, playing for a week or two and and then cancelling again. I end up paying for a lot of game time that I never use. At least if it went f2p I would be able to play if I wanted to without having to mess with a subscription.
As long as they don't dumb down the game, I'm OK with it going F2P and/or using Cash Shops. VG is one of few remaining challenging MMO's out there today and I hope it continues to expand on this.
Playing: EQ2 & VG
EverQuest, 52 Paladin <Miraj>, Venril Sathir
Vanguard, 50 Necromancer <Riot>, Infineum
Well, it does affect you. More people in game, even if they aren't paying, eliminates "there aren't enough people to play with" as a raeson for subscribers to stop paying....
I wouldn't mind of the game went free to play. I don't play anymore, but would pop in to see how the F2P system worked. The biggest problem with free to play is the looky loo. The ones who'll pop in, see what it is, and leave. Basically, just non-commital people.
It'd like to see it sort of like the f2p anarchy online model. Full basic content access. All classes, proffessions, and diplomacy open. Catch? have vanguard release an expansion. Expansion requires subscriptions, and payment. You can choose not to play the expansion, and play for free. Sure.. have item shops for flying special mounts, or cosmetic changes, but don't provide any other benefits.
I don't like the idea of a f2p server and a p2p server. the f2p servers don't have anything to look forward to, while the p2p server still dwindles.
Currently playing Real Life..
http://i36.tinypic.com/2uyod3k.gif
For all your stalking needs..
http://www.plurk.com/Random_
I wouldn't believe a word that comes out of that guys mouth.
Imagine all the people playing f2p, I dont know if you can, a massive amount of diplomats, a brotherhood of man, Imagine all the People whoooo hooooo , You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope one day you will join us and the Vanguard universe will be as one.