Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Free mmo vs subscription
Kain_Dale
Member UncommonPosts: 378
Which one would u rather to play? Of course there is Pros and Cons on each side. I can't list em all but I'm just gonna list the common general things.
Free MMORPG with Item malls:
1. free to play but not for long until u hit the wall then it will give u 2 choice... quit or bring out ur wallet
2. very expensive to compete with other people - Endless spending (So much for free. We are basically spending against each other and the company earns for that, Ironic eh?)
3. Graphic can be bad or average
4. Limited Access
Monthly Subscription games:
1. Fair competetion
2. Graphic normally are good
3. Cheaper and limited to spend
4. Full access
Nowadays company starting to make free-mmoprgs with item mall because they make more $$ out of it than subscription games. There is no passion, love, fun like old classic mmorpgs like UO, Asheron's Call, Everquest or what not. Its ruined by greed.
Kain_Dale
Comments
Lately I've been playing free access games exclusively.
In my case, the biggest issue is that I'm not finding subscription games that offer the type of gameplay that I'm interested in. I'm burnt on quest-hub hopping. I don't PvP. I'm not interested in single player style storyline gameplay in an MMO framework. That pretty much wipes out the whole genre.
There are people who play games and then there are gamers.
http://alzplz.blogspot.com
I'm surprised you didn't mention Buy - to - Play MMO's which are gaining in popularity.
B2P games are the ones where you purchase the game itself and unlock all the game content with your purchase. These games have a cash shop with cosmetic items, boosts, purchasable storage and character slots and possibly a few other items. Example: GW2 and (more recently) TSW.
I voted sub fee, but I would have been tempted to vote for the B2P model if it had been available.
It's not a consideration to me. I play EVE, and a subscription to that costs £49.99 for 180 days. Thats... 36p per day. I can't even buy a packet of gum for that amount these days. I generally have a couple of drinks while I'm playing, and the 2 or 3 bottles of beer or the bottle of wine I get through will cost me 7-15 times what that day's subscription.
And even that's not the biggest investment; I value 3 or 4 hours of my free time far more than then value of a bottle of wine, let alone 36p.
I literally don't care if the game is sub or F2P. I care that it's interesting, unpredictable, engaging, well coded and has a great community I can interact with. If it doesn't, then I don't give a crap that it's "free", because it's not; it just cost me 4 hours I'll never get back.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
You listed the negative aspects of F2P and positive aspects of Subscription. The best part is that most, if not all, on your list are cmpletely subjective. Way to go, sport.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I used to be a sub fan when the cost of playing was justified, but not today.. Times have changed.. First the cost of servers are so cheap compared to yesterday, you can no longer use that excuse as the primary reason for monthly subscriptions.. Added countent and changes were part of the sub. That used to hold true when Blizzard and others used to have speical events for free, but those events now are just being recycled with little or no changes from previous versions..
Honestly, I believe that the normal $15 per month sub is there for 2 reasons and 2 reasons only.. 1) It became an easy cash cow for those companies that can get away with it.. 2) It is a competitive way of killing off the competition.. When you are king of the mountain, or one of the big boys, you use monthly subs to keep your grip of customers.. An established company like Blizzard that has extra $$$ laying around can dictate terms.. If you a new upcoming MMO you have 2 choices, you can either charge a sub, and hope like hell you can justify with the content in the game.. (This is hard to do with any new game in today's market), or you go B2P or F2P to attrack the players, but then you have to settle for much less monthly revenue and again hope you can added the needed content to stay afloat..
This is just like the old days of monopoly business tactics.. Just like in the days of Standard Oil.. They were established with extra $$ and was able to squeeze out the competition by dictating price.. I believe we have a handful of games that are able to do as they wish with subs or not.. The rest are pretty much forced to buckle and offer their games as an extreme discount.. Business is business ..
And it shouldn't be gaining popularity. MMO gamers need to get that idiotic term out of their head right now. Marketing is laughing their way to the bank over that one. It's a term a small group of MMO gamers have sold to themselves in their constant quest to label and position titles.
Your B2P games will be item malls with a box fee up front. Actually, they currently are. You cheered on GW2 as this business model saviour - Buy to Play YAY!
It's a free to play MMO where they managed to get you to shell out cash before you even started playing, and you praised them for it. The same crowd that villifies any dev that goes the free to play route.
"But it's not Free to Play. There's a box fee. It's Buy to Play."
You are about to not only usher in but welcome and celebrate a new change in F2P in NA/EU. A box fee up front on an otherwise free to play game. The typical dev line will be "Oh, we make our money off of the box. The ingame store is just cosmetic extras for the people that want it." And you're going to believe it, pay for it, and love it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
There is no such thing as a Free Lunch, you will pay one way or the other, none of these companies that run the F2P MMO's are charities, they have overheads to cover, they have wages to pay, they need to make a profit to keep the game up.
I'm in the Buy 2 Play camp, F2P has limits in place that end up seeing you pay more than a subscription if you want to get the most out of the game, the F2P aspect is a con to lure new ppl into the game, stay put as a subscriber when your game goes F2P because your the one that wins in this situation, well 99% of the time you do.
Buy 2 Play will still see me having to fork out cash every so often for the new exp pac but at least there isn't the need to constantly hand over a monthly amount of cash for very little new game content, for example if WoW was to generate cash from a B2P model I believe it would be struggling after the initial purchase of it's base product, it's just too slow in pushing out real content updates that would qualify for extra payments, it would need to push out game content at a regular pace to stay afloat, or push it's cash shop even harder into players faces.
So I'm a big NO to F2P because all you get is a bare bones game that dangles all the good bits at you at an inflated price.
3. A few years ago sure and obviously there are still some with bad or average graphics, then again same goes for sub games. There isn't much difference between the two really.
1. That's just a illusion cause you know it aint true that a sub-fee game offers fair competetion. Atleast with F2P games the type of player who spends rl money is more open about it. In a sub-fee game those who use 3rd party goldscammers or item/gear/armor website will most likely not be so open about it.
I also do not believe that game company's don't put passion into their game cause lets face you should have some passion if you're going to devote many years on one project, working on irregular hours. And then hear some forum posters think they could do better without actually any developing experiance as often they even say they got a whole lot of gaming experiance. Still doesn't make one a developer if one only play's games.
Is it greed? well I guess some people have so much money laying around, are likely to invest millions of dollars yet don't expect some return revenue cause those forum poster developers are so noble and only want a gamers game. Yeah right....
Your post shows that you have a bias against F2P games. If you want a poll, you should have just introdced the poll without the post.
Allods Online was decent before they went P2W and it had good graphics with full acces. Not sure what games you are talking about.
I think of it as a payment model that creates a transient and non invested playerbase that at the every least makes it harder to form communities, at least decent ones, in these games.
It also means that the focus shifts from inter dependent co-op based challenging gameplay towards solo ez mode hand held gameplay as the modern 'F2P' ADHD player base moves from one game to the next but still demands the same rewards as the committed player (even if they have to buy them from a cash shop).
I personally loathe the cash shop model and no game IMO has ever been improved by it. In fact, many are damaged with the changes to core game design and manipulation needed to steer consumers into their shops.
£2.50 a week simply is not a barrier to me playing the game I enjoy and I won't choose a game I find less fun because it's 'free'. My gaming time is worth more then that.
your argument that P2P games dont promote fair competition is more than a little misleading, as your suggesting that breaching a games EULA and using 3rd parties etc, cannot cost you your account with a particular game, which it most assuredly does, not to mention that even using such services is the reason why a good many players end up losing their accounts to hackers in the first place. And somehow that is worse than games where any given outcome is dependant on how much you've spent in the games cash shop recently..
Personally i'd always vote P2P vs F2P, although B2P is something of a 'grey area' particularly where a B2P game also has a cash shop that sells in game items, or items that can be used to trade for in game items. With P2P you know where you are in terms of PVP, though usualy its on some kind of item treadmill... being able to 'bypass' this treadmill with cash in a F2P game though, probably appeals to some more than others, i guess it depends on whether you value success at a price over success as a result of effort.
I prefer a 3rd option: Freemium. Basically, a game that you can play for free, buy points, and use those points to purchase content; or, you can subscribe. I use DDO as a good example. I can subscribe and get 500pts per month. I can then use those points to purchase content, which is then completely unlocked. Afterwards, if I should decide, I can cancel and have the ability to access content that you'd normally need to purchase anyways or subscribe to get.
I bought the Collectors addition for their expansion. In doing so, I also got a huge discount on 15,000 Turbine Pts. I then turned around, used all those points to purchase all the content up until that point (that I didn't already have unlocked), as well as the races and classes. I haven't paid for the game since then other than an occasional stat tome.
The usual arguement I hear is that games can't release content quick enough if they're free, or, the content is lackluster. However, that holds true for even Subscription based games. Games can't release content fast enough, that much we know. Same gamers could care less about the leveling process and prefer the end-game, so they rush.
Let's not also forget that the Dev Cycle is long and difficult. Releasing content that will keep your customer entertained and paying is difficult. Look at Blizzard. They generally release good content, but it takes them forever. By then they have lost some players (who do eventually come back for the content).
TLDR Version:
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
I certainly like things that are free, but unfortunately F2P is anything but. Look, they're both viable models for the right game. On a personal level I have a harder time paying for digital content a la carte, but then again I am the kind of person who still buys whole albums most of the time and not just singles off iTunes.
I think that if a game aspires to create a robust "virtual world" first and foremost, the subscription model is preferable, as it does not let real-world economics shape the game world. That said, I think many subscription games do a poor job justifying their monthly payment, as the consumer takeaway often chalks up to little more than server maintenance. A game with real game managers creating live content would much more readily get my 10-15 bucks a month.
Do you have any evidence to support this statement? All evidence outside of Asia points to cash shop based games only being more profitable than failed subscription based games.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
You are right a sub-fee game itself offers a fair competition. I should have said that there are people that don't care about EULA's which make them come into sub-fee games where we the fair player never truly know if the person infront of you played fair or has taking unfair advantages thru 3rd party website's. Kinda the reason why I personaly feel it's a illusion to think sub-fee games are fair but not due to the game setup but due to it's players. Hopefully it makes more sense now in what I meant?
If a F2P game is fun to me and if I am able to aquire everything the cashshops offer pure by playing the game I have no problems with a cashshop. Will the game prevent me from having fun the way I would expect and if I need to purchase items/quest or what ever then I simply stop playing.
None of the above.
Subscriptions aren't worth it, especially for themepark games. You don't get $15 of content per month -- not even close to it. All you're paying for is a multiplayer lobby. For cost of a one-month MMO subscription, you could get:
Agree
MMORPG's have been dumbed down over the past few years. As they get worse, more go F2P. Games just are not worth the 15$/month any longer. They do not offer anything more over a single player console game now. If game companies would stop chasing WOW's success and stop rushing games that force them to neglect mmorpg features it wouldnt be that bad. Just make a good damn game for a cahnge.
The community is blind to this (well some are) and havent noticed the decline in game features, longevity, and overall immersion. They have one bad experience or listen to misconceptions and whine and cry about it, the game companies normaly cave.
Its why player tools, the option to make player content, indepth game play is more important than a story that you can run thru in a few weeks and then its all dried up. Gamers either lost their creativity or just want single player games with multiplayer options. Because how can you have a successful mmorpg when the rpg is lost and their are no features to allow you to play outside the story. Then your game gets stagnant and you loose intrest.
I was never bored in the older games as much as i have been in these newer "games". I havent even bought a mmorpg in the past 2 years because they are shadows of what a true epic mmorpg should be or use to be. Partialy gamers fault, and game companies fault.
If your game sucks, going f2p wont make it any better, just adds restrictions to force gamers to pay a fee, buy content, or be gimped.
But thankfuly this will all change i hope. With the large number of sandboxes coming to market (though some are F2P) atleast it will give the community a chance to explore new options and may get the themepark game companies some competition. Perhaps with that competition we will see creativity, a spark, and just pure genious return to the industry.
You are paying to play PS2? Wow ... i guess i have to thank you for subsidizing my FREE playing of PS2.
Include me in this also....The games today just aren't worth a sub anymore.....There are literally hundreds of f2p games out now and the genre really grows if you include browser games (which I also play).......We arent tied to any particular game nor do we feel forced to get our money's worth.....There is a stigma here that f2p games are garbage and p2p games are great but really that is outdated....So many of the f2p games are former p2p games and are still quality games......
Wait... they are not worth a sub, but they are worth your time?
That's actually pretty crazy as a notion when you think about it.
I wouldn't play anything if I had such a low opinion of the genre... I would personally go and find a hobby that I actually enjoyed (even if it crazily insisted on charging me a huge £2.50/ wk to access it).
I prefer the old subscription model (and that's how I voted) but it's pretty much dead.
Even subscription games are coming out with the "pay" stores -AND- subscriptions.
The games aren't as interesting as they once were so I find few worth the time to play let alone the topic of a subscrption..
*IF* a really interesting game came out, I wouldn't mind trippling the subscription price as long as it remained balanced for playing -- not this mix of "pay to win" and the like. (seriously - $45 a month type range wouldn't bother me if it's a game I find worth playing).
I suppose a new/older model might be a solution. Try it - buy it. Buy to play style where explansions come out and you buy those if you're still interested.
I'm not an idiot that thinks that a company can run games without income so "life time subscriptions" are the death knell of a game. It's either dying or going F2P/P2W style.
As such, buying a game I'm interested in, at a decent price, to then play -- *WITH* a trial to it (no buy and see if you like it -- where you find it to be junk...). Such a model would work for me.
------
Seriously there are a lot of boneheads out there that think "free" or "pay once, play forever" can actually work. It doesn't. No business can keep going without more sales and if sales are weak, they'll make sure to sell what will sell - often that goes to the "pay to win" modeling, sold to folks as "free to play".
It just needs to be "worth it" to me - as in something I'd find interesting and worth paying for and that is *NOT* a "pay to win" game -- I like more balanced and fair gaming be it competitive or cooperative modes of play.
While many of those are excellent games, have you considered people actually prefer to play an MMORPG over them? Millions of people in fact...
Who are you to tell me or others what is 'worth it'? If you find something like the Walking Dead more fun and 'worth' your money then an MMORPG then fair play...but a lot of others obviously do not. If they did that's what they would be playing, instead of subbing to their chosen MMORPG.
What you are saying here really is 'the games I personally prefer to play are worth spending money on, the ones I don't so much... aren't'.
With all these excellent games out there that you seem to prefer so much to any MMORPG I am suprised you even chose to play one tbh. You are really saying 'these games are worth money, MMORPGs are not'. This actually shows to me that you maybe do not even like the genre that much... Yet here you are giving your opinion as to how to price them (as a guy that obviously dosen't like spending any money in these games at all).
You are not alone though... This industry just seems to be being steered by vocally active people that don't actually seem to like the genre and just want something free to play as virtual knitting in between 'real' games, while those that actually do like them are left to deal with the fallout of your crusading as to how MMORPGs are 'not worth money'.
Have you ever considered just playing the games you seem to value and enjoy enough to spend real money on? Instead of coming into ones you apparently do not like and demand that they are free, I mean?
Playing games you don't like much just because they are 'free' has always been a mystery to me tbh.