Originally posted by bizoux86 I don't think that it is necessarily that there is a worse community in F2P games versus p2p, I usually prefer p2p games because they are kept up better, gold spammers are essentially non-existent and the GM's are much more prevalent. Just from personal experience.... I experienced horrid communities in P2P as well as F2P games - but the overall experience of not having to block annoying gold spammers every 5seconds is nice in P2P lol
World of Warcraft, SWTOR, EQ 1 and FFXI have gold spammers. I think gold spammers are prevalent in any game they can get their hands on and have business in.
I hear you. I just said from my own personal experience I saw much less gold spam in p2p games versus f2p. I have played wow for almost 4 years now and have only seen about 10 gold spammers in all that time, before Aion went free to play they were there but under control - now if one logs into Aion it is just a chat so full of gold spam that you cannot even read the LFG.... This turns me off from games, just my own personal opinion here. But yeah they do exist in any game.
so no I reject the argument that they are too expensive, devs just don't want to reduce profits to provide them.
= too expensive. Think like a corporate beancounter, anything spent at all is too much.
And yes, of course I'm just extrapolating backwards to a cause from the observed effects.
Sure, I understand that concept so it's a balance between what your customers want to keep them satisfied and paying.
Here in Florida there's a supermarket chain (Publix) that is definitely not the low price leader compared to chains such as Super walmart and some others.
Yet they control over 60% of the market which they accomplish by being the number 1 store in terms of customer service. There is no chain that has better dressed, well mannered clerks and staff, always roaming the aisles and cheerfully willing to help you find something or take your groceries out to the car (for free no less, go figure)
Is all this service expensive, certainly, I'll bet their employee costs far exceed any other chain outside of specialties such as whole foods but it shows in terms of their market place dominance.
I myself would actually pay a premium fee to play on a well moderated server if only they would offer such options.
Of course, I can see it now, buy a 5 pack of moderation requests for sale in the cash shop, only 19.95. Heck they could even come with a chance based magic moderation that would let you get someone perma-banned from the game should you be lucky enough to hit it. Think of the possibilities.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Originally posted by Kyleran Originally posted by IcewhiteOriginally posted by Kyleran so no I reject the argument that they are too expensive, devs just don't want to reduce profits to provide them.
= too expensive. Think like a corporate beancounter, anything spent at all is too much.And yes, of course I'm just extrapolating backwards to a cause from the observed effects.Sure, I understand that concept so it's a balance between what your customers want to keep them satisfied and paying.
Here in Florida there's a supermarket chain (Publix) that is definitely not the low price leader compared to chains such as Super walmart and some others.
Yet they control over 60% of the market which they accomplish by being the number 1 store in terms of customer service. There is no chain that has better dressed, well mannered clerks and staff, always roaming the aisles and cheerfully willing to help you find something or take your groceries out to the car (for free no less, go figure)
Is all this service expensive, certainly, I'll bet their employee costs far exceed any other chain outside of specialties such as whole foods but it shows in terms of their market place dominance.
I myself would actually pay a premium fee to play on a well moderated server if only they would offer such options.
Of course, I can see it now, buy a 5 pack of moderation requests for sale in the cash shop, only 19.95. Heck they could even come with a chance based magic moderation that would let you get someone perma-banned from the game should you be lucky enough to hit it. Think of the possibilities.
I don't think that would work with video games. I can see how it works with things like super markets, but I don't see video game consumers as that discerning and I don't see developers or publishers as willing to cut their profits by a dramatic amount to have that moderation when the lack of it sells just fine.
I will say that I have played on a Minecraft server with pretty good moderation though, and it's a whole different experience from playing on servers without moderation. The server thrives on donations, and a good part of that has to be the moderation making it possible to have a community and making it possible for people to build things. So it is possible on a small scale at least. I'm just not so sure it's possible for it to be economically feasible on a large scale or for a large developer. The Minecraft server is massivecraft.com btw.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Everyone talks about f2p games as if they are this t-rex that came in and ate all the tiny p2p dinosaur games up leading to gaming extinction.
There are three types of f2p games: (1) one's that were made that way from the beginning and are not trying to screw anyone just pay the bills [Mabinogi], (2) one's that were originally p2p which usually come up with a fairly decent f2p model when converted [Aion], (3) mom and pop oriental gambling shop quicky throw togethers that make los vegas look holy in comparison. You pro p2p always assume every f2p is in catagory 3.
The t-rex everyone is ignoring is real life economy. People no longer have extra money to spend on gaming. Why? When I was a child my parents played this "game" with credit cards called consolidate. If you put all your outstanding debt on one card and used their promo first three months no-interest/low-interest then before the three months were up you would switch to another credit card with a promo. You could conceivably pay your debts. Those days are gone. We have more shit than we ever had but shit costs more than it ever did and if you are not paying attention (and most of you are not) - people don't have as much spending money as they used to. Jobs are not bringing in much. There are no more promotions. There are no corporate retirements for aged employees. Hell, to keep from paying people the law required couple of cents raise managers find a way to fire employees before they go over their 3 month mark. Gasoline prices up daily. Landlords tack more to rent. Power bill up. Utilities up if you have them. What imaginary world do you peeps live in that you think gaming is going to survive the next Depression which is already happening but you're pretending it isn't? Maybe games have gone f2p because they have no choice. Rich brats are decreasing in number and can't support the p2p models all by dier lonesome selves without us commoners.
Soon the wealthy spoilt will be just like the rest while the few Puppetmaster's explain how we all, for our safety because they are so concerned about us, need to put that identity chip under our skin (the one that is in your cat and dog). Please tell me you realize why that's a bad thing.
I don't think that would work with video games. I can see how it works with things like super markets, but I don't see video game consumers as that discerning and I don't see developers or publishers as willing to cut their profits by a dramatic amount to have that moderation when the lack of it sells just fine.
I will say that I have played on a Minecraft server with pretty good moderation though, and it's a whole different experience from playing on servers without moderation. The server thrives on donations, and a good part of that has to be the moderation making it possible to have a community and making it possible for people to build things. So it is possible on a small scale at least. I'm just not so sure it's possible for it to be economically feasible on a large scale or for a large developer. The Minecraft server is massivecraft.com btw.
I disagree completely. The player base is starving for a gaming company that offers quality service.
Originally posted by thinktank001 Originally posted by lizardbones I don't think that would work with video games. I can see how it works with things like super markets, but I don't see video game consumers as that discerning and I don't see developers or publishers as willing to cut their profits by a dramatic amount to have that moderation when the lack of it sells just fine. I will say that I have played on a Minecraft server with pretty good moderation though, and it's a whole different experience from playing on servers without moderation. The server thrives on donations, and a good part of that has to be the moderation making it possible to have a community and making it possible for people to build things. So it is possible on a small scale at least. I'm just not so sure it's possible for it to be economically feasible on a large scale or for a large developer. The Minecraft server is massivecraft.com btw.
I disagree completely. The player base is starving for a gaming company that offers quality service.
I think the example I gave of the Minecraft server works because of the small scale the server operates on. They have at most 350 people online at any given time, and the moderators and mostly volunteers. It does make a huge difference. So much so that I find other Minecraft servers largely unplayable. It's well worth it to give the MassiveCraft guys a donation, but scaling it up would make it a lot more expensive and much harder to manage.
Actually paying people to act as moderators would get expensive, quickly. It would require at a minimum three full time people and three part time people to monitor each server instance for a week's time. At a low wage of $12.50 an hour, that's $109,200 a year, just in what's being paid to the people, excluding any health benefits, additional taxes and the overhead caused by having moderator managers. Not to mention turnover in the moderator staff. That's only if it's feasible to have just 1 moderator on at a time. During peak hours more moderators would probably be required. Even on a 350 person Minecraft server there are usually three or more moderators on, creating that good experience.
There are indeed many people who would like a better experience, but there aren't enough of them to make such an experience profitable enough to be worth doing.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I disagree completely. The player base is starving for a gaming company that offers quality service.
Not at the price gaming companies need to charge to make it profitable.
There are too many free alternatives.
No, its a fallacy of gameplay design. To have a subscription based game you need a reason for players to pay monthly long term. A casual game designed as a sprint will not hold up well to the marathon required for a long term subscription. F2P is popular because you don't need as much content and success is based on marketing and prestige not the quality as much.
I disagree completely. The player base is starving for a gaming company that offers quality service.
Not at the price gaming companies need to charge to make it profitable.
There are too many free alternatives.
No, its a fallacy of gameplay design. To have a subscription based game you need a reason for players to pay monthly long term. A casual game designed as a sprint will not hold up well to the marathon required for a long term subscription. F2P is popular because you don't need as much content and success is based on marketing and prestige not the quality as much.
nah ... you are confusing quality of fun, and quantity (long term).
If a short F2P is as much fun as a long term MMO in the first 2 weeks, why shouldn't i just have the same fun in the first 2 weeks, and then move onto the next one?
This competition is why sub-only MMOs are dying. More content does not equate more fun. Longer term game does not equate more fun for the next week.
I disagree completely. The player base is starving for a gaming company that offers quality service.
Not at the price gaming companies need to charge to make it profitable.
There are too many free alternatives.
No, its a fallacy of gameplay design. To have a subscription based game you need a reason for players to pay monthly long term. A casual game designed as a sprint will not hold up well to the marathon required for a long term subscription. F2P is popular because you don't need as much content and success is based on marketing and prestige not the quality as much.
nah ... you are confusing quality of fun, and quantity (long term).
If a short F2P is as much fun as a long term MMO in the first 2 weeks, why shouldn't i just have the same fun in the first 2 weeks, and then move onto the next one?
This competition is why sub-only MMOs are dying. More content does not equate more fun. Longer term game does not equate more fun for the next week.
Well one thing is for certain, if a MMORPG has a monthly sub fee Narrius won't be part of the community.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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I disagree completely. The player base is starving for a gaming company that offers quality service.
Not at the price gaming companies need to charge to make it profitable.
There are too many free alternatives.
No, its a fallacy of gameplay design. To have a subscription based game you need a reason for players to pay monthly long term. A casual game designed as a sprint will not hold up well to the marathon required for a long term subscription. F2P is popular because you don't need as much content and success is based on marketing and prestige not the quality as much.
nah ... you are confusing quality of fun, and quantity (long term).
If a short F2P is as much fun as a long term MMO in the first 2 weeks, why shouldn't i just have the same fun in the first 2 weeks, and then move onto the next one?
This competition is why sub-only MMOs are dying. More content does not equate more fun. Longer term game does not equate more fun for the next week.
Lol, I think WoW has more subs than most games combined. Eve is currently growing and it goes entirely against the MMO gods current conventional thinking. Everquest was around as a sub game for years. Even UO has a decent sub base and it was in beta in 1996.
Again fun factor and originality for a lot of people has not been there in a while. It doesn't matter because again ability to attract whales is all that matters.
Well one thing is for certain, if a MMORPG has a monthly sub fee Narrius won't be part of the community.
Just messing.....
Not only that, i am not likely to be part of ANY game community, sub or not. Doing some random PUG dungeons, and solo most of the time (on F2P games) is not "part" of the community.
I don't play games to be "part of the community". I do that for fun.
Lol, I think WoW has more subs than most games combined. Eve is currently growing and it goes entirely against the MMO gods current conventional thinking. Everquest was around as a sub game for years. Even UO has a decent sub base and it was in beta in 1996.
What is back in 1996 (almost 20 years ago) is not relevant.
WOW is losing subs every year. Blizz is putting a cash shop in WOW and in a few years, it will be F2P. It is the last big sub-game.
Eve is small. It takes many years to get to half a mil of sub. In comparison, GW2 sold 2M in a month.
Well one thing is for certain, if a MMORPG has a monthly sub fee Narrius won't be part of the community.
Just messing.....
Not only that, i am not likely to be part of ANY game community, sub or not. Doing some random PUG dungeons, and solo most of the time (on F2P games) is not "part" of the community.
I don't play games to be "part of the community". I do that for fun.
Pity, you're missing out on some real fun. Loosen up sometime and give people a chance, you might find new fun out there.
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
Lol, I think WoW has more subs than most games combined. Eve is currently growing and it goes entirely against the MMO gods current conventional thinking. Everquest was around as a sub game for years. Even UO has a decent sub base and it was in beta in 1996.
What is back in 1996 (almost 20 years ago) is not relevant.
WOW is losing subs every year. Blizz is putting a cash shop in WOW and in a few years, it will be F2P. It is the last big sub-game.
Eve is small. It takes many years to get to half a mil of sub. In comparison, GW2 sold 2M in a month.
When WOW goes F2P, sub-only games truly die.
Subscription games are not dying out because it's not a working model. They're dying out because the current breed of games do not work with subscriptions because there's not enough hooks and content to support a subscription. Old style games were built around subscriptions. I mean, you do realize the games that are still subbing are very old. It kind of supports my argument that if long in the tooth MMORPG's can hold subscription now but supposedly better and newer games can't.
WoW will eventually go F2P when the profit margin is lower then what they estimate the game will pull in with P2P. But again the game is almost a decade old. Maybe people are just tired of the game not just subbing.
This is a pretty good thread with some fairly balanced viewpoints. There are cases on both sides and many factors to consider. Even the type of game in question adds a bit to the equation, as the original FFXIV was free to play for well over a year and had an excellent community. Then there's WoW, which is quite the opposite in many ways despite having a Payment model wall. We also have Eve, which encourages PvP whereby there is a lot to lose, and many people are quite mean on their in more ways than just verbally. Next we have duty finders, which may or may not allow people to act different due to being with total strangers they may not see again (though I personally think they do more good than not for the game's numbers in the longterm with the community aspect being debatable as always).
Case and point we could also look at a free game called League of Legends. It boasts a competitive community whereby people tend to get a little involved with their game and their base nature shows more so than just jumping in the game with friends and having fun for free. The one reason I would say FF games have great communities is that there is usually some sort of challenge that brings players together either by efficiency or necessity, in addition to it being a primarily PvE game. If a game is challenging enough and doesn't have a serious competitive attitude in some way, it is likely that the community itself will be the better for it regardless of the payment model. Now that is not to say that PvP is bad, as such things as "Battlegrounds" with friends could also bring about much enjoyment and pump one's adrenaline. Though how many times have we all entered one of those in the past and just see people start arguing and turning on each other once something goes south? It may start with someone not doing what another thinks they're supposed to, but therein lies a potential problem with the competitive spirit in that many people sometimes want to blame others and not themselves when something goes wrong (the anti-community response where team work isn't efficient and there's veterans picking on new players).
Would payment models somewhat alleviate some potential problems as a whole? Maybe. Though it will also do the same for those who are very nice individuals who may have different values or likes as a whole. If one of the nicest people in the world prefers one model over the other, then he/she is locked out of something by personal belief or want. There are a lot of jerks who have money and are willing to pay for 5+ accounts at a time, or even multibox 40 accounts just to destroy others (not calling the act itself jerk-like, as I multi-boxed myself once and found it to be challenging and enthralling gameplay PvE wise). There is an old saying in that the less someone has of something, the more humbled the become. The more someone has, the more they want it. Free games may be easily accessible to younger audiences, but honestly I'm pretty sure we all know an abundant amount of older people who don't act as such in games. I'm pretty sure we all met very mature teenagers who act fairly mature as well.
I believe the main point is personal want, as hinted in the above. Some people are just tired of the whole cash shop thing, while others revel in the ability to play for free and to support the game at their own leisure. There will be abusers on both sides and in different ways. Any reasons beyond that are pretty much personal taste or just guesses based on plausible cause and effect. How evident it may be depends on the type of game in a lot of ways. In addition, the age of a game might sink a community as the veterancy effect is known and people are less welcoming of others who may slow down their efficiency in their race to get the best of the best since they are able to do so solo and without the help of others since said "help" can be drawn from an infinite pool of strangers. Though again it will also depend on the type of game, as FFXIV veterans have been very welcoming to new players and there were even mentor programs set up for the Balmung server whereby items, gil and help are given to new players (with 99% of these people playing the game when it was free to play, and staying to do so when it switch to P2P since most didn't try the game after it's initial reviews once it went P2P).
If a game itself is somewhat shallow and it goes F2P, it's likely not to have a great crowd. If one that is masterfully crafted and encourages hard game play and efficient team work, then it will probably have a good bunch of people. Though I think a lot of people would prefer B2P over F2P just because of that "possibility" that it will in fact bring about at least a barrier of some sort to what some may call "rift raft". But at the same time the success of a game then will depend on it's Brand Name (if it exists) along with it's marketing to get the word out as less people will be willing to shell out the initial cash on an unknown (for instance I believe that Neverwinter made the right choice in going F2P due to what it was as it is just set up to make the most cash from that; some were upset it didn't feel like Neverwinter, but most still tried it since it was free. In Hindsight Defiance probably would've done better as F2P initially as it didn't have a real brand name to sell a box off of and didn't receive all that great of reviews. It got some decent boosts when it became $9.99, but only an increase of some 100% of players).
This may then go back to the whole "is it worth a sub" debate in which most games just aren't. Many that may be will also be hurt by the fact there are so many games out there that offer better deals. Then it moves into the territory of the developer just wanting to make money off of it since the days of subscription are behind us for now (until revived in the future when this fad wears off or a new technology like virtual MMOs are established). Perhaps even when this "gamer entitlement" slows down a bit will we see some new payment models as a whole that aren't just met with the whole "it's new, I hate it" vibe I get from a lot of people.
I appreciate your lengthy feedback. I agree with most of your post (so I wont repeat) and will put my disagreements below. =-)
Competition in PVP/MOBA games does cause rifts between people. I do not think this is necessarily bad, because a challenging raid in an MMO will do the exact same thing. A raid could cause some people to lose their cool when you didn't step to the left in time to avoid the a blast, or someone dies, because they weren't healed. I think any challenge or competitive gameplay will cause frustration to people who do take it serious. This is not bad, because competition and challenges DO create communities. (As long as the quality of the game is good). I do not think that taking gameplay or quality of PVP/PVE out of a game would make the community better. And maybe that is why some MMOs are turning into more casual games to cater to this, but when you play a game like that it feels it is missing a lot of reasons to care about it. Like why is my character the hero? What epic quest am I to do? Why should I care about the person I created? Why should I play this character if I don't care about him, or am not attached to him? And not to say that there are not other ways of making players care about their characters, but for the sake of PVP/PVE I find it hard not to include challenge or competition.
And looking at Buy to Play/Pay to Play, I did not think of gold farmers while typing this thread up, but I could see how this type of payment system would create a barrier of some type. However, I remember a lot of subscription based games that have gold farmers in them still. So I cannot say that Buy to Play or Pay to Play would ever stop "rift raft" from checking out or playing the game.
After playing FFXI for years and many others since I think what made it's community so good was how it encouraged playing on a single character and the dependency of other players.
Aside from the fact that it cost $1/month per extra character, that wasn't what kept people from doing it. It was the thought of doing everything over again is what rendered any extra characters as storage mules only.
Having to constantly work with others and depend on them brought the best out of people. Almost everyone had manners and were polite as it was almost expected in the first few years. Even if you had a bad day you knew to put on your "work" face when teaming up with others since your reputation was everything. If you didn't have anything nice to say it was best to keep it to yourself.
There should be a small pay wall to keep spammers and the sort out but other than that I don't think different pay systems affect community as much as lowering the desire to make alternate characters / name changes and having to work with others from the start.
FFXI and EQ1 I remember having this reputation system. It was not implemented it was just there. You knew not to group with that one guy, because he trained the zone or did not take his role in the group serious. FFXI and EQ1 were both hard to solo in (debatable if how much solo vs group is needed in an mmo), but it was the self moderation of the community I think that helped. Since there were real consequences in the game for your character. What you did to others mattered. Like wise what you did with your character mattered. I think a game that creates a community that can self moderate it would get rid of depending on GMs as much. I think GMs are still needed, but how long has anyone waited for a petition? I am going to throw Archeage out here as an example. They have a court system for players. (Give it a read if you have a moment)
I think something like this, bringing real consequences in the game, would create the needed barrier that we all seek for the game. A good game will lead to a good community that out lasts bad eggs in the game. Give the good game (that has the good community) the power to do something about the bad eggs, and then the good game becomes great, and the community becomes a close knit family.
Originally posted by Banquetto It affects the demographics. Play a F2P game, you'll find a lot more Eastern European and South American players than you will in a sub game.
Great point to bring up. Its hard to communicate and talk to people that do not speak the same language. I remember first playing on FFXI and the servers barely had any English speaking players (forever alone!). I still was able to get groups with the mostly Japanese dominated population only, because the developers implemented quick chat commands that were easily translated for both languages. It was pretty polite...
Hmm, I wonder if having just quick chat commands is the way to help communities stop the "spamming", the "barrens" chat and etc. Lets say you get free chat once your in a group with each other or apart of a guild. Its hard to see, because when forming a guild its hard to know how the other player is. But maybe players will base it on how they act while playing...a new thread for me to post now :P., thanks!
What if the goods in micro transactions do not affect gameplay but are just cosmetic?
Its still a problem for two reasons -
1. Most of the really cool items tend to go into the cash shop.
I would be ok with a system that had cosmetic cash shop items obtainable in game, provided that it wasn't made intentionally hard to get.
For example, said item is in the cash shop for 10 bucks, but the only way you can get it in game is by grinding a mob that is a rare spawn and the drop rate is like 2%. That kind of stuff blows. If they made it so that it was an event where the drop rates were fairly decent , but put the items on the cash shop after the fact so that in case you missed the item you could purchase it, I'd be ok with it. Tera used to do some stuff like that when I played and it worked fairly well.
2. Cash shop items can be put on the AH/GTN/Trade Broker/Whatever, causing inflation.
The problem with this is that it tends to cause inflation server wide. People who are constantly churning money into in-game currency have much more buying power than those who have to grind money out using in game systems, and thus cause the prices of items across the board to go up. Even though they still get more money for the items they sell, they are still behind the ball on buying big ticket items.
Maybe, if a developer limited their cash shop in a way that took care of both 1 and 2 I'd be interested, aside from that I cant see myself being a big fan of any F2P game.
Your right, from what I have seen with cosmetic items the cool looking items are in the cash shops, but I argue for the F2P model, because they need to make their money somehow. Now don't get me wrong. A raid, a hard earned item, or a long quest deserves as much or even more flavor then the bought items in the cash shop. It would definitely take the luster of earning an item at max when a level one has a similar looking flaming sword to the one you just earned. Its a perception thing though. The level one has a flaming sword, but its just particle effects. It doesn't give him a burning attack or a stat bonus though (if it really is true cosmetic and not Pay to Win). So it is fair to say that the people who play the game deserve awards for working too.
I do think this is all on the developer side of things. How the developer makes the cash shop and integrates it into the game. Cash shop and game play should never be one and the same. The in game economy should never be effected by what is in the store. No pay to win systems implemented in the game. Any item bought on the cash shop should be non-tradeable, but maybe you can buy and gift on the cash shop.
Even with EQ 1 F2P broken cash shop (pay to the win). I did notice an interesting type of trade system occurring. EQ 1 makes you buy expansions. People however were trading either in game platinum for other (to buy the expansion for them) or these "krono" items (allows the player to gain subscription bonuses for a month) for expansions and platinum. That's an interesting thought. Its a very blurry grey area when you trade like that. And lets say there was no way you could buy in game currency and there was no gold farmers in the game. Could this be a mixed type of trade/economy for the game? Would this just be another gold farming tactic? Probably in the end, but interesting nevertheless.
You are having a party. You have 3 options, open bar where you provide free drinks, BYOB where your friends bring their own, pay bar where you friends buy their own. Maybe a wedding reception would be better I'm not sure.
In my experience, yes I have sponsored all types, more will show up to the open bar and get more rowdy. With BYOB you still will get a large population but not all of them will get out of control rowdy. If you make your guests pay their own way, less will show and even less will get out of control.
Truth is "pay systems effect society" not just mmo communities.
For personal share time I would like to talk about my recent experience in RIFT. My vid card had died so I wasn't playing anything for a couple months. I just got my machine running good again yesterday . I have a full week of nothing next week and thought I'd play some MMOs. Tried Rift, as it is now F2P, and well I found the community worse that what I found in DF:UW. That's right, I said a FFA/Full Loot/PvP community was BETTER. Within 5 minutes of logging into Rift I was inundated with gold spam, and racist/homophobic/insult your momma. That was all I heard. Coupled with "I am on the internetz, I get to say what I want!" Needless to say I wont be playing that one. When I subbed to Rift I delt with almost none of this.
Meh that is my 2 pennies.
I'm off to join the GW2 zerg. Yes it is a zerg, don't believe me? Log into Queensland and watch chat. You will see a constant stream of "where zerg at".
Really great life experience to relate to mmo games. I cannot argue that the amount of people that will be abusive of F2P vs P2P is comparable. I think both will have bad eggs no matter what, but I do believe F2P will have more, or atleast more often/frequently.
Community is built on a game's design ,not on it's pay system.If you design a game that has players soloing 90% of the time,that is NOT going to build a community.That creates a game where players ONLY care about other players when they need a dungeon run to get said gear.
Pay systems are merely an indication of the developer's character.
Totally agree, with the first part. A good game will create a good community. I guess I should change that to: A good MMORPG will create a good community. Because there are great single player games.
However I disagree that a pay system makes a developer have a good or bad character. Its a business model that is all.
Hmm, I say that, then I think about how evil Pay to Win F2P are. Its just crooked to do something like that and kills the game...you may have won this round Wizardry lol...but a fair F2P or P2P just becomes grey to me. Hope you can tell me your thoughts on what each pay system is to you.
If it is so-called f2p, I avoid the game because IT IS NOT FREE! F2p is a ding joint. That could also apply to ANY game that has an item shop. If you do not know what a "ding joint" is...look it up.
Well F2P is free to play. Sure there may be reasons that buying an item from the cash shop will make something more convenient, but no one is holding a gun to your head to make you buy stuff.
Also, googled ding joint, couldn't find it. Care to elaborate? =-)
Originally posted by bizoux86 I don't think that it is necessarily that there is a worse community in F2P games versus p2p, I usually prefer p2p games because they are kept up better, gold spammers are essentially non-existent and the GM's are much more prevalent. Just from personal experience.... I experienced horrid communities in P2P as well as F2P games - but the overall experience of not having to block annoying gold spammers every 5seconds is nice in P2P lol
World of Warcraft, SWTOR, EQ 1 and FFXI have gold spammers. I think gold spammers are prevalent in any game they can get their hands on and have business in.
I hear you. I just said from my own personal experience I saw much less gold spam in p2p games versus f2p. I have played wow for almost 4 years now and have only seen about 10 gold spammers in all that time, before Aion went free to play they were there but under control - now if one logs into Aion it is just a chat so full of gold spam that you cannot even read the LFG.... This turns me off from games, just my own personal opinion here. But yeah they do exist in any game.
Hmm, makes me wonder then if by having a F2P game, does it take away from the customer support? I compare it to Xbox live and PSN (in the early days). PSN was free and had issues. Xbox live you paid for the service, but had better support.
Subscription games are not dying out because it's not a working model. They're dying out because the current breed of games do not work with subscriptions because there's not enough hooks and content to support a subscription. Old style games were built around subscriptions. I mean, you do realize the games that are still subbing are very old. It kind of supports my argument that if long in the tooth MMORPG's can hold subscription now but supposedly better and newer games can't.
That is obviously not true. WoW is adding more and more content, and losing subs.
It is not about amount of content. It is about competition. If i can get as much fun from a free alternative, there is no point to sub.
And yes ... sub is old style. That is why it is dying out.
F2P do affect the community, but mainly at low levels. When people start playing without actually forking up money at front you get many jerks who doesn't care about much as all. Once players have invested some time in them though most morons have already quit and the people who still play have an attachment to the game.
But the noob zones in F2P games usually have a really bad community.I don't think there is much difference in the high level players though.
Comments
I hear you. I just said from my own personal experience I saw much less gold spam in p2p games versus f2p. I have played wow for almost 4 years now and have only seen about 10 gold spammers in all that time, before Aion went free to play they were there but under control - now if one logs into Aion it is just a chat so full of gold spam that you cannot even read the LFG.... This turns me off from games, just my own personal opinion here. But yeah they do exist in any game.
Sure, I understand that concept so it's a balance between what your customers want to keep them satisfied and paying.
Here in Florida there's a supermarket chain (Publix) that is definitely not the low price leader compared to chains such as Super walmart and some others.
Yet they control over 60% of the market which they accomplish by being the number 1 store in terms of customer service. There is no chain that has better dressed, well mannered clerks and staff, always roaming the aisles and cheerfully willing to help you find something or take your groceries out to the car (for free no less, go figure)
Is all this service expensive, certainly, I'll bet their employee costs far exceed any other chain outside of specialties such as whole foods but it shows in terms of their market place dominance.
I myself would actually pay a premium fee to play on a well moderated server if only they would offer such options.
Of course, I can see it now, buy a 5 pack of moderation requests for sale in the cash shop, only 19.95. Heck they could even come with a chance based magic moderation that would let you get someone perma-banned from the game should you be lucky enough to hit it. Think of the possibilities.
"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
Sure, I understand that concept so it's a balance between what your customers want to keep them satisfied and paying.
Here in Florida there's a supermarket chain (Publix) that is definitely not the low price leader compared to chains such as Super walmart and some others.
Yet they control over 60% of the market which they accomplish by being the number 1 store in terms of customer service. There is no chain that has better dressed, well mannered clerks and staff, always roaming the aisles and cheerfully willing to help you find something or take your groceries out to the car (for free no less, go figure)
Is all this service expensive, certainly, I'll bet their employee costs far exceed any other chain outside of specialties such as whole foods but it shows in terms of their market place dominance.
I myself would actually pay a premium fee to play on a well moderated server if only they would offer such options.
Of course, I can see it now, buy a 5 pack of moderation requests for sale in the cash shop, only 19.95. Heck they could even come with a chance based magic moderation that would let you get someone perma-banned from the game should you be lucky enough to hit it. Think of the possibilities.
I don't think that would work with video games. I can see how it works with things like super markets, but I don't see video game consumers as that discerning and I don't see developers or publishers as willing to cut their profits by a dramatic amount to have that moderation when the lack of it sells just fine.
I will say that I have played on a Minecraft server with pretty good moderation though, and it's a whole different experience from playing on servers without moderation. The server thrives on donations, and a good part of that has to be the moderation making it possible to have a community and making it possible for people to build things. So it is possible on a small scale at least. I'm just not so sure it's possible for it to be economically feasible on a large scale or for a large developer. The Minecraft server is massivecraft.com btw.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Everyone talks about f2p games as if they are this t-rex that came in and ate all the tiny p2p dinosaur games up leading to gaming extinction.
There are three types of f2p games: (1) one's that were made that way from the beginning and are not trying to screw anyone just pay the bills [Mabinogi], (2) one's that were originally p2p which usually come up with a fairly decent f2p model when converted [Aion], (3) mom and pop oriental gambling shop quicky throw togethers that make los vegas look holy in comparison. You pro p2p always assume every f2p is in catagory 3.
The t-rex everyone is ignoring is real life economy. People no longer have extra money to spend on gaming. Why? When I was a child my parents played this "game" with credit cards called consolidate. If you put all your outstanding debt on one card and used their promo first three months no-interest/low-interest then before the three months were up you would switch to another credit card with a promo. You could conceivably pay your debts. Those days are gone. We have more shit than we ever had but shit costs more than it ever did and if you are not paying attention (and most of you are not) - people don't have as much spending money as they used to. Jobs are not bringing in much. There are no more promotions. There are no corporate retirements for aged employees. Hell, to keep from paying people the law required couple of cents raise managers find a way to fire employees before they go over their 3 month mark. Gasoline prices up daily. Landlords tack more to rent. Power bill up. Utilities up if you have them. What imaginary world do you peeps live in that you think gaming is going to survive the next Depression which is already happening but you're pretending it isn't? Maybe games have gone f2p because they have no choice. Rich brats are decreasing in number and can't support the p2p models all by dier lonesome selves without us commoners.
Soon the wealthy spoilt will be just like the rest while the few Puppetmaster's explain how we all, for our safety because they are so concerned about us, need to put that identity chip under our skin (the one that is in your cat and dog). Please tell me you realize why that's a bad thing.
I disagree completely. The player base is starving for a gaming company that offers quality service.
I disagree completely. The player base is starving for a gaming company that offers quality service.
I think the example I gave of the Minecraft server works because of the small scale the server operates on. They have at most 350 people online at any given time, and the moderators and mostly volunteers. It does make a huge difference. So much so that I find other Minecraft servers largely unplayable. It's well worth it to give the MassiveCraft guys a donation, but scaling it up would make it a lot more expensive and much harder to manage.
Actually paying people to act as moderators would get expensive, quickly. It would require at a minimum three full time people and three part time people to monitor each server instance for a week's time. At a low wage of $12.50 an hour, that's $109,200 a year, just in what's being paid to the people, excluding any health benefits, additional taxes and the overhead caused by having moderator managers. Not to mention turnover in the moderator staff. That's only if it's feasible to have just 1 moderator on at a time. During peak hours more moderators would probably be required. Even on a 350 person Minecraft server there are usually three or more moderators on, creating that good experience.
There are indeed many people who would like a better experience, but there aren't enough of them to make such an experience profitable enough to be worth doing.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Not at the price gaming companies need to charge to make it profitable.
There are too many free alternatives.
No, its a fallacy of gameplay design. To have a subscription based game you need a reason for players to pay monthly long term. A casual game designed as a sprint will not hold up well to the marathon required for a long term subscription. F2P is popular because you don't need as much content and success is based on marketing and prestige not the quality as much.
nah ... you are confusing quality of fun, and quantity (long term).
If a short F2P is as much fun as a long term MMO in the first 2 weeks, why shouldn't i just have the same fun in the first 2 weeks, and then move onto the next one?
This competition is why sub-only MMOs are dying. More content does not equate more fun. Longer term game does not equate more fun for the next week.
Well one thing is for certain, if a MMORPG has a monthly sub fee Narrius won't be part of the community.
Just messing.....
"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
Lol, I think WoW has more subs than most games combined. Eve is currently growing and it goes entirely against the MMO gods current conventional thinking. Everquest was around as a sub game for years. Even UO has a decent sub base and it was in beta in 1996.
Again fun factor and originality for a lot of people has not been there in a while. It doesn't matter because again ability to attract whales is all that matters.
Not only that, i am not likely to be part of ANY game community, sub or not. Doing some random PUG dungeons, and solo most of the time (on F2P games) is not "part" of the community.
I don't play games to be "part of the community". I do that for fun.
What is back in 1996 (almost 20 years ago) is not relevant.
WOW is losing subs every year. Blizz is putting a cash shop in WOW and in a few years, it will be F2P. It is the last big sub-game.
Eve is small. It takes many years to get to half a mil of sub. In comparison, GW2 sold 2M in a month.
When WOW goes F2P, sub-only games truly die.
Pity, you're missing out on some real fun. Loosen up sometime and give people a chance, you might find new fun out there.
"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
Subscription games are not dying out because it's not a working model. They're dying out because the current breed of games do not work with subscriptions because there's not enough hooks and content to support a subscription. Old style games were built around subscriptions. I mean, you do realize the games that are still subbing are very old. It kind of supports my argument that if long in the tooth MMORPG's can hold subscription now but supposedly better and newer games can't.
WoW will eventually go F2P when the profit margin is lower then what they estimate the game will pull in with P2P. But again the game is almost a decade old. Maybe people are just tired of the game not just subbing.
I appreciate your lengthy feedback. I agree with most of your post (so I wont repeat) and will put my disagreements below. =-)
Competition in PVP/MOBA games does cause rifts between people. I do not think this is necessarily bad, because a challenging raid in an MMO will do the exact same thing. A raid could cause some people to lose their cool when you didn't step to the left in time to avoid the a blast, or someone dies, because they weren't healed. I think any challenge or competitive gameplay will cause frustration to people who do take it serious. This is not bad, because competition and challenges DO create communities. (As long as the quality of the game is good). I do not think that taking gameplay or quality of PVP/PVE out of a game would make the community better. And maybe that is why some MMOs are turning into more casual games to cater to this, but when you play a game like that it feels it is missing a lot of reasons to care about it. Like why is my character the hero? What epic quest am I to do? Why should I care about the person I created? Why should I play this character if I don't care about him, or am not attached to him? And not to say that there are not other ways of making players care about their characters, but for the sake of PVP/PVE I find it hard not to include challenge or competition.
And looking at Buy to Play/Pay to Play, I did not think of gold farmers while typing this thread up, but I could see how this type of payment system would create a barrier of some type. However, I remember a lot of subscription based games that have gold farmers in them still. So I cannot say that Buy to Play or Pay to Play would ever stop "rift raft" from checking out or playing the game.
FFXI and EQ1 I remember having this reputation system. It was not implemented it was just there. You knew not to group with that one guy, because he trained the zone or did not take his role in the group serious. FFXI and EQ1 were both hard to solo in (debatable if how much solo vs group is needed in an mmo), but it was the self moderation of the community I think that helped. Since there were real consequences in the game for your character. What you did to others mattered. Like wise what you did with your character mattered. I think a game that creates a community that can self moderate it would get rid of depending on GMs as much. I think GMs are still needed, but how long has anyone waited for a petition? I am going to throw Archeage out here as an example. They have a court system for players. (Give it a read if you have a moment)
http://archeagesource.com/topic/1123-archeage-the-criminal-system-crime-court-prison-pirate-cbt5/
I think something like this, bringing real consequences in the game, would create the needed barrier that we all seek for the game. A good game will lead to a good community that out lasts bad eggs in the game. Give the good game (that has the good community) the power to do something about the bad eggs, and then the good game becomes great, and the community becomes a close knit family.
Great point to bring up. Its hard to communicate and talk to people that do not speak the same language. I remember first playing on FFXI and the servers barely had any English speaking players (forever alone!). I still was able to get groups with the mostly Japanese dominated population only, because the developers implemented quick chat commands that were easily translated for both languages. It was pretty polite...
Hmm, I wonder if having just quick chat commands is the way to help communities stop the "spamming", the "barrens" chat and etc. Lets say you get free chat once your in a group with each other or apart of a guild. Its hard to see, because when forming a guild its hard to know how the other player is. But maybe players will base it on how they act while playing...a new thread for me to post now :P., thanks!
Your right, from what I have seen with cosmetic items the cool looking items are in the cash shops, but I argue for the F2P model, because they need to make their money somehow. Now don't get me wrong. A raid, a hard earned item, or a long quest deserves as much or even more flavor then the bought items in the cash shop. It would definitely take the luster of earning an item at max when a level one has a similar looking flaming sword to the one you just earned. Its a perception thing though. The level one has a flaming sword, but its just particle effects. It doesn't give him a burning attack or a stat bonus though (if it really is true cosmetic and not Pay to Win). So it is fair to say that the people who play the game deserve awards for working too.
I do think this is all on the developer side of things. How the developer makes the cash shop and integrates it into the game. Cash shop and game play should never be one and the same. The in game economy should never be effected by what is in the store. No pay to win systems implemented in the game. Any item bought on the cash shop should be non-tradeable, but maybe you can buy and gift on the cash shop.
Even with EQ 1 F2P broken cash shop (pay to the win). I did notice an interesting type of trade system occurring. EQ 1 makes you buy expansions. People however were trading either in game platinum for other (to buy the expansion for them) or these "krono" items (allows the player to gain subscription bonuses for a month) for expansions and platinum. That's an interesting thought. Its a very blurry grey area when you trade like that. And lets say there was no way you could buy in game currency and there was no gold farmers in the game. Could this be a mixed type of trade/economy for the game? Would this just be another gold farming tactic? Probably in the end, but interesting nevertheless.
Really great life experience to relate to mmo games. I cannot argue that the amount of people that will be abusive of F2P vs P2P is comparable. I think both will have bad eggs no matter what, but I do believe F2P will have more, or atleast more often/frequently.
Totally agree, with the first part. A good game will create a good community. I guess I should change that to: A good MMORPG will create a good community. Because there are great single player games.
However I disagree that a pay system makes a developer have a good or bad character. Its a business model that is all.
Hmm, I say that, then I think about how evil Pay to Win F2P are. Its just crooked to do something like that and kills the game...you may have won this round Wizardry lol...but a fair F2P or P2P just becomes grey to me. Hope you can tell me your thoughts on what each pay system is to you.
Well F2P is free to play. Sure there may be reasons that buying an item from the cash shop will make something more convenient, but no one is holding a gun to your head to make you buy stuff.
Also, googled ding joint, couldn't find it. Care to elaborate? =-)
Hmm, makes me wonder then if by having a F2P game, does it take away from the customer support? I compare it to Xbox live and PSN (in the early days). PSN was free and had issues. Xbox live you paid for the service, but had better support.
That is obviously not true. WoW is adding more and more content, and losing subs.
It is not about amount of content. It is about competition. If i can get as much fun from a free alternative, there is no point to sub.
And yes ... sub is old style. That is why it is dying out.
F2P do affect the community, but mainly at low levels. When people start playing without actually forking up money at front you get many jerks who doesn't care about much as all. Once players have invested some time in them though most morons have already quit and the people who still play have an attachment to the game.
But the noob zones in F2P games usually have a really bad community.I don't think there is much difference in the high level players though.