lotro was pay and than switched to ftp,with new content you had to buy.but you could still play the content just not do the quests.out of the box you are missing content unless you buy it with eso.so you pay full price for a game than get half the game.also if you pre order you can use any race in any faction,but if you dont well you cannot ever do it.
Let's just cut to the chase, because you know where they are headed with this anyways:
Cloud-based gaming... we're essentially there already since we have to log in to their servers to play the game. Monthly, yearly, and pay-as-you-go subscription plans:
Monthly: $15 (you save $15 but are committed to a monthly recurring charge for a minimum of 3 months)
Yearly: $100 (you save $80 but are committed to an annual recurring charge for a minimum of 2 years)
Pay-As-You-Go: $1 per day (can be cancelled at any time, but you are committed to a daily recurring charge)
Can't stop the cash shop... it's been here even if cleverly disguised as a character renaming service, server transfer service, et al. Deal with it.
The game is downloaded for free at time of subscription and includes all the latest content and expansions because there is only one version of the game. Your game time starts immediately after logging into the game for the first time. So if you are on Pay-As-You-Go and you log in at 12:00PM on 24 Mar 2014, your game time will expire at 12:00 PM on 25 Mar 2014 if you cancel your recurring daily subscription of $1.
Subs are not a thing of the past. Just Devs havn't produced a game worth paying a sub for in many many many years. They just refuse to make games that don't suck, the standard of an MMO has dropped so low, they just make them to last a year or two before dumping them tops. Even when they manage to make a game that isn't a complete waste, they will usually ruin it with changes/patches/updates/changing the sub/etc. within a year or so now.
If they make a game that doesn't suck, people will pay subs without reserve, and those that won't, well, ts go play something else.
B2P games are nothing more than money grabs. Get your money once, you basically pay to test the game, then like it or hate it they've already got your money and your no longer important.
F2P games are either junk, or become P2W games, or both. Micro transactions are the bane of games survivability (as a good game). As soon as real $ enters a game world, it usually turns out poorly. Very few exceptions.
[mod edit]
That out of all the MMORPGs that have released over the past 15 years that they all "sucked". There are many MMORPGs that were far better made and far more innovative than WoW that failed to survive on P2P model, so clearly that blows your little hypothesis out of the water.
You speak about F2P as if you've played maybe 1 or 2 bad ones, then you came on here and made blanket statement based on anecdotal evidence. There are a lot of great, AAA quality, F2P games that aren't P2W. And most industry professionals will tell you that F2P is the future of not just MMORPGs, but for gaming in general.
I play Mortal Online, a game noted for its problems. If anyone wants to stop reading right here, I don't blame him. But I also want to talk about *just* the payment -and- non-payment setup for this product.
Star Vault, the makers, have adopted a kind of hybrid system. On top of many, I believe it's yet another problem. People can't even talk about it without getting embroiled.
Some call it F2P: Free to Play. It's free to play a crippled version that's supposed to get you hooked (and sometimes, that works); how crippled? Skills will not operate at more than 60 percent-- not a PvP-viable situation-- and, because of the skill tier system, some abilities remain unavailable. F2Players can't own houses or accept trades of certain items or materials. (This is pretty much how I think it should be for trial players, by the way. If you want to knock over paying customers' sand castles, subscribe.)
Some call it Pay to Win: P2W. However, paying a subscription only gives you an advantage over those who, presumably, are there to try the game and buy if they like it. Supposedly.
There's no way, as of yet, to pay more in any kind of cash shop to have an advantage, account for account, over others who also pay.
Naturally, a lot of F2P accounts are actually started to enable those who are already paying to have more storage, do more activities on the side, and participate in the Peen-v-Peen[TM] on some anonymous basis, without paying for another/more accounts.
F2P characters can't PvP toe-to-toe, but they can do some other things which people find to be valuable uses of their playing time. Right now, AFK mining with macros is the rage.
I don't know how Star Vault keeps going while letting these non-subscription accounts never expire; though they do have their investors. But development is slow, and more income could only help, to get more people on the team if nothing else.
How this relates: Seeing how it works for the people making and playing this one game that's gone from subs only to subs plus time-unlimited but gimped trials, I am sure it is premature to announce that the subscription model is dead.
Really enjoyed this article, by the way.
Casilda Tametomo, Priestess of Soldeus | AKA Lepida Aegis-Imperium.com
«Si oblitus fuero usque ad finem omnia opera eorum»
You know financial analyst always make bad predictions about when it comes to video games. I sat there and read like 50 articles from the wall street world talk about how Sony and Xbox are going under because they've invested too much in the PS4 and XBOX One when they should have been putting more into cheap mobile gaming. Obviously, they were way off. I think they're doing the same thing by pronouncing any subscription based MMO as dead.
First off: having played FF14 ARR, I can say there is still a market for subscription based MMOs. Sure they have to be higher in quality and offer a little bit more but if they're good enough, most MMO players will think they're getting their money's worth or are under paying.
Second off: There are too many cheap F2P games out there that offer nothing new or have terrible terrible cash shops. Hybrid Model MMOs will charge way more for certain mounds or consumption items in their cash shop than the actually price of the subscription. Look at Neverwinter: Fun game, every mount other than the crappy horse is $15 or more dollars. Companions too are extra. Oh wait, you have to buy the extra companion slots too. They only sell the cash shop's currency in increments of $10 dollars too so you are forced to pay upward. League of Legends wants you to pay $10 for one character skin. It would honestly be cheaper to pay a monthly fee. Honestly, Guildwars 2 is the only MMO that has a fair cash shop and doesn't push you to use it. Also, GW2 makes it were you can't buy the best gear because the gold to crystal is too little compared to how much in game stuff cost. You can mainly use gold to get crafting materials, bags and dyes ( lots and lots of dyes). Neverwinter on the other hand lets you get full high level enchantments and high level gear (level 50+ gear can be used by level 40 or lower) with Astral Diamonds you convert from Zen (cash shop currency). These enchantments and gear will easily put you at the top in all scores up to level 60.
If you go through any forums on F2P, you'll see a lot of post from people who want the subscription based model again because they're tired of all the bogus cash shops with over priced items. I am one of those people. So I think its safe to say MMOs are probably heading back to subscription model again. Which is good because if the game sucks, I can always cancel my subscription and move to another one. If you're older than 20 and you can't afford $15 bucks a month (college kids excluded) you failed in life.
Started PC gaming in August, 2013. Games played (in order): FF14 ARR ==> Guild Wars 2 ==> Planetside 2 ==> League of Legends ==> Neverwinter (still playing)==> Back to League of Legends for a second try
Just from my own personal and anecdotal evidence, I tend to invest more time and energy into games that require a subscription - given that I enjoy the game when I play it. The F2P games tend to be played in passing, for example, when I'm waiting for another game to come out or in-between the high-times of Eve Online.
I have many gaming friends that do this as well, we all coalesce back to the sub games when stuff gets interesting or fun again (if you've played EO on a big scale then you know what I mean) then fill in the holes with stuff like BF4 or WoTanks/Planes, etc etc.
Opinions are always going to vary over this issue. When I stop to contemplate the resources needed to run a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game, the first resources I think of are the bandwidth and the servers needed to support any grand-scale "AAA" title. I imagine these things don't come for free.
For every cheapskate bemoaning the "subscription based payment model", I imagine their "free" time is being paid for by someone else, and whether or not they want to admit it, they know they're playing on borrowed time.
If the Cash Shop revenue of a "free to play" MMO dries up, the publishing houses backing those projects will immediately seek ways to shore up the loss, such as laying off a majority of the original development team and running a bare bones dev house, pressuring the development teams to put more focus on items designed to "encourage" cash shop usage, and merging game world servers to create the illusion that the population of the game hasn't dwindled.
You've all seen it time and time again on these very forums, so this issue is a dead horse waiting to be beaten time and time again. If the MMO in question offers a substantial experience, and they chose to go the route of a subscription-based payment system, then they just may be able to retain their ideal player base.
In a best-case scenario, that means players of that MMO can expect regular and meaningful content updates, and hopefully a significant expansion down the road.
In a worst case scenario, the publishers of the MMO in question will see the err of their ways and reluctantly submit to a "F2P" model, all the while trying to divert the public's opinion away from a perception that the MMO has failed commercially. We've all seen this numerous times as well.
This issue is dredged up every time another alleged "AAA" title is on the horizon, and I don't expect the cheerleading and naysaying to stop any time soon. It comes with the territory. I just wonder how many people declaring imminent doom on a MMO with a subscription-based payment model would give the MMO in question a fair chance if THEY were allowed to play for free.
Considering how many times I've seen people defend a "F2P" massively-multiplayer game with a "fair" cash shop that "no one is forced to use", I wonder how many of those same people actually support the further development of the game by partaking in the goods that the "fair" cash shop has to offer? Or, do they hope someone else is buying the virtual goods so THEY keep getting the same 'something for nothing'. How much do you think the "whales" of the "F2P" industry have to spend monthly in order to help keep that title afloat? Do you think it's under the amount of your average monthly subscription in order to compensate for all the other players standing on the shoulders of those willing to fork over extra cash for mere vanity items? If the items being offered through these cash shops are MORE than just vanity items, and they somehow lend themselves to an overall more "complete" experience, then isn't this in itself a type of subscription to a complete game?
As internet users, how much do you think your ISP would charge you in order to allow you to offer up servers for just 100,000 other people to log into your servers to access streaming content for several hours at a time? How hard would YOU work in order to keep people engaged in your 'totally free' content that you spent countless hours developing? Would you still swear that you were offering your game to the public at large totally free? Or... would you find ways to tap into the player consciousness in order to lure SOME players to invest in virtual content in order to support your work, the bandwidth you pay for, your day-to-day overhead, and your everyday expenses and cost of living?
How many of you that are completely sworn to 'Free To Play' wind up paying after all, and how many of you are taking advantage of those that do?
Comments
Let's just cut to the chase, because you know where they are headed with this anyways:
Cloud-based gaming... we're essentially there already since we have to log in to their servers to play the game. Monthly, yearly, and pay-as-you-go subscription plans:
Monthly: $15 (you save $15 but are committed to a monthly recurring charge for a minimum of 3 months)
Yearly: $100 (you save $80 but are committed to an annual recurring charge for a minimum of 2 years)
Pay-As-You-Go: $1 per day (can be cancelled at any time, but you are committed to a daily recurring charge)
Can't stop the cash shop... it's been here even if cleverly disguised as a character renaming service, server transfer service, et al. Deal with it.
The game is downloaded for free at time of subscription and includes all the latest content and expansions because there is only one version of the game. Your game time starts immediately after logging into the game for the first time. So if you are on Pay-As-You-Go and you log in at 12:00PM on 24 Mar 2014, your game time will expire at 12:00 PM on 25 Mar 2014 if you cancel your recurring daily subscription of $1.
[mod edit]
That out of all the MMORPGs that have released over the past 15 years that they all "sucked". There are many MMORPGs that were far better made and far more innovative than WoW that failed to survive on P2P model, so clearly that blows your little hypothesis out of the water.
You speak about F2P as if you've played maybe 1 or 2 bad ones, then you came on here and made blanket statement based on anecdotal evidence. There are a lot of great, AAA quality, F2P games that aren't P2W. And most industry professionals will tell you that F2P is the future of not just MMORPGs, but for gaming in general.
Legends of Kesmai, UO, EQ, AO, DAoC, AC, SB, RO, SWG, EVE, EQ2, CoH, GW, VG:SOH, WAR, Aion, DF, CO, MO, DN, Tera, SWTOR, RO2, DP, GW2, PS2, BnS, NW, FF:XIV, ESO, EQ:NL
I play Mortal Online, a game noted for its problems. If anyone wants to stop reading right here, I don't blame him. But I also want to talk about *just* the payment -and- non-payment setup for this product.
Star Vault, the makers, have adopted a kind of hybrid system. On top of many, I believe it's yet another problem. People can't even talk about it without getting embroiled.
Some call it F2P: Free to Play. It's free to play a crippled version that's supposed to get you hooked (and sometimes, that works); how crippled? Skills will not operate at more than 60 percent-- not a PvP-viable situation-- and, because of the skill tier system, some abilities remain unavailable. F2Players can't own houses or accept trades of certain items or materials. (This is pretty much how I think it should be for trial players, by the way. If you want to knock over paying customers' sand castles, subscribe.)
Some call it Pay to Win: P2W. However, paying a subscription only gives you an advantage over those who, presumably, are there to try the game and buy if they like it. Supposedly.
Naturally, a lot of F2P accounts are actually started to enable those who are already paying to have more storage, do more activities on the side, and participate in the Peen-v-Peen[TM] on some anonymous basis, without paying for another/more accounts.
«Si oblitus fuero usque ad finem omnia opera eorum»
You know financial analyst always make bad predictions about when it comes to video games. I sat there and read like 50 articles from the wall street world talk about how Sony and Xbox are going under because they've invested too much in the PS4 and XBOX One when they should have been putting more into cheap mobile gaming. Obviously, they were way off. I think they're doing the same thing by pronouncing any subscription based MMO as dead.
First off: having played FF14 ARR, I can say there is still a market for subscription based MMOs. Sure they have to be higher in quality and offer a little bit more but if they're good enough, most MMO players will think they're getting their money's worth or are under paying.
Second off: There are too many cheap F2P games out there that offer nothing new or have terrible terrible cash shops. Hybrid Model MMOs will charge way more for certain mounds or consumption items in their cash shop than the actually price of the subscription. Look at Neverwinter: Fun game, every mount other than the crappy horse is $15 or more dollars. Companions too are extra. Oh wait, you have to buy the extra companion slots too. They only sell the cash shop's currency in increments of $10 dollars too so you are forced to pay upward. League of Legends wants you to pay $10 for one character skin. It would honestly be cheaper to pay a monthly fee. Honestly, Guildwars 2 is the only MMO that has a fair cash shop and doesn't push you to use it. Also, GW2 makes it were you can't buy the best gear because the gold to crystal is too little compared to how much in game stuff cost. You can mainly use gold to get crafting materials, bags and dyes ( lots and lots of dyes). Neverwinter on the other hand lets you get full high level enchantments and high level gear (level 50+ gear can be used by level 40 or lower) with Astral Diamonds you convert from Zen (cash shop currency). These enchantments and gear will easily put you at the top in all scores up to level 60.
If you go through any forums on F2P, you'll see a lot of post from people who want the subscription based model again because they're tired of all the bogus cash shops with over priced items. I am one of those people. So I think its safe to say MMOs are probably heading back to subscription model again. Which is good because if the game sucks, I can always cancel my subscription and move to another one. If you're older than 20 and you can't afford $15 bucks a month (college kids excluded) you failed in life.
Started PC gaming in August, 2013. Games played (in order): FF14 ARR ==> Guild Wars 2 ==> Planetside 2 ==> League of Legends ==> Neverwinter (still playing)==> Back to League of Legends for a second try
Opinions are always going to vary over this issue. When I stop to contemplate the resources needed to run a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game, the first resources I think of are the bandwidth and the servers needed to support any grand-scale "AAA" title. I imagine these things don't come for free.
For every cheapskate bemoaning the "subscription based payment model", I imagine their "free" time is being paid for by someone else, and whether or not they want to admit it, they know they're playing on borrowed time.
If the Cash Shop revenue of a "free to play" MMO dries up, the publishing houses backing those projects will immediately seek ways to shore up the loss, such as laying off a majority of the original development team and running a bare bones dev house, pressuring the development teams to put more focus on items designed to "encourage" cash shop usage, and merging game world servers to create the illusion that the population of the game hasn't dwindled.
You've all seen it time and time again on these very forums, so this issue is a dead horse waiting to be beaten time and time again. If the MMO in question offers a substantial experience, and they chose to go the route of a subscription-based payment system, then they just may be able to retain their ideal player base.
In a best-case scenario, that means players of that MMO can expect regular and meaningful content updates, and hopefully a significant expansion down the road.
In a worst case scenario, the publishers of the MMO in question will see the err of their ways and reluctantly submit to a "F2P" model, all the while trying to divert the public's opinion away from a perception that the MMO has failed commercially. We've all seen this numerous times as well.
This issue is dredged up every time another alleged "AAA" title is on the horizon, and I don't expect the cheerleading and naysaying to stop any time soon. It comes with the territory. I just wonder how many people declaring imminent doom on a MMO with a subscription-based payment model would give the MMO in question a fair chance if THEY were allowed to play for free.
Considering how many times I've seen people defend a "F2P" massively-multiplayer game with a "fair" cash shop that "no one is forced to use", I wonder how many of those same people actually support the further development of the game by partaking in the goods that the "fair" cash shop has to offer? Or, do they hope someone else is buying the virtual goods so THEY keep getting the same 'something for nothing'. How much do you think the "whales" of the "F2P" industry have to spend monthly in order to help keep that title afloat? Do you think it's under the amount of your average monthly subscription in order to compensate for all the other players standing on the shoulders of those willing to fork over extra cash for mere vanity items? If the items being offered through these cash shops are MORE than just vanity items, and they somehow lend themselves to an overall more "complete" experience, then isn't this in itself a type of subscription to a complete game?
As internet users, how much do you think your ISP would charge you in order to allow you to offer up servers for just 100,000 other people to log into your servers to access streaming content for several hours at a time? How hard would YOU work in order to keep people engaged in your 'totally free' content that you spent countless hours developing? Would you still swear that you were offering your game to the public at large totally free? Or... would you find ways to tap into the player consciousness in order to lure SOME players to invest in virtual content in order to support your work, the bandwidth you pay for, your day-to-day overhead, and your everyday expenses and cost of living?
How many of you that are completely sworn to 'Free To Play' wind up paying after all, and how many of you are taking advantage of those that do?
Excellent article and supports the reasons why I prefer a sub based game like EQ or WoW
over f2p models
Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads! Swords for everyone!