Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Citation please! I can't recall any games which were outright deceitful. I pretty much know what the limitations are going to be when I start into it. Maybe I missed the ones you're talking about, but in general F2P is very transparent with their fees (like them or not).
I see some confusion here on the forums so let me clarify why F2P is the best thing that happened to this genre.
I"ve been part of, experienced and played/enjoyed many MMO's without spending a cent, regardless of what type of cash shop they have. That itself is the greatest reason why I cannot "hate" F2P MMO's, but on the contrary if I see a MMO demanding upfront fee or a monthly fee, expansion fee or all of those thing to be played and on top has some cash shop that a F2P MMO would incorporate (which we've recently start to see more and more) is one of the main reasons I stay away from those MMO's.
So, if there is anyone here who hates F2P (regardless how it's implemented) simply put he/she hates having the choice/opportunity to enjoy many not just MMO's but other types of games out there. I would gladly pay top $ for a quality product, but to see a company damaging it's game for the price of receiving more revenue in the short run from whatever playerbase it has is one of the reasons many games end up badly.
Finally, F2P is one of the best ways to advertise your product/game with a potential to attract a huge audience (if it's a great game). League of Legends is just one example of that and the amount of players enjoy it thanks to being F2P is enormous. I dislike MOBA's and never played it, but I have to aknowledge that reality and overall how beneficial F2P is to us gamers in general.
So you play a game and don't contribute to it? That's exactly the problem. And the devs of these games know people do this. What do they do? They amp up the advertisement or make it so that any enjoyment or progression hinges you grabbing the latest sale. You've bought into this whole idea that's it's your choice. What's been remissed upon the f2p crowd is that the games are spending more time and money on the cash shop and its return on investment than they are on actual game. Do you think Rift is going to have another Storm Legion quality expansion? Do you think Lord of the Rings Online will release an expansion and actually have fair pricing tactics. Sure these games let every in. Come, sample. Meanwhile, the people who actually wanted to enjoy the game are now being nagged to buy something. It's like when you go to a store and they hound you about extras, the store credit card, and the owner's bmw payment.
There are some game types where f2p is good. MMORPGs are not one of them.
Take Marvel Heroes as an example. They said the game is free. I played all the story content, indeed, for free. They said that you can grind new characters to play. I earned one or two characters. They said you can pay for characters. I looked at their store and decided not to.
So you play a game and don't contribute to it? That's exactly the problem.
What is the problem? If a dev don't want people play their game for free, they can always use some other business model (like B2P). If they allow people to play some parts for free, i don't see a problem of taking them up on that offer.
And no, i don't play games to "contribute" to anything. They are entertainment products. I use them as such.
Huge world, plenty of races and classes, if you played it a second time, you could do so without ever hitting a zone you leveled in the first time around. It was packed with both areas to explore and a slow enough leveling to allow you to hit as many as you wanted.
The price now is $15 a month and the games coming out are a fraction of the game world of EQ vanilla even after their DLC/ExPac. The leveling is so fast because if they slowed it down you would run out of places to level.
In short, Prices have increased, game design quality has decreased. The genre simply isn't worth the cost anymore.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Too many peoples are just playing to test the game, spam chat and don't care about anything.
You have to spend more money than a subscription to buy every items in the shop.
Because you have to spend money to unlock features.
Games are usually not good.
I love F2P because;
it's free, I can download, play and uninstall in the same day if I hate the game.
LoL is not an MMORPG, it's working fine because it's PvP. You can have fun for 5 years playing CoD in the same map but you cant have fun doing the same dungeon with your guild for 5 years...
PvE cost more money, if you play an MMORPG for PvP only, it can be the reason why you hate to pay, because almost all the money is used to create content for PvE, end-game, etc...
Pretty sure people here are playing a lot of MMORPG, and thoses people usually prefer F2P because they won't play the same game for years, but imagine someone playing WoW since 2004, this player want new content and want it fast, and want to pay to have the content... (I know Blizzard are slow sometime). My point is, if you always just level, pvp a little and stop playing before end-game and, you don't need to pay to play.
I've seen a lot of arguments to why some people like it. I guess there is nothing I can do about that. Personally I don't like it because I don't want to worry about money in game. I agree that I don't like having to pay for box price, subscription, and cash shop. A lot of people who argue against it just want to pay for the game and play it. If there needs to be a subscription to cover server costs that is one thing. To me having to worry about spending money in a game takes away from the fun. It feels like they are trying to get me to buy something. I am just trying to play the game and enjoy it. I don't want to worry about money in the game. I suppose I could just ignore it, but generally the free to play games have ads, data mining, and things setup to encourage you to buy items in game.
I just don't worry about spending money in a game, Any game. Some I'll sirens money on some I won't. The pricing model had never affected my enjoyment. They are all trying to get money out of me. Therefore spending it out not is not something I worry about in a game at all or ever.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
If you don't understand the WHY,look no further than SOE and EQ2.
I loved that game,played it a lot but when i sat down one day and realized my game and xpac purchases and sub fee still did not net me all of the game's content ,i was not a happy camper to say the least.It gets worse when you see some extremely lame xpacs that are not even close to being worth it.
That is total greed and imo a slap in the face of it's staunt supporters.
I think SOE knows it lost a lot of respect among the community and has given up on big numbers.Their motto is now grind as much extra out of the few that still support SOE.
Want more examples??I used to love playing Silkroad Online,until hundreds of bots would continually kill every single mob in site and i couldn't finish my quests.
Even more..I loved camping named creatures in FFXI,only problem was the RMT infested the game and were bot claiming for rmt profit.No FFXI was not a f2p but the point is it gets MUCH worse when accounts are free.Ban them for cheating hacking,who cares,they start up a new bot farmer within minutes.
Ok i am tired,i have no idea why i have to even prove examples,f2p is an infestation on gaming.Oh did i mention it's marketing ploys are every bit misleading to downright lies?
Wait i am not done.See that cool new house in SOE marketplace,buy it up,then a month later a better cooler house,oh ya you need to buy that also if you want it and the hits keep coming...cha ching cha ching.SO instead of living out a Fantasy role play game,you just hit the marketplace up and buy it,no gaming required,VERY lame.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
That is total greed and imo a slap in the face of it's staunt supporters.
Isn't the solution simple? Don't be a staunt supporter of games. Just play them for fun, and move on when they are not.
It works very well for me. There are so much entertainment out there that if i have to give up one game for whatever reason, i doubt i will remember it in 20 min.
I am not sure if I posted in this thread, but here it goes.
1) There is a dividing line in MMORPGs. Right when WOW was released. You have the games that were designed and played before WOW came out, and the games that were designed and played after WOW came out. There are two types of players. Those who played those early games and those who started with WOW or the games that came after.
2) People have JOBS. They make money. They spend money. They spend money on entertainment. F2P games insult all of us working people. If you cannot afford to play a game....get a job, make money and decide what you want to spend for your entertainment.
3) There are FAR too many games out there now. The number of players of MMOs has not increased to justify the number of MMOs available. Look on this very site. There are about 250 games you can either play now or in a few months....but the number of people who want to play these games has not increased to take that large number into account.
4) So.....developers are FORCED to design F2P games because if you have to buy a gamebox, then spend 15 dollars a month on each of those 250 games....well, you would be broke. So they have to make games F2P.
5) Because they are forced to make games F2P, then need to DESIGN those games with a F2P mindset. This means two things. They cut up content into sellable chunks (like LOTRO or any other F2P game) and they put in some sort of cash shop.
6) Because they have to cut up games into sellable chunks, you are left with an inferior produce. Because they have to put in a cash shop, they are forced to make games Pay to Win or something like that.
7) Because they are forced to make those games Pay to Win....people do not end up liking the game.
So you can see how the downward spiral works. In the end you have an inferior product. Find one person who ever played original Everquest or Ultima Online or Asheron's Call and called those games either an inferior product or an unfinished product. You cannot. Why? Because they were designed to be sold with a game box AND an subscription. Why? Because there was a market that was not saturated with product that had money and would spend it.
People cannot afford to pay all that money for 250 MMOs.....no one can even find the time to PLAY 250 MMOs.
That is the problem. That is why F2P games are the bane of developer creativity. Because they have to be, otherwise they do not make money.
Companies want money. Think they want you to play the game free of charge and never make a cent off you? Uh....I don't think so. They have to make money, to pay their employees so they can earn a living and pay for little Sally's braces.
F2P only exists because the market is over saturated with MMOs. It doesn't even matter if the games are any good or not, because there are so many and not enough people to play these games....well, it is just like the console wars of the early 80s. Too much inferior product was churned out, not enough people were playing, and the bubble burst.
F2P is sort of a minor patch on that bubble. It still is slowly deflating though.
So your the guys that underachieves in MMO's, no wonder you love F2P games. That's one of their targets, the other is the collector of vanity items (cash shop). And the pay2win crowd.
I don't fall into any of those categories so F2P games DO NOT work for me.
Cause if you don't pay you are restricted of doing alot of thing, I tried playing SWTOR for free but ended up subbing cause they hinder your experience alot if you don't sub. I'd rather just pay than play a game that you have half access to, cause to unlock things you'll end up paying more than a sub fee.
I see some confusion here on the forums so let me clarify why F2P is the best thing that happened to this genre.
I"ve been part of, experienced and played/enjoyed many MMO's without spending a cent, regardless of what type of cash shop they have. That itself is the greatest reason why I cannot "hate" F2P MMO's, but on the contrary if I see a MMO demanding upfront fee or a monthly fee, expansion fee or all of those thing to be played and on top has some cash shop that a F2P MMO would incorporate (which we've recently start to see more and more) is one of the main reasons I stay away from those MMO's.
So, if there is anyone here who hates F2P (regardless how it's implemented) simply put he/she hates having the choice/opportunity to enjoy many not just MMO's but other types of games out there. I would gladly pay top $ for a quality product, but to see a company damaging it's game for the price of receiving more revenue in the short run from whatever playerbase it has is one of the reasons many games end up badly.
Finally, F2P is one of the best ways to advertise your product/game with a potential to attract a huge audience (if it's a great game). League of Legends is just one example of that and the amount of players enjoy it thanks to being F2P is enormous. I dislike MOBA's and never played it, but I have to aknowledge that reality and overall how beneficial F2P is to us gamers in general.
Oh goody, target practice .
Let's see, the reasons why I "hate" F2P as you so put it:
1) The vast majority (over 95%) of the F2P games I have tried, which is quite a few, have stupidly ridiculous pay-to-win cash shops in them
2) The vast majority (over 95%) of the F2P games I have tried have extremely limited gameplay mechanics and are extremely similar if not practically identical to nearly all the other F2P games in that 95% grouping. On top of that, since F2P with cash shop is a relatively unpredictable income system they were rather unreliable with updates. The one biggest reason why I quit those F2P games is because they got SO BLOODY BORING, even when I had tried at least 80% of the game mechanics available (PvE, PvP, crafting, etc).
3) Of the set of F2P games mentioned in points 1 and 2, virtually every last one of them had rather crappy GM support
4) Whatever support the developers give almost completely bows to the whims of those few players that dump very unhealthy amounts of money into the game, virtually ignoring the free players which is just plain insulting.
Here's a different advertising model I've seen that I think works quite well and I'm surprised isn't used more:lightly priced subscription model but with a half-decent free trial period available at the start, and no in-game cash shop in sight.
The free trial period lets you get your feet wet in the game and really try it out, so you can make an educated decision if you want to keep playing it.
The subscription fee (which can usually be handled with the allowance of a 10 year old, if Eve Online's rates are anything to go by) plus direct lack of an in-game cash shop completely obliterates pay to win and puts every player on an even footing when discussing ideas/bugs etc for the game, countering issues 1 and 4 above.
The much more easily predicted income stream from a set of subscriptions allows the game developers to much more accurately plan their budgets so they don't bite off more than they can chew, which I have always seen leads to much more effective support, countering issue 3 above.
Games being far too similar to others in the past (issue 2)...unfortunately that's not just limited to F2P games. Developers these days seem extremely risk-averse and very unwilling to venture into completely new territory in terms of game mechanics. A more predictable income stream from a sub model would help them budget out more adventurous projects like this...but they still have to decide to do so.
Well, in lineage 2 you routinely had 200+ people in sieges or in cities and it wasn't really that big a deal. I believe at one point the US servers had 90k people (I remember reading this in some report). Certianly not a huge amount of people.
My friend, I spent 8 years of my life in Lineage 2. My childhood gamer had grown up with it. I know what the game is capable of and that was the point I was making. The game needed critical mass and went F2P after the Xth server merger. Yet at some point it rivaled WoW in subs.
My point was that in the West there were 90 k subs at most (interview I read). L2 "massive" wasn't "massive" as say "WoW" at it's height.
sure it had a huge amount of players but that was the east.
If a game company could concentrate on 250k to 300 k players being "huge" and design around that I think they would have more luck catering to a specific demographic than trying to get "everybody and their mother" playing.
Sure there would be some things not as polished as the big boys but I bet there would be a lot of happy players willing to dedicate themselves to a game that speaks to their interests.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I haven't read every thread/response here. Those I have read that do not like F2P I mostly agree with. My take on F2P is that games are not possible to be really "free" in terms of being able to support a viable and continue to grow content. SOMEONE has to pay. In just that last statement, it make every so-called F2P game a false marketing ploy. While it is true that in most case people COULD play many of these games completely for free, it is not possible that EVERYONE can play for free. If that were to happen, the game in question would make no money. Servers would not be paid for; development would dry up; and, support of the game would completely go away.
Additionally, I am one of those old fashioned people that thinks you should pay your own way. By that I mean that I am not willing to pay for someone else's entertainment as much as I am unwilling to accept "charity" so that I could do the same. If I were to play a F2P game and purchase something (an oxymoron of course) then I am not only supporting the game but also supporting the people that choose NOT to pay a dime. Likewise, if I choose not to pay, I would be the one mooching off that other guy that is purchasing vanity items left and right. I just can't justify that.
So, in the end, I will not play so-called F2P games nor will I advocate for them.
Originally posted by VengeSunsoar I don't play video games for achievements. Only some temporary escapism.
Yeh. I don't look at getting stuff in a video game as real achievement, at most an illusion of achievement. For actual achievement,I do real world stuff.
1. Modern games (not just MMO's, games in general) are stupidly expensive to create. While a weapon model in EQ might take 1 or 2 days to create between the 3d modeller and the texture artist, in a modern game it can take a week to create 1 asset.
2. Because of the cost of making modern games, most developers can not afford to finance development of the game in house. Because of this they must seek investors. Investors are only concerned about 1 thing. A return on their investment. And not just any return, a substantial return. Its not worth it for an investor to give a studio 50 million to make a game, on the promise that they will make 55 million back 4 years later. EA's previous CEO ricitiello (sp?) even said they were going to pare down their stable of games from the 50 or so projects they had to the "5 or 6 most profitable".
3. Because of the above 2 reasons, developers can no longer be satisfied with making a profit. In the past if a company made a game, and it cost them 15 million to make, and they sold enough boxes that they made 16.5 million, it was a win. They could afford to take chances on more niche games, etc.
4. Because of the money factor, or i should say profit factor, investors are trying to find that "golden" formula. They've done this in most other aspects of entertainment. They're trying to find that "Justin Bieber" equivalent of MMO's. Thats why so many games tried to copy WOW and then do slight improvements here and there.
5. IMO, crowdfunding is the only way out of this death spiral. Until developers can get back to being creative geniuses and not business geniuses, we are not going to get out of this.
Side note: I think MMO's are a special creature, i don't think there is a "golden" formula, i.e. the Call of Duty, etc. Maybe MMO gamers are more discerning, maybe its just the nature of the beast, i dont know. But clearly what they've been doing isn't working.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
There is no F2P MMO on the market right now that can hold my interest and i don't see it change any time soon.
F2P MMO are more often then not, piss poor quality games that only have one goal, squeeze as much money from people without any self control (i would put this on par with gambling addiction) especially games with chests and random loot in it, (that is worthwhile like mounts etc) this can become extremely dangerous (SWTOR/Neverwinter comes to mind).
I do not think they (F2P MMO Developer/Publisher)have either the intention or the goal to actually provide a real entertainment service.
I do no think that F2P and MMO are a good combination, i don't mind it in other genres thou.
Originally posted by -aLpHa-I do not think they (F2P MMO Developer/Publisher)have either the intention or the goal to actually provide a real entertainment service.
So? If a game is entertaining to me, i don particularly care if the devs did it for the money, or he wants to entertain me, or both.
ALL commercial products are in it for the money. That is the basic definition of business. They mistake that people make is thinking that ANY commercial product can be otherwise.
Comments
F2P = deceit.
Simple as that.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Citation please! I can't recall any games which were outright deceitful. I pretty much know what the limitations are going to be when I start into it. Maybe I missed the ones you're talking about, but in general F2P is very transparent with their fees (like them or not).
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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So you play a game and don't contribute to it? That's exactly the problem. And the devs of these games know people do this. What do they do? They amp up the advertisement or make it so that any enjoyment or progression hinges you grabbing the latest sale. You've bought into this whole idea that's it's your choice. What's been remissed upon the f2p crowd is that the games are spending more time and money on the cash shop and its return on investment than they are on actual game. Do you think Rift is going to have another Storm Legion quality expansion? Do you think Lord of the Rings Online will release an expansion and actually have fair pricing tactics. Sure these games let every in. Come, sample. Meanwhile, the people who actually wanted to enjoy the game are now being nagged to buy something. It's like when you go to a store and they hound you about extras, the store credit card, and the owner's bmw payment.
There are some game types where f2p is good. MMORPGs are not one of them.
"deceit" how?
Take Marvel Heroes as an example. They said the game is free. I played all the story content, indeed, for free. They said that you can grind new characters to play. I earned one or two characters. They said you can pay for characters. I looked at their store and decided not to.
Where is the "deceit"?
EverQuest hit the market at $10 a month (9.99)...
Huge world, plenty of races and classes, if you played it a second time, you could do so without ever hitting a zone you leveled in the first time around. It was packed with both areas to explore and a slow enough leveling to allow you to hit as many as you wanted.
The price now is $15 a month and the games coming out are a fraction of the game world of EQ vanilla even after their DLC/ExPac. The leveling is so fast because if they slowed it down you would run out of places to level.
In short, Prices have increased, game design quality has decreased. The genre simply isn't worth the cost anymore.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Well said Reemi
If you don't understand the WHY,look no further than SOE and EQ2.
I loved that game,played it a lot but when i sat down one day and realized my game and xpac purchases and sub fee still did not net me all of the game's content ,i was not a happy camper to say the least.It gets worse when you see some extremely lame xpacs that are not even close to being worth it.
That is total greed and imo a slap in the face of it's staunt supporters.
I think SOE knows it lost a lot of respect among the community and has given up on big numbers.Their motto is now grind as much extra out of the few that still support SOE.
Want more examples??I used to love playing Silkroad Online,until hundreds of bots would continually kill every single mob in site and i couldn't finish my quests.
Even more..I loved camping named creatures in FFXI,only problem was the RMT infested the game and were bot claiming for rmt profit.No FFXI was not a f2p but the point is it gets MUCH worse when accounts are free.Ban them for cheating hacking,who cares,they start up a new bot farmer within minutes.
Ok i am tired,i have no idea why i have to even prove examples,f2p is an infestation on gaming.Oh did i mention it's marketing ploys are every bit misleading to downright lies?
Wait i am not done.See that cool new house in SOE marketplace,buy it up,then a month later a better cooler house,oh ya you need to buy that also if you want it and the hits keep coming...cha ching cha ching.SO instead of living out a Fantasy role play game,you just hit the marketplace up and buy it,no gaming required,VERY lame.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Isn't the solution simple? Don't be a staunt supporter of games. Just play them for fun, and move on when they are not.
It works very well for me. There are so much entertainment out there that if i have to give up one game for whatever reason, i doubt i will remember it in 20 min.
I am not sure if I posted in this thread, but here it goes.
1) There is a dividing line in MMORPGs. Right when WOW was released. You have the games that were designed and played before WOW came out, and the games that were designed and played after WOW came out. There are two types of players. Those who played those early games and those who started with WOW or the games that came after.
2) People have JOBS. They make money. They spend money. They spend money on entertainment. F2P games insult all of us working people. If you cannot afford to play a game....get a job, make money and decide what you want to spend for your entertainment.
3) There are FAR too many games out there now. The number of players of MMOs has not increased to justify the number of MMOs available. Look on this very site. There are about 250 games you can either play now or in a few months....but the number of people who want to play these games has not increased to take that large number into account.
4) So.....developers are FORCED to design F2P games because if you have to buy a gamebox, then spend 15 dollars a month on each of those 250 games....well, you would be broke. So they have to make games F2P.
5) Because they are forced to make games F2P, then need to DESIGN those games with a F2P mindset. This means two things. They cut up content into sellable chunks (like LOTRO or any other F2P game) and they put in some sort of cash shop.
6) Because they have to cut up games into sellable chunks, you are left with an inferior produce. Because they have to put in a cash shop, they are forced to make games Pay to Win or something like that.
7) Because they are forced to make those games Pay to Win....people do not end up liking the game.
So you can see how the downward spiral works. In the end you have an inferior product. Find one person who ever played original Everquest or Ultima Online or Asheron's Call and called those games either an inferior product or an unfinished product. You cannot. Why? Because they were designed to be sold with a game box AND an subscription. Why? Because there was a market that was not saturated with product that had money and would spend it.
People cannot afford to pay all that money for 250 MMOs.....no one can even find the time to PLAY 250 MMOs.
That is the problem. That is why F2P games are the bane of developer creativity. Because they have to be, otherwise they do not make money.
Companies want money. Think they want you to play the game free of charge and never make a cent off you? Uh....I don't think so. They have to make money, to pay their employees so they can earn a living and pay for little Sally's braces.
F2P only exists because the market is over saturated with MMOs. It doesn't even matter if the games are any good or not, because there are so many and not enough people to play these games....well, it is just like the console wars of the early 80s. Too much inferior product was churned out, not enough people were playing, and the bubble burst.
F2P is sort of a minor patch on that bubble. It still is slowly deflating though.
So your the guys that underachieves in MMO's, no wonder you love F2P games. That's one of their targets, the other is the collector of vanity items (cash shop). And the pay2win crowd.
I don't fall into any of those categories so F2P games DO NOT work for me.
Oh goody, target practice
.
Let's see, the reasons why I "hate" F2P as you so put it:
1) The vast majority (over 95%) of the F2P games I have tried, which is quite a few, have stupidly ridiculous pay-to-win cash shops in them
2) The vast majority (over 95%) of the F2P games I have tried have extremely limited gameplay mechanics and are extremely similar if not practically identical to nearly all the other F2P games in that 95% grouping. On top of that, since F2P with cash shop is a relatively unpredictable income system they were rather unreliable with updates. The one biggest reason why I quit those F2P games is because they got SO BLOODY BORING, even when I had tried at least 80% of the game mechanics available (PvE, PvP, crafting, etc).
3) Of the set of F2P games mentioned in points 1 and 2, virtually every last one of them had rather crappy GM support
4) Whatever support the developers give almost completely bows to the whims of those few players that dump very unhealthy amounts of money into the game, virtually ignoring the free players which is just plain insulting.
Here's a different advertising model I've seen that I think works quite well and I'm surprised isn't used more:lightly priced subscription model but with a half-decent free trial period available at the start, and no in-game cash shop in sight.
The free trial period lets you get your feet wet in the game and really try it out, so you can make an educated decision if you want to keep playing it.
The subscription fee (which can usually be handled with the allowance of a 10 year old, if Eve Online's rates are anything to go by) plus direct lack of an in-game cash shop completely obliterates pay to win and puts every player on an even footing when discussing ideas/bugs etc for the game, countering issues 1 and 4 above.
The much more easily predicted income stream from a set of subscriptions allows the game developers to much more accurately plan their budgets so they don't bite off more than they can chew, which I have always seen leads to much more effective support, countering issue 3 above.
Games being far too similar to others in the past (issue 2)...unfortunately that's not just limited to F2P games. Developers these days seem extremely risk-averse and very unwilling to venture into completely new territory in terms of game mechanics. A more predictable income stream from a sub model would help them budget out more adventurous projects like this...but they still have to decide to do so.
Where's the any key?
My point was that in the West there were 90 k subs at most (interview I read). L2 "massive" wasn't "massive" as say "WoW" at it's height.
sure it had a huge amount of players but that was the east.
If a game company could concentrate on 250k to 300 k players being "huge" and design around that I think they would have more luck catering to a specific demographic than trying to get "everybody and their mother" playing.
Sure there would be some things not as polished as the big boys but I bet there would be a lot of happy players willing to dedicate themselves to a game that speaks to their interests.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I haven't read every thread/response here. Those I have read that do not like F2P I mostly agree with. My take on F2P is that games are not possible to be really "free" in terms of being able to support a viable and continue to grow content. SOMEONE has to pay. In just that last statement, it make every so-called F2P game a false marketing ploy. While it is true that in most case people COULD play many of these games completely for free, it is not possible that EVERYONE can play for free. If that were to happen, the game in question would make no money. Servers would not be paid for; development would dry up; and, support of the game would completely go away.
Additionally, I am one of those old fashioned people that thinks you should pay your own way. By that I mean that I am not willing to pay for someone else's entertainment as much as I am unwilling to accept "charity" so that I could do the same. If I were to play a F2P game and purchase something (an oxymoron of course) then I am not only supporting the game but also supporting the people that choose NOT to pay a dime. Likewise, if I choose not to pay, I would be the one mooching off that other guy that is purchasing vanity items left and right. I just can't justify that.
So, in the end, I will not play so-called F2P games nor will I advocate for them.
Let's party like it is 1863!
Yeh. I don't look at getting stuff in a video game as real achievement, at most an illusion of achievement. For actual achievement,I do real world stuff.
Video games are for entertainment.
The real issue is actually quite simple:
1. Modern games (not just MMO's, games in general) are stupidly expensive to create. While a weapon model in EQ might take 1 or 2 days to create between the 3d modeller and the texture artist, in a modern game it can take a week to create 1 asset.
2. Because of the cost of making modern games, most developers can not afford to finance development of the game in house. Because of this they must seek investors. Investors are only concerned about 1 thing. A return on their investment. And not just any return, a substantial return. Its not worth it for an investor to give a studio 50 million to make a game, on the promise that they will make 55 million back 4 years later. EA's previous CEO ricitiello (sp?) even said they were going to pare down their stable of games from the 50 or so projects they had to the "5 or 6 most profitable".
3. Because of the above 2 reasons, developers can no longer be satisfied with making a profit. In the past if a company made a game, and it cost them 15 million to make, and they sold enough boxes that they made 16.5 million, it was a win. They could afford to take chances on more niche games, etc.
4. Because of the money factor, or i should say profit factor, investors are trying to find that "golden" formula. They've done this in most other aspects of entertainment. They're trying to find that "Justin Bieber" equivalent of MMO's. Thats why so many games tried to copy WOW and then do slight improvements here and there.
5. IMO, crowdfunding is the only way out of this death spiral. Until developers can get back to being creative geniuses and not business geniuses, we are not going to get out of this.
Side note: I think MMO's are a special creature, i don't think there is a "golden" formula, i.e. the Call of Duty, etc. Maybe MMO gamers are more discerning, maybe its just the nature of the beast, i dont know. But clearly what they've been doing isn't working.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
There is no F2P MMO on the market right now that can hold my interest and i don't see it change any time soon.
F2P MMO are more often then not, piss poor quality games that only have one goal, squeeze as much money from people without any self control (i would put this on par with gambling addiction) especially games with chests and random loot in it, (that is worthwhile like mounts etc) this can become extremely dangerous (SWTOR/Neverwinter comes to mind).
I do not think they (F2P MMO Developer/Publisher)have either the intention or the goal to actually provide a real entertainment service.
I do no think that F2P and MMO are a good combination, i don't mind it in other genres thou.
So? If a game is entertaining to me, i don particularly care if the devs did it for the money, or he wants to entertain me, or both.
ALL commercial products are in it for the money. That is the basic definition of business. They mistake that people make is thinking that ANY commercial product can be otherwise.