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All you MMO newbs were warned about F2P. Yet you supported it.

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  • Superman0XSuperman0X Member RarePosts: 2,292
    DMKano said:
    OP - just because there is a patent now - it doesn't mean that this as not been going on for years already.
    I can quite honestly (and legally) state that some of this has been done before (but not in such an automated fashion).
    [Deleted User]
  • ScorchienScorchien Member LegendaryPosts: 8,914
      Lol , im sorry , but this a non story to me , If you are that weak and dimwitted of an impulse buyer ... Because you saw the other guy with "it" .. Lol you are low hanging fruit and an easy mark ..

     FFS , i really have more faith in hu,manity than that , i cant see this working on most people
    anemoCyrin
  • anemoanemo Member RarePosts: 1,903
    edited October 2017
    Scorchien said:
      Lol , im sorry , but this a non story to me , If you are that weak and dimwitted of an impulse buyer ... Because you saw the other guy with "it" .. Lol you are low hanging fruit and an easy mark ..

     FFS , i really have more faith in hu,manity than that , i cant see this working on most people
    It does.  When Battlefield Heroes went P2W with paid guns, their income jumped a couple of times.   Since BH is dead, those devs have been shuffled all around the industry with "working knowledge" that what happens when someone kills someone else with a P2W weapon, your game goes from one that will have a fast death to one that will have a slow death while you swim in money.

    Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.

    "At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."

  • ChildoftheShadowsChildoftheShadows Member EpicPosts: 2,193
    If it wasn't for free to play games I wouldn't have tried near as many.
  • delete5230delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 7,081
    Notice I'm not getting involved :)
  • ScorchienScorchien Member LegendaryPosts: 8,914
    edited October 2017
    anemo said:
    Scorchien said:
      Lol , im sorry , but this a non story to me , If you are that weak and dimwitted of an impulse buyer ... Because you saw the other guy with "it" .. Lol you are low hanging fruit and an easy mark ..

     FFS , i really have more faith in hu,manity than that , i cant see this working on most people
    It does.  When Battlefield Heroes went P2W with paid guns, their income jumped a couple of times.   Since BH is dead, those devs have been shuffled all around the industry with "working knowledge" that what happens when someone kills someone else with a P2W weapon, your game goes from one that will have a fast death to one that will have a slow death while you swim in money.
    so you have an example of a some dimwitted low hanging fruit ... ok...

      I really dont think that works on anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together ..

        Again i really dont see to many responsible intelligent people falling for such a weak juvinille ploy to get into there wallets ..

      And if it was so good for BH .. why did it shut down ?

    [Deleted User]
  • NibsNibs Member UncommonPosts: 287
    Scorchien said:

      I really dont think that works on anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together ..

        Again i really dont see to many responsible intelligent people falling for such a weak juvinille ploy to get into there wallets ..

     
    Now contemplate the average MMO player...
    anemo
  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441
    SEANMCAD said:
    EA is doing this to dial up the volume on exploiting consumers. This is reaching into the area where even I feel 'buyer beware' isnt good enough.

    I think 'buyer beware' is fine when the information on what is being purchased is clear, stated and understood. This however is obfuscating reality and intentionally manipulating because its not clear if what you are experiencing is to manipulate you to buy or not. its really shady in my opinion.

    I think what EA needs to do is to spend less time doing shit like this and more time just making good games which they dont do in the first place!
    I would say that it is more about incrising the prices in less obvous way then exploiting customers even if they are rather similar.

    If you more or less have to spend a lot of money on lootboxes or itemshop items to be competetive it effectively makes the game much more expensive even if they pretend the whole thing is "optional", just like the "optional" subscription many freemium games have.

    As a consumer you will have to add that to the price of the game when you consider buying something new. And it does certainly suck just like any high increase in price does. The whole random thing with loot boxes is worse though since you don't really know how much money you need to fork in to get full access to the game.
  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 44,059
    edited October 2017
    The good news is I don't play competitive shooters, and regardless of game I'm no where near the competitive bracket, so can't really entice me much.

    In fact, I'm spending less than ever since I transitioned from 6 active subs in EVE to heavily discounted single player games that I missed over the years. 

    Only real issue, starting to build a back-log, have promised myself that 10 purchased games in the queue is the maximum limit.   Not doing too bad, only 5 there atm.
    [Deleted User]

    "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™

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  • TheocritusTheocritus Member LegendaryPosts: 10,014
    Meanwhile those of us that don't feel we have to win at video games enjoy trying many games for free that would have charged us before.....Spent many years playing EQ1, WoW, and EQ2 in p2p model and spent way more than I ever have in the f2p model.
  • TheocritusTheocritus Member LegendaryPosts: 10,014
    DjDriVer said:
    Consider this if you will...an example being WoW.  You pat $19 for World of Warcraft, then spend $15/month say for 4 yrs. Let's not forget the expansion every 2 yrs, which usually costs $50.  BAMM! you have just paid $820.00 for a game. go on, drive on down to Walmart and fork out $820.00 for a game, the wife will divorce you, not to mention having to take out a 2nd mortgage on the house to buy the game at that price.  F2p may try to gank you with an item mall, but that is by choice.
    This is an incredibly bad explanation.

    4 years of being entertained for thousands of hours for only $820 is a steal.

    You pay $40 just to see a movie that lasts measly a hour and half.

    I can pay my $20 for a game and get 8 hours of entertainment in the first day, and then 20+ hours of entertainment for $15 for the rest of the month.




    How about this.....Pay us all one cent an hour for the rest of your life...thats an incredible deal right? Dj is right though, in the end you pay thousands for something you think you are getting cheap.
  • MadFrenchieMadFrenchie Member LegendaryPosts: 8,505
    DjDriVer said:
    Consider this if you will...an example being WoW.  You pat $19 for World of Warcraft, then spend $15/month say for 4 yrs. Let's not forget the expansion every 2 yrs, which usually costs $50.  BAMM! you have just paid $820.00 for a game. go on, drive on down to Walmart and fork out $820.00 for a game, the wife will divorce you, not to mention having to take out a 2nd mortgage on the house to buy the game at that price.  F2p may try to gank you with an item mall, but that is by choice.
    This is an incredibly bad explanation.

    4 years of being entertained for thousands of hours for only $820 is a steal.

    You pay $40 just to see a movie that lasts measly a hour and half.

    I can pay my $20 for a game and get 8 hours of entertainment in the first day, and then 20+ hours of entertainment for $15 for the rest of the month.




    How about this.....Pay us all one cent an hour for the rest of your life...thats an incredible deal right? Dj is right though, in the end you pay thousands for something you think you are getting cheap.
    A subscription fee, even with a box price, is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment available.  DJ isn't right; even over 4 years, and with a $50 expansion in his example, it's not "thousands".  By his own admission, it's less than $1000 over 4 years.

    image
  • ResidevResidev Member UncommonPosts: 27
    Loke666 said:
    SEANMCAD said:
    EA is doing this to dial up the volume on exploiting consumers. This is reaching into the area where even I feel 'buyer beware' isnt good enough.

    I think 'buyer beware' is fine when the information on what is being purchased is clear, stated and understood. This however is obfuscating reality and intentionally manipulating because its not clear if what you are experiencing is to manipulate you to buy or not. its really shady in my opinion.

    I think what EA needs to do is to spend less time doing shit like this and more time just making good games which they dont do in the first place!
    I would say that it is more about incrising the prices in less obvous way then exploiting customers even if they are rather similar.

    If you more or less have to spend a lot of money on lootboxes or itemshop items to be competetive it effectively makes the game much more expensive even if they pretend the whole thing is "optional", just like the "optional" subscription many freemium games have.

    As a consumer you will have to add that to the price of the game when you consider buying something new. And it does certainly suck just like any high increase in price does. The whole random thing with loot boxes is worse though since you don't really know how much money you need to fork in to get full access to the game.
    I think there's a difference in this case though.

    Buying something is voluntary. But if "The best sword in game" costs 10$ or 1000$ doesn't matter, if it's the same game. Right?

    So if you play a competitive game that has P2W elements, usually it's so that the guy who bought "the best sword in the game" has equal chance in being in your team, or the opposing team. So it doesn't really matter that much in the end. It still has 50/50 chance of winning IF the match-making and ranking system is on-par.
    As a team, you'd still be competitive.


    HOWEVER, the patent talks about literally match-making so that players who buy stuff can feel better about things they buy, and the ones who don't buy their stuff, feel the pressure to do so, to have any edge at all.

    So in a sense they are completely altering the gaming experience, so the paying player has edge every game.

    It's kind of like... making a game where you tie people up in chairs. And then go around selling whips to these people saying "As a bonus, I will also release you from the chair, if you buy my whip!" - so you release the paying players and give them whips to whip the people who are tied up.

    The people would start to go around whipping the tied down players, feeling superior. And you being like "Stop whining, you're playing the same game! And you get to stay here for free! *Whip! Whip!*"


    Loke666Tindale111
  • CryomatrixCryomatrix Member EpicPosts: 3,223
    I actually liked F2P with a cash shop when I first started playing one (Runes of Magic). I didn't have the time to grind and grind, so I spent a few hundred dollars to move ahead. I may have spent like $100+ in subscription fees grinding away, but I liked the idea . . . that was like 8 years ago. 

    I still like F2P as a way to try the game, but I have a bias that the F2P are usually (not all the time) less quality than P2P. (yes there are exceptions, i'm talking about majority of the time). 

    For example, if ESO was free to Play, i'd probably try it again, i tried it once on a free weekend, played for 3 hours, realized i've played the MMO before (as in no different than other MMO's) and stopped playing. 

    Otherwise, I like F2P in a sense. My preferred style of payment method is what I will coin:

    Super-subscription based.

    I.e. The fee is like $40 per month if not $50 but the game actually police's itself well with getting rid of botters and bullshit. There is no cash shop and everything is earned in game. If there is a cash shop, it is completely cosmetic like Path of Exile. Also, if you get caught botting or using illegal 3rd party programs, you get banned and charged $200 fee off your credit card. There is also a free trial. 

    My 2 cents: I'm playing Heart Attack by Demi  Lovato, 

    Cryomatrix
    Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix
    You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations. 
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  • IsilithTehrothIsilithTehroth Member RarePosts: 616
    CrazKanuk said:
    madazz said:
    EA/Activision will now be setting you up in game to fail, or spend. Long gone are the competitive days. They have a new patent that will put you with people with very strong purchased items so that you fail and want to purchase it yourself. Their hope is you join, get raped. Buy a weapon to compete, do awesome against another person that was in the same situation as you previously, then group you yet again with someone who has stronger purchased in game items. Thus making you want to make another purchase.

    I hope you are all happy! Lots of us warned you! Good luck in your "competitive" games going forward. Like F2P, you guys will support it and it will spread to other devs. 

    I hope this leads to some really high end and excellent single player games.


    This is another perceptual issue. You're assuming that someone who is really good at "Game X" is unable to compete due to not spending money. I don't think there's evidence to support this. In fact, my own experience is that unless you sell me a weapon that auto-aims and shoots someone from across the map, I can't realistically compete in a competitive game. 

    Also, you're making assumptions about the use and/or implementation of a piece of technology that is, apparently, not in games yet. In reality it could already be in games, which would make your point moot. 

    Also, what if they match you against someone who has this weapon and you destroy them? That would, theoretically, make you swear off buying anything at all. 

    I think that one of the most substantial observations is that people seem to believe that with a better weapon, item, mod, they will somehow be better, when it reality in order to actually be better you need to survive long enough to actually shoot that weapon. I think it's an interesting observation, though. Maybe people just need to come to terms with the fact that they suck.
    This is wrong on many levels. First off there have been games that completely altered the metagame via releasing guns for a price such as Planetside 2; notably the shotgun was one such weapon that required a nerf.

    Any weapon that gives a unfair advantage through monetary methods is itself not a competitive game. As evidence this quotee is a "whale" player that requires an edge in video games so he doesn't lose all the time.

    MurderHerd

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    The reason this practice is booming is not because of them newbs who didn't heed your warning. It is because of the whales who didn't care, and now they are even happier. 

    and who is the OP to tell the whales what they can or cannot do? It is their money. If they want to buy loot boxes, or gamble it away in Vegas, or just burn it for fun, it is their prerogative.
    Prying into other people's personal affairs and criticism are two different things, don't have them mixed up. One can sell their child and buy heroin instead. It is his business, but I'd still call him a fucking mindless junkie. 

    And this issue is very different, because it is affecting people besides the whales, otherwise no one would've cared. 

    So if you are saying no one is allowed to express their opinion on regards of what affects them directly--we're not speculating anymore, it has already happened--then you should heed your own advice and stop tellibg people what they cannot do. 

    No .. i am saying the OP has no power to tell the whales not to do. Of course he can express his opinion .. just like you and me. But he should not expect that posting angry posts on a forum will change the whales behavior, or that devs are going to fleece them.

    And sure .. it affects other people. Whales subsidize my free games, for example. Now it is my opinion that free market is great and i don't mind free games, particularly I don't need that epleen $500 item to show that my digital gun is bigger than yours. 

    I am sure you will have a different opinion to express .. please do so.


  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    edited October 2017
    SEANMCAD said:

    EA is doing this to dial up the volume on exploiting consumers. This is reaching into the area where even I feel 'buyer beware' isnt good enough.

    I think 'buyer beware' is fine when the information on what is being purchased is clear, stated and understood. This however is obfuscating reality and intentionally manipulating because its not clear if what you are experiencing is to manipulate you to buy or not. its really shady in my opinion.

    I think what EA needs to do is to spend less time doing shit like this and more time just making good games which they dont do in the first place!
    I don't think EA needs to do anything. Who are you to tell them? You have no power over them abate voting with your wallet, anyway.

    What WE can do .. is to play/buy what we deem fit .. again .. voting with our wallet. Personally, it does not bother me. I play f2p games for free. If it gets whales to pay in more and make the game more fun, i will play it. If the game is not fun for me, i am sure i won't miss it. There is just so many other entertainment options.
  • AmarantharAmaranthar Member EpicPosts: 5,852
    edited October 2017
    SEANMCAD said:

    EA is doing this to dial up the volume on exploiting consumers. This is reaching into the area where even I feel 'buyer beware' isnt good enough.

    I think 'buyer beware' is fine when the information on what is being purchased is clear, stated and understood. This however is obfuscating reality and intentionally manipulating because its not clear if what you are experiencing is to manipulate you to buy or not. its really shady in my opinion.

    I think what EA needs to do is to spend less time doing shit like this and more time just making good games which they dont do in the first place!
    I don't think EA needs to do anything. Who are you to tell them? You have no power over them abate voting with your wallet, anyway.

    What WE can do .. is to play/buy what we deem fit .. again .. voting with our wallet. Personally, it does not bother me. I play f2p games for free. If it gets whales to pay in more and make the game more fun, i will play it. If the game is not fun for me, i am sure i won't miss it. There is just so many other entertainment options.
    But they're (whales) NOT making the games more fun. They are making them more exploitative.

    The people making the games more fun with their payments are all the suckers who pay some but don't buy near the advantage as the whales.
    i.e., suckered in to run the rat wheel.

    Once upon a time....

  • delete5230delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 7,081
    Aori said:
    Some years ago I was definitely against the F2P models but with how MMOs are nowadays, my interest comes and goes, I may wanna play one for a few days out of a month sometimes. P2P just doesn't work for me anymore.

    Best statement yet !!!!!!! 

    At first, I'm thinking F2P sucks, wrong answer.  After about 30 seconds of thinking I realize mmos completely suck so bad as of the last several years I COULD UNDERSTAND PLAYING FOR A MONTH.  Why not pay $10 for an increase of bag space, just to keep entertained for that short time. 

    I almost got sucked into Black Desert Online thinking I could do just that.... Then I stopped myself and realized it's just another Asian money grab grinder. 
  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441
    Residev said:
    I think there's a difference in this case though.

    Buying something is voluntary. But if "The best sword in game" costs 10$ or 1000$ doesn't matter, if it's the same game. Right?

    So if you play a competitive game that has P2W elements, usually it's so that the guy who bought "the best sword in the game" has equal chance in being in your team, or the opposing team. So it doesn't really matter that much in the end. It still has 50/50 chance of winning IF the match-making and ranking system is on-par.
    As a team, you'd still be competitive.


    HOWEVER, the patent talks about literally match-making so that players who buy stuff can feel better about things they buy, and the ones who don't buy their stuff, feel the pressure to do so, to have any edge at all.

    So in a sense they are completely altering the gaming experience, so the paying player has edge every game.

    It's kind of like... making a game where you tie people up in chairs. And then go around selling whips to these people saying "As a bonus, I will also release you from the chair, if you buy my whip!" - so you release the paying players and give them whips to whip the people who are tied up.

    The people would start to go around whipping the tied down players, feeling superior. And you being like "Stop whining, you're playing the same game! And you get to stay here for free! *Whip! Whip!*"


    You are right, it is way worse. The interesting and scary thing is how much worse it will be in another 5 or 10 years.
  • RenoakuRenoaku Member EpicPosts: 3,157
    Don't worry there is still League OF Legends, truly free to play and competitive.
    Phry
  • PhryPhry Member LegendaryPosts: 11,004
    Renoaku said:
    Don't worry there is still League OF Legends, truly free to play and competitive.
    For many people who play MMO's League of legends isn't really of much interest, its not that its a bad MOBA, i think it represents those games fairly well, but its a seperate genre, one i am not particularly interested in as i prefer games such as CS:GO when not playing MMO's, i would hate to think how bored i would have to be to entertain playing League of Legends :o
  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 24,429
    anemo said:
    EA has already learned their lesson with Battlefield Heroes, that forum-things don't matter at all when it comes to cash shop items.

    BFH had good MAU and ARPPU, but bad ARPU and conversion prior to the changes, but there was a 100 to 200 percent jump in daily revenue overnight with the new guns. DAU didn't change whatsoever, and while ARPPU dropped during this period, there was a "a really dramatic increase" in conversion -- three times as much. "We were still under a five percent conversion rate daily," says Cousins, but still much happier. 


    In other words, "there was a mismatch between what was being said on the forums and what was happening in the data." So they analyzed the forum. The stats: 78 percent of their users never touched the forums. 20 percent read at least once but didn't post. Two percent read and posted on forums, in proportion of the game's total user base.

    https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/123779/GDC_2011_Perfecting_The_FreeToPlay_Battlefield_Heroes.php

    Quite literally forum users don't matter when it comes to how you monetize your game, as a matter of fact most of their users lied as far as they were concerned (when they claimed to not be buying anything, but were actually on average buying 10 times more than a non-forum user).  

    When it came to retention after adding Pay to Win, they only missed out on 5% of new users staying in the game but gained 3 times the conversion rate.   Also going to Pay to Win changed them from a game that was going to die fast, to one that died slow while the publisher got to swim in money.
    With only 22% of a games players using the official forums it is no wonder they hardly bother with community managers these days as they can ignore the community. I wonder what the reaction on social media was like, clearly even if it was very adverse that did not matter either.
    anemo
  • anemoanemo Member RarePosts: 1,903
    @Scot

    Considering how they're handling Battlefront and Shadow of Mordor,  being in the social media, ranted on every third party website, and likely review.   Probably not much.

    Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.

    "At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."

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