Short answer? Separate servers. Do a f2p p2w server where you can sell whatever you want and a sub only server with no work arounds like currency exchanges (wow token, apex, etc). Honestly, RO tried something like this (and I believe Allods does something like this too) just not sure how successful either was.
That's what I suggested Elyria do as well. Let the Ivory Tower buy the Kings, Dukes, Counts, Castles, Land, etc... Make a separate fresh server for folks who don't want to start the game as some other guys serf.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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We cant have a meaningful discussion about P2W without a clear and universal definition on what constitutes P2W
I define it as receiving any tangible advantage by spending real-world currency, excepting things like subscriptions and the purchase of expansion packs.
Short answer? Separate servers. Do a f2p p2w server where you can sell whatever you want and a sub only server with no work arounds like currency exchanges (wow token, apex, etc). Honestly, RO tried something like this (and I believe Allods does something like this too) just not sure how successful either was.
That's what I suggested Elyria do as well. Let the Ivory Tower buy the Kings, Dukes, Counts, Castles, Land, etc... Make a separate fresh server for folks who don't want to start the game as some other guys serf.
The problem with this is that the resources to create the separate server, put in all the code/features to support the P2W model takes away from the core subscription based model.
Have you noticed that since F2P/P2W became mainstream how the quality and depth of content has gone way down? In the old games we would 20 to 30 classes at release.. now we are lucky to get 5. In the old games there was massive content in all directions.. now it's a scripted line until the end game where you get a little more content.
The sad reality is that with the old subscription model game developers were focused on creating engaging content as a result of keeping people subscribed while they played.. with the f2p/p2w models they no longer focus on that. They put most energy into building a digital ecommerece site that allows you to buy digital items which most of the time have no continuity in the game. The end result is the game hardly stands up on it's own and it's just the items that people can buy that gets the focus.
P2W models are sheit, and I will never play a game that has them. As an extension to that I will not play F2P games anymore as they are generally shallow in content and insulting to the gamer (constantly spamming cash shop etc). And as a further extension I will not play games that have a cash shop in them, sorry, but cash shops to me represent development effort that could have been put into the game.
I will not fall for these business models anymore, it's either a subscription with everything included or the devs can go F themselves.
SecondLife does it pretty right... Basically they let you buy currency (with no way to earn in game) and that currency can be cashed back out. The content in the game is pretty much whatever players themselves make (scripting, animation, modelling, and similar), which you guessed correctly they tend to charge you for. (The action of you're not paying the devs, but instead paying your fellows that you play with felt better to most)
While I played I was in college for programming, so obviously I was a scripter. I made a habit of listening to shop owners and making whatever if it sounded interesting (I was actually one of the scripters that listened to any idea, and let others be front facing person for social/manager duties for a commission on sales). When I quit I pulled out enough to buy a few college books.
___________
Entropia Universe is super honest about it at least. Basically you need to buy currency, and have the ability to cash it back out at half price. It's also possible to sweat yourself up to financially neutral gear, though the sweating you'll do is pretty insane. Eventually you might even be able to come out ahead with good risk management, though rather distantly in the future.
I knew better than to touch the game. But major props to the devs for their upfront honesty.
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."
We cant have a meaningful discussion about P2W without a clear and universal definition on what constitutes P2W
We can't agree because too many people lack the logic to get a clue. If you can pay money to gain an edge over a player who does not pay money.....p2w.
The only variable up for debate is are we talking pve or pvp? Some people do not believe there is such a thing as p2w in pve and I cannot argue with that. Other than that, if you can pay money for something that gives you an edge and I have to actually play to obtain that same item (or cannot get it without real money), p2w. Pretty simple.
I guess that if you have a "optional" sub that let the subscribers be better then the free players but the same as all other subscribers it would be possible. It would still be pay2win since subscribers are way better off then anyone else but it would still be fair to all paying customers.
As soon as you start selling anything that will give out combat advantages to the people buying it you have any pay2win game though, you get fast initial cash from whales but the game will be very lonely pretty fast.
Having a subscription that give all subscribers the exact same advantages is really the old school P2P model but with a unlimited free trial and I think most of us are fine with that. Most P2P games tend to instead sell tons of different buffs and gear so they can get each whale pay a fortune but I am not convinced that is so smart long term. People who can't or wont pay those sums tend to leave the game fast and most whales I know tend to jump between games pretty often.
We cant have a meaningful discussion about P2W without a clear and universal definition on what constitutes P2W
We can't agree because too many people lack the logic to get a clue. If you can pay money to gain an edge over a player who does not pay money.....p2w.
The only variable up for debate is are we talking pve or pvp? Some people do not believe there is such a thing as p2w in pve and I cannot argue with that. Other than that, if you can pay money for something that gives you an edge and I have to actually play to obtain that same item (or cannot get it without real money), p2w. Pretty simple.
Apparently there's equally an issue with people not understanding the difference between the words "advantage" and "win."
It's grouping them both together that causes the confusion and continued debate.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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So if you are worried about the pain of a vaginal birth, it can get you out of it . But of course there is the chance it will WTF-own the baby though, that's the major downside.
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I think the problem with pay to win MMOs isn't that they are pay to win but to win you have to spend 100s or even 1000s or in star citizen's case, 10s to 100s of thousands of dollars to win
What if to win you only had to spent 5 dollars? Or 10 dollars? That would be the best armor, the best weapons, all bag slots etc...sounds cheap right? But imagine if 100s of thousands of players are paying that much instead of 100s of whales.
They would actually make MORE money catering to everyone than just whales
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
I think the problem with pay to win MMOs isn't that they are pay to win but to win you have to spend 100s or even 1000s or in star citizen's case, 10s to 100s of thousands of dollars to win
What if to win you only had to spent 5 dollars? Or 10 dollars? That would be the best armor, the best weapons, all bag slots etc...sounds cheap right? But imagine if 100s of thousands of players are paying that much instead of 100s of whales.
They would actually make MORE money catering to everyone than just whales
to add on to this...its like steam sales
Steam has their annual sales. This is when games are super cheap, especially the summer and winter sales being the two biggest.
Does steam and the companies lose money? Nope, in fact they make the most money during those two sales than any other time, except maybe at launch.
This proves that if these MMO companies priced their items very cheaply, they would make more money than catering to whales.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
I think the problem with pay to win MMOs isn't that they are pay to win but to win you have to spend 100s or even 1000s or in star citizen's case, 10s to 100s of thousands of dollars to win
What if to win you only had to spent 5 dollars? Or 10 dollars? That would be the best armor, the best weapons, all bag slots etc...sounds cheap right? But imagine if 100s of thousands of players are paying that much instead of 100s of whales.
They would actually make MORE money catering to everyone than just whales
to add on to this...its like steam sales
Steam has their annual sales. This is when games are super cheap, especially the summer and winter sales being the two biggest.
Does steam and the companies lose money? Nope, in fact they make the most money during those two sales than any other time, except maybe at launch.
This proves that if these MMO companies priced their items very cheaply, they would make more money than catering to whales.
Hi Scavenger,
tl;dr: Scav's post doesn't make sense and there are numerous examples why.
Uhh, the last post you made is simply not true. The thing about digital sales is that once you produce the product (i.e. make the game), if it is b2p, then other than maintenance costs you do not have a cost per unit of making the game. The cost per unit is fixed at cost per making it. The companies of course are going to make a ton of money because if they price their items cheaply. More people will buy the same product at lower price. You just have to find the sweet spot where paid price X volume is at its greatest.
So if an MMO was a p2w model then they need to find the sweet spot where they can maximize the equation of paid price x volume. Saying just put it cheaply and you'll make money is only looking at half the picture. There are many more factors.
Plus, if you're looking at other products where there is a cost per unit, then your price can't be lower than that to be successful. (Truthfully, it can if you have other associated products with much higher margins that get purchased frequently). Actually, that is why F2P exists with P2W model. You have 100% margin loss on the game but 100% margin gain on the microtransactions. So as long as the microtransaction is greater than that of the game, you profit.
Think of it this way. If you buy a Tesla car, the base version, it'll cost you about 75k, they don't make much money off that. What the make money is the options. The options of that car are insane and can double the cost of the car.
If you look at an itemized list of a residual on a car, the base car itself is always a great value, it is the options which cost very little but are at a huge margin. Go try to buy a porsche, great base price, you want something with any options and the prices start to jump quite rapidly. So a base porsche cayman is 53k, but to get a decent one that is actually faster than a camry and actually has decent features, you're closing in on 75k.
Cryomatrix
Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
It seems that whenever a game is labelled P2W it is basically the death sentence for that game for the majority of players. I think it's because the games profits come from the <5% of "whales" who spend thousands on the game, while the other 95% who don't will end up being completely underpowered.
Do you think there's any plan that could allow P2W to be successful? Perhaps it somehow caters to both average payers and whales? Or is P2W destined to always screw the majority over?
I don't see why P2W needs to be successful or anyone would want it to be successful. It should make the gaming DNA in your body scream with outrage.
We have box sales, subscriptions, dlc, cosmetic items, housing items, fluff; you can fund a game with these alone.
If we are talking about Real P2W as in Pay To Win, used on competitive games like Evony, for example, where players could literally buy a victory or prevent a defeat simply by paying cash to do so, then, I would say there is no good way to put that into a game.
If we are talking about the watered down crybaby P2w that gets tossed out any time any game has an item shop, no matter what is in it, then, yes, it can be put in, not only safely, but also encouraged.
First we need to understand that simply because an MMO is F2P or does not have a sub, that they are not a Welfare Shelter for Broke Gamers, they do not get tax breaks or extra funds if they give stuff away for free, nor can they use someone's several thousand hours of game play that they did not have spend a dime for, to pay their electric bill or keep their servers running.
So first and foremost, we need to not only understand but also embrace that these games need to make money on this product, often to the tune of what a sub would be, so modern amounts would be around 20 dollars a month per player. This is what they need to make to keep things going well and the game well maintained. Once we accept that, it becomes a lot easier to become friends with the item mall, or cash shop, and the loot boxes.
Since Every game needs to make money, they also need to give their players an incentive and even a reward for spending that money on their game.
They can do this several ways.
Sell Power. Pure and simple, you buy raw character power for cash. This kind of plan is a hard sell in PvP games, but in pvE games, this should be an non-issue. It won't stop the whiners from whining that it is P2W, but since in PvE games, someone having more power then you is vastly irrelevant, these complainers can be should be ignored. Often time they are, thankfully. in PvP games however this is a problem, as it really is P2W, So that is situational upon the game itself.
Sell Content: Simple enough, you don't get the whole game. You need to buy DLC, sometimes this will be like dungeons, map zones, "adventure packs", races, classes, inventory, mounts,home instances, pretty much all the "additional fun stuff" but the thing with this, is, most of it is one time, like classes, races, inventory, you only buy that stuff once. So while this is not a bad option, it is limited in how much they can offer. Content like Dungeons, Zones and the like, can be a continual income, but they need to keep making more of it. Sure people will complain about this, they will complain no matter what, but in this regard, players are just buying more of the game.
Sell Time Advancements: This is a huge one. Selling a means to speed up progress or bypass tedium is always a good sale. This can be anything from just being able to harvest more, do tame gated content more, or simply speed up the process. Since it's just time, it's not any kind of P2W. Sure people will fuss about this, but, they can get the same thing for free, so it's not a P2w method an a commonly used one. The only problem with this, is too often additional time gates are put in to make buying time passes attractive or in some cases mandatory. But lets get real, punishing people for their impatience is a normal thing in the real world, the same should be held true for games.
Sell Cosmetics: We all know this should be easy, just sell pretty stuff, but get this, on the GW2 forums, people have called this P2W as well. So..
In the end, people will fuss that anything they don't want to spend money on is P2W, which, lets get real, the game needs to make money, so. the best way to handle P2W, is to first, ignore most of the P2W crybabies, and try to keep the sales fair to what is offered.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Short answer? Separate servers. Do a f2p p2w server where you can sell whatever you want and a sub only server with no work arounds like currency exchanges (wow token, apex, etc). Honestly, RO tried something like this (and I believe Allods does something like this too) just not sure how successful either was.
That's what I suggested Elyria do as well. Let the Ivory Tower buy the Kings, Dukes, Counts, Castles, Land, etc... Make a separate fresh server for folks who don't want to start the game as some other guys serf.
Yep, I actually mentioned this as being a reason why I won't play CoE; I don't want to be a guys serf either. I was interested in CoE, but the more that I hear about it, the less interested that I become.
"I have found a desire within myself that no experience in this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." ~ C. S. Lewis
Short answer? Separate servers. Do a f2p p2w server where you can sell whatever you want and a sub only server with no work arounds like currency exchanges (wow token, apex, etc). Honestly, RO tried something like this (and I believe Allods does something like this too) just not sure how successful either was.
That's what I suggested Elyria do as well. Let the Ivory Tower buy the Kings, Dukes, Counts, Castles, Land, etc... Make a separate fresh server for folks who don't want to start the game as some other guys serf.
Yep, I actually mentioned this as being a reason why I won't play CoE; I don't want to be a guys serf either. I was interested in CoE, but the more that I hear about it, the less interested that I become.
Keeping in mind that unless you are one of top 10% in terms of time, skill, dedication and leadership you are going to be someone's "serf" in almost any competitive MMORPG.
So what does it really matter in terms of "your" gameplay experience whether they were purchased?
It makes no difference to me, but perhaps from playing EVE for so long it provides me a broader perspective.
Well that and the fact I'm no where near the top 10% unlike apparently 90% of the posters here on these forums who all are in the elite gamer category.
Which way to the "regular Joe" or "average gamer" forums, I need to connect with my "people."
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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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
No Wallet War Games do not work but for a few people. The Only 2 Models that really work well for MMORPGS are P2P games and ESO B2P with a Sub option. The P2W model is why I dont play MMORPGS anymore. I am willing to spend money, like I did for years on UO, SWG, FFXI, FFXIV, WOW, Rift, SWTOR, and other MMORPGS, but I will not play with the current model.
The only situation I can think of for now would be to split the playerbase, so p2w players can not compete or play with non p2w players. Of course that would be a financial disastrous move for thedeveloper, as the whole idea of f2p is to get players to spend money. Except one idea that is not exactly p2w/f2p but still favors those that will pay more than others - Which is servers with paid extra content, gm events, and other ways to enhance the game experience, and standard servers with the basic game that cost less to use.
Keeping in mind that unless you are one of top 10% in terms of time, skill, dedication and leadership you are going to be someone's "serf" in almost any competitive MMORPG.
So what does it really matter in terms of "your" gameplay experience whether they were purchased?
It makes no difference to me, but perhaps from playing EVE for so long it provides me a broader perspective.
Well that and the fact I'm no where near the top 10% unlike apparently 90% of the posters here on these forums who all are in the elite gamer category.
Which way to the "regular Joe" or "average gamer" forums, I need to connect with my "people."
What would you miss out on if you couldn't pay for advantages, power etc? If you are content with being a regular joe average gamer as you claim.
There is no 'right' way to do P2W. Its like the question what is the right way to put your head in a guillotine, well as long as you understand that regardless of intentions your head is getting chopped off, then its a pointless question. If its P2W then its P2W.
There is no 'right' way to do P2W. Its like the question what is the right way to put your head in a guillotine, well as long as you understand that regardless of intentions your head is getting chopped off, then its a pointless question. If its P2W then its P2W.
There is no 'right' way to do P2W. Its like the question what is the right way to put your head in a guillotine, well as long as you understand that regardless of intentions your head is getting chopped off, then its a pointless question. If its P2W then its P2W.
So what's P2W?
Unfortunately that part is not so easy to define as chopping someones head off, though obviously it involves using real money to make personal gains inside of a game, though the shear amount of sophistry that surrounds the subject to try and confuse things is pretty much on the same scale as the ones surrounding the MMO and MO 'debate'.
We cant have a meaningful discussion about P2W without a clear and universal definition on what constitutes P2W
You are half right...
We also can not decide what games are good/bad. Every day on this forum (and others) players declare that X game is dead/dying and this has been going on for decades for some games.
Every commercial game is P2W in some extent. They trade money for something of value, which depending on who you ask may/may not be P2W. The only true way to avoid this would be to not take money, or not give anything.
Not taking money is pretty simple. However, not giving anything for that money is not as clear. It is technically possible to not give anything to the person in question, but rather to give it to everyone. It would be possible to have money spent translate into global drops, buffs, monster spawn, etc. The key is to make the return global, rather than user specific. This would mean that whales could choose to help everyone, but couldn't choose to just help themselves.
Comments
Make a separate fresh server for folks who don't want to start the game as some other guys serf.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I define it as receiving any tangible advantage by spending real-world currency, excepting things like subscriptions and the purchase of expansion packs.
Have you noticed that since F2P/P2W became mainstream how the quality and depth of content has gone way down? In the old games we would 20 to 30 classes at release.. now we are lucky to get 5. In the old games there was massive content in all directions.. now it's a scripted line until the end game where you get a little more content.
The sad reality is that with the old subscription model game developers were focused on creating engaging content as a result of keeping people subscribed while they played.. with the f2p/p2w models they no longer focus on that. They put most energy into building a digital ecommerece site that allows you to buy digital items which most of the time have no continuity in the game. The end result is the game hardly stands up on it's own and it's just the items that people can buy that gets the focus.
P2W models are sheit, and I will never play a game that has them. As an extension to that I will not play F2P games anymore as they are generally shallow in content and insulting to the gamer (constantly spamming cash shop etc). And as a further extension I will not play games that have a cash shop in them, sorry, but cash shops to me represent development effort that could have been put into the game.
I will not fall for these business models anymore, it's either a subscription with everything included or the devs can go F themselves.
While I played I was in college for programming, so obviously I was a scripter. I made a habit of listening to shop owners and making whatever if it sounded interesting (I was actually one of the scripters that listened to any idea, and let others be front facing person for social/manager duties for a commission on sales). When I quit I pulled out enough to buy a few college books.
___________
Entropia Universe is super honest about it at least. Basically you need to buy currency, and have the ability to cash it back out at half price. It's also possible to sweat yourself up to financially neutral gear, though the sweating you'll do is pretty insane. Eventually you might even be able to come out ahead with good risk management, though rather distantly in the future.
I knew better than to touch the game. But major props to the devs for their upfront honesty.
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."
We can't agree because too many people lack the logic to get a clue. If you can pay money to gain an edge over a player who does not pay money.....p2w.
The only variable up for debate is are we talking pve or pvp? Some people do not believe there is such a thing as p2w in pve and I cannot argue with that. Other than that, if you can pay money for something that gives you an edge and I have to actually play to obtain that same item (or cannot get it without real money), p2w. Pretty simple.
As soon as you start selling anything that will give out combat advantages to the people buying it you have any pay2win game though, you get fast initial cash from whales but the game will be very lonely pretty fast.
Having a subscription that give all subscribers the exact same advantages is really the old school P2P model but with a unlimited free trial and I think most of us are fine with that. Most P2P games tend to instead sell tons of different buffs and gear so they can get each whale pay a fortune but I am not convinced that is so smart long term. People who can't or wont pay those sums tend to leave the game fast and most whales I know tend to jump between games pretty often.
It's grouping them both together that causes the confusion and continued debate.
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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
If you have active genital herpes and you're giving birth to a baby, it will get you an automatic C-section as delivering an infant vaginally is a direct contraindication with active genital herpes.
So if you are worried about the pain of a vaginal birth, it can get you out of it
Cryomatrix
p.s. There really is no such thing as a good case of herpes unless you're looking for silver linings
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
What if to win you only had to spent 5 dollars? Or 10 dollars? That would be the best armor, the best weapons, all bag slots etc...sounds cheap right? But imagine if 100s of thousands of players are paying that much instead of 100s of whales.
They would actually make MORE money catering to everyone than just whales
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Steam has their annual sales. This is when games are super cheap, especially the summer and winter sales being the two biggest.
Does steam and the companies lose money? Nope, in fact they make the most money during those two sales than any other time, except maybe at launch.
This proves that if these MMO companies priced their items very cheaply, they would make more money than catering to whales.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Hi Scavenger,
tl;dr: Scav's post doesn't make sense and there are numerous examples why.
Uhh, the last post you made is simply not true. The thing about digital sales is that once you produce the product (i.e. make the game), if it is b2p, then other than maintenance costs you do not have a cost per unit of making the game. The cost per unit is fixed at cost per making it. The companies of course are going to make a ton of money because if they price their items cheaply. More people will buy the same product at lower price. You just have to find the sweet spot where paid price X volume is at its greatest.
So if an MMO was a p2w model then they need to find the sweet spot where they can maximize the equation of paid price x volume. Saying just put it cheaply and you'll make money is only looking at half the picture. There are many more factors.
Plus, if you're looking at other products where there is a cost per unit, then your price can't be lower than that to be successful. (Truthfully, it can if you have other associated products with much higher margins that get purchased frequently). Actually, that is why F2P exists with P2W model. You have 100% margin loss on the game but 100% margin gain on the microtransactions. So as long as the microtransaction is greater than that of the game, you profit.
Think of it this way. If you buy a Tesla car, the base version, it'll cost you about 75k, they don't make much money off that. What the make money is the options. The options of that car are insane and can double the cost of the car.
If you look at an itemized list of a residual on a car, the base car itself is always a great value, it is the options which cost very little but are at a huge margin. Go try to buy a porsche, great base price, you want something with any options and the prices start to jump quite rapidly. So a base porsche cayman is 53k, but to get a decent one that is actually faster than a camry and actually has decent features, you're closing in on 75k.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
I don't see why P2W needs to be successful or anyone would want it to be successful. It should make the gaming DNA in your body scream with outrage.
We have box sales, subscriptions, dlc, cosmetic items, housing items, fluff; you can fund a game with these alone.
If we are talking about Real P2W as in Pay To Win, used on competitive games like Evony, for example, where players could literally buy a victory or prevent a defeat simply by paying cash to do so, then, I would say there is no good way to put that into a game.
If we are talking about the watered down crybaby P2w that gets tossed out any time any game has an item shop, no matter what is in it, then, yes, it can be put in, not only safely, but also encouraged.
First we need to understand that simply because an MMO is F2P or does not have a sub, that they are not a Welfare Shelter for Broke Gamers, they do not get tax breaks or extra funds if they give stuff away for free, nor can they use someone's several thousand hours of game play that they did not have spend a dime for, to pay their electric bill or keep their servers running.
So first and foremost, we need to not only understand but also embrace that these games need to make money on this product, often to the tune of what a sub would be, so modern amounts would be around 20 dollars a month per player. This is what they need to make to keep things going well and the game well maintained. Once we accept that, it becomes a lot easier to become friends with the item mall, or cash shop, and the loot boxes.
Since Every game needs to make money, they also need to give their players an incentive and even a reward for spending that money on their game.
They can do this several ways.
- Sell Power. Pure and simple, you buy raw character power for cash. This kind of plan is a hard sell in PvP games, but in pvE games, this should be an non-issue. It won't stop the whiners from whining that it is P2W, but since in PvE games, someone having more power then you is vastly irrelevant, these complainers can be should be ignored. Often time they are, thankfully. in PvP games however this is a problem, as it really is P2W, So that is situational upon the game itself.
- Sell Content: Simple enough, you don't get the whole game. You need to buy DLC, sometimes this will be like dungeons, map zones, "adventure packs", races, classes, inventory, mounts,home instances, pretty much all the "additional fun stuff" but the thing with this, is, most of it is one time, like classes, races, inventory, you only buy that stuff once. So while this is not a bad option, it is limited in how much they can offer. Content like Dungeons, Zones and the like, can be a continual income, but they need to keep making more of it. Sure people will complain about this, they will complain no matter what, but in this regard, players are just buying more of the game.
- Sell Time Advancements: This is a huge one. Selling a means to speed up progress or bypass tedium is always a good sale. This can be anything from just being able to harvest more, do tame gated content more, or simply speed up the process. Since it's just time, it's not any kind of P2W. Sure people will fuss about this, but, they can get the same thing for free, so it's not a P2w method an a commonly used one. The only problem with this, is too often additional time gates are put in to make buying time passes attractive or in some cases mandatory. But lets get real, punishing people for their impatience is a normal thing in the real world, the same should be held true for games.
- Sell Cosmetics: We all know this should be easy, just sell pretty stuff, but get this, on the GW2 forums, people have called this P2W as well. So..
In the end, people will fuss that anything they don't want to spend money on is P2W, which, lets get real, the game needs to make money, so. the best way to handle P2W, is to first, ignore most of the P2W crybabies, and try to keep the sales fair to what is offered.So what does it really matter in terms of "your" gameplay experience whether they were purchased?
It makes no difference to me, but perhaps from playing EVE for so long it provides me a broader perspective.
Well that and the fact I'm no where near the top 10% unlike apparently 90% of the posters here on these forums who all are in the elite gamer category.
Which way to the "regular Joe" or "average gamer" forums, I need to connect with my "people."
"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
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"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
Except one idea that is not exactly p2w/f2p but still favors those that will pay more than others - Which is servers with paid extra content, gm events, and other ways to enhance the game experience, and standard servers with the basic game that cost less to use.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
If its P2W then its P2W.
So what's P2W?
Crazkanuk
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We also can not decide what games are good/bad. Every day on this forum (and others) players declare that X game is dead/dying and this has been going on for decades for some games.
Every commercial game is P2W in some extent. They trade money for something of value, which depending on who you ask may/may not be P2W. The only true way to avoid this would be to not take money, or not give anything.
Not taking money is pretty simple. However, not giving anything for that money is not as clear. It is technically possible to not give anything to the person in question, but rather to give it to everyone. It would be possible to have money spent translate into global drops, buffs, monster spawn, etc. The key is to make the return global, rather than user specific. This would mean that whales could choose to help everyone, but couldn't choose to just help themselves.