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Will we ever see this happen in a F2P mmorpg or is it impossible to make a profit with it?
Calintz333
Member UncommonPosts: 1,193
I would just once like to see a F2P mmorpg have the quality of a P2P game of the same times. For example I would have liked Runes of Magic to have the polish, graphics, and quality of LoTRO or at least warhammer or something along those lines. I have not been very supportive of a F2P industry because of the following 3 reasons.
#1 The item mall is never just cosmetic and fluff, but they advertise it as such. Its not the fact they want to make money that bothers me but the Huge advertisements that the cash shop is 100% optional when they know very well in 2-3 months of updates they will add content that will almost always require cash shop to do well in. Why don't they just say Free 2 play pay 2 win, I would be more than happy if they were honest about it.
#2 Honesty is a big issue for me but even bigger is the prices on these item malls. I don't see why they can't just make things more fair price so that you can spend 15-20 dollars a month and get every benefit from the item mall all at once. I realize that a lot of the newer generation of F2P mmorpgs are actually doing this, and some older ones are quickly making their item malls lower priced as well, but this went on for many years and the worse part is a lot of the games are cash shop based.
#3 Lack of deph, I could do with a expensive cash shop AND even a very cash shop dependent game if the damn game was amazingly good and high quality! I want to be moved by the game, I want to feel like I am part of this massive live world, something along the lines of the feeling you got when you first played your very first mmorpg, That kinda feeling is what I am trying to find from a F2P mmorpg.(so far only 2 games outside of my first game FFXI have given me this feeling Aion & LoTRO) I would pay high prices, and even would not mind a cash shop dependency if the game was of a superb quality.
So do you guys think we will see a F2P game that is of massive quality, a huge project the size of games like Aion, FFXI, LoTRO with that kind of lore,. polish quality and depth and immersion? Or will F2P mmorpgs always be another variation of a kill X number of Y mob quest grinder with broken balance, & lack of lore and story?
Comments
I will probably be flamed by this but....when a western company makes a F2P MMORPG game you will see a good quality game. Until then, I and most "westerners" will stick to the true and tried P2P formula.
I actually thought Runes of Magic was fairly well polished and had a decent ammount of depth. It was weak in the race selection, or lack of, but I really thought they made a great game.
I agree. So far my gaming experience in ROM has been the equal of several P2P games including AOC, WAR and LotRO.
is it a legendary game? No, but neither are those others.
Is it perfect? No, but its a big leg up and shows that F2P vendors can create a pretty decent game.
is it really F2P? Not at all IMO. Sure, you can mess around and even level to 50 for free, but to really excel, especially on the PVP server (if that matters to you) then expect to easily spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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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
Quality and Free to play don't go together.
I agree. If it's F2P, that means pay for power ups, items, pets, which means crap. I don't see how you can make good crap.
In the western market F2P games suck...
Perfect Example:
JRohan(japan): Cash shop powerups are cheap but are debuffable and do not destablize the game, anyone is able to aquire them any way they want but as I just said, they are debuffable(which is why they are so cheap)
International Rohan:Cash shop items cant be debuffed and can turn people into super tanks also cost $1.30 an hour per 1 buff..Not many use them but those that do are able to demolish...
Anyway this was simply a random example...Most western gamers dont have morals... and the companies think money>players and dont realize players=money, if u only focus on money you lose players therefore losing money...but I have yet to see 1 f2p MMO like this so far...maybe 1 that got close but its not even going anymore
Communism doesn't work. No game developer in the history of computer games ever developed a game hoping to lose money. That would be retarded.
#1 Communism in theory>capitalism though I prefer Social Democracies
#2 did I say they should lose money? Please point out where I said game developers should lose money when they make games...Please dont even talk if you arent going to read what I say...
I said that most value money more than their players and they end up losing many players because of that and in the end lose a lot of money and shrivel up and die...(long process but it happens)...if you could read I said they think money>players yet dont realize that players=money therefore when they get greedy and players start to leave and they still dont change they lose money and I am repeating myself here
edit- I just realized that I didnt mean anima X_X brb gotta go look for the game I meant to say
Read your own post. It doesn't make sense. If you value money more than your players, then you would want to make your players happy to make more money.
You seriously think that developers taht spend millions of dollars making games don't realize that more players equals more money and less players equals less money?
Communism in theory is turning people into slaves, and that's what happens in practice as well.
How many F2P MMO's have you played exactly?
*looks at 2moons, Rohan, and all other games in the dumpster with them*
MANY F2P MMO's value a couple bucks over the majority of their players...
Many? How about all? It's a proven fact that you can milk your players out of more money per month with so-called f2P games than a subscription. You can spend hundreds of dollars in a single month on a "FREE" to play game.
I love how nothing you say even relates to what I say...
anyway you proved how much you know when you said communism in theory is turning people into slaves
Conversation over until you can either stick to what I'm talking about or get a clue
"Free" to play revenue model:
ill keep it simple as this is my last post for today
they should stop attempting to milk players and try to get people to actually like the game and pay for the game because they like it not because of the game presenting them with "uber" power bonuses
Runes of Magic has everything except the graphics,Requiem/Perfect world/Rohan have too much grinding.Atlantica gameplay is too boring for most.Savage 2 is not a mmo,etc...
The first gen F2P mmo had big flaws 2 moons,Rappelz,Shayia etc had big flaws.The second gen f2p games are one flaw away from being the same quailty as P2p ,if runes of magic had Rohan graphics it would be the number 2 mmo right now behind of wow.The quailty of RoM is that good.
It is only a matter of before one F2P mmo gets put it all together.
Well I will agree RoM was a very solid game. Had I not played wow for 2 years I would probably enjoy it a lot. Since I did play wow though it feels like more of the same, thats not a bad thing because WoW actual game is not half bad, but it just feels like more of the same.
I don't really check out F2P games all that much anymore but once in a while I do. Sadly most F2P are as stated before Free 2 try. Just wish they would just be honest and say it. And keep the money milked to a limit. Like Milk only 30 bucks tops a month from a player to add some form of mediocre balance to the game.
Yes I realize why would they limit their money? They wouldn't thats why I don't really play F2P games. There is basically no balance, The F2P are super low class they don't make much money, and the end game community is generally the spend 20-30 a month. The middle ground is actually really small. And the games as they progress make you spend more and more, so it gets to the point where you can't even get by half decent without the CS.
If Im going to end up spending 30 bucks a month on a F2P game I don't see the point in playing one in General, when I can play a P2P for 10-15 that is usually much higher quality with better support. Also, once you PAY once for the game it is no longer a F2P game so can we demand more from the game the second that we pay? Can we demand balance, Content? and other things like that? We should by all logic since its no longer F2P the second we spend a dime on it.Since they are generally cheeper to make I don't see why they charge more, sure there are some leeching players but as we all probably know by now, most of the F2P community quits about half way tru the game. So they never stick around anyways for to long.
I did play SoTNW until end game, got 6 Veterans, Mostly as a F2P player, I will tell you as a F2P player I was always as about a 25% dissadvantage vs the pay 2 play, which basically made it very hard to ever really win in PvP against other veterans with full cash shop benefits. Another reson why I sold that account.
I agree with OP points.
Yet a F2P to justify spending hundreds and thousands of dollars to be comparable to a P2P would need to be dozens or hundreds of times better than their P2P counterpart.
P2P offers quality and content for 10~15 dollars a month.
F2P does not offer quality or balanced content and instead makes you pay for items, not for content. You are paying to feel you have fun crushing others or outperforming others that don't spend as much. But well, this is a whole other discussion.
The day F2P games overcome P2P games it will be the end of competitivity in MMOs as we know it in P2Ps - pay the modest fee and get an even field. That field is not going to be even on the F2P counterpart as there will be experience, attribute enhancers around to speed and reduce the difficulty, upgrade enhancers to decrease the upgrade difficulty and then it gets to the point you will directly buy equipment or you get offered some random boxes which give you all sort of stuff for a price that could pay a monthly fee.
Those that like F2Ps most of the times are:
- People who want to play for free and have not yet seen the huge wall that is the difference between those who pay or those who don't, or the game has not yet started the patches that destroy the even gameplay. Your game is young though, it gets pretty harsh after 1 or 2 years as the updates with new item mall options and ways to force you into spending money.
- People who see they can only shine in this kind of game - they want to play 3 hours a week and still rule because they spend hundreds or thousands of dollars in a game, eventually forcing the opposition to do the same. F2P genre relies on this kind of mentality, and is the danger of it for consumers and profit for developers as you will be able to squeeze from players an average cost much higher than a monthly fee without giving content for it as people from monthly fee games will constantly ask for patches and new content.
- People who don't care. But they don't care because of the same reason as the first one - they have not seen the harsh reality yet in this kind of market model. They spend their few bucks but then they will find themselves spending a lot more, and since the game has addicted them, they won't realize that until they have spent more than they could. The game is sucking their time AND money.
In a F2P MMO, only about 15% of the playerbase monetizes the game. If only one out of seven players is paying to play, you have to either get the cash of seven players from that one or you have to build your game within the constraints of that income.
The developers look for the best price range to set items at. Too ihgh, and that 15% stops buying. Too low and you are leaving money on the table since the guy who isn't buying the ingame item at $10 won't buy it at $5 - you'd just be getting less from that 15%.
But, I'd disagree about a lack of quality to F2P MMOs. Atlantica Online, Dungeon Runners, Florensia and several other F2P MMOs have extensive features, well-made graphics and polished gameplay to them.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
The real question is why do people keep wanting the best of everything for free? It is not how the world works.
As you said yourself, you wanted an item mall where you could get all the stuff for 15-20 bucks a month, well do yourself a favor and take that 15 buck and put it into a subscription game that has the graphics and depth you want.
Well, there is Guildwars of course, it do cost money initially to buy it but it dont have an item mall or monthly prices and it have the qualitys you want.
Other than that it is possible to make a F2P game like that but you would need a really good lead programmer like Kaplan or Strain to pull it off. It seems like F2P games so far have gotten 3rd rate programmers and devs. Sooner or later someone should be intrested of making one if the P2P sub numbers goes down.
It is possible that Guildwars 2 will open up for this kind of games, since it will be a huge non instanced game without monthly fees. If it will be as good as it seems it will, monthly fee games will be in trouble.
If a Free to Play MMO was as good as any Pay to Play MMO then people would come.
If the Cash Shop was fair and balanced then people would pay.
Most people dont buy anything in the Cash Shops of current Free MMOs because the game isnt worth spending money on.
The better the game is and the more the average player can get into it the more they will be willing to pay a little here and there. Your average player isnt going to spend money in the Cash Shop of a crappy grinder so he grind a little better for an hour.
Basically, it comes to down to a universal rule of anything in business: if you make crap dont expect people to pay for it.
Once you ad a cash shop, you've sort of set teh bar of how good the game can be. YOu can't make a cash shop game that's as good as a monthly sub game because the cash shop itself makes the game kind of crappy.