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Would you mind the game going Free 2 Play?
John.A.Zoid
Member Posts: 1,531
I myself only play SOE games every time theres a veteran trial and I notice alot of other people are willing to give the games a go again too. Sure they don't stick around after the trial runs out but I have fun playing with some friends in the games while they're free. None of them offer me that much fun to warrent the cost of subbing upto them. However if they were all free 2 play I'd switch between them all and I may even spend some money via MT.
For example I wouldn't pay $15 a month on Everquest 2 but if it was free I might put $5 a month down on things like adventure packs if they ever bring them back.
With SWG I wont pay $15 a month for it but I might put down $5 here and there for TCG loot cards.
Planetside again I'm not gonna pay a sub but I might put money down for XP gain in CR or exclusive weapons.
My point is many people are in the same boat that they would pay Free 2 Play and they might put some money down in the game. However they wouldn't ever pay a monthly sub for it and isn't it better to be making $5 a month off people rather than nothing? The hardcore people are likely to spend more than $15 a month anyways. Casual players would be interested in XP boost items like if they wanted to catch up to theit friends but don't have the time to grind away with normal XP.
Comments
Well in my opinion there are two different perspectives.
1. What maybe possible.
2. What we currently have.
Right now they have X amount of people paying their subs. I would say about 250,000 people. 250,000 x 14.99 = $3,747,500 per month.
If they go F2P, they have 0, until people start playing and paying.
It maybe possible that they will get more people, but how many are going to buy X.
And you have people like me (played since day one. I have paid for every adventure pack and expansion. What are you going to do for them?
Going by SOE past, they are not going to take a risk like that.
You could just have F2P servers and Subscriber servers.
Changing the game to a cash shop model would not work in my opinion.
EQ2 is a subscription based game from a design standpoint. Everything in the game is designed to keep players retained by giving them achievements to complete. Dungeons, raids, crafting, etc. Keeping people playing as long as possible is the goal to keep the subscription money rolling in.
Cash shops based games make more money by pushing people to to purchase things, which almost all of those things are in game currently and they are the focus of the game. Fluff items could be sold, but fluff items only go so far before people have more than they want. Eventually they would need to start selling power or change the mechanics of a game to push players into purchasing cash shop items.
It wouldn't be long before something had to be removed or changed in a pretty big fashion to support this type of revenue system. It would be interesting to see, but I don't think it would work.
Yes. It would make the game into crap and I'd drop it. Free to play sucks. If you can't be bothered to pay to play, I don't know why the hell you are bothering to play online games at all.
If I would mind? No i wouldnt mind
If i think it would work? Absolutely not
Being someone that IS subscribed to it now... I would quit if they switched. I really can't stand the F2P model with it's little hidden costs. Just my personal opinion.
Of course I wouldn't mind if EQ2 went free to play...I would actually start playing. However, when a mmo has a strong 150,000 subs or greater (which I assume is around the number SOE has for EQ2), there's really no reason to go free. It is when the player base starts to wind down when other options are considered.
One of the problems with judging the economic stability of SOE games, however, is the station pass. Because there is a certain amount of people paying one lump sum for all the SOE mmos, we really cannot determine sub numbers or whether a game is downright failing. The station pass is another reason why lesser successful games like EQ or SWG won't go free.
I don't mind F2P games. Some of them are pretty fun. However EQ2 couldn't make that switch and if they tried they would surely sink further down the MMO ladder.
They are just killing the game I used to love even more. I hate anything to do with cash shops or micro transactions. I would much rather pay $15 per month. Stupid move on their part just trying to make more money and not caring about the community.
Drackarre-A new medieval fantasy sandbox mmorpg in development by Bungaboo.
i only played this game for a short period i could not cope with the zoned layout. i very much like the realistic character modells and fine graphics which i found very immersive.
BUT the zoning killed so much fun out of me so i quit very soon. i enjoyed even EQ1 more this i played for about a year.
MY ANSWER
to the microtransaction stuff applies to both of this games and to every other:
I WOULD QUIT ASAP
sorry i hope you do not mind the caps, i do not shout all day long