Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
I think game should have unlimited free trial. Oh god plz read before shooting
Hokibukisa
Member Posts: 185
EDIT: I changed title from free to play, to having unlimited free trial because people can't be arsed to read.
NOT free to play, unlimited free trial.
The quickest way I can say it without you shooting me is that there are members and there are non-members, I'm not talking about a cash shop. Some pay, some don't. Oh god put the gun down Mark!
I know what you're thinking, pay to win. I know that feeling of thinking, maybe that guy has an advantage because he spends more money than me. Thats why I say subscriber based free to play. Same model that Mark already described, just with an extra range of free. No buying diamonds. No buying station cash. No buying boosters. You're either a subscriber, or your not.
Assuming I've calmed your fury, let me explain why the game should be free. As games age they lose customers, especially niche games. I currently play planetside and most people play it for free or are at least not members. I'm both a member and only play with a 50% boost up. I'm one of the whales that f2p's rely on, and let me point out that most of us here, assuming we will fund the kickstarter, are whales as well, we're just whales by a different premise.
In games where the entertainment is provided by other players, and if there isn't entertainment then people quit the game, then its worth allowing people to play the game for free, if for no other reason than to provide entertainment to your paying subscribers.
I know what would happen to PS2 if they made it no longer f2p, they'd lose most of the playerbase and that would provide the remaining customers to lose interest. A similar effect would happen if they changed it from f2p to pay2win, and they are very different and specific to the game at hand.
Lets take a game we're familiar with and apply f2p subcription funded. Daoc subscribers continue to get the same thing they do now, nothing changes. Though a free player would see inconveniences introduced.
Hell you could even put your free players to work for you and have them solve problems that you can't solve yourself. As a developer you can't tell you paying customers not to play on a realm and server thats too overpopulated, but you can tell your free players to go play a realm and server that needs them.
And of course don't progress as fast.
And get extremely limited access to the game until they get a sponcor. (just someone to vouch for them not being a gold farmer or cheater)
Comments
I don't agree with this. F2P is just a recipe for eventual pay-to-win. If anything, a subscription model will weed out all the anti-social kiddie element that destroys community in all the other mmos.
So what you want us to know is that you are a BIGSHOT WHALE who is begging for this game to be free to play? Am I correct about this?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Personally, I think a F2p has it's advantages, and in the ver changing market I see mor eand more mmo's moving toward the F2p model, or at the least a buy once and pay nothing else (a la Guild Wars 2).
There's a reason that the big mmo's recently that used the old subscriber method have switched over (SW:TOR, The Secret World, Tera, Aion, etc).
Having ai game be free to play, ensures that ...well people play it, if it costs them nothing, or only a one-time fee they'll mor elikely to play, and keep playing even if they might have "cancelled" if they were using a subscription mehtod.
Plus it brings in more new members then if it requires a subscription, more people to try it out, etc.
If it were to be F2p though, it would have to f2p and not PAY TO WIn, huge difference. F2p games should be built around costmetic items and other thing slike that, nothing that affects gameplay in any way shape or form.
You know which game hasn't (and probably never will) switched over to f2p? World of Warcraft. F2p just smacks of desperation to get people to play a very flawed game. And those cash shops just rub me the wrong way. If the game is fun to play and polished, people will play it no matter if it's f2p, b2p, subscription, etc. Subscription just seems more natural in terms of immersion because you're not using real world cash to purchase advantages in the game.
"I'm sorry but your mmo has been diagnosed with EA and only has X number of days to live."
No just No. I don't mind a buy to play model but there has only been 1 game ever that has been free to play with a model I support and that is the recently released Path Of Exile. F2P in general is a pox on the gamming community. It forces dev's to try to milk a small % of customers to support themselves. This eventually leads to pay to win to get those same small % of customers continually paying.
Not to mention F2P destroying the realm pride community building this game is trying to attract. The majority of people interested in this game are because it smacks of old school tight knit community. The older school mmo crowd have the disposable income available and would be more than happy to pay monthly for this. If it bars entry from "freeloader" type players I'm all for it.
World of Warcraft has a free trial (play up to level 20 bascially),
WoW is not an "average" mmo, in terms of it's success, this is the mindset that has led to so many downfalls of mmo's that have tried to chase that big pie in the sky, thinking they'll get 10million people playing.
WoW bascially took the standard mmo formula set foruth by EQ (as far as 3d mmo's go) and polished it, while cherry picking a few things here and there fromother mmo's. Blizzard themeslves has a HUGE fanbase, and unlike many game developers, they have a foothold in both the western market as well as the eastern market. Most game companies would be lucky to have a good market in one or the other.
There's a reason peolpe don't leave WoW to play other mmo's, if those mmo's are just bascialyl like WoW (basic gameplay/design) why would they leave WoW, where they've sunk in 100's of hours, have friends/guild, etc to play antoher mmo? Most people might try a new one for a month, see that it's "basically like WoW" then either stop playing because they are bored of that style of mmo (like I am) or go back to WoW, where they've already worked hard to get to the top and have friends that play it.
Blizzard has no need to go free to play because of their current market share in the mmo genre, you can bet your pants though if their sub numbers drop years from now, they'll go that route.
F2P has it's place (it's especialyl popular in the eastern marketplace) and growing more and more popular in the west. League of Legends is a prime example of this, one of the most played online games and it's f2p, with them making a killing on costmetic items. Anything else (like heroes) you can get by simply playing the game without spending a single cent. There's no "pay to win" advantage.
Op is talking about free to play, this does not mean it has to be "pay to win" and infact pay to win is usualyl a big turn off for a lot of free to play people. There are other ways f2p games can make money (costmetic items, etc) or offering things that you can purchase but still get in-game, that just take more time to get.
IE - In league of legends for example you can buy heroes with real money (called riot points, or rp) or you can simply play games, which earn you influence points, which you can use to purchase the same heroes. so bascially people can choose to skip that time investment and buy a hero instead of playing the game and earning the ip to do so.
If you can't afford $15 a month, you really shouldn't be investing your time in an MMO. People working at McDonalds can come up with $15 a month, grow up...
Nope.
To be completely honest, the League of Legends F2P is probably the best one around. Riot points primarily are used for access to skins and champions. It's not a pay to win system. It's merely a pay to look the best system.
However, unless CU is going to release new classes and races on a bi-weekly basis, the Riot system cannot be implemented into your typical mmo.
Well MJ disagrees with that sub model.
/thread
My YouTube MMO PvP Channel
Cut grass, shovel a driveway, give out HJ's at the bus station... $15 a month is nothing.
If there's no PVE, then you could take your lvl 1 blah blah and head right to RVR.
"Haha. You bitches pay $15 a month for your fancy cloaks! But I killed you for free. Yippee!"
I vote buy to play with vanity cash shop. Guild Wars 2 model is the best i've seen in any game and I think it should be adopted into any game thats worth its salt. I've spent roughly 60 dollars in the cash shop for myself and another 40 on my wife so A-net still gets good money out of me, the difference is I can pay it when I want to and if i can't pay, I can still play.
Also, the ability to turn in-game money into cash shop money is absolutly required for this to work without being P2W.
For the record to those that apparently didn't read the very first sentence and just hit the reply button, I said no cash shops and no digital cash. Fyi that makes it impossible to be a pay to win game.
Again for those saying $15, that is exactly the subscriber model I was refering to. You pay $15 a month, and you are a member. You get member benefits.
You let others play for free but they don't get member benefits and can be used to fix population problems. Because they don't pay you can tell them where to play.
And a sponsor/voucher system to ensure they aren't being cheating or gold farming dickwads.
I can't cliffnotes it anymore than that. At this point if you say pay to win again you're just being a troll.
f2p need revenue in order to be free to play. Cash shops and in-game shops that use real cash do not have to be pay to win, as with Guild Wars 2, League of Legends, etc Wher ehte focus is not on paing money to get an upper hand or anyhting, but simply costmetic items or access to an item quicker (but sitll able to be gotten/earned through normal play).
Planetside 2 has a similar system in that regards.
I'm not sure I get your system, you bascally want to have it depend solely on pople subscribing, and those that don't subscribe you want to annoy/punish them and have their game be limited?
That's what SW:TOR tried at first, then they laxed up a bit on their restrictions for f2p players, and also went toward a cash shop as well.
It's entirely possible to have a cash shop and not be pay to win. Just don't offer anyything that gives stats or any benefits over other players. you could have weapon/armour skins and other cosmetic things that people WILL buy, and thus you get revenue from it. It's one of the easiest/cheapest ways to use a f2p model without pisisng off potential players, unlike the restrictive "You are f2p therefore you get less of the game" model that LOTRO and SW:TOR tried at first.
They aren't aiming for a huge player base but for a niche crowed. Also, if the is f2p it would have a huge influx of players who would play it for nothing and who is going to pay for all that bandwidth? It's better to just have a small dedicated player base and being p2p than going f2p :P. And also those benefits you talk about giving members are worthless in a pvp game once people get to max level.
<InvalidTag type="text/javascript" src="http://www.gamebreaker.tv/cce/e.js"></script><div class="cce_pane" content-slug="which-world-of-warcraft-villain-are-you" ctype="quiz" d="http://www.gamebreaker.tv"></div>;