Originally posted by maplestone ...so I'm confident you can see my reasoning (give or take my ability to explain it).
I do. I was just having some fun being an ass there.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
most of the time I see cash items have too much advantages over in-game currency. Take AVA for example, although it's not an MMORPG, but it's unarguably hard to get enough in-game currency to buy a gun, not to mention level limit. While paying players can buy them with a swipe of their cards.
I get it that games do need cash, and cash-paying players should have some advantages. But not to the point of ruining the fun of the game. The enjoyment of every players, paying or not, should be the most important thing, not the amount of cash the pay-players spend.
Y'all are missing the point. With many CS games, you DON'T HAVE TO BUY TO PLAY, it is entirely optional. In games like Allods Online, which was Pay 2 Win, one had to buy perfume after level 30 just to be able to play (and it had a limited time which included all the time you were not logged in, so it always expired). It is another way to get people to play the game.
Many people are sick of the P2P monthly subs. If you geet the same amount of patches and new content with a F2P/CS and/or a B2P, as compared to a P2P, then you have a problem. The P2P companies are getting a yearly fee and you also have to buy the game. If they don't give more than the others, these games should die as they are doing it to themselves.
With a CS, think of it as giving money, willingly, to the company not have to pay for your fix.
Well id like you to show mw a mmo that doesnt have a cash shop they all do. Yes the F2P game have more but they spend multi years and alot of there money to make the game. so yes your going to pay one way or the other for it through quest packs of maybe a better weapon if you cant stand cash shops you might as well quit mmos and try single players.
Originally posted by stromp45 Well id like you to show mw a mmo that doesnt have a cash shop they all do. Yes the F2P game have more but they spend multi years and alot of there money to make the game. so yes your going to pay one way or the other for it through quest packs of maybe a better weapon if you cant stand cash shops you might as well quit mmos and try single players.
ofc every MMO games have cash shop, but is it better to ruin the game of everyone else just to please the big spenders? The fundamential concept of business is to make sure every customers are happy, not only the customers who are paying the most.
I've played lots of games, yet very few have a balanced, or close to balanced, between paying and non-paying items.
Well, what do you expect? A year or so ago people were on here screaming about how P2P is "old" and the new, brighter future for MMOs is going to be B2P and F2P with cash shops. I remember the GW2 fanatics on this forum screaming P2P is DEAD!!! LONG LIVE F2P!!
Little did they know they were killing their own videogames.
Cash shops have ruined MMOs, absolutely - especially the ones where they slow down progression in order to force to you buy from the shop. Its sickening and ruins the point of gaming. Since where did gaming become about progression?
Older MMOS were about community, socialization, role playing and exploration. They were not virtual stat treadmills were it was all about increasing some sheet of numbers. Even PvP games like DAOC had a very strong roleplaying base and community where you were not pressured into increasing the power of your character.
And this cash shop is not only MMOs now. What about phone games. I just got a real smartphone, and I've been playing some of the F2P games on here. Its just like MMOs - you are pretty much forced to buy power up items from their cash shop in order to progress in the game. Its sickening and you would actually end up paying MORE in the cash shop for these games then paying the money up front to buy the game in a traditional manner.
For example, I tried out this game called "Inotia 4". An action-rpg style game where 2-3 hours into the game, the game becomes unbearably difficult and you have to prettymuch buy from the cash shop in order to survive, and these items are EXPENSIVE! We're talking 3-4$ for one sword. ONE SWORD. Really? One sword that will become obsolete in another hour or so of gamplay. Unbelievable.
Just imagine Diablo with a cash shop. Sound fun to you?
Originally posted by michniewicz Im not spending a dime on them, if i had money to blow id buy a real game, I dont ever want to touch a game with a cash shop or anythign close to it , AGAIN. That includes Guild Wars 2.
well that's just it... not any game forces you to buy something in the cash shop. Now that you mentioned GW2 - anet has a great cash shop. There's absolutley nothing you can buy in there to make the game "easier" for you or to gain some advantage. Hell, even the outfits which are offered in the cash shop can't be worn in combat except the 3 most popular armor skins which are taken from GW1.
If I were you I'd start playing games with cash shops which aren't trying to milk you dry rather than generalising and tossing every game in the same bracket with all the rest garbagase I've tried. :P
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life." -------------------------------
I have no problems with a cash shop or free to play as a payment model. My problem with free to play is that most of them stop developing content in exchange for putting cosmetic items into the shop.
A few of them still develop the game but most don't once they go free to play. So sure they make lots of money in the short term doing this but the game still slowly dies.
This was my real issue with tera. I loved the game but with no new content and none in sight it got boring. The biggest thing going on there is a $60 maid outfit and what's new in the RNG box. I still go back and play from time to time but I wont spend any money on the game as it is and still get bored in a few days.
A sub forces the devs to put new things into the game or it dies even faster in todays market. They have to keep you playing or they make nothing. That's a good thing for the players, but something devs seem to forget.
Well, what do you expect? A year or so ago people were on here screaming about how P2P is "old" and the new, brighter future for MMOs is going to be B2P and F2P with cash shops. I remember the GW2 fanatics on this forum screaming P2P is DEAD!!! LONG LIVE F2P!!
Little did they know they were killing their own videogames.
Cash shops have ruined MMOs, absolutely - especially the ones where they slow down progression in order to force to you buy from the shop. Its sickening and ruins the point of gaming. Since where did gaming become about progression?
Older MMOS were about community, socialization, role playing and exploration. They were not virtual stat treadmills were it was all about increasing some sheet of numbers. Even PvP games like DAOC had a very strong roleplaying base and community where you were not pressured into increasing the power of your character.
And this cash shop is not only MMOs now. What about phone games. I just got a real smartphone, and I've been playing some of the F2P games on here. Its just like MMOs - you are pretty much forced to buy power up items from their cash shop in order to progress in the game. Its sickening and you would actually end up paying MORE in the cash shop for these games then paying the money up front to buy the game in a traditional manner.
For example, I tried out this game called "Inotia 4". An action-rpg style game where 2-3 hours into the game, the game becomes unbearably difficult and you have to prettymuch buy from the cash shop in order to survive, and these items are EXPENSIVE! We're talking 3-4$ for one sword. ONE SWORD. Really? One sword that will become obsolete in another hour or so of gamplay. Unbelievable.
Just imagine Diablo with a cash shop. Sound fun to you?
first off: they do that in p2p games to get naother month's sub out of you. sorry to bust your bubble. p2p games are just as vulnerable to greed as any f2p. look at WoW. box fee, $15/month, plus expansions (another box fee) every year or so. add in a skinner box to keep you addicted, and random junk to slow you up and keep you paying. yeah. that's just great right there.
secondly: no one ever forces you to buy from a cash shop. there's this thing called "not playing" if the game is truly p2w. you're like a carpenter who hit his thumb with a hammer, and is now complaining about home depot selling him the hammer. you did this to yourself. it's your fault. if you don't like p2w, then don't play p2w games.
lastly: take off your nostalgia glasses. the only thing that's changed in games is that you have begun paying attention to the hardcore elements of games. they've always been there though, i assure you.
Can a cash shop make and purchases from a game make it seem cheap and immersion breaking? Of course but that's the price for "free". Not only can you play for free but so can others which fills the world, making it more immersive.
There are a few options. Either pick a solely sub game, sub to the freemium game (most have a sub option), ignore the hitches of playing free or spend what you would on a sub in th cash shop.
I try not to look at what the company is making but how much my entertainment is worth. If the game is quality and your time is worth playing it why not spend money? The far cry example is great. How much is far cry to play? It had to have cost something.
There are some F2P game models that have driven me away from the game for sure. Things like endless weapon enchanments where you buy items to make it possible to make way better weapons than the ones you could ever expect to get without them for instance or loot boxes that drop in the world that you need a cash shop key to open that contains 90% of the new items that dvelopers are making.
Having said that there are also a number of cash shops that don't bother me to much. I hardly notice TSW's cash shop to be honest and given the money I save over a subscription more than covers anything I want to buy in that game. I think Turbine and SOE's cash models are ok as well on the whole although both do have a few dark spots in them.
F2P is a convinence model not some community welfare project. The model is setup to lower the cost of entry and if done right allow people to trade time in game grinding as a alternative to spending money in the cash shop. People who spend massive amounts of money in a Cash Shop to rush the game is he eqivilent of buying very expensive cheat code magazines IMO.
People who say cash shops have "ruined" MMO's are taking their own worst preceptions and fears of those systems into the games and looking for reasons to hate them. You are your own worst enemy when playing these games by not so much as trying to see the benifits of cash shops and writting them off before you even give them half a chance.
P2P is dying. It's extremely difficult to provide an experience that people are willing to pay 15 bucks a month for. For every P2P success, there are at least 5 P2P failures. The issues is that the game must be designed for keeping players busy for months at a time between content releases. Ideally, your subscription should go towards CONSTANT updates on a monthly basis so that you are getting your money's worth...I think we know that 9 times out of 10 this is not the case. Developers instead create content that is time-gated to keep people in-line.
F2P comes with it's issues as well. Since there is virtually no barrier to entry, anyone can enter. These games almost always have ridiculous problems with rampant unabashed gold selling and bots. The community also tends to suffer.
There are "freemium" models in-between F2P and P2P. The one I think does it the WORST is SWTOR. The one I think that does it the BEST is TERA. You can look at each model and see why. The LOTRO model is a mixed bag, imo. I don't really like it.
Personally, I think B2P is the way to go. These have the initial barrier to entry of most P2P games, but don't need additional funds to play the game. The only necessary charge is for expansions. Due to the funds initially collected and from expansions, the cash shop in these games can get away with providing convience and aesthetic items that are not necessary for gameplay. This is almost exactly the model adapted by newer console games. GW2 and recently TSW are both good examples of how you can build a game where B2P can provide a quality MMO experience with a slight barrier to entry. GW2 added a slight treadmill with ascended gear, but as it's not required until FotM 20+, I don't find that it bothers me.
All that being said, a game's quality is not determined by it's business model. Not all P2P and B2P games are good; not all F2P games are bad.
And cash-shops don't need to detract from the experience.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
If people are willing to spend $3 for a cup of coffee and $2 for a bottle of water, they're willing to spend money for anything.
Hop into the wayback machine... if someone told my grandfather (who's been dead for nearly 20 years now) that they would be selling coffee for $3 a pop, he would have laughed out loud.
Consider for a moment that the people who are promoting this buy to play mentality are the people who are playing the games... the developers are only giving us what we want. Stop buying ingame pets and whatnot and they will stop offering them.
Clearly people have more money to waste than they think they do...
Well, what do you expect? A year or so ago people were on here screaming about how P2P is "old" and the new, brighter future for MMOs is going to be B2P and F2P with cash shops. I remember the GW2 fanatics on this forum screaming P2P is DEAD!!! LONG LIVE F2P!!
Little did they know they were killing their own videogames.
Cash shops have ruined MMOs, absolutely - especially the ones where they slow down progression in order to force to you buy from the shop. Its sickening and ruins the point of gaming. Since where did gaming become about progression?
Older MMOS were about community, socialization, role playing and exploration. They were not virtual stat treadmills were it was all about increasing some sheet of numbers. Even PvP games like DAOC had a very strong roleplaying base and community where you were not pressured into increasing the power of your character.
And this cash shop is not only MMOs now. What about phone games. I just got a real smartphone, and I've been playing some of the F2P games on here. Its just like MMOs - you are pretty much forced to buy power up items from their cash shop in order to progress in the game. Its sickening and you would actually end up paying MORE in the cash shop for these games then paying the money up front to buy the game in a traditional manner.
For example, I tried out this game called "Inotia 4". An action-rpg style game where 2-3 hours into the game, the game becomes unbearably difficult and you have to prettymuch buy from the cash shop in order to survive, and these items are EXPENSIVE! We're talking 3-4$ for one sword. ONE SWORD. Really? One sword that will become obsolete in another hour or so of gamplay. Unbelievable.
Just imagine Diablo with a cash shop. Sound fun to you?
first off: they do that in p2p games to get naother month's sub out of you. sorry to bust your bubble. p2p games are just as vulnerable to greed as any f2p. look at WoW. box fee, $15/month, plus expansions (another box fee) every year or so. add in a skinner box to keep you addicted, and random junk to slow you up and keep you paying. yeah. that's just great right there.
How is publishing content greedy? What do you expect - what do you want? People need to be paid for their time,one way or another. People put hard spent time in making these expansions for WoW, they need to be paid for their time.
To get you addicted? What ever happened to personal accountability. YOU GOT YOURSELF ADDICTED! If you cant handle playing games and handle your time, THEN DONT PLAY! Its a problem with the player, not the game.
Its your fault for playing a game like WoW. Its was pretty obvious to me that when WoW released WOTLK that it was an endless gear grind. It was your choice to keep on playing. Period. End of story. Gear score? How could anyone put up with that nonsense is beyond me.
The bottom line is that people need to be paid and your vendetta against P2P is absurd. The big difference between P2P and F2P is that P2P makes it much more difficult for developers to exploit players. A cash shop makes it *very* easy for developers to exploit players.
secondly: no one ever forces you to buy from a cash shop. there's this thing called "not playing" if the game is truly p2w. you're like a carpenter who hit his thumb with a hammer, and is now complaining about home depot selling him the hammer. you did this to yourself. it's your fault. if you don't like p2w, then don't play p2w games.
And? So what? How did I do this "to myself"? By buying a F2P game and maybe hoping their cash shop would only include cosmetic items? Or perhaps they could make it where its not absolutely mandatory to buy items to power up my character?
And uhh, yes I do think there is this thing called "not playing". I think its called "uninstall."
lastly: take off your nostalgia glasses. the only thing that's changed in games is that you have begun paying attention to the hardcore elements of games. they've always been there though, i assure you.
EDIT: color coded for convenience.
No. *facepalm*
Its pretty obvious that games have changed. Its pretty clear to me that either A) you never played MMOs from 1998-2004 or You have played them and forgotten how they truly were like.
I've played a bit of SWGemu and its vastly different from most current games. It isnt nostalgia at all. Its the real deal. These games foster communities and a socializing player base. Yes, there is grinding, but there are clear gear caps.
I also tried DAOC Uthgard. The ultimate irony there is that they just made it harder to grind for XP, but it feels less hardcore than modern MMOs. Why? Because there is less emphasis on grinding by the community and more emphasis on enjoying the game, socializing, grouping and the like. "PUGS" don't really exist.
Implementation matters most and all cash shops are not created equally. It's easy to focus on the negatives (P2W, lack of content development in favor of the shop, etc) but there are some positives as well. As much as F2P gets bashed here, the reality is that the quality level between F2P and P2P games has greatly diminished. In fact, many of those lauded P2P games now are F2P. Without cash shops, the landscape would look a lot different, with far fewer games sticking around and an even bigger tendency for big publishers to avoid risk by giving us more of the same. STO, GW2, TSW, Tera, Lotro, EQ2, Planetside 2, and lots of other games either wouldn't be around or would have far smaller fanbases if the games didn't have cash shops to help keep them afloat.
Then there is the reality that by having a cash shop, many games are able to offer all their base content to players for free. Again, there's a strong bias here against so-called freeloaders but it misses the point that MMOs thrive on having an active playerbase. Speaking from experience, nothing killed my desire to play SWTOR more than logging into the game and having 30-odd total people on a planet I was questing in. Anyway, beyond allowing more people to experience the game and perhaps spend money in the store (or on a sub), it also means that players have a lot more flexibility than they once had. In a good cash shop system, players have a lot more choice of when they spend their money and what they spend their money on than on the traditional P2P model.
first off: they do that in p2p games to get naother month's sub out of you. sorry to bust your bubble. p2p games are just as vulnerable to greed as any f2p. look at WoW. box fee, $15/month, plus expansions (another box fee) every year or so. add in a skinner box to keep you addicted, and random junk to slow you up and keep you paying. yeah. that's just great right there.
How is publishing content greedy? What do you expect - what do you want? People need to be paid for their time,one way or another. People put hard spent time in making these expansions for WoW, they need to be paid for their time.
To get you addicted? What ever happened to personal accountability. YOU GOT YOURSELF ADDICTED! If you cant handle playing games and handle your time, THEN DONT PLAY! Its a problem with the player, not the game.
Its your fault for playing a game like WoW. Its was pretty obvious to me that when WoW released WOTLK that it was an endless gear grind. It was your choice to keep on playing. Period. End of story. Gear score? How could anyone put up with that nonsense is beyond me.
The bottom line is that people need to be paid and your vendetta against P2P is absurd. The big difference between P2P and F2P is that P2P makes it much more difficult for developers to exploit players. A cash shop makes it *very* easy for developers to exploit players.
I don't think that the addiction meant drug addict addiction where babies dies due to parents being addicted to an MMO. If I'm paying for a P2P MMO then I have a soft addiction where I stick to that one game even though I will constantly bitch, moan, and complain bout X game all the time. It's a continuous carrot on the stick.
Also I think both are very exploitable regardless of being P2P or F2P. P2P you giving 15 bucks evey month... that is an exploit when your content doesn't justify it. You spend easily as much if not more in a P2P than a F2P. F2P is more out in the open and not hidden like P2P. B2P is the best imo as it makes Devs strive to continuously push for quality, at least more so that P2P or F2P.
okay. you need to take a big step back and cool off. when you have done this, reply to this post and we can continue to have this discussion.
edit: if you feel the need to take this post as an insult or personal attack, don't bother responding. i would like to discuss this with you, but only if you're not going to tear my throat out.
okay. you need to take a big step back and cool off. when you have done this, reply to this post and we can continue to have this discussion.
edit: if you feel the need to take this post as an insult or personal attack, don't bother responding. i would like to discuss this with you, but only if you're not going to tear my throat out.
You think this is someone getting upset at you? Then you need to spend more time debating
Would you like me to pepper my next post with a bunch of smilies to make you feel better?
As opposed to a game purposely being made slow to get you to pay another month, or putting in a bunch of things that slow down your levelling or combat just to get you to sub another month.
IMO there are a number of f2p games that are better than many p2p games now.
The first time I played WoW it took me a solid week of farming to get the 100 gold needed to get a mount. Completely unfun, but the rest of the game was fun so I kept at it. When I did get the mount there was no sense of achievement, nothing special or unique. I will never play that way again.
No, it doesn't work that way. If a sub game slowed down game play to get you to sub again, it wouldn't work for more than a month. Maybe 2 if your not too sharp. And usually it's with promised updates/content, not game play. I've seen it happen. Back when Age of Conan launched, FC used to promise new content just after the next billing cycle (since it was near launch they knew the majority of their players had the same or very similar billing cycles) . It got to be a joke and it didn't work. With sub games, the drive is to make the game fun enough to keep you subbed. Granted I'm sure they have lots of tricks, but the point is, ultimately the game must be fun to play or people walk. Its the f2p games that have to gear the game play to drive players towards the shop because it's their only source of revenue. They literally have no choice.
Regarding your mount, I don't know about now, but back when I played WoW you couldn't get your mount til you were level 40, and if you didn't have 100g by then, it was your own fault, and if you couldn't figure out how to get a 100g except by grinding, again, your own fault. Given how easy it was to have 100g by level 40 and the ways to make that 100g besides grinding, it's hard to say it was a scheme to drive continued subs. If it was the risk of losing subs from pissed off players is too great. Its a much safer bet to just try to get them to resub because they like playing.
okay. you need to take a big step back and cool off. when you have done this, reply to this post and we can continue to have this discussion.
edit: if you feel the need to take this post as an insult or personal attack, don't bother responding. i would like to discuss this with you, but only if you're not going to tear my throat out.
You think this is someone getting upset at you? Then you need to spend more time debating
Would you like me to pepper my next post with a bunch of smilies to make you feel better?
yeah, condescension doesn't help either. and i didn't say "debate," i said discuss. "debates" on this forum are flame wars, and people not reading each other's posts because they just want to respond. i recommend a discussion, where we are both interested in hearing what the other person has to say, and begin with the assumption that neither of us are entirely right or wrong. you know, like something bordering on adults.
okay. you need to take a big step back and cool off. when you have done this, reply to this post and we can continue to have this discussion.
edit: if you feel the need to take this post as an insult or personal attack, don't bother responding. i would like to discuss this with you, but only if you're not going to tear my throat out.
You think this is someone getting upset at you? Then you need to spend more time debating
Would you like me to pepper my next post with a bunch of smilies to make you feel better?
yeah, condescension doesn't help either. and i didn't say "debate," i said discuss. "debates" on this forum are flame wars, and people not reading each other's posts because they just want to respond. i recommend a discussion, where we are both interested in hearing what the other person has to say, and begin with the assumption that neither of us are entirely right or wrong. you know, like something bordering on adults.
And I could easily turn that around and say that these posts telling me I need to "cool off" is condescending as well. See how easy that is? Considering I spent a good deal of time and energy reading your post and formulating a response to them, I expect a response. My post does not contain personal attacks. If you think it does, then you need to re-read them and...cool off?
You are wasting my time complaining about nonsense. Either respond to my post with a meaningful and well thought out counter argument, or don't.
EDIT: If you think my post did contain personal attacks, please let me know and I will address them.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Comments
I do. I was just having some fun being an ass there.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I get it that games do need cash, and cash-paying players should have some advantages. But not to the point of ruining the fun of the game. The enjoyment of every players, paying or not, should be the most important thing, not the amount of cash the pay-players spend.
Y'all are missing the point. With many CS games, you DON'T HAVE TO BUY TO PLAY, it is entirely optional. In games like Allods Online, which was Pay 2 Win, one had to buy perfume after level 30 just to be able to play (and it had a limited time which included all the time you were not logged in, so it always expired). It is another way to get people to play the game.
Many people are sick of the P2P monthly subs. If you geet the same amount of patches and new content with a F2P/CS and/or a B2P, as compared to a P2P, then you have a problem. The P2P companies are getting a yearly fee and you also have to buy the game. If they don't give more than the others, these games should die as they are doing it to themselves.
With a CS, think of it as giving money, willingly, to the company not have to pay for your fix.
ofc every MMO games have cash shop, but is it better to ruin the game of everyone else just to please the big spenders? The fundamential concept of business is to make sure every customers are happy, not only the customers who are paying the most.
I've played lots of games, yet very few have a balanced, or close to balanced, between paying and non-paying items.
Well, what do you expect? A year or so ago people were on here screaming about how P2P is "old" and the new, brighter future for MMOs is going to be B2P and F2P with cash shops. I remember the GW2 fanatics on this forum screaming P2P is DEAD!!! LONG LIVE F2P!!
Little did they know they were killing their own videogames.
Cash shops have ruined MMOs, absolutely - especially the ones where they slow down progression in order to force to you buy from the shop. Its sickening and ruins the point of gaming. Since where did gaming become about progression?
Older MMOS were about community, socialization, role playing and exploration. They were not virtual stat treadmills were it was all about increasing some sheet of numbers. Even PvP games like DAOC had a very strong roleplaying base and community where you were not pressured into increasing the power of your character.
And this cash shop is not only MMOs now. What about phone games. I just got a real smartphone, and I've been playing some of the F2P games on here. Its just like MMOs - you are pretty much forced to buy power up items from their cash shop in order to progress in the game. Its sickening and you would actually end up paying MORE in the cash shop for these games then paying the money up front to buy the game in a traditional manner.
For example, I tried out this game called "Inotia 4". An action-rpg style game where 2-3 hours into the game, the game becomes unbearably difficult and you have to prettymuch buy from the cash shop in order to survive, and these items are EXPENSIVE! We're talking 3-4$ for one sword. ONE SWORD. Really? One sword that will become obsolete in another hour or so of gamplay. Unbelievable.
Just imagine Diablo with a cash shop. Sound fun to you?
well that's just it... not any game forces you to buy something in the cash shop. Now that you mentioned GW2 - anet has a great cash shop. There's absolutley nothing you can buy in there to make the game "easier" for you or to gain some advantage. Hell, even the outfits which are offered in the cash shop can't be worn in combat except the 3 most popular armor skins which are taken from GW1.
If I were you I'd start playing games with cash shops which aren't trying to milk you dry rather than generalising and tossing every game in the same bracket with all the rest garbagase I've tried. :P
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
-------------------------------
I have no problems with a cash shop or free to play as a payment model. My problem with free to play is that most of them stop developing content in exchange for putting cosmetic items into the shop.
A few of them still develop the game but most don't once they go free to play. So sure they make lots of money in the short term doing this but the game still slowly dies.
This was my real issue with tera. I loved the game but with no new content and none in sight it got boring. The biggest thing going on there is a $60 maid outfit and what's new in the RNG box. I still go back and play from time to time but I wont spend any money on the game as it is and still get bored in a few days.
A sub forces the devs to put new things into the game or it dies even faster in todays market. They have to keep you playing or they make nothing. That's a good thing for the players, but something devs seem to forget.
first off: they do that in p2p games to get naother month's sub out of you. sorry to bust your bubble. p2p games are just as vulnerable to greed as any f2p. look at WoW. box fee, $15/month, plus expansions (another box fee) every year or so. add in a skinner box to keep you addicted, and random junk to slow you up and keep you paying. yeah. that's just great right there.
secondly: no one ever forces you to buy from a cash shop. there's this thing called "not playing" if the game is truly p2w. you're like a carpenter who hit his thumb with a hammer, and is now complaining about home depot selling him the hammer. you did this to yourself. it's your fault. if you don't like p2w, then don't play p2w games.
lastly: take off your nostalgia glasses. the only thing that's changed in games is that you have begun paying attention to the hardcore elements of games. they've always been there though, i assure you.
EDIT: color coded for convenience.
There are a few options. Either pick a solely sub game, sub to the freemium game (most have a sub option), ignore the hitches of playing free or spend what you would on a sub in th cash shop.
I try not to look at what the company is making but how much my entertainment is worth. If the game is quality and your time is worth playing it why not spend money? The far cry example is great. How much is far cry to play? It had to have cost something.
There are some F2P game models that have driven me away from the game for sure. Things like endless weapon enchanments where you buy items to make it possible to make way better weapons than the ones you could ever expect to get without them for instance or loot boxes that drop in the world that you need a cash shop key to open that contains 90% of the new items that dvelopers are making.
Having said that there are also a number of cash shops that don't bother me to much. I hardly notice TSW's cash shop to be honest and given the money I save over a subscription more than covers anything I want to buy in that game. I think Turbine and SOE's cash models are ok as well on the whole although both do have a few dark spots in them.
F2P is a convinence model not some community welfare project. The model is setup to lower the cost of entry and if done right allow people to trade time in game grinding as a alternative to spending money in the cash shop. People who spend massive amounts of money in a Cash Shop to rush the game is he eqivilent of buying very expensive cheat code magazines IMO.
People who say cash shops have "ruined" MMO's are taking their own worst preceptions and fears of those systems into the games and looking for reasons to hate them. You are your own worst enemy when playing these games by not so much as trying to see the benifits of cash shops and writting them off before you even give them half a chance.
@Ghost
P2P is dying. It's extremely difficult to provide an experience that people are willing to pay 15 bucks a month for. For every P2P success, there are at least 5 P2P failures. The issues is that the game must be designed for keeping players busy for months at a time between content releases. Ideally, your subscription should go towards CONSTANT updates on a monthly basis so that you are getting your money's worth...I think we know that 9 times out of 10 this is not the case. Developers instead create content that is time-gated to keep people in-line.
F2P comes with it's issues as well. Since there is virtually no barrier to entry, anyone can enter. These games almost always have ridiculous problems with rampant unabashed gold selling and bots. The community also tends to suffer.
There are "freemium" models in-between F2P and P2P. The one I think does it the WORST is SWTOR. The one I think that does it the BEST is TERA. You can look at each model and see why. The LOTRO model is a mixed bag, imo. I don't really like it.
Personally, I think B2P is the way to go. These have the initial barrier to entry of most P2P games, but don't need additional funds to play the game. The only necessary charge is for expansions. Due to the funds initially collected and from expansions, the cash shop in these games can get away with providing convience and aesthetic items that are not necessary for gameplay. This is almost exactly the model adapted by newer console games. GW2 and recently TSW are both good examples of how you can build a game where B2P can provide a quality MMO experience with a slight barrier to entry. GW2 added a slight treadmill with ascended gear, but as it's not required until FotM 20+, I don't find that it bothers me.
All that being said, a game's quality is not determined by it's business model. Not all P2P and B2P games are good; not all F2P games are bad.
And cash-shops don't need to detract from the experience.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
If people are willing to spend $3 for a cup of coffee and $2 for a bottle of water, they're willing to spend money for anything.
Hop into the wayback machine... if someone told my grandfather (who's been dead for nearly 20 years now) that they would be selling coffee for $3 a pop, he would have laughed out loud.
Consider for a moment that the people who are promoting this buy to play mentality are the people who are playing the games... the developers are only giving us what we want. Stop buying ingame pets and whatnot and they will stop offering them.
Clearly people have more money to waste than they think they do...
Implementation matters most and all cash shops are not created equally. It's easy to focus on the negatives (P2W, lack of content development in favor of the shop, etc) but there are some positives as well. As much as F2P gets bashed here, the reality is that the quality level between F2P and P2P games has greatly diminished. In fact, many of those lauded P2P games now are F2P. Without cash shops, the landscape would look a lot different, with far fewer games sticking around and an even bigger tendency for big publishers to avoid risk by giving us more of the same. STO, GW2, TSW, Tera, Lotro, EQ2, Planetside 2, and lots of other games either wouldn't be around or would have far smaller fanbases if the games didn't have cash shops to help keep them afloat.
Then there is the reality that by having a cash shop, many games are able to offer all their base content to players for free. Again, there's a strong bias here against so-called freeloaders but it misses the point that MMOs thrive on having an active playerbase. Speaking from experience, nothing killed my desire to play SWTOR more than logging into the game and having 30-odd total people on a planet I was questing in. Anyway, beyond allowing more people to experience the game and perhaps spend money in the store (or on a sub), it also means that players have a lot more flexibility than they once had. In a good cash shop system, players have a lot more choice of when they spend their money and what they spend their money on than on the traditional P2P model.
I don't think that the addiction meant drug addict addiction where babies dies due to parents being addicted to an MMO. If I'm paying for a P2P MMO then I have a soft addiction where I stick to that one game even though I will constantly bitch, moan, and complain bout X game all the time. It's a continuous carrot on the stick.
Also I think both are very exploitable regardless of being P2P or F2P. P2P you giving 15 bucks evey month... that is an exploit when your content doesn't justify it. You spend easily as much if not more in a P2P than a F2P. F2P is more out in the open and not hidden like P2P. B2P is the best imo as it makes Devs strive to continuously push for quality, at least more so that P2P or F2P.
okay. you need to take a big step back and cool off. when you have done this, reply to this post and we can continue to have this discussion.
edit: if you feel the need to take this post as an insult or personal attack, don't bother responding. i would like to discuss this with you, but only if you're not going to tear my throat out.
It is tolerated in Dead Space 3. In fact, it was the best selling game in the month it was released.
And if you don't like it, you don't have to play.
Personally, i see nothing wrong. If a game is fun without using the cashshop, i play it. Otherwise not. There are plenty that are fun.
You think this is someone getting upset at you? Then you need to spend more time debating
Would you like me to pepper my next post with a bunch of smilies to make you feel better?
No, it doesn't work that way. If a sub game slowed down game play to get you to sub again, it wouldn't work for more than a month. Maybe 2 if your not too sharp. And usually it's with promised updates/content, not game play. I've seen it happen. Back when Age of Conan launched, FC used to promise new content just after the next billing cycle (since it was near launch they knew the majority of their players had the same or very similar billing cycles) . It got to be a joke and it didn't work. With sub games, the drive is to make the game fun enough to keep you subbed. Granted I'm sure they have lots of tricks, but the point is, ultimately the game must be fun to play or people walk. Its the f2p games that have to gear the game play to drive players towards the shop because it's their only source of revenue. They literally have no choice.
Regarding your mount, I don't know about now, but back when I played WoW you couldn't get your mount til you were level 40, and if you didn't have 100g by then, it was your own fault, and if you couldn't figure out how to get a 100g except by grinding, again, your own fault. Given how easy it was to have 100g by level 40 and the ways to make that 100g besides grinding, it's hard to say it was a scheme to drive continued subs. If it was the risk of losing subs from pissed off players is too great. Its a much safer bet to just try to get them to resub because they like playing.
yeah, condescension doesn't help either. and i didn't say "debate," i said discuss. "debates" on this forum are flame wars, and people not reading each other's posts because they just want to respond. i recommend a discussion, where we are both interested in hearing what the other person has to say, and begin with the assumption that neither of us are entirely right or wrong. you know, like something bordering on adults.
And I could easily turn that around and say that these posts telling me I need to "cool off" is condescending as well. See how easy that is? Considering I spent a good deal of time and energy reading your post and formulating a response to them, I expect a response. My post does not contain personal attacks. If you think it does, then you need to re-read them and...cool off?
You are wasting my time complaining about nonsense. Either respond to my post with a meaningful and well thought out counter argument, or don't.
EDIT: If you think my post did contain personal attacks, please let me know and I will address them.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.