So much for trying out Wildstar, if only they would learn from the rest of the MMO world. Subs are dead even WOW is starting to look to the cash shop for money and soon will most likely go f2p as well. Not everyone can afford to pay a sub and do not have the time that will be required to grind enough in game currency to buy it from others.
Originally posted by NoxiousBass No complaints here, the CREDD option is very clever, gives a diferent option to get play time AND kicking the gold spammers teeth in? Brilliant! I will be playing FFXIV for now (an excelent MMO) until I get to try Wildstar out for myself. When the time comes I have to choose one.
Many games have this, not exactly new.
And by many, you mean 2.
Also, where did he said that this is something new?
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
no more p2p for me. too many descent games already in the market as f2p/b2p, plus future titles like eq next, archeage etc as either f2p/b2p. so no, no more p2p for me
Originally posted by doug200463 Your gonna run out and pay 60 bux for a game you do not own, and in 6 months to a year, they will give away what you paid 60 bux for... cuse its happend over and over and over.. and people keep falling for it , there are more people who prefer f2p/b2p than there is people who enjoy a sub...
That''s like your opinion, you know. F2P / B2P with cash shops can give the devs a lot of fast money in the first months, but many people seem to get bored quite fast of the unfairness most of these "freemium" games have to offer.
Last "F2P" game I tried was Neverwinter, had great expectations for it but it sucked. Everything was P2W, even the mounts, which made PvP heavily unbalanced and full of whining people the whole time. The only good thing it was the leveling experience, which I enjoyed, then got to lvl cap and the market was dominated by people paying real money. No thanks, very very bad model IMO.
It becomes a nuisance when lots of basic stuff are P2W in a MMO: bag space, decent fast mounts, even the coin used in the auction house, etc. I know there're a few half decent F2P and B2P games but almost none of them have fully cosmetic or non P2W cash shops, which is a real shame and a huge lost of potentially interested players, in the long run.
I have to agree with Vorch, subscription games are obsolete.. idc if you can grind and buy time with in game gold.. still have to pay a sub... time/money.. Ill stick with my f2p/b2p games... too many good games out there that dont require a sub, to mess with one that has a sub.. plain and simple.
Tell that to Turbine and EA, their games still thrive on subs, sure the dabblers still play free, but those that enjoy the game sub and that includes a lot of the everyday population.
I think this is a good move, it tells the world this is no fleeting f2p game we are playing with the big boys. I really dislike item shops and the constant need to purchase from them.
For all the hoopla about the b2p model in GW, the game still almost requires purchases in the item shop to really enjoy it, hence it really is not b2p at all, just another f2p game that requires an initial investment.
uhmm.. Turbines games do not survive on subs.. Turbine has made it clear, that they make more money on the people who come in and play a few months spend a few dollars and leave.. are you blind, they said that there revenue increased exponentially when they went free to play...
Originally posted by djice So much for trying out Wildstar, if only they would learn from the rest of the MMO world. Subs are dead even WOW is starting to look to the cash shop for money and soon will most likely go f2p as well. Not everyone can afford to pay a sub and do not have the time that will be required to grind enough in game currency to buy it from others.
Wow is very old, and they will not let off the P2P business. They will be having P2P and cash shop. I mean, who in the hell is so mind fucked up, to give up on 3 millions subs in the west in this day and age period, just to lottery with the F2P?
About WS P2P. Well, I can't afford a X5 BMW. So what now? Of course not everyone can afford things in life. Get used with...
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Originally posted by doug200463 Your gonna run out and pay 60 bux for a game you do not own, and in 6 months to a year, they will give away what you paid 60 bux for... cuse its happend over and over and over.. and people keep falling for it , there are more people who prefer f2p/b2p than there is people who enjoy a sub...
That''s like your opinion, you know. F2P / B2P with cash shops can give the devs a lot of fast money in the first months, but many people seem to get bored quite fast of the unfairness most of these "freemium" games have to offer.
Last "F2P" game I tried was Neverwinter, had great expectations for it but it sucked. Everything was P2W, even the mounts, which made PvP heavily unbalanced and full of whining people the whole time. The only good thing it was the leveling experience, which I enjoyed, then got to lvl cap and the market was dominated by people paying real money. No thanks, very very bad model IMO.
It becomes a nuisance when lots of basic stuff are P2W in a MMO: bag space, decent fast mounts, even the coin used in the auction house, etc. I know there're a few half decent F2P and B2P games but almost none of them have fully cosmetic or non P2W cash shops, which is a real shame and a huge lost of potential interested players.
Opinion? Really? We will see... im going on experience... Burned on SWTOR, Rift, Lotro, DDO.. ALMOST EVERY GAME THAT GOES FREE TO PLAY REPORTS INCREASES IN REVENUE.. and thats what games are... a revenue stream... a buisness... people dont make games beacuse they want you to have fun and enjoy them, they make them, to make money.. and in a market DOMINATED by sub free games, a subscription based game wont be able to hold its own long... i guarantee it!
WildStar Online will not be Free-to-Play. It won’t be Buy-to-Play like Guild Wars 2, either. What does that leave, boys and girls? That’s right, you heard it here first: WildStar will operate via the classic subscription model, with a tasty EVE-like caveat Carbine is calling CREDD.
CREDD means that your real world credit card can be used, by web purchase and an in game mechanism, to gain game gold, but without putting money into the wallets of the gold farmers of the world, and instead putting the dough straight into NCsoft's bank account. Guys, this is a box purchase buy-to-win game, with a sub system that you can opt out of by gaining enough in-game gold. It is so NCsoft a business model, and they can still patch in the full-on cash shop later to make even more money for themselves.
WildStar Online will not be Free-to-Play. It won’t be Buy-to-Play like Guild Wars 2, either. What does that leave, boys and girls? That’s right, you heard it here first: WildStar will operate via the classic subscription model, with a tasty EVE-like caveat Carbine is calling CREDD.
CREDD means that your real world credit card can be used, by web purchase and an in game mechanism, to gain game gold, but without putting money into the wallets of the gold farmers of the world, and instead putting the dough straight into NCsoft's bank account. Guys, this is a box purchase buy-to-win game, with a sub system that you can opt out of by gaining enough in-game gold. It is so NCsoft a business model, and they can still patch in the full-on cash shop later to make even more money for themselves.
Couldn't agree more. No way will I pay a sub in a game that has the ability to "buy gold" from the publisher.
WildStar Online will not be Free-to-Play. It won’t be Buy-to-Play like Guild Wars 2, either. What does that leave, boys and girls? That’s right, you heard it here first: WildStar will operate via the classic subscription model, with a tasty EVE-like caveat Carbine is calling CREDD.
CREDD means that your real world credit card can be used, by web purchase and an in game mechanism, to gain game gold, but without putting money into the wallets of the gold farmers of the world, and instead putting the dough straight into NCsoft's bank account. Guys, this is a box purchase buy-to-win game, with a sub system that you can opt out of by gaining enough in-game gold. It is so NCsoft a business model, and they can still patch in the full-on cash shop later to make even more money for themselves.
Couldn't agree more. No way will I pay a sub in a game that has the ability to "buy gold" from the publisher.
But then is OK to buy gold from gold farmers hm? Say that to WoW's face. Say that to Eve, who's business model is almost the same as WS.
So, if WildStar is "pay to win" , then Wow and every other game out there, who has gold sellers, are also P2W...
Am I right?
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Wait until people figure out what happens in the elder games... and they realize that with this model, it is P2P + P2W. That is what will force a change...
Originally posted by GeezerGamer Wild Star is an NCSOFT publication. Just makes me wonder how profitable GW2's B2P model really is for them to abandon it.
learn to read and stop the baiting..
@But why not Guild Wars 2’s model, which has recently proven so successful financially for the other big western NCsoft release? To this Jeremy said that it becomes really tricky with a B2P game to walk the line between not stretching development costs too thin while selling the right things in the store, and keeping content coming to the game on a consistent and interesting basis. He believes ArenaNet does amazingly with this, but that the model isn’t for them.
If I pay for anything it be EQ:NEXT I liked there technology, presentation and innovation of the MMO genre, it had this wow factor, made me go this is cool and new, if they can pull off what they showed, it be amazing game.
Wildstar is not worth a subscription fee, at least not a $14.99 one, every new MMO trying to match WoW sub model and just fails within a year, if you lowered the price to like $9.99 you would get better results, at the end Wildstar will go Free2Play just like FINAL FANTASY XIV will in time, it will not survive.
Reality is I rather pay for WoW if I was forced to pay any subscription fee, and im sure most people feel like that.
WildStar Online will not be Free-to-Play. It won’t be Buy-to-Play like Guild Wars 2, either. What does that leave, boys and girls? That’s right, you heard it here first: WildStar will operate via the classic subscription model, with a tasty EVE-like caveat Carbine is calling CREDD.
CREDD means that your real world credit card can be used, by web purchase and an in game mechanism, to gain game gold, but without putting money into the wallets of the gold farmers of the world, and instead putting the dough straight into NCsoft's bank account. Guys, this is a box purchase buy-to-win game, with a sub system that you can opt out of by gaining enough in-game gold. It is so NCsoft a business model, and they can still patch in the full-on cash shop later to make even more money for themselves.
Couldn't agree more. No way will I pay a sub in a game that has the ability to "buy gold" from the publisher.
Buying gold from the publisher is extremely lucrative right now. It's probably one reason why some don't like Guild Wars 2 at the moment. Though to have a box + sub + gold purchase of any kind might seem to be a kick in a teeth to a lot of people, but it's still very profitable. Might even survive as a P2P game for longer than a year if this is the case.
If it's true then the word will probably get out, or some PSA will needed to be made. That said, it wouldn't be prudent to do so until we have all the facts and are sure we understand them completely. Maybe also just add to the warning for people to be wary of the possibility, rather than the outright fact, when and if playing the game.
Hmm.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
WildStar Online will not be Free-to-Play. It won’t be Buy-to-Play like Guild Wars 2, either. What does that leave, boys and girls? That’s right, you heard it here first: WildStar will operate via the classic subscription model, with a tasty EVE-like caveat Carbine is calling CREDD.
CREDD means that your real world credit card can be used, by web purchase and an in game mechanism, to gain game gold, but without putting money into the wallets of the gold farmers of the world, and instead putting the dough straight into NCsoft's bank account. Guys, this is a box purchase buy-to-win game, with a sub system that you can opt out of by gaining enough in-game gold. It is so NCsoft a business model, and they can still patch in the full-on cash shop later to make even more money for themselves.
Couldn't agree more. No way will I pay a sub in a game that has the ability to "buy gold" from the publisher.
But then is OK to buy gold from gold farmers hm? Say that to WoW's face. Say that to Eve, who's business model is almost the same as WS.
So, if WildStar is "pay to win" , then Wow and every other game out there, who has gold sellers, are also P2W...
Am I right?
gold farmers are not part of the game mechanic. They are something that developers have to deal with, but do not intend to be a part of the game and the game is not designed around.
EvE, Eve is its own unique beast, PLEX is a comodity that can be destroyed and stolen from other players, also, just because you have alot of money in EvE, doesnt mean anything, you need the player skills to actually use the things you buy, and even then you can have it all destroyed, completely negating any "advantage" the PLEX offered you.
Oh, the tears being shed here...makes me so happy.
Go Wildstar! It's like "ruh roh. Did the 'whales' win?"
Bahaha.
I guess you havnt learned yet... Your gonna run out and pay 60 bux for a game you do not own, and in 6 months to a year, they will give away what you paid 60 bux for... cuse its happend over and over and over.. and people like you keep falling for it plain and simple, there are more people who prefer f2p/b2p than there is people who enjoy a sub...
Having been burnt by b2p and p2p games in the past I will keep my money until they offer a trial. But as it will be freemium within 12 months I can probably wait.
Anyways, I do hope it makes it, but there is a high chance it will end up F2P or just die off. Not because it's a bad game or anything, but naturally a lot of people will go into it expecting the polish that WoW has now. Forgetting that it's still a new game. That's the biggest obstacle that comes into play when you choose a sub model. The biggest question becomes "Why should I play this instead of WoW?"
Originally posted by Psion33 I will not play games where my money is used to subsidize another F2P'ers gaming habits. No way in hell.
Well then dont buy Wildstar... i guess you dont understand Hype.. they hype the game up, you get excited and buy blindly.. and in a year, your hard earned cash was a waste of time, cuse they give away the client, and drop the sub... either way, you money is supporting more than just you
This is fantastic news! Now I just need to play it to see if it's any good lol. I was hoping that this would be subscription based to keep those annoying cash shops away. Whenever I play a game with a cash shop, it feels like a good portion of the game is inaccessible to me unless I pay huge amounts of money for things I should be getting as rare drops. That's what makes a game fun, never really knowing what you will pull off a dead mob, not what you can get off the item shop.
Games that are free to play are boring as hell. GW2? Yeah I played that for 2 months before I just couldn't bring myself to log in anymore. That was after getting two characters to level 80. It was a good concept, but the way they implemented it was terrible. A pvp server (that scales based on zone) would have added a bit of fun to the game. Having a holy trinity would have made dungeons less of a clusterfuck and made players more accountable. PVP was great... for about a month, then it gets monotonous. I never felt like I was working toward anything and WVW was basically Alterac Valley in WoW, with what seems like fewer objectives.
Rift was just a whole bunch of wrong from its launch. Terrible balancing issues, even though there were TONS of options available for spec, you were still pigeonholed into one type of spec for your role. Macro's made the game a one button spamfest for melee, and you'd outlevel the gear you could purchase from doing rifts per zone. There was no point to doing low-mid level rifts. There was no real innovation, aside from rifts which was poorly implemented and improved upon by GW2 and FFXIV. I recently played it as a FTP model, and while balancing issues have somewhat been fixed and macro's toned down, there's still a lot of unnecessary bloat and the same go fetch and kill quests that put us to sleep before. I have never been able to make it past level 45 in Rift. I don't know about the end game, if it even exists, but I'd venture to say the experience is just as painful.
Tera is also F2P now, but the reason it failed as a sub game is because of lack community, boring and repetitve quests, horrible pvp imbalances, terrible risk vs reward quests (all those group quests to kill the BAM's and their shitty rewards made people not even bother). The game was beautiful, and will go down in history as having hands-down the BEST combat system to date. If you can make it past 50 (the highest I got on a few characters) without wanting to punch yourself in the face repeatedly, then congrats. PvE servers are too boring, and pvp servers are just as bad. I'm not sure how it is now, but if you were up against a player just 2 levels higher than you, good luck fighting from the ground because a player without a million balance points will be on his ass non-stop.
Neverwinter sucked. I'm sorry, it just did. I played NW and NWN2 and this game is a travesty. One thing it has going for it are player created quests, once again it's not enough to hold my interest. While I do enjoy my single player games, I don't enjoy single player MMO's, which is what this game was most of the time.
I've played Lotro, AION, SWTOR, TSW (was great up until Egypt)... All held my attention for a few weeks to a month but never had a lasting hold on me. No F2P game has EVER held my attention or has given me a community worth a damn that keeps me coming back. They are full of kids and gold spammers and quite frankly I'm over it. Take me back to the days of pre-wrath WoW, FFXI, Asheron's Call. The games may be dated and pretty boring now, but they were fresh and fun and had great communities back in the day that kept people playing for years.
I'm hoping that Wildstar brings back the community I miss, and I think this business model will do just that. The only thing that's yet to be seen is can the game hold my attention? I hate telegraphs, but we'll see.
TL;DR Most of the people that enjoy F2P models are exactly the type of people I could care less to encounter in a game I play. And all F2P games out right now suck major ass.
Comments
And by many, you mean 2.
Also, where did he said that this is something new?
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
That''s like your opinion, you know. F2P / B2P with cash shops can give the devs a lot of fast money in the first months, but many people seem to get bored quite fast of the unfairness most of these "freemium" games have to offer.
Last "F2P" game I tried was Neverwinter, had great expectations for it but it sucked. Everything was P2W, even the mounts, which made PvP heavily unbalanced and full of whining people the whole time. The only good thing it was the leveling experience, which I enjoyed, then got to lvl cap and the market was dominated by people paying real money. No thanks, very very bad model IMO.
It becomes a nuisance when lots of basic stuff are P2W in a MMO: bag space, decent fast mounts, even the coin used in the auction house, etc. I know there're a few half decent F2P and B2P games but almost none of them have fully cosmetic or non P2W cash shops, which is a real shame and a huge lost of potentially interested players, in the long run.
uhmm.. Turbines games do not survive on subs.. Turbine has made it clear, that they make more money on the people who come in and play a few months spend a few dollars and leave.. are you blind, they said that there revenue increased exponentially when they went free to play...
Wow is very old, and they will not let off the P2P business. They will be having P2P and cash shop. I mean, who in the hell is so mind fucked up, to give up on 3 millions subs in the west in this day and age period, just to lottery with the F2P?
About WS P2P. Well, I can't afford a X5 BMW. So what now? Of course not everyone can afford things in life. Get used with...
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
1. Yes you can, since other players can sell a subscription to you for in-game currency.
2. Are you actually complaining about not being able to play a MMORPG without an internet connection?
Opinion? Really? We will see... im going on experience... Burned on SWTOR, Rift, Lotro, DDO.. ALMOST EVERY GAME THAT GOES FREE TO PLAY REPORTS INCREASES IN REVENUE.. and thats what games are... a revenue stream... a buisness... people dont make games beacuse they want you to have fun and enjoy them, they make them, to make money.. and in a market DOMINATED by sub free games, a subscription based game wont be able to hold its own long... i guarantee it!
CREDD means that your real world credit card can be used, by web purchase and an in game mechanism, to gain game gold, but without putting money into the wallets of the gold farmers of the world, and instead putting the dough straight into NCsoft's bank account. Guys, this is a box purchase buy-to-win game, with a sub system that you can opt out of by gaining enough in-game gold. It is so NCsoft a business model, and they can still patch in the full-on cash shop later to make even more money for themselves.
Couldn't agree more. No way will I pay a sub in a game that has the ability to "buy gold" from the publisher.
Probably lives in a region that doesnt offer traditional credit cards, or has cards that cant be used for traditional online purchases.
also as to 1, it could be argued that you would have to sub first, in order to get enough gold in order to pay for the next sub.
But then is OK to buy gold from gold farmers hm? Say that to WoW's face. Say that to Eve, who's business model is almost the same as WS.
So, if WildStar is "pay to win" , then Wow and every other game out there, who has gold sellers, are also P2W...
Am I right?
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Discuss. Reason. Society.
Become a Dragon. Take your world back.
learn to read and stop the baiting..
@But why not Guild Wars 2’s model, which has recently proven so successful financially for the other big western NCsoft release? To this Jeremy said that it becomes really tricky with a B2P game to walk the line between not stretching development costs too thin while selling the right things in the store, and keeping content coming to the game on a consistent and interesting basis. He believes ArenaNet does amazingly with this, but that the model isn’t for them.
If I pay for anything it be EQ:NEXT I liked there technology, presentation and innovation of the MMO genre, it had this wow factor, made me go this is cool and new, if they can pull off what they showed, it be amazing game.
Wildstar is not worth a subscription fee, at least not a $14.99 one, every new MMO trying to match WoW sub model and just fails within a year, if you lowered the price to like $9.99 you would get better results, at the end Wildstar will go Free2Play just like FINAL FANTASY XIV will in time, it will not survive.
Reality is I rather pay for WoW if I was forced to pay any subscription fee, and im sure most people feel like that.
Signature...
Buying gold from the publisher is extremely lucrative right now. It's probably one reason why some don't like Guild Wars 2 at the moment. Though to have a box + sub + gold purchase of any kind might seem to be a kick in a teeth to a lot of people, but it's still very profitable. Might even survive as a P2P game for longer than a year if this is the case.
If it's true then the word will probably get out, or some PSA will needed to be made. That said, it wouldn't be prudent to do so until we have all the facts and are sure we understand them completely. Maybe also just add to the warning for people to be wary of the possibility, rather than the outright fact, when and if playing the game.
Hmm.
gold farmers are not part of the game mechanic. They are something that developers have to deal with, but do not intend to be a part of the game and the game is not designed around.
EvE, Eve is its own unique beast, PLEX is a comodity that can be destroyed and stolen from other players, also, just because you have alot of money in EvE, doesnt mean anything, you need the player skills to actually use the things you buy, and even then you can have it all destroyed, completely negating any "advantage" the PLEX offered you.
I guess you havnt learned yet... Your gonna run out and pay 60 bux for a game you do not own, and in 6 months to a year, they will give away what you paid 60 bux for... cuse its happend over and over and over.. and people like you keep falling for it plain and simple, there are more people who prefer f2p/b2p than there is people who enjoy a sub...
Enjoy!
FFXIV it is. That made the decision easy.
Anyways, I do hope it makes it, but there is a high chance it will end up F2P or just die off. Not because it's a bad game or anything, but naturally a lot of people will go into it expecting the polish that WoW has now. Forgetting that it's still a new game. That's the biggest obstacle that comes into play when you choose a sub model. The biggest question becomes "Why should I play this instead of WoW?"
Well then dont buy Wildstar... i guess you dont understand Hype.. they hype the game up, you get excited and buy blindly.. and in a year, your hard earned cash was a waste of time, cuse they give away the client, and drop the sub... either way, you money is supporting more than just you
This is fantastic news! Now I just need to play it to see if it's any good lol. I was hoping that this would be subscription based to keep those annoying cash shops away. Whenever I play a game with a cash shop, it feels like a good portion of the game is inaccessible to me unless I pay huge amounts of money for things I should be getting as rare drops. That's what makes a game fun, never really knowing what you will pull off a dead mob, not what you can get off the item shop.
Games that are free to play are boring as hell. GW2? Yeah I played that for 2 months before I just couldn't bring myself to log in anymore. That was after getting two characters to level 80. It was a good concept, but the way they implemented it was terrible. A pvp server (that scales based on zone) would have added a bit of fun to the game. Having a holy trinity would have made dungeons less of a clusterfuck and made players more accountable. PVP was great... for about a month, then it gets monotonous. I never felt like I was working toward anything and WVW was basically Alterac Valley in WoW, with what seems like fewer objectives.
Rift was just a whole bunch of wrong from its launch. Terrible balancing issues, even though there were TONS of options available for spec, you were still pigeonholed into one type of spec for your role. Macro's made the game a one button spamfest for melee, and you'd outlevel the gear you could purchase from doing rifts per zone. There was no point to doing low-mid level rifts. There was no real innovation, aside from rifts which was poorly implemented and improved upon by GW2 and FFXIV. I recently played it as a FTP model, and while balancing issues have somewhat been fixed and macro's toned down, there's still a lot of unnecessary bloat and the same go fetch and kill quests that put us to sleep before. I have never been able to make it past level 45 in Rift. I don't know about the end game, if it even exists, but I'd venture to say the experience is just as painful.
Tera is also F2P now, but the reason it failed as a sub game is because of lack community, boring and repetitve quests, horrible pvp imbalances, terrible risk vs reward quests (all those group quests to kill the BAM's and their shitty rewards made people not even bother). The game was beautiful, and will go down in history as having hands-down the BEST combat system to date. If you can make it past 50 (the highest I got on a few characters) without wanting to punch yourself in the face repeatedly, then congrats. PvE servers are too boring, and pvp servers are just as bad. I'm not sure how it is now, but if you were up against a player just 2 levels higher than you, good luck fighting from the ground because a player without a million balance points will be on his ass non-stop.
Neverwinter sucked. I'm sorry, it just did. I played NW and NWN2 and this game is a travesty. One thing it has going for it are player created quests, once again it's not enough to hold my interest. While I do enjoy my single player games, I don't enjoy single player MMO's, which is what this game was most of the time.
I've played Lotro, AION, SWTOR, TSW (was great up until Egypt)... All held my attention for a few weeks to a month but never had a lasting hold on me. No F2P game has EVER held my attention or has given me a community worth a damn that keeps me coming back. They are full of kids and gold spammers and quite frankly I'm over it. Take me back to the days of pre-wrath WoW, FFXI, Asheron's Call. The games may be dated and pretty boring now, but they were fresh and fun and had great communities back in the day that kept people playing for years.
I'm hoping that Wildstar brings back the community I miss, and I think this business model will do just that. The only thing that's yet to be seen is can the game hold my attention? I hate telegraphs, but we'll see.
TL;DR Most of the people that enjoy F2P models are exactly the type of people I could care less to encounter in a game I play. And all F2P games out right now suck major ass.