I have been talking about the wasteland effect that F2P has on communities for years.
The model creates a transient non invested player base with a tourist mentality, and this of course creates toxic no consequence behaviours.
F2P is terrible for communities.
F2P games are not something we should be celebrating
Indeed.
What is EVE's excuse then? Sorry, but you're basically using the whole "blame the parent" mentality. Sure, there are cases where F2P might create a disconnect, non-consequential environment where people feel less accountable for their actions because they can simply create a new account. However, the game type and attitude towards the game is not mutually-exclusive with the model. Remember that WoW just dropped the ban hammer on a metric ton of users (this past week or so) accounting for probably more users than most sub games even have. The WoW community is, also, very toxic. If you played WoW at launch versus now, it's extremely different. I don't attribute that to F2P, either, since you could see it beginning to turn even before F2P was really popularized. If I was to attribute toxic communities to anything, it would be the Internet. You are right that it's an attitude that there are no consequences for their actions, but that's bred on forums, like this, and other social sites where people aren't being held accountable for their words. Blaming it on F2P is a cop-out.
I'm not even sure you could measure this in any sort of objective way. First of all, there are so few P2P games that the sampling isn't even valid. If you did find a way to actually measure that, though, it might be interesting and you'd probably find very similar numbers.
I have been talking about the wasteland effect that F2P has on communities for years.
The model creates a transient non invested player base with a tourist mentality, and this of course creates toxic no consequence behaviours.
F2P is terrible for communities.
F2P games are not something we should be celebrating
Indeed.
What is EVE's excuse then? Sorry, but you're basically using the whole "blame the parent" mentality.
Are the parent's never to blame then?
EvE is a unique animal culturally because of various reasons. I never use exceptions to examine rules.
F2P isn't the only factor in creating toxic communities, I should have said that, I usually do, but is is an important one. A huge one.
Simply put, it helps to destroy peer policing.
I'm not even sure you could measure this in any sort of objective way. First of all, there are so few P2P games that the sampling isn't even valid. If you did find a way to actually measure that, though, it might be interesting and you'd probably find very similar numbers.
You say that we can't measure it in any way in an effort to discredit my point, then you end on telling me that we'd probably find very similar numbers, even though you clearly admit that you have no basis to say that, to support yours.
There are advantages and disadvantages to the F2P model. One of its greatest advantages is that it provides the game with a player base. As we are all well aware, an MMORPG isn't much of an MMORPG unless it has a flourishing player base. Unfortunately, that F2P flourishing player base comes with a price. And that is a flourishing riff-raff of players that includes everthing from cheaters and hackers, to trolls and J-off artists. It's like selling your soul to the devil. The payoff is eventually much more painful than the gain..
Because IMO it's a false statement. What causes good or bad communities is multifactorial. There are pay to play games with bad communities therefore to lay all the blame at f2p is again false.
edit - someone once said for every complex issue there is a simple easy to understand solution that is 100% wrong. This applies.
Yeah i agree with this. So sick of people blaming bad communities on f2p. I'VE played so many mmo's some free some with a sub. And there are bad players in every one of those games. People here need to stop with this crap.
First off the OP here picks one of the single worst designed pay models in the Western Hemisphere to support his point about F2p sucking: Archeage, which will be in business management textbooks in the future as a case study on what happens when you ignore localization and implement a pay system in America designed around Koreans who spend all day in an internet cafe paying per hour to play.
Second, most critics of f2p come from people who don't have a life. Sorry but its true, i know because I use to be one of these people. I was young, in school, had no job, no serious relationship, and no life. MMOs were my life and because of it i felt a fanatical amount offense at even the slightest amount of perceived "social injustice" in terms of any game that appeared to give people who could pay more an advantage. Little did I realize at the time, but that is pretty much how real life works.
Now that I am older and wiser i dont have the time to grind for hundreds of hours for some material or those last few levels which take forever. If I can pay for convienence for an XP booster or materials crafting pack, etc that cost a fraction of my hourly wage in real life, then why not? I just supported the game, made my gaming experience better and enabled a bunch of players who are f2p and will never pay a dime to keep on playing because, well, someone has to cover their server costs.
F2p is the natural progression of gamers growing up. The F in F2p still allows those who are younger to enjoy it and play it and use their time to progress. For the rest of us who are not teenagers anymore, we still dont like pay-to-win games, but pay for convenience (like getting gems/crystals to speed things up) is the only logical choice. Otherwise if u get rid of this type of system here is what happens: Adult games with jobs who actually pay money will go away, f2p gamers who pay nothign will stay, game shuts down = everyone loses.
From what I have seen, cooperative gameplay is good for a community. Competitive gameplay is bad for a community. Look at most FPS and MOBA communities, and you will find that they are generally very hostile. Look at (PVE) sandbox communities, they are generally very friendly. I find that PvP/F2P doesnt have any real effect on the community. It is mostly a result of the better performing gameplay aspects that determine the tone of the community.
MMO fans need to take a good look in the mirror and ask if they really want this invading their games for the rest of this generation.
It has nothing to do with what "mmo fans" want or like.
While I'm not a fan of f2p it does solves a few things for developers.
It keeps a steady stream of players going through the game as opposed to having only top level players and then getting a few new players who have no one their level to play with.
It keeps the game populated.
Because of this population developers have a chance to gain money "here and there" which (I assume) is profitable enough to carry the players who don't spend money.
This is why developers/game companies have f2p.
Of course, the other option is to make a smaller game that targets a specific demographic and hope that you get enough subs to carry the game into the future.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The community here ARE MOSTLY PLAYERS LOOKING FOR A FREE GAME TO PLAY. After all, if you have no money and your a struggling collage student, or a teenager where dad will not fork over the credit card.....Well, they have no choice but to play games that are FREE.
When our forum polls indicate that most here are over 30, I have have to ask - what data are you basing that on? Have you really reached the point of just making stuff up to insult people who like something different than you? If so, that's pretty sad.
Of the people interested enough to type often and reply to that poll, most, according to you as I didn't see this poll, are over 30. It doesn't mean much. The data is skewed by participation in the poll. It's not very scientific.
I agree with delete5230 in his assertion (admittedly my suspicion) that most visitors to this site are looking for a f2p game or at least something cheap, if not just the occasional free offers. I'd venture to say many of the accounts here are duplicates for the purpose of offers. To that formula, considering in the aggressive "lunatic fringe", well, any consensus concluded here amounts to just about precisely mud. Real contribution to these forums is composed of a few hundred, mostly recognizable names, and it's been dwindling more than growing. How many of those are shills or aspects of the development teams themselves? How many express opinions are based on mania or schizophrenia? We'll never know.
The "consensus" on this site means jack to me, as it does to anyone with common sense. This is just a business, reaping advertisement revenue fomented from the labors of completely external artistry, said developers. It's like a mutually beneficial (synergistic) parasite on the ass of the gaming community as a whole. You're going to cite that thing's word for anything? You might be in illusion land.
F2P is just one of the possible payment models. It can be good or bad, depending on how it has been implemented in the game. I never see it as the main reason why people don't play a game though. If a game doesn' t attract enough people, you might want to look at the development choices instead.
Sometimes I think that MMO development companies underestimate competition. As if it should be easy money. Even if they are the only game with a certain theme, it still at least has to be a good game. The latter is what is wrong apparently with STO. Star Trek is immensily popular, but still this game can't attract enough people. No matter what payment model they chose.
Same thing will happen with the zombie themed games. Most of them will fail right away. They are all grasping at the Early Access frenzy, not realising that most people don't accept that as excuse after they get bored with the bugs that take too much time to be fixed.
Most gaming companies just refuse to learn imo. Their first rules should be. Create a solid game and don't pull Early Access/Open Beta stunts, trying to sell too early copies of the game. You will just end up with a bad rep at 'official' release.
Why does no one talk about how subscriptions negatively impact gaming communities.
Oh wait they do.
Maybe its not so much the player model but a) the game itself b) you just have to find like minded people.
Some of the best communities I have known have been in f2p games; I have also known some very good communities in subscription games. Some of the worst communities I have known have been in subscription games.
Whatever the payment guilds I don't like I leave; people who annoy me I tag with ignore and so forth.
My take on the whole F2P thing is much more sinister. I used to work at a casino, and after awhile you notice addictive behaviors. I see the same pattern with F2P games. Players with addictive behaviors get trapped for some psychological reason into spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars to keep up with the other addictive players. Their not gambling in the same way as a poker player, but the gambler and the disturbed cash shop player still share many traits. Some people can walk into a casino and enjoy themselves; they eat, and spend a set amount, and maybe watch a show and enjoy themselves. The F2P market has attracted a hardcore group of players with addictive behaviors. They cannot control their spending, thus ruining their life and kill any semblance of competitive play within the game. This really needs to be looked into, because this is a serious problem not really being addressed by the writers of this website. and all the other gaming sites out there. F2P games should have set limits on what a player can spend a month. This would help addictive players and also keep the game somewhat competitive.
Yup you don't measure the genre by the worst examples. Some of the worst examples out there are sub (wow) and FTP (runescape) while FTP has great examples of friendly communities (Lotr, eso, gw2) and sub has (ff14)
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Originally posted by Bladestrom Yup you don't measure the genre by the worst examples. Some of the worst examples out there are sub (wow) and FTP (runescape) while FTP has great examples of friendly communities (Lotr, eso, gw2) and sub has (ff14)
Right, because eso and gw2 are f2p. This site has every kind of contributor. Who really cares to what the consensus amounts.
The community is torn on the game, mainly for a love of the trek franchise, but the F2P transition made the game into a much less competitve game unless you wanna spend money on the PVP ships.
So then spend the money, what's the big deal?
Why is it okay for one game to say "You can't play our game at all until you pony up some cash.", but it's not okay for another to say "You can't pilot these PvP ships until you pony up some cash."? Why is a game that doesn't charge an entry fee suddenly not allowed to charge for anything ever? It's a bullshit double standard.
This has less to do with game communities and more to do with blaming yet another perceived ill in the MMO space on F2P. The larger or smaller a community gets the the more cooperative or uncooperative the community will become. The only affect that monetization has on a game community is from the players, who live by the above stated double standard, whining and crying that some of the toys that used to cost them money still costs them money.
Spoken like a TRUE p2w scrub. Lmao, these are the type of ppl that call p2w "pay for convenience"
An utter joke, but the funny part is that most of the ppl that p2w usually suck ass too...haha I laugh at you my friend!
First off the OP here picks one of the single worst designed pay models in the Western Hemisphere to support his point about F2p sucking: Archeage, which will be in business management textbooks in the future as a case study on what happens when you ignore localization and implement a pay system in America designed around Koreans who spend all day in an internet cafe paying per hour to play.
Second, most critics of f2p come from people who don't have a life. Sorry but its true, i know because I use to be one of these people. I was young, in school, had no job, no serious relationship, and no life. MMOs were my life and because of it i felt a fanatical amount offense at even the slightest amount of perceived "social injustice" in terms of any game that appeared to give people who could pay more an advantage. Little did I realize at the time, but that is pretty much how real life works.
Now that I am older and wiser i dont have the time to grind for hundreds of hours for some material or those last few levels which take forever. If I can pay for convienence for an XP booster or materials crafting pack, etc that cost a fraction of my hourly wage in real life, then why not? I just supported the game, made my gaming experience better and enabled a bunch of players who are f2p and will never pay a dime to keep on playing because, well, someone has to cover their server costs.
F2p is the natural progression of gamers growing up. The F in F2p still allows those who are younger to enjoy it and play it and use their time to progress. For the rest of us who are not teenagers anymore, we still dont like pay-to-win games, but pay for convenience (like getting gems/crystals to speed things up) is the only logical choice. Otherwise if u get rid of this type of system here is what happens: Adult games with jobs who actually pay money will go away, f2p gamers who pay nothign will stay, game shuts down = everyone loses.
Completely disagree. I realize you said most critics so maybe I am the exception but I was always busy in school with work and 3 jobs and I still found time to play a P2P MMO and raid end game. It wasn't as soon as content was released but I still got there and had fun doing it in a family friendly guild.
Now that I am older and wiser I have even more responsibilities and I still play P2P MMO's because I can't stand F2P ones. They might catch my attention for a week or 2 but once I hit the paywall then I uninstall and never look back.
The F in F2P is misleading because as soon as you start spending money then guarantee you will start spending more than 15 dollars a month.
Your example at the end if flawed. First the game has to be fun and second the devs have to realize they will never hit WoW sub numbers and design their business model around that. If they do then they won't hemorrhage cash developing the game and then shut down/go F2P in 6 months.
I didn't say or imply there were absolutes. I said science is a process that is about questions and that when a scientist finds an exception to the rule they automatically review the rule and determine if it is still applicable or needs to be adjusted or completely tossed out.
Absolutely nothing about absolutes.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
What is EVE's excuse then? Sorry, but you're basically using the whole "blame the parent" mentality. Sure, there are cases where F2P might create a disconnect, non-consequential environment where people feel less accountable for their actions because they can simply create a new account. However, the game type and attitude towards the game is not mutually-exclusive with the model. Remember that WoW just dropped the ban hammer on a metric ton of users (this past week or so) accounting for probably more users than most sub games even have. The WoW community is, also, very toxic. If you played WoW at launch versus now, it's extremely different. I don't attribute that to F2P, either, since you could see it beginning to turn even before F2P was really popularized. If I was to attribute toxic communities to anything, it would be the Internet. You are right that it's an attitude that there are no consequences for their actions, but that's bred on forums, like this, and other social sites where people aren't being held accountable for their words. Blaming it on F2P is a cop-out.
I'm not even sure you could measure this in any sort of objective way. First of all, there are so few P2P games that the sampling isn't even valid. If you did find a way to actually measure that, though, it might be interesting and you'd probably find very similar numbers.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
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Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Are the parent's never to blame then?
EvE is a unique animal culturally because of various reasons. I never use exceptions to examine rules.
F2P isn't the only factor in creating toxic communities, I should have said that, I usually do, but is is an important one. A huge one.
Simply put, it helps to destroy peer policing.
You say that we can't measure it in any way in an effort to discredit my point, then you end on telling me that we'd probably find very similar numbers, even though you clearly admit that you have no basis to say that, to support yours.
There are advantages and disadvantages to the F2P model. One of its greatest advantages is that it provides the game with a player base. As we are all well aware, an MMORPG isn't much of an MMORPG unless it has a flourishing player base. Unfortunately, that F2P flourishing player base comes with a price. And that is a flourishing riff-raff of players that includes everthing from cheaters and hackers, to trolls and J-off artists. It's like selling your soul to the devil. The payoff is eventually much more painful than the gain..
Yeah i agree with this. So sick of people blaming bad communities on f2p. I'VE played so many mmo's some free some with a sub. And there are bad players in every one of those games. People here need to stop with this crap.
The riff raff chatters and hacked were /are just as evident in p2p so again no change
First off the OP here picks one of the single worst designed pay models in the Western Hemisphere to support his point about F2p sucking: Archeage, which will be in business management textbooks in the future as a case study on what happens when you ignore localization and implement a pay system in America designed around Koreans who spend all day in an internet cafe paying per hour to play.
Second, most critics of f2p come from people who don't have a life. Sorry but its true, i know because I use to be one of these people. I was young, in school, had no job, no serious relationship, and no life. MMOs were my life and because of it i felt a fanatical amount offense at even the slightest amount of perceived "social injustice" in terms of any game that appeared to give people who could pay more an advantage. Little did I realize at the time, but that is pretty much how real life works.
Now that I am older and wiser i dont have the time to grind for hundreds of hours for some material or those last few levels which take forever. If I can pay for convienence for an XP booster or materials crafting pack, etc that cost a fraction of my hourly wage in real life, then why not? I just supported the game, made my gaming experience better and enabled a bunch of players who are f2p and will never pay a dime to keep on playing because, well, someone has to cover their server costs.
F2p is the natural progression of gamers growing up. The F in F2p still allows those who are younger to enjoy it and play it and use their time to progress. For the rest of us who are not teenagers anymore, we still dont like pay-to-win games, but pay for convenience (like getting gems/crystals to speed things up) is the only logical choice. Otherwise if u get rid of this type of system here is what happens: Adult games with jobs who actually pay money will go away, f2p gamers who pay nothign will stay, game shuts down = everyone loses.
It has nothing to do with what "mmo fans" want or like.
While I'm not a fan of f2p it does solves a few things for developers.
It keeps a steady stream of players going through the game as opposed to having only top level players and then getting a few new players who have no one their level to play with.
It keeps the game populated.
Because of this population developers have a chance to gain money "here and there" which (I assume) is profitable enough to carry the players who don't spend money.
This is why developers/game companies have f2p.
Of course, the other option is to make a smaller game that targets a specific demographic and hope that you get enough subs to carry the game into the future.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Of the people interested enough to type often and reply to that poll, most, according to you as I didn't see this poll, are over 30. It doesn't mean much. The data is skewed by participation in the poll. It's not very scientific.
I agree with delete5230 in his assertion (admittedly my suspicion) that most visitors to this site are looking for a f2p game or at least something cheap, if not just the occasional free offers. I'd venture to say many of the accounts here are duplicates for the purpose of offers. To that formula, considering in the aggressive "lunatic fringe", well, any consensus concluded here amounts to just about precisely mud. Real contribution to these forums is composed of a few hundred, mostly recognizable names, and it's been dwindling more than growing. How many of those are shills or aspects of the development teams themselves? How many express opinions are based on mania or schizophrenia? We'll never know.
The "consensus" on this site means jack to me, as it does to anyone with common sense. This is just a business, reaping advertisement revenue fomented from the labors of completely external artistry, said developers. It's like a mutually beneficial (synergistic) parasite on the ass of the gaming community as a whole. You're going to cite that thing's word for anything? You might be in illusion land.
F2P is just one of the possible payment models. It can be good or bad, depending on how it has been implemented in the game. I never see it as the main reason why people don't play a game though. If a game doesn' t attract enough people, you might want to look at the development choices instead.
Sometimes I think that MMO development companies underestimate competition. As if it should be easy money. Even if they are the only game with a certain theme, it still at least has to be a good game. The latter is what is wrong apparently with STO. Star Trek is immensily popular, but still this game can't attract enough people. No matter what payment model they chose.
Same thing will happen with the zombie themed games. Most of them will fail right away. They are all grasping at the Early Access frenzy, not realising that most people don't accept that as excuse after they get bored with the bugs that take too much time to be fixed.
Most gaming companies just refuse to learn imo. Their first rules should be. Create a solid game and don't pull Early Access/Open Beta stunts, trying to sell too early copies of the game. You will just end up with a bad rep at 'official' release.
Why does no one talk about how subscriptions negatively impact gaming communities.
Oh wait they do.
Maybe its not so much the player model but a) the game itself b) you just have to find like minded people.
Some of the best communities I have known have been in f2p games; I have also known some very good communities in subscription games. Some of the worst communities I have known have been in subscription games.
Whatever the payment guilds I don't like I leave; people who annoy me I tag with ignore and so forth.
Because players want to play games and care less about the "community"?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Right, because eso and gw2 are f2p. This site has every kind of contributor. Who really cares to what the consensus amounts.
Science!
Completely disagree. I realize you said most critics so maybe I am the exception but I was always busy in school with work and 3 jobs and I still found time to play a P2P MMO and raid end game. It wasn't as soon as content was released but I still got there and had fun doing it in a family friendly guild.
Now that I am older and wiser I have even more responsibilities and I still play P2P MMO's because I can't stand F2P ones. They might catch my attention for a week or 2 but once I hit the paywall then I uninstall and never look back.
The F in F2P is misleading because as soon as you start spending money then guarantee you will start spending more than 15 dollars a month.
Your example at the end if flawed. First the game has to be fun and second the devs have to realize they will never hit WoW sub numbers and design their business model around that. If they do then they won't hemorrhage cash developing the game and then shut down/go F2P in 6 months.
There are no absolutes in science, VengeSunsoar.
Absolutely nothing about absolutes.
I'm sure you think you knew what you meant.