[Megathread] Elder Scrolls Online

[Edge-]

On the other hand F2P brings veeeeeery bad crowd (of cheap people, people who love to harass because accounts are free, bots, cheaters etc). Usually it's pros outweighed by cons.

Those folks don't last too long, they're not too common at high/max level. Not really any more common than those in P2P games, in my experience.

And it depends on what angle you look at it from. For ZMO, more revenue and players is a big pro. Like, that's the only thing they're really going after. For players, it's a mixed bag. You get some more asshats, but you also get a ton more players to play with and make the world feel populated, not to mention more opportunities to make friends. There are pros and cons, but they're pretty much a wash from the player end, IMO.

[Kelimbror]

On the other hand F2P brings veeeeeery bad crowd (of cheap people, people who love to harass because accounts are free, bots, cheaters etc). Usually it's pros outweighed by cons.

This is a biased opinion and not grounded in facts or reality. Bots/cheaters exist in all MMOs in large quantities whether you know about it or want to admit it. There are a myriad of ways to prevent accounts used for spamming/botting, which is what many of the lesser restrictions are for. People or entities who do this 'professionally' aren't deterred by a game having a pay wall in any case. This is simply not an issue unless the company is completely oblivious or intentionall irresponsible with this aspect of managing their game....which isn't even related to the payment model.

Now to the most glaringly biased bit, which I'm sure is the 'real' point, is that you think 'cheap' people are bad. If someone wants to play the game without paying anything and deal with any restrictions that may entail that is their right. When you aren't paying for using a product, that means you are the product. In an MMO that is certainly the case.

[miffy23]

I don't get this not sub worthy BS after conversion they still need 12 euros per player per month. Not paying is pure greed as it makes others needing to pay more and/or zenimax introducing stronger stuff so they can get the 12 euros per plater per month they need.

It's not that it's not "worthy" of a sub qualitywise, some people just don'T want to pay monthly (or box price) for a game they don't know they'll play longtime or not. Like myself. I usually do subscribe if i stick to a game, did in at least 4 different MMOs for a time.

I just don't want to pay box price and monthly fee before actually getting further into the game and seeing if i still enjoy it.

[Tierbook]

Wasn't it just EB games in Australia? By this logic GTA 5 and Destiny are going F2P as way.

[Edge-]

Wasn't it just EB games in Australia? By this logic GTA 5 and Destiny are going F2P as way.

Right now, yes it's just EB Australia. But it comes on the heels of the removal of the 6 month sub (something with other games have removed leading up to their business model changes), which makes is suspect. It's also not in response to any kind of consumer petition like GTA V was.

Not sure about Destiny, though. It's not being removed from shelves (beyond excess stock being put back in warehouses last I heard, which is routine).

[Extremities]

This isn't true at all, especially at max level. Communities are determined far more by the type of game than its business model.

WoW has no more or less of a shitty community at max level than F2P games like SWTOR or Rift, for example. But a game like City of Heroes? Fantastic community throughout, even after it went F2P. FFXIV? Fantastic, super welcoming community (for the most part), similar to how the community in FFXI was.

Yes, you'll get shitty trolls at low level, but they don't stick around for long as they flit from game to game trolling away.

Im sorry buddy but I have to respectfully disagree with you on this.

I think 99% of the people on these forums would agree that a F2P game brings in a terrible crowd. That has been proven time and time again. I don't care if its at max level, mid level or even the low levels. It brings in bad people overall.

EVERY game will have its bad people, even the almighty WoW. EQ2 which I think has one of the most mature player bases has its fair share of assholes and bad people so every game will have its problems, that said, a F2P game will attract a lot more of them then one who has a sub. Typically a sub model brings in the people who legitimately want to play the game and enjoy it where as a F2P game, people will just make many accounts and dick around which brings in more and more idiots.

Again as I said above, a game being free to play opens the flood gates for more people to get into the game which is good for THEM from a business standpoint but bad for us the players because of the quality of players that flood in.

[Edge-]

I think 99% of the people on these forums would agree that a F2P game brings in a terrible crowd. That has been proven time and time again. I don't care if its at max level, mid level or even the low levels. It brings in bad people overall.

I'm curious as to how many of those people actually have played F2P games at max level rather than checking out just the starter zones and making a decision that because they're filled with trolly spammers, that the whole game must be filled with trolly spammers. Not to mention how many F2P games they've actually checked out, and where they were from (generic Korean import clones, or some of the big name Western ones?)

Typically a sub model brings in the people who legitimately want to play the game and enjoy it where as a F2P game, people will just make many accounts and dick around which brings in more and more idiots.

Sauce for this. I've found little difference in the player habits/dedication (amongst those that actually stick with a game) between the F2P and P2P games I've played (which extend to pretty much every major Western MMO). Business model doesn't determine the quality of the community from what I've seen, it's been the type of game. Again, I'll bring up how the best communities I've experienced have been in FFXI/XIV, a subscription based game, and CoH, a game that was both subscription based and F2P. The incredible thing was that even after it transitioned, the community in CoH remained largely unchanged. It grew a bit, but it was still the super friendly, helpful, welcoming community that I remembered from when it was a subscription only game.

Again as I said above, a game being free to play opens the flood gates for more people to get into the game which is good for THEM from a business standpoint but bad for us the players because of the quality of players that flood in.

Is it bad for players if it provides them with more revenue to better support the game in the long term?

Is it bad for players if it provides more grouping opportunities and a more diverse/vibrant community of guilds?

Again, I'm not saying that it won't bring some assholes, because it totally will. I am saying though, that it's rare for those assholes to stick around to hit max level, much less continue to stay there. Remember, once they've invested dozens of hours, that account becomes valuable, that's a ton of time (and possibly some money) lost if they get banned for acting like an asshat, which is why it's less common to see that at max level. At low level? Sure, because what's it to them if they have an account that's got all of 5-10 hours of playtime banned? But when you're looking at potentially hundreds, that's a different ballgame.

[Extremities]

I'm curious as to how many of those people actually have played F2P games at max level rather than checking out just the starter zones and making a decision that because they're filled with trolly spammers, that the whole game must be filled with trolly spammers. Not to mention how many F2P games they've actually checked out, and where they were from (generic Korean import clones, or some of the big name Western ones?)



Sauce for this. I've found little difference in the player habits/dedication (amongst those that actually stick with a game) between the F2P and P2P games I've played (which extend to pretty much every major Western MMO). Business model doesn't determine the quality of the community from what I've seen, it's been the type of game. Again, I'll bring up how the best communities I've experienced have been in FFXI/XIV, a subscription based game, and CoH, a game that was both subscription based and F2P. The incredible thing was that even after it transitioned, the community in CoH remained largely unchanged. It grew a bit, but it was still the super friendly, helpful, welcoming community that I remembered from when it was a subscription only game.



Is it bad for players if it provides them with more revenue to better support the game in the long term?

Is it bad for players if it provides more grouping opportunities and a more diverse/vibrant community of guilds?

Again, I'm not saying that it won't bring some assholes, because it totally will. I am saying though, that it's rare for those assholes to stick around to hit max level, much less continue to stay there. Remember, once they've invested dozens of hours, that account becomes valuable, that's a ton of time (and possibly some money) lost if they get banned for acting like an asshat, which is why it's less common to see that at max level. At low level? Sure, because what's it to them if they have an account that's got all of 5-10 hours of playtime banned? But when you're looking at potentially hundreds, that's a different ballgame.

Its not bad for them to bring in revenue to help support the game, that's why I said its good for them from a business standpoint. Its also good for us the player to have more players to play with because no mmo is fun with a dead server but from my own past experiences and a lot of my friends who have played mmos since EQ days would all agree that while f2p is nice to have because you can get in, it does bring in a bad crowd and as I said regardless if its low lvls, mid lvls or even into the higher lvls. The crowd is worse overall in terms of quality BUT I did leave the exception for Rift. Rift is an anomaly. The game is good, the community is good, the f2p model is good that said, another game that goes f2p could very well follow its tracks of being good overall. So while my past experiences say that f2p is bad, I cant say ALL of them have been bad, just a massive majority.

[Vexies]

I beta tested this and my first though was good, but not good enough for a sub.. ill wait for the inevitable F2P switch. As a long time MMO player thats played most major MMO releases what I tire of most is the "New" marketing scheme of money grab box sales and sub all the while intending to throw the F2P switch. Its just a bad trend period for the genre as a whole.

That said I am well over the Sub fee scheme and much prefer F2P / B2P games. Im my experience there is little difference in the supposed "community" between these games and Sub fee pay modes at all really. Negative people are found in all pay models.

Hopefully it does go the F2P route (so long as the model isn't ridiculously punitive) and maybe then Ill pick it up again but I just don't see the return on investment at all to the sub fee scheme any longer.

[Valeron]

I don't buy the bad crowd argument for F2P. The worst experiences I've had with the community in an mmo has come from WoW. More than any other mmo that I've played.

[Deleted]

After feedback about people getting 30 champion points regardless of level Zenimax made an alteration to the system. Every account can now get up to 70 champion points, with 30 being awarded by having a character on vr 1 and then 1 champion point per 200k xp earned, so that's 5 champion points per level. This can be taken for multiple characters with a cap at 70 per account.

[Rust in Peace]

I don't buy the bad crowd argument for F2P. The worst experiences I've had with the community in an mmo has come from WoW. More than any other mmo that I've played.

This. The WoW community is absolutely toxic. Conversely Guild Wars 2, a buy to play game, is one of the better ones; especially if you play the large scale WvW. ESO definitely won't be free they will stick with the box price if the game does drop the sub fee. I can't even really think of any examples of MMOs that are free to play right from the start other than Arheage and that game still has an optional sub that can be paid with in game gold.

[Valeron]

I'm not saying F2P is better than any other payment system but just that the community does not relate to the payment method IMO.

[miffy23]

I'll just weigh in again to state that I've played both WoW and several MMOs when they were still on sub models, as well as most notably LOTRO and SWTOR at max level under the f2p model - if anything, the max level experience in both f2p games was FAR more enjoyable in terms of the community than in WoW. Most likely due to the fact that under the f2p model, and due to the smaller communities, more people are playing that are legit enjoying the game than maybe in WoW.

[Extremities]

I don't buy the bad crowd argument for F2P. The worst experiences I've had with the community in an mmo has come from WoW. More than any other mmo that I've played.

Then you my friend, must have not played very many f2p mmos or if you have, have not paid attention to your surroundings and the people. That's not to say that a sub game wont have its fair of issues and assholes either but youll experience far more asshats in a f2p game then a sub.

Than again, our experiences might be entirely different so there's no real argument to be had. Different strokes for different folks. Either way, hope the games you and everyone play are fun to them!

[Silver Forte]

It was actually 67% off during Steam's winter sale at one point.

Got Imperial Edition for 20 dollars on greenman gaming.

[Valeron]

Then you my friend, must have not played very many f2p mmos or if you have, have not paid attention to your surroundings and the people. That's not to say that a sub game wont have its fair of issues and assholes either but youll experience far more asshats in a f2p game then a sub.

You want me to list the mmos I've played? Actually I'll just give you a link and I've played at least half of the games on that list

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm

[Kelimbror]

Then you my friend, must have not played very many f2p mmos or if you have, have not paid attention to your surroundings and the people.

No true Scotsman.

Additionally, most of the people you are arguing with have played almost every localized MMO out there and non localized ones with proxies and betas. You're simply wrong and have no data to even attempt to back up your claim. It's simply not true.

If your response to that is how many anecdotal bad experiences you have in F2P games, there is another common factor there....you.

[Tierbook]

As far as the champion system goes they changed acquisition a bit so that you get 5 points per VR up to 70 points and 1 VR per 200k exp between VR's

[Gray_Matter]

That has been proven time and time again.

Could you provide me a link to this proof. I interested in reading it.