Well for me there is no game that is worth a sub fee. If I have to pay for upcoming content that is fine, but let it be my choice.
Well for me there is no game that is worth a sub fee. If I have to pay for upcoming content that is fine, but let it be my choice.
GW2 major selling point is the World vs World. This has created very close communities on every realm with WvW guilds working together as a team against other realms. The only way i can describe it to Wow players is its like World PvP on steroids... its absolutely amazing if u like that kind of thing.
The rivalries between realms on each weekly matchup keeps the forums buzzing and the competition is fierce for realm bragging rights.
I play on an RP realm and we are very high in the ladders. Our realm has setup their own website and they have weekly meetings on Teamspeak with the top 20 -30 guilds all discussing the upcoming weeks tactics and progression. Consequently my realm has jumped up alot in population the past month because alot of people r moving to our realm to enjoy high quality WvW.
And just to give u an idea of number of players, we have 3 or 4 guilds with over 300 members. And they each usually enter WvW with around 50 players in an evening. And we are actually a low pop realm... go figure.
As far as community goes GW2 is much more like a traditional MMO because everyone on the realm is working together. Personal reputations matter and guilds rep is paramount.
So, those Wow players who checked out GW2 for PvE raiding content got disappointed because it doesnt exist in GW2. However, there is plenty of PvE content its just very differnet than Wow. And like i said, the top guilds r all WvW guilds not PvE guilds.
EDIT: here is a vid of a couple of Russian guilds on my realm (Piken Square) fighting against a German realm at aroun 2pm on a weekday. Check just how many players r playing... and bear in mind this is only 1 of FOUR maps which are all full up with players at this time.
Last edited by mmoc978ad45763; 2013-05-11 at 02:12 AM.
MMORPGs are like a relationship. WoW is a long-term relationship that I just got out of, so right now I'm not really looking for anything serious. F2P games let me fool around and have a good time without having to drop a bunch of cash up front or in the long term.
Free 2 play is still hard for me, I don't buy skins, buffs for exp or other stuff, pets etc.. I just don't find anything tempting to buy, so pay to play is still my thing I see it as just paying for all the content. Would be cool if some f2p had a subscribtion for all the content and a system where you could pay for the ones you want, sorta like TV packs.
I really hate when people bitch about 15$ sub but use 20-30$ a month on a free to play. Highly illogical.
Not illogical at all, in fact it makes more sense. A sub is paying for content regardless of what you get, you have no control over what you get next month, whether it's dailies or a new raid. The money you spend in a F2P goes towards things you want to purchase. You're paying for content that you want.
And in both scenarios, you're still playing the game and content is being added regardless.
It's quite the contrary actually.With a sub you directly have control over the entire game.You can easily make out if the game is worth it's fee and then enjoy the ride.
In a F2P you have control over nothing.You might buy only what you like but you're constantly forced to weigh whether you should something or not,because mostly there is no refund.Also F2P tend to add lots of small things to the cash shop over time,then again you're forced to weigh down options,should I buy this or not,is it worth it?Money is constantly on your mind.You don't know what they're gonna add next week,''Will I have to buy something again or not buy and sit there with envy cause I'm kind of tired of forking money''.
That's what F2P are good at.Making you think about money,money,money and less about gaming.You may control what you buy but your game experience is constantly bombarded with decisions about money.
So while you play your F2P and control your game with money constantly sub players can just pay a sub and enjoy the game fully for a whole month.
You say sub players don't have control over what they get next month,it's the same for you,you'll also have to fork out money to play the new content like sub players will have to pay a sub to play a new month again.
Not sure which MMO champion crowd is going to be in this thread, probably the "has a really cool hipster social life and only has 30 minutes a week free to play an MMO but is also in college so only has $10 per month to spend on entertainment" crowd but here goes. The subscription fee has NEVER been my deciding factor on whether or not I play a MMO. If I'm not playing it, it's because it either doesn't interest me whatsoever or it is a bad game. If I find a MMO that gives me dozens of hours of play every month which I find compelling, I will gladly pay a subscription fee.
My problem with FTP we are still waiting on a successful model to emerge. My preference, in the spirit of true FTP is the full featured game being free with a cash shop for vanity content. The majority of the players play free while the game is supported by the minority of "whales" who buy up the pets, costumes, mounts etc. This also compels the developers to actually make the game "good" to foster a community of long term whales.
What I dread is a $15 p/m MMO being broken down and compartmentalized behind paywalls to the point where reassembling all content together to get full access to all the features and content of the game comes to $30 p/m. You gotta know that's the model so many in the industry salivate over.
the main games i play that are b2p or f2p are LoL, WoT (world of tanks), GW2, SC2, and SWTOR.
granted LoL is a moba, sc2 isnt an mmo and WoT is an mmofps but they offer great replay ability and there is no feeling that i need to log in everyday. there is no gear treadmill i guess. you can play it at your leisure and not worrying about falling behind everyone.
swtor and gw2 are a little different but they still offer, in my honest opinion, good quality content an charge no monthly fee. if i can get my months worth of enjoyment out of these games and not have to worry about paying $15 a month then in 3 or 4 months when another b2p or f2p game comes out i can try it out.
i play a lot of different games and dont necessarily spend a lot of time on one. so for me spending money on a game one time is the best deal as i dont really know how much time ill spend playing it in any given time period. however if there is a game that i think looks worth the money i will actually in fact pay the monthly fee. in this instance im finding the pvp in swtor to be pretty fun so i actually sub'd for a month to see if it has any lasting effect. this would ring true if i found WoW to be appealing and while the story piques my interest its not enough at this moment
The thing is, you don't get the whole game. Blizzard charges outrageous sums for server transfers, recustomization, etc. More than many F2P games...and you still have to pay a subscription fee on top of that. Now in an absolute sense, $15 is still a bargain - that was the same amount we were paying for MMO's ~15 years ago. But in a relative sense (which is ultimately all that matters) it starts to seem like kind of a crappy deal when other games let you play their whole game for free except for the things you have to pay extra for in WoW anyway.
The "regular content" updates argument is also pretty much bunk. Wow has gone literally an entire year without a patch before, and 6-8 months is pretty normal. That's over $100 of cash for 0 content. Rift is the only sub MMO I'm aware of that actually updates enough to be worthy of a sub fee, and from my understanding even that has fallen away with Storm Legion.
That's not to say there aren't plenty of terrible F2P games by any means, but I have found that a lot of players who prefer the sub model don't approach this conversation very honestly. Even if you (you general, not you personally) love WoW, for example, you are actually paying a comparatively huge sum for infrequent content updates and various services compared to the industry standard. If that's worth it to you, great. But Blizzard is not pumping out updates quickly by any stretch of the imagination.
I buy riot points for LOL thats the only thing i bought in f2p games besides that i play gw2 and wow. Its nice while taking a break from wow you have other games to just play without paying anything too bad my pc is kinda out of date for gw2 and it lags a bit
In GW2 you can buy the "cash" currency with in-game gold too. All the items are purely cosmetic or boosts. So except the price for the game itself you can say that GW2 is completely free. In LoL you can't buy RP with IP. In LoL RP is for when you want fast access to champions or you need a service.
Free to Play is often muddied with cash grabs which bear no resemblance to what that is actually about.
Free to Play is a game where there is no playable content denied to non-paying players, only cosmetic/convenience items.
Because people are tired of paying a sub for a game that is no more fun than many without one. Wasting money is not fun.
- You can buy cash shop currency with in game gold
- You can buy in game currency with a credit card
While many are charmed and content with the first point, I find the second one far more interesting.
And even though I know I am beating a dead horse here..
If I want a legendary or BiS gear in WoW, my options are:
- Do the most challenging PvE content with 24 friends. Skill and brains necessary.
- Do the most challenging PvE content with 9 friends. Skill and brains necessary.
If I want a legendary or BiS gear in GW2, my options are:
- Sink a couple months of hardcore grind into the game. No skill but some brains necessary.
- Whip out my credit card and get everything in 5 minutes. Big wallet necessary.
Free-to-play doesn't automatically mean low-quality. There are a lot of F2P and B2P games out there that are high-quality and engrossing. Give it a few years; when some of the currently sub-free games have a bit more content under their belts, communities will grow more and content pools will grow as well.
Such a great simile.
This is getting a little tiring at this point.
Just to clear things up. F2P is not the future. F2P is the most successful model of today. Look how many MMOs use P2P and how many use F2P. Look how many healthy P2P MMO are on the market and how many successful F2P MMOs are on there. Even single player games go in that direction.
You might prefer Pay to play, but gamers talked with their MONEY and said that they want a more flexible system where THEY decide weather they want to spend their money(and where) or not.
People think they are getting a deal for pieces of a game until they realize microtransactions are costing them more annually than a monthly subscription.
"Hey I got paid this week. I'll spend $10 in the shop." x 52
I can't tell you who I am, but I can tell you who I'm not.
I just know that f2p or subfee means no difference for development and updates. Why pay more when you dont need to? I can as a consumer play many games f2p with good quality and spend my money on something else. Also why not try a game if it doesnt cost you anything? Take neverwinter now for example, I would never have bought it in a box and paid subfee for it, but when it's f2p I can try it, have fun with it for a while, and it didnt cost me more than my time.