Gamescom 2012: SWTOR will sell statted gear, debating new planet monetization

[Purple]

Where you get this stiff competition from F2P games I have no idea, as far as theme park MMORPGs goes most F2P/B2P/Freemium hardly has a player base worth mentioning, the only once I can think of that holds a similar quality to the popular once are GW2 that isn't released yet and TOR that isn't F2P yet, the others I tried where either what I would consider poor quality games or just old to the point where it didn't matter if the game was good at one point as it couldn't compete with modern games.

I'm just going to assume you're not very familiar with the market in general. First off, yeah, there are very popular free to play, buy to play and freemium games out there. Second off, no, it wouldn't matter if there weren't. If you're trying to look at just one of them, or a few of them, for the answer to why they're a factor then you're just plain looking at the problem from the wrong angle. One thing versus hundreds upon hundreds of different buy to play, free to play and freemium MMO and multiplayer games is the factor you're missing.

So on top of there, yes, being very popular games of those types, you also have hundreds of them in general, popular or not, pulling people on all brands of direction.

Some of the most popular games in the world right now go by the free to play model, having numbers that dwarf WoW's subscription numbers in terms of the amount of users hitting their cash shops. DFO has an absolutely massive user base, and yet I still see people still dismiss it at some unsuccessful niche thing. Yet time and again we've seen free to play models be excessively lucrative, even more so than a subscription game. It's not a one or two or even a dozen or two dozen game factor, hundreds of buy to play, free to play and fremium games exist out there.

A subscription game has to do something special to compete, and to be blunt, most don't. And it's the height of arrogance to look at some of the non-subscription competition out there and think every last one of them cheap or lacking when many actual pack years and years worth of updates and content, even supposed 'end game' content, that a newly released subscription games so often lack.

[notorious98]

To be fair they were busy with the systems they should have had at launch. (Group finder, UI customisation, Server transfer system, Legacy etc). In theory at least, faster content might be possible now without sacrificing quality. I stress the word 'might', lol. We'll see I guess.

Trion put out a same server and cross server LFD tool during two separate massive content updates. Blizzard put their LFD tool out at the same time as ICC and 3 new dungeons. Can we stop giving them a pass for working on shit that shouldn't have been too difficult to begin with?

---------- Post added 2012-08-21 at 04:45 PM ----------

I'd love a list of all those games that went F2P that increased active paying players and revenue over an extended period of time and not only an initial boom.

As far as P2P being dead, WoW, Rift, EvE, TSW...

LoTRO. DDO. Hell, DDO dropped its first expansion this year. You must have your head in the sand because it sounds like you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Despite the points you win for Buddy Christ, you lose so many more for being so completely and totally uninformed.

[Hellfury]

Any gear is pay to win, dont be in denial ppl

If some ppl have X gear, and to get the Y gear, they need atlest Z gear, Z being the one in the store, then its P2W

[Edge-]

Any gear is pay to win, dont be in denial ppl

If some ppl have X gear, and to get the Y gear, they need atlest Z gear, Z being the one in the store, then its P2W

You're foolish. So if they sell gear with +2 to all stats, but the gear you can buy from vendors in game has +3 to all stats and is easy to acquire, it's pay to win? That makes no sense.

Seriously, think about it for a quarter of a second. How does the gear you purchase for a level 20 character have ANY affect on a level 50 character? Like, at all?

[RoninaThorstone]

Any gear is pay to win, dont be in denial ppl

If some ppl have X gear, and to get the Y gear, they need atlest Z gear, Z being the one in the store, then its P2W

So if i sold level 5 grey quality pants for 50 cents.

The people who buy it would be "winning"?

[Redblade]

I'm just going to assume you're not very familiar with the market in general. First off, yeah, there are very popular free to play, buy to play and freemium games out there. Second off, no, it wouldn't matter if there weren't. If you're trying to look at just one of them, or a few of them, for the answer to why they're a factor then you're just plain looking at the problem from the wrong angle. One thing versus hundreds upon hundreds of different buy to play, free to play and freemium MMO and multiplayer games is the factor you're missing.

As we're talking about MMORPGs I'd prefer if we stuck to those, comparing TOR with LoL for example is useless as the games and models of free to play don't compare. So what successful games do you have there, with numbers to back it up, lets say at a very minimum a year after going free to play (or launch if it's free to play from the get go), and by successful I mean retaining a higher population with a higher revenue stream, there is a lot of banging the drum for free to play claiming how successful it is yet most MMORPGs go free to play as a last resort to not die completely, something that would be a PR nightmare for a company if it doesn't kill them off completely.

A subscription game has to do something special to compete, and to be blunt, most don't. And it's the height of arrogance to look at some of the non-subscription competition out there and think every last one of them cheap or lacking when many actual pack years and years worth of updates and content, even supposed 'end game' content, that a newly released subscription games so often lack.

I never disagreed they need to be of good quality and deliver value for the subscription. Again I'll ask for what games actually have the numbers to show that they are as popular as any of the big subscription based MMORPGs that also retained their increased revenue and population for an extended time period after going free to play.

Only one I can think of would be GW1 that is a buy to play game from the get go and developed with that in mind, it's also very different in the end-game department which separates it from your run of the mill MMORPG.

---------- Post added 2012-08-21 at 09:28 PM ----------

LoTRO. DDO. Hell, DDO dropped its first expansion this year. You must have your head in the sand because it sounds like you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Despite the points you win for Buddy Christ, you lose so many more for being so completely and totally uninformed.

Not tried LoTRO yet so that's a last chance I suppose, DDO felt really old and as far as I can see it doesn't have the numbers to even begin to compare. There is so much talk but no actual show of evidence that it's widely successful in the genre, I know it's successful in other genres, I'm not questioning that.

Edit: DDO went free to play September 1st, 2009 has since had 14 updates where the 14th was the expansion that was released June 25th, 2012, that's almost 3 years to make the expansion compared to Blizzard that is well known for being slow with their 18 month expansions. On an update level that's 14 updates in 34 months which equals about one every 2.5 months picking a random update had this as far as content "This level 13 adventure pack includes 4 hand crafted adventures!" and some event, the rest was mostly changes you would expect to see in patch notes and new stuff for the store.

I would say it's not even close to be comparable.

[Hellfury]

You're foolish. So if they sell gear with +2 to all stats, but the gear you can buy from vendors in game has +3 to all stats and is easy to acquire, it's pay to win? That makes no sense.

Seriously, think about it for a quarter of a second. How does the gear you purchase for a level 20 character have ANY affect on a level 50 character? Like, at all?

So if i sold level 5 grey quality pants for 50 cents.

The people who buy it would be "winning"?

You call me foolish but where it says that they wont sell level 50 gear.

And whats the point of selling level 20 gear that gets replaced in a few levels, if there is a market for gear is level cap gear.

[RoninaThorstone]

You call me foolish but where it says that they wont sell level 50 gear.

And whats the point of selling level 20 gear that gets replaced in a few levels, if there is a market for gear is level cap gear.

I don't want to unbalance the game by putting things out on the store that somebody can walk in on day one, buy and be the winner. Having said that, there will be some things that we put out in the store that do enhance power value in some way, but not at the top end."

Even if its level 50 gear it won't be end game gear.

End game is all the matters in terms of "winning".

I bet they will implement WoWs leveling BOA gear for cartel coins.

And don't try and say that that's "winning" either. There is no ranked leveling.

[Edge-]

Here's the thing a lot of people seem to be missing, P2W games don't have a broad appeal. Based on the comments here alone, it's obvious (and well documented through market research) that the P2W model does not fly in the West (NA/EU). So the only companies that would be going for a model like that are generally foreign companies that have games with VERY lower development/operating costs that can get by with a small playerbase of people who spend money on power.

For the overwhelming majority of games, especially those seeking a broader audience like SWTOR is doing with its freemium transition, they avoid P2W like the plague. They just can't get people to play if their game is P2W, it turns WAY too many people off. That in turn drops revenue considerably since they now have a MUCH smaller potential pool to draw from.

Companies are smart enough to see this. Crytek has said as much with regards to how they plan to monetize Warface in the West, and it's a sentiment we hear echoed again and again by developers and publishers. They make these types of decisions based off of a TON of market research that they have on file from other times, as well as additional market research they will commission or conduct themselves for something like this. They're not foolish.

Yes, there's always the possibility that a game like this could turn into a P2W game. But then there's a possibility that a plane could crash on top of you randomly, and I'm willing to bet you're not to concerned about that.

[Deleted]

I really hope the raid on Belsavis isn't accessed from Belsavis so you have to load the planet every time you die.

[Purple]

As we're talking about MMORPGs I'd prefer if we stuck to those, comparing TOR with LoL

When did I mention LoL?

So what successful games do you have there, with numbers to back it up,

If DFO, being one of the most successful MMOs out there, period, not to mention free to play, wasn't enough for you - which I already mentioned - then nothing will be. I suppose you can consider that not an MMO, but then again.. I don't really care.

MMORPGs go free to play as a last resort to not die completely, something that would be a PR nightmare for a company if it doesn't kill them off completely.

You mean Western MMORPGs, and not even all Western MMORPGs, act like its a death sentence. The reality is, somewhat in the West, but massively in the East, free to play and buy to play MMORPGs have been a thing for a very long time now. This is not something new. This is something like running and old with hundreds of different free to play MMORPGs being out there on the market. Time tested and proven with games like Mabinogi running for years and years now, with no lack of content updates. In the end whatever I mention won't matter, mentioning anything is fairly pointless.

Again, it's not any one free to play/buy to play/fremium MMO that's the factor you're missing, and continue to miss despite this point being a repeat of what I already told you. The factor you're missing is that there are hundreds of them out there. The factor you're missing is that quite a few are long running. You're looking for numbers in one place when what you should be looking at is the whole. The numbers are spread out over hundreds of games that follow the free to play/buy to play/fremium models. Why pay a subscription when there are so many options out there?

Of course the biggest proof is in the subscription model MMOs themselves. They keep failing, when it comes to the newer ones, and only a few, mostly the older ones, still manage to keep it going. Only the rare nut keeps going, successfully, with the subscription model, see Rift, and they are the exceptions and you see it in how Trion handle their game. It's a start contrast to most MMO developers that hop on the subscription band wagon.. and then inevitably fall off. It takes an exceptional developer to make a subscription worthwhile, and, while I like Bioware well enough, and some of their games, when it came to an MMO, especially a pay to play MMO.. Bioware were not exceptional. At all. And I don't mean that from an offensive point of view.

Only one I can think of would be GW1 that is a buy to play game from the get go and developed with that in mind, it's also very different in the end-game department which separates it from your run of the mill MMORPG.

seven-million plus million in units sold, from the most recent article I found, is hard to turn your nose up at whether you personally want to count it or not.

[Redblade]

When did I mention LoL?

You didn't, I used it to illustrate a point that clearly didn't get across as you keep comparing non MMORPG games, apples and oranges and all that.

If DFO, being one of the most successful MMOs out there, period, not to mention free to play, wasn't enough for you - which I already mentioned - then nothing will be. I suppose you can consider that not an MMO, but then again.. I don't really care.

Again we're talking about your run of the mill MMORPG here like, you know, WoW, SWTOR, Rift, DDO, LoTRO you get the picture by now I hope.

You mean Western MMORPGs, and not even all Western MMORPGs, act like its a death sentence. The reality is, somewhat in the West, but massively in the East, free to play and buy to play MMORPGs have been a thing for a very long time now.

We're not in the east now are we, the fact is that games targeted for the east doesn't work very well in the west, they have different payment methods as well, just look at china and WoW, different mentalities so using eastern games and payments as an argument for western games is pointless, it holds no value.

Again, it's not any one free to play/buy to play/fremium MMO that's the factor you're missing, and continue to miss despite this point being a repeat of what I already told you. The factor you're missing is that there are hundreds of them out there. The factor you're missing is that quite a few are long running. You're looking for numbers in one place when what you should be looking at is the whole. The numbers are spread out over hundreds of games that follow the free to play/buy to play/fremium models. Why pay a subscription when there are so many options out there?

And again, if there are so many why don't you name a few that are western MMORPGs that has gone or where free to play from the get go that has grown and become successful as free to play, and again this needs to be after a year or so post going free to play as an initial boom is the be expected.

Of course the biggest proof is in the subscription model MMOs themselves. They keep failing, when it comes to the newer ones, and only a few, mostly the older ones, still manage to keep it going. Only the rare nut keeps going, successfully, with the subscription model, see Rift, and they are the exceptions and you see it in how Trion handle their game.

Well I could just as easy argue that the reason the other subscription games failed was that they just wasn't that good hence no one wanted to pay for them, which is a part of my point here, most MMORPGs that go free to play do so out of necessity to stay alive but no matter what if they dont' fix what drove people away in the first place they will lose any additional players they gained by going free to play in the first place, this is why I'm saying numbers after a year of free to play.

It's a start contrast to most MMO developers that hop on the subscription band wagon.. and then inevitably fall off. It takes an exceptional developer to make a subscription worthwhile, and, while I like Bioware well enough, and some of their games, when it came to an MMO, especially a pay to play MMO.. Bioware were not exceptional. At all. And I don't mean that from an offensive point of view.

I don't disagree although I do think they did make a reasonably good game with a lot of potential, a potential they then threw away, I also think that they would hit their player base at around 350-500k subscribers if they didn't' go free to play, something they could have grown on over time, now we will never really know and I personally don't see the game having a bright future as it stands.

seven-million plus million in units sold, from the most recent article I found, is hard to turn your nose up at whether you personally want to count it or not.

I didn't say it doesn't count, it is a different game though with a end-game focus on appearance and equality in PvP, there really isn't any pay to win to be had and the game concept lends it self quite well to the financial model they have chosen, obviously not a coincidence but a conscious design choice to go hand in hand with the design of the game.

[Razael]

I don't like the idea of Level 50 Previous tier gear being sold, people go to great lengths to not actually play the game. Which is weird.
That said, there is the fact that if you feel like re-rolling a char but don't want to replay all the content to catch up to current tier there would be that option .
Lets hope they don't cross the line though.

I don't play this game for Ops anyway so it won't affect me probably .

[Profyrion]

You call me foolish but where it says that they wont sell level 50 gear.

And whats the point of selling level 20 gear that gets replaced in a few levels, if there is a market for gear is level cap gear.

What?

No, seriously, what?

Neither of those two sentences makes any sense. Please try again.

Or don't because your argument is absurd.

[notorious98]

Not tried LoTRO yet so that's a last chance I suppose, DDO felt really old and as far as I can see it doesn't have the numbers to even begin to compare. There is so much talk but no actual show of evidence that it's widely successful in the genre, I know it's successful in other genres, I'm not questioning that.

Edit: DDO went free to play September 1st, 2009 has since had 14 updates where the 14th was the expansion that was released June 25th, 2012, that's almost 3 years to make the expansion compared to Blizzard that is well known for being slow with their 18 month expansions. On an update level that's 14 updates in 34 months which equals about one every 2.5 months picking a random update had this as far as content "This level 13 adventure pack includes 4 hand crafted adventures!" and some event, the rest was mostly changes you would expect to see in patch notes and new stuff for the store.

I would say it's not even close to be comparable.

Who compared anything to WoW? You're turning this into a completely different argument. You said that you wanted a list of F2P games that increased active paying players and revenue over an extended period. I gave you two. The point wasn't how long it took for an expansion to come out for DDO, the point was that it actually did. That means developer time, which means money. Money that only comes from revenue. The same can be said for LOTRO. They've released 2 expansions in the past 2 years along with other major updates along the way.

Just because you don't choose to see that this is obviously a profitable endeavor doesn't mean that you're right. Quite honestly, you're far from it and games like Runes of Magic and League of Legends would be in agreement with me.

[Uko]

GG went pay to win and I was semi interested in trying it out when it went f2p.

Warning: Post constructively or not at all.

[vizzle]

Ugh, this is the first time I hear of Elder Scrolls being a sub game. Sigh.

[Redblade]

Who compared anything to WoW? You're turning this into a completely different argument. You said that you wanted a list of F2P games that increased active paying players and revenue over an extended period. I gave you two. The point wasn't how long it took for an expansion to come out for DDO, the point was that it actually did. That means developer time, which means money. Money that only comes from revenue. The same can be said for LOTRO. They've released 2 expansions in the past 2 years along with other major updates along the way.

Yet you can't provide me with numbers that DDO actually is successful, I tried to find some but even MMOData stopped updating them after the initial free to play boom it seems. I mentioned WoW to illustrate how slow DDO was at getting a expansion out, I also gave an example of what content one of their updates contained, both combined was to show that it's not growing nor successful but seems to be kept alive around it's pre free to play numbers.

While I didn't play nor look up LoTRO I have yet to see any numbers of any kind that suggest that they are now more successful than before going free to play, lots of people say they are but really no evidence to back that up, the closest I get to any information on that is this which isn't 100% accurate, if we are to believe it they are back down to the same numbers as before free to play though, and I doubt everyone is paying in a free to play game so one can conclude that they are not growing, hell perhaps even doing worse if the numbers are correct.

Just because you don't choose to see that this is obviously a profitable endeavor doesn't mean that you're right. Quite honestly, you're far from it and games like Runes of Magic and League of Legends would be in agreement with me.

Well I'm in the SWTOR forum on a WoW fan site talking about MMORPGs, again I never argued that free to play in other genres can't be successful nor profitable because it's not relevant to the discussion at hand. Again, lots of talk about the success of free to play without any real backing, yet I'm the uninformed one that is "obviously" wrong because people say so.

[Iamanerd]

They, unlike you, most likely are. They've overpromised and underdelivered to an insane scale, and now they've even said they're seriously considering charging subscribers for content previously promised as free beyond the subscription. Looking at what people have paid through their subs from start to about now, they have every right to be upset with the current state and especially the outlook of the future. They've said repeatedly that F2P wasn't on the table, and that F2P couldn't deliver like they could (statement done under P2P) and couldn't create something at the same scale they could, but now they'd have you believe they're gonna crank out updates more frequently than they have (which was insanely slower than they had promised) before and with a smaller staff at that.

It doesn't take a tracking dog to realise it smells very fishy.

---------- Post added 2012-08-21 at 12:24 PM ----------



Saying they were too busy implementing things that should have been at launch, is -at best- an explanation but nowhere near an exuse, and that being when they had much more subs and a much larger staff.

That part you quoted was more towards the ME series and Biowares work on that, sorry for the misunderstanding but I do understand your concern.

[notorious98]

Yet you can't provide me with numbers that DDO actually is successful, I tried to find some but even MMOData stopped updating them after the initial free to play boom it seems. I mentioned WoW to illustrate how slow DDO was at getting a expansion out, I also gave an example of what content one of their updates contained, both combined was to show that it's not growing nor successful but seems to be kept alive around it's pre free to play numbers.

While I didn't play nor look up LoTRO I have yet to see any numbers of any kind that suggest that they are now more successful than before going free to play, lots of people say they are but really no evidence to back that up, the closest I get to any information on that is this which isn't 100% accurate, if we are to believe it they are back down to the same numbers as before free to play though, and I doubt everyone is paying in a free to play game so one can conclude that they are not growing, hell perhaps even doing worse if the numbers are correct.



Well I'm in the SWTOR forum on a WoW fan site talking about MMORPGs, again I never argued that free to play in other genres can't be successful nor profitable because it's not relevant to the discussion at hand. Again, lots of talk about the success of free to play without any real backing, yet I'm the uninformed one that is "obviously" wrong because people say so.

You want numbers that aren't published from companies that don't need to publish numbers. However, you fail to take certain pieces of evidence like expansions (DDO's, by the way, didn't start development until earlier this year and came out in June) and updates. You completely dismiss the fact that they continue to spend resources and money keeping the game around, putting out updates, and pushing out expansions because, what? It makes financial sense to continue wasting money on things that don't make money? Your logic isn't just flawed. It's Corky from Life Goes On retarded.

---------- Post added 2012-08-21 at 11:16 PM ----------

Ugh, this is the first time I hear of Elder Scrolls being a sub game. Sigh.

Actually, the people behind the Elder Scrolls MMO said they were going to open with a P2P model and transition into a F2P model. Why they think anyone would bother purchasing before F2P is beyond me.