Why so much enthusiasm for F2P basis for MMOs?

[Thelxi]

... Or whip out your credit card to buy ingame gold to use on the RMAH or to buy a BoE BiS item from the AH or to pay a raidguild to boost you through a raiddungeon where you get all the loot.

Been there, done that.

Good luck with that

[Deleted]

to my friends who dont play wow and or buy other games, its one simple reason. no money cost, doesnt matter if a paid one is superior.

also most of them are far richer than me..not counting the fact that i spend ££ on games.

[stellvia]

Anytime, the last two years, when I've seen a new MMO and also seen it has a monthly fee I've always said "Yeah... no, this game will not last and it will drop the monthly fee within a very short time". It's just the way the market is moving it seems, F2P is here to stay. With WoW beign the exception. If Star Wars can't make it work, Elder Scrolls nor any other franchise will make it work.

I think this is a bit of a logical fallacy. MOST MMOs fail horribly, honestly. It's just that now instead of closing entirely, they tend to switch over to F2P to recuperate more of the investment.

Star Wars didn't "make it work" because they made a bad game. It had nothing to do with going sub vs F2P. They made a ton of really bad design decisions and paid for it, no pun intended. They chose an engine that was still in beta that the developers of which warned them against using it for an MMO. Their pvp and token system for it was incredibly poorly designed and obtuse. The whole way things operated at L50 for dailies, no matchmaking system for dungeons, needing to waste time camping out at the Fleet to do anything, needing 90mins to complete a single dungeon, etc.

And IMHO there is just a large amount of burnout amongst MMO players for derivative games designed to be similar to WoW.

The next MMO(s) to succeed are going to have to by hybrid ones that have a strong amount of sandbox things to do on top of theme park events.

[Zeek Daniels]

Preface: I'm not against F2P. There are situations and cases for both.

Why is there so much support for F2P like it's the next greatest thing ever?

Certainly there have been a large glut of derivative MMOs that should never have launched with a subscription when they couldn't support regular content updates, nor had the polish in the game to warrant players attention. But on the flipside of that -- my perception of 99% of F2P MMOs has not been a good one. They're either designed to sabotage gameplay to push for item store sales, or are generally of rather sparse features, low quality, and highly derivative in nature. Or they're failed sub MMOs that get retooled to increase revenues.

IMHO the best F2P ones I've found on rare occasion, are the ones that offer a "sub fee" that basically eliminates all the bad stuff about F2P. Unfortunately they still tend to be slower in content releases than regular MMOs. Like, one of my favorite F2Ps was Mabinogi. I probably spent about $20-25/mo on that. $15 got you the "premium status" which was basically a monthly sub that removed all the annoying time sinks tied to F2P. And then I paid for a rebirth of my character every 3 weeks to level faster.

I would much rather just pay a monthly fee and know I'm getting the whole game and not have to worry about where I'm being nickel and dimed at. I think the issue still is just that WoW was so dominant and had such polish, that people saw anything else with a sub as not nearly stacking up to the level of features it offered. With the decline of WoW over the next several years, we may finally see other games able to make their way with subs, or at least a hybrid system of offering both right off the bat in a sensible manner that doesn't seed misery into the gameplay without it.

When looking for a good f2p MMO your looking for one that doesnt require you to buy anything to enjoy yourself in game. Thats what attracts most people the others love buying things for money. One thing WoW doesnt do is let you buy things for money. F2P MMO's offer that kind of service. Its kind of like having a year membership at some restaurant but only getting served the same thing over and over again, where as someone who doesnt have the membership can buy what ever they want.

[stellvia]

GW2 major selling point is the World vs World.
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.

I used to play Dark Age of Camelot at release. That was the original 600 person pvp blob battles What is that video trying to show other than massive aoe zerging? (Rhetorical question, since this is going offtopic, just drop it)

[Airlick]

If you think P2P games are a thing of the past, you haven't seen Wildstar. Granted, the business model of this game was not yet revealed, but for what it's going to offer, there's no way it won't be P2P, or at the very least, B2P with optional sub. Many people are bored to death with WoW, and Wildstar is going to bring fresh air into the genre if at least half of what's said about it happens to be true.

There's also TES:O, which is surely going to have loads of people paying sub even if the game itself is bad.

IMO, B2P with optional sub and well designed cash shop is the best business model for the upcoming top shelf games, though they COULD also be successful as P2P.

[Deleted]

I don't like F2P models for mmo's at all, I'd rather pay a monthly fee.

[Rorillane]

Casuals like their free to play games. Kinda just like getting the Sims, logging in once a week, do your thing have some fun when you're bored, then get off. Spend 5$ getting some goodies, and go on.

Thing is, games like that are stupid boring to people who play on a daily basis, not even for long hours.
Games like that have no content, they have no grand community, theres no sense of competing against other players because they're never on anyways. You're just playing a game that has other people in a world, thus dubbed the MMO. But part of that experience is striving to stick out amongst them.

A f2p game is no different than the sleezy games you buy on the appstore for a kindle or something. It can keep your attention for 30 minutes, its free to play, youll come back to probably, and pay for your goodies if you want them.
But its boring in the end, and lacks real content and game play.


F2P games are just the filler games out there, meant to suck up the extra money floating around from people that just don't know why they play video games or what they want.

B2P will always offer the best service and the leading model for a game, even after WoW dies. There will be no game that compares to a good B2P. F2P is just bottomfeeder stuff.

[Arrowstormen]

Casuals like their free to play games. Kinda just like getting the Sims, logging in once a week, do your thing have some fun when you're bored, then get off. Spend 5$ getting some goodies, and go on.

Thing is, games like that are stupid boring to people who play on a daily basis, not even for long hours.
Games like that have no content, they have no grand community, theres no sense of competing against other players because they're never on anyways. You're just playing a game that has other people in a world, thus dubbed the MMO. But part of that experience is striving to stick out amongst them.

A f2p game is no different than the sleezy games you buy on the appstore for a kindle or something. It can keep your attention for 30 minutes, its free to play, youll come back to probably, and pay for your goodies if you want them.
But its boring in the end, and lacks real content and game play.


F2P games are just the filler games out there, meant to suck up the extra money floating around from people that just don't know why they play video games or what they want.

B2P will always offer the best service and the leading model for a game, even after WoW dies. There will be no game that compares to a good B2P. F2P is just bottomfeeder stuff.

WoW is P2P, GW2 is B2P. P2P needs to die with WoW, item stores is the future.

[wariofan1]

Because people don't want to use their money, it's that simple. Many F2P games end up being Pay2Win games though, so often people won't spare their money either way.

[Arrowstormen]

You can play F2P titles with more people at any time. Buying a game and having to pay for gametime on top of that is ridiculous, and that limits the amount of people you can play with.

They allow you to quit and come back at any time. Pay once to play are great too, but are still asking you for money before you even try it.

I'll rather pay to be cute than pay for gametime. Its better.


Yeah the only reason why people dislike F2P is because it often becomes P2W. As long as you are not required to pay to be relevant to the game, it is a fine game.

Doesn't every media, book, movie, and game ask you for money before you try it? Unless you pirate it all?

[hiragana]

I prefer f2p since i can just jump into it and try it out whenever i want. Ive been unsubbed from wow for a while now but i would occasionally like to do some low level dungeons or such on a whim, to do that i need to pay £8.99 which means that i will feel i have to play atleast more than a few hours to get my moneys worth. Ofcourse after id done some low level dunegons id probably want to do something else and stick around anyway, but its just that initial barrier of having to pay that stops me from doing it.

I'm pretty sure any future mmos i play will be b2p or f2p, like someone else said i just dont like the feeling that im renting a game, when ive put so much time and effort into it i want to be able to play whenever i want without thinking "am i getting my moneys worth".

[Fencers]

Why is there so much support for F2P like it's the next greatest thing ever?

It's partly economics and partly psychology. The turn-offs with subscription or B2P models are commitment.

There are many people who don't want to be locked into what is essentially a lease w/ sub based games. Or a paywall in the case of B2P games.

Ala carte gaming is a more attractive offer.

[Deadite]

If Star Wars can't make it work, Elder Scrolls nor any other franchise will make it work.

To be fair to Star Wars people always seemed to lump in every Star Wars fan in the world when they talk about the mmo. Going out on a limb here but off the billion Star Wars fans in the world 90% of the are movie fans. Good Star Wars games are few and far between. So as a franchise it would not bring as many people to the game as most people seem to think.

Elder Scrolls on the other hand is a game franchise and i fully expect it to launch with millions of people. As always it will come down to retention after the launch. People seem to forget that most big games these days launch with more than WOW did at launch. You cant compare wow numbers now with anything. They have had years and are in every region on the planet nearly. For any game to be 'The Next WOW' it will take years and they will have to be successful on every region on the planet nearly. Its a marathon not the sprint people seem to think it is.

As to why F2P mmos are a big thing now. I have to say it is simply down to quality. No longer are free mmos heaps of shit. A good few of them are well made and play well. They are fun and engaging. While still applicable in a good few of the F2P games the 'Free = Shit' is no longer a universal truth. We have plenty of diamonds out there now.

[Deleted]

Because F2P mmo's don't view their subscribers as milking cows, they are free and still provide superior content, if the development team doesn't develop fun content then they lose their income much faster then a subscription MMO and because subscription based MMO's are not worth the monthly investment for most people.

[Volitar]

I much prefer buying games and paying a sub compared to f2p. Sure f2p is easier to get into and try but in the long run you probably spend more money in the cash shop than you would in the game.

example I bought Heroes of Newerth for 30$ and I have a legacy account, I get every hero that they will ever make for free. Now I've tried to get into LoL seeing as it is the more popular game and more of my friends play that but oh god is it awful. Everyweek you have to choose from 5 random Heroes, you can't even test out all the heros in practise mode to see if you like them you just have to buy the ones you've played before on free weeks or take a shot in the dark.

also the majority of games I've run into with a cashshop are what I would call "pay to win cashgrab bs".

... Or whip out your credit card to buy ingame gold to use on the RMAH or to buy a BoE BiS item from the AH or to pay a raidguild to boost you through a raiddungeon where you get all the loot.

Been there, done that.

You could apply that logic to every game.

[Deleted]

I used to play Dark Age of Camelot at release. That was the original 600 person pvp blob battles What is that video trying to show other than massive aoe zerging? (Rhetorical question, since this is going offtopic, just drop it)

considering ur asking the appeal of F2P games its totally on topic why GW2 is attracting such a massive amount of MMO players.

Like i said, that vid is at mid afternoon on a weekday, there are 3-5 guilds teamed up on one realm fighting against over 100+ players from another realm. Each WvW matchup has 3 realms fighting over 4 massive battlegrounds which are permanently open. That fight is on only one of those maps. I would estimate that each realm must have AT LEAST 1,000 players online during the daytimes weekdays and it goes up to around 5,000-10,000 in the evenings per realm depending on the population of your realm.

Im on a lowpop GW2 realm and we only get around 3,000 - 5,000 online in the evenings... do u really think Wow lowpop realms have these numbers?

Sure, it looks like zerging but when u bear in mind that what ur watching is 3-5 guild teams who are each on Vent (or teamspeak) in their own guild chat organising their tactics with a leader calling the moves. Then hopefully u can see it is actually extremely organised and the top WvW guilds r very skillful indded at manoeuvreing their squads around.

Like i said, the major appeal of GW2 is the WvW gameplay which is worlds ahead of every other game out there for tactical PvP. U either love it or hate it, simple.

[Deleted]

I feel that the F2P model can go in a very wrong direction. SWToR is a perfect example, basicly from level 1 you are restricted and I think around level 8-12 you are restricted in so many ways that most people either gives in and buy all the stuff they need to make it viable or go subscribtion for all lacks that the free model does.
But there is also the model of GW2 that I personally feel did a better job of not restricting me, but just kinda hinted that I could level faster or get karma faster. It really is just at level 80 that you really need to look at the cashshop to ease the grind, things like a buff to karma, or magic-find or the salvage tool that has 50 % chance of rare drops instead of the ingame gold model that only gives 25 % And I feel that is a much better model, giving you enough content to keep you playing but also restricting you a little bit and a bit more at top level. I personally am alright that I have played on their servers without restricting me with all sorta BS, and then at endgame they restrict me some more, because at that point I made up my mind if I want to commit to the game. Where the SWToR model I have to basicly decide from level 1 if I wanna commit or not.
Guess sub fee actually is bad because it forces you to commit to the game even before level 1. Never actaully thought of it this way, just haven't played any sub game that I didn't like, so never thought it was annoying... I have inlightened myself

[Deleted]

Same as most stuff. Different strokes for different folks. Don't see the big mystery behind it all.

[Deleted]

I feel that the F2P model can go in a very wrong direction. SWToR is a perfect example, basicly from level 1 you are restricted and I think around level 8-12 you are restricted in so many ways that most people either gives in and buy all the stuff they need to make it viable or go subscribtion for all lacks that the free model does.
But there is also the model of GW2 that I personally feel did a better job of not restricting me, but just kinda hinted that I could level faster or get karma faster. It really is just at level 80 that you really need to look at the cashshop to ease the grind, things like a buff to karma, or magic-find or the salvage tool that has 50 % chance of rare drops instead of the ingame gold model that only gives 25 % And I feel that is a much better model, giving you enough content to keep you playing but also restricting you a little bit and a bit more at top level. I personally am alright that I have played on their servers without restricting me with all sorta BS, and then at endgame they restrict me some more, because at that point I made up my mind if I want to commit to the game. Where the SWToR model I have to basicly decide from level 1 if I wanna commit or not.
Guess sub fee actually is bad because it forces you to commit to the game even before level 1. Never actaully thought of it this way, just haven't played any sub game that I didn't like, so never thought it was annoying... I have inlightened myself

GW2 isn't F2P, it's B2P.