Why so much enthusiasm for F2P basis for MMOs?

[Renisis86]

I never cared for F2p MMOS. Theres always that chance you spend way to much to play.

[Edge-]

I never cared for F2p MMOS. Theres always that chance you spend way to much to play.

WoW and EVE let you do that too, both have cash shops that let you spend to your hearts content.

Only FFXI, and soon FFXIV unless something changes, don't have a cash shop.

[draykorinee]

I dont know whether I give up on F2P so easy because I havent paid or because most just dont live up to my expectations.

Wow's cash shop is just cosmetic, you'd be hard pushed to spend way too much to play :S

[Remilia]

I dont know whether I give up on F2P so easy because I havent paid or because most just dont live up to my expectations.

Wow's cash shop is just cosmetic, you'd be hard pushed to spend way too much to play :S

Name changer, server transfer, race change, faction change and so on are all still considered part of the cash shop. They they are all unnecessarily expensive for some things they could just do on their end, like server merging.

[Valeron]

Yeah wow's shop doesn't really bother me (although I find it all a bit pricey considering you have a sub fee on top of it all). I really haven't found too many cash shops that are over the top although I remember when Allods first came out and they had some sort of death penalty remover thing that you could only get from the cash shop. Now that was a bit too much. Do they still have that in that game? I deleted the game when I first heard about it.

[draykorinee]

Name changer, server transfer, race change, faction change and so on are all still considered part of the cash shop. They they are all unnecessarily expensive for some things they could just do on their end, like server merging.

True, you'd still be hard to pushed to spend way too much to play, my faction change and realm change combined was the price of a full game, I regret it now, such a joke cost.

[Mormolyce]

But XP boosters are P2W?

I don't agree with that at all. P2W would be something like, you can buy the BIS items for PVE or items that give you a distinct advantage over other players in PVP. Particularly the latter.

Buy TCG cards and sell items in game for gold. Then you can use that gold on BMAH, buy best BoE epics or pay for boosting in raids etc.

Yes, and Blizzard store pets. But what you can buy on the BMAH is very limited and it would take you way longer to get a full set that way than someone actually raiding. Plus the obscene cost. A $100 card gives you what, 300k gold? which might buy you one piece of gear if you're lucky... I guess it depends on your server. Assuming a piece of your loot is actually on the BMAH which is unlikely.

---------- Post added 2013-05-15 at 06:05 AM ----------

Name changer, server transfer, race change, faction change and so on are all still considered part of the cash shop. They they are all unnecessarily expensive for some things they could just do on their end, like server merging.

They are overly expensive I agree, mostly I think that's to actively discourage people doing those things frequently. But none of that is remotely P2W.

[Remilia]

They are overly expensive I agree, mostly I think that's to actively discourage people doing those things frequently. But none of that is remotely P2W.

That had nothing to do with p2w, just pointing out that that's part of the cash shop.

[Fallen Angel]

Server transfer to get PvP/E titles/achievements, race change for better racials, faction change for the same. So long as it's not items providing advantage, it's not p2w, right?

[Sevarin]

i personally cant get into f2p games.... which is a shame cause most of the time they seem really fun, they just make you pay 5000 dollars to have quality of life, or in some cases its just pay to win.

yeah i understand thats where they make their money, and i dont mind paying a decent amount of money for a game i enjoy... but generally you would have to pay more in an f2p game than you would for a game with a sub unless you want to go through having 1 mail a day, gear having a 99% chance to break on upgrade, ect ect

[SodiumChloride]

There is no free lunch.

You will pay one way or the other. At least with subs, the influence of money on gameplay isn't as severe as in F2P games.

In F2P, the gameplay isn't designed for you to "have fun", it's designed to suck money out of your wallet because that's the only way the developers can support themselves.

[Jtbrig7390]

There is no free lunch.

You will pay one way or the other. At least with subs, the influence of money on gameplay isn't as severe as in F2P games.

In F2P, the gameplay isn't designed for you to "have fun", it's designed to suck money out of your wallet because that's the only way the developers can support themselves.

That is odd because I have been playing a few f2p games like Neverwinter and having fun and I have yet to spend one $.

So I guess your wrong.

[Mormolyce]

Server transfer to get PvP/E titles/achievements, race change for better racials, faction change for the same. So long as it's not items providing advantage, it's not p2w, right?

If you're trying to say WoW is P2W because you can pay for a race change to get a better racial, permit me to laugh in your face.

[Vargur]

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.

I think it's just the vocal minority, which are the kids with no income, that prefer F2P at WoW's quality. And that just won't happen.
On the other hand, Rift will be F2P on June 12th, that's probably the closest it will ever get.

[Hockeyhacker]

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.

All in all it depends from model to model, an example of pretty fair F2P models (or F2P with optional sub) are games like DDO, they are fair enough to where you can play and enjoy the game perfectly fine without spending a dime yet have a lot of things in the shop that are good enough to make people want to buy them without feeling forced to buy them, Raiderz and Tera are fairly fair in this aspect as well. But then there are some F2P (or F2P with optional sub) models that are pretty sleazy the two biggest examples of this I can think of is when SW:ToR went F2P and made all classes unplayable above about level 10ish unless you wanted to spend money for quick slot bars, yes selling freaking UI, not to mention having to buy the ability to where rare quality gear, and other crap that makes the game unplayable without subbing, the other being DCUO which is fair until level cap where the issue of the gold cap being so low yet giving you an escore for money you go past that cap to where its almost impossible to be able to repair your gear without having to spend real money to repair because repair bills get a lot larger then the amount of money you can have without spending real cash.

As for B2P (or B2P with optional sub) both GW2 and The Secret World are great value, there is nothing in TSW shop that is a "must buy to enjoy game" item.

As for purely P2P, there are no good models, some may argue WoWs model is good just purely based on the numbers, which from a buisness standpoint its good, but from a consumer standpoint its awful, you pay 1-3 times the cost of your average DLC each and every month to maybe get a DLCs worth of content once every 3 months (so 3-9 times worse value then DLC which is already bad value), you then have to pay high prices for services that should be free with subscriptions (even if limited to weekly use or what not) like server transfers for $30, and race/faction changes for $25, if that crap was $5 ok I can see charging that, but $15 a month plus having to spend $30 if you want to go play on a server one of your friends is a bit much.

With that said, the other issue with subscription based MMOs is that most people can not afford 3,4,5 $15 subscription bills a month, so by forcing P2P it makes people choose one game over the others they may enjoy as well because they can not afford $75 a month to play 5 different MMOs. The two best options both for businesses and consumers is to have a hybrid of F2P/B2P with an optional subscription fee, where you reward people for subing and not harm people for not subing. I had a sub for SW:ToR prior to it going F2P, I decided to try the F2P on a second account, it was so offensive how people who subed got no perks and people who didn't sub got treated like thieves and second class citizens that I unsubbed from the game on my main account and refused to play it because I refuse to support that type of business model. Maybe its better now, maybe they got enough backlash from such a bad model that they stopped treating the F2P players like thieves and started rewarding those who sub instead, but I don't know since the original F2P/sub model was so revolting that I lost all interest in that game, which is a shame because I did want to finish playing KotoR 3 (with a tacked on but unneeded MMO).


Either way point is that pure P2P only is a bad business model since it limits people into choosing just one of many of games which lowers your sales, but F2P/B2P models done right with an optional sub generally are the best both for the business and for people like you who don't want to deal with some of the sleazy F2P models (which again is not all F2P models, just most).

[SodiumChloride]

That is odd because I have been playing a few f2p games like Neverwinter and having fun and I have yet to spend one $.

So I guess your wrong.

Or more specifically, someone will pay. MMOs aren't free to develop and run.

In most F2P games, the majority is subsidised by the "whales". Of course to get whales to pay, you have to create a motivation for them to pay and normally this is done via "crippling" of game mechanics.

So in a way, everyone pays. Whales pay with cash. Everyone else pays with time and effort.

[Ceece]

I always thought Aion designers' did a great job at what they do.

[Edge-]

There is no free lunch.

Dunno about you, but I've played plenty of F2P games without paying. So I got my free lunches.

In F2P, the gameplay isn't designed for you to "have fun", it's designed to suck money out of your wallet because that's the only way the developers can support themselves.

For shitty games, yeah. There are shitty implementations of the F2P model, and good ones. There are also shitty implementations of the subscription based model, and good ones.

What you talk about is how most mobile/social games are designed. Most of the modern F2P games are designed with the cash shop in mind, but are designed to be good. I'll throw out a few example of good, mediocre, and bad F2P models.

Good: Tera. 100% of the game is provide for free. You can play through all the content in the game without paying a penny. You have some restrictions like character slots or bag slots, but none of them are obtrusive, nor do they detract from gameplay. The cash shop is filled with cosmetic and convenience purchases, not power or content. Subscribers get a number of great perks to incentivize subscribing. As for the game itself, it's a bit light on content overall, but it's well designed on the whole. It can get a bit grindy at times, but it looks spectacular, the combat system functions supremely well, and it's overall a well though out and polished game.

Mediocre: Neverwinter. Neverwinter is kinda bipolar. On the one hand, the gameplay is superb. Quests simply flow without making you feel like you're grinding. Combat is fluid and feels great. Some of the secondary systems like the Foundry are spectacular as well, providing players with the tools to make an infinite amount of content to be played by others. On the other hand though, the cash shop is terrible and it bleeds into the game. It's overpriced beyond belief, and it's integrated into pretty much every secondary system in the game. All the non-combat/questing systems (crafting, companions, anything having to do with Astral Diamonds) are directly tied to the cash shop, and designed in such a way to be so obnoxious after a while, that you would rather pay money in the cash shop than continue. It's a game that does F2P simultaneously well, and poorly.

Bad example: All the generic import Korean F2P clones. They're almost universally terrible. Every system is designed around the cash shop, with little thought or effort put into the design of the actual game. They don't bother to do anything unique or try anything, instead copy/pasting existing mechanics and systems from other games and doing a poor job at that. They sometimes flat out sell power in the cash shop, and have even have core gameplay like the combat system tied to the cash shop (requiring you to chug health/mana potions during combat, then making the potions difficult to acquire outside the cash shop). Thankfully, these games see little to no support (though they don't need much as they function on a shoestring budget) and don't have much of a marketing budget, so most people never see them

A F2P model will be designed to suck money out of players, I call it a "Player negative" model. The most recent version of that is SWTOR, where they took the base gameplay and removed from it to make the cash shop/subscription appealing, rather than adding to what subscribers get. The opposite of that model exists too, which I call the "Player/subscriber positive" model. That's the model used by Tera, where they remove almost nothing from the base experience, but instead add to the value of the subscription. That's the model we need more of, and I'm happy to see that Rift is going to be using that model as well.

I always thought Aion designers' did a great job at what they do.

Aion has some shitty parts of their cash shop (the items that guarantee Manastones socketing), but that kind of stuff existed before the transition and was a core part of the game design to begin with. It's still not good, but it's not something that they simply dreamed up for F2P either. The model on the whole is great, as there is literally nothing restricted from players in NA (EU model has restrictions), and not even a subscription option. It's a great game now (improved dramatically since launch) with a solid business model.

[Fallen Angel]

If you're trying to say WoW is P2W because you can pay for a race change to get a better racial, permit me to laugh in your face.

Yes I am. You are paying for an advantage, are you not? If you can explain why it should not be considered p2w, I will gladly let you laugh in my face.

[Mormolyce]

Yes I am. You are paying for an advantage, are you not? If you can explain why it should not be considered p2w, I will gladly let you laugh in my face.

Because that is ridiculously insignificant, even assuming you went from a low DPS racial to a high one. It makes less than 1% difference to your DPS at most. Race changes are mostly cosmetic.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.