Poll: I don't like F2P MMOs

[orangeban]

But you can still pay a monthly subscription to CoH can't you? I thought that was how it worked, you get to be a "premium" player or something.

 

[Wolfram23]

I prefer not playing MMOs, personally. My life isn't that empty anymore lol.

Hahahaha...hahaha....ha...yeeees...funny *cough*

Really now, I would've thought MMO-bashing had gone out of fashion by now.

If you consider that I said "anymore" you might be able to deduce that I once played MMOs (mostly WoW). I played the shit out of that game for several years and it's basically all I did. It's not an uncommon occurrence either.

Not trying to say all MMO players are no-life losers, as I'm quite sure there's plenty of people who play casually on the weekends or whatever... but there's definitely a massive amount of people that are as addicted as I was and it's not a good thing.

Regardless, I can bash whatever I want. Now excuse me while I go make fun of "bronies."

 

[JasonKaotic]

There are a lot of games that are F2P without any extra payments. But between charging for some items fucking everything that won't get you killed all the time and charging monthly... I definitely prefer the latter.
Besides, F2P usually has a 'member' or 'gold' or whatever payment that makes you pay monthly to be able to play the game without excruciating frustration anyway. Along with all the extra payments.

 

[Zantos]

World of Warcraft has gone F2P up to level 20. They get their hooks into new players and then the wallets open up.

What's the expression crack dealers use? The first hit is free, but after that it'll cost ya.

OT: I play pay monthly now, and Rift is a very good quality game for the price. Before though, I played a free to play MMO called Runes of Magic and did actually have a lot of fun without spending a penny. If I'd wanted to, I could have bought up extra stats, but there was nothing I couldn't do just by playing the game for free.

 

[Dastardly]

Sure, with the monthly subscription, you have to spend 15 bucks a month. But it's ONLY 15 dollars a month. F2P models can bait you into dropping several times that much if you wish to stay competitive. This is why so many MMOs are making the switch to F2P. They make a LOT more money with it.

They milk their player base for FAR more than 15 dollars a month each. The transition to F2P increases an MMO's revenue to three times that of a subscription based.

While some people certainly do choose to spend more than $15 per month, you'll probably notice (with some research) that a lot of these F2P games still offer the option of subscribing monthly for $15. Folks that would spend more usually exercise that option.

The reason that F2P games see massive hikes in their revenue is because more people begin playing. For every game, there are probably thousands of players who are interested... but not enough to risk a $50 box and $15 per month. As a result, they never try the game -- not even the "free trial," because they know it will run out eventually and they know they don't want to pay monthly.

But when a game goes F2P, these players have a chance to really try the game, with the knowledge that (if they do like it) they won't be roped into $15 a month. One of those players might decide to spend, say, $5 per month -- and now the folks behind the MMO are getting $5 where they normally would have gotten $0.

You also have players that leave because the game is no longer worth the subscription to them. They might try to only renew when a big patch drops, but that sticks them with all sorts of trouble (they're out of practice, or the new content isn't worth a full month, etc.) Now, those players have no cost to keep their character active, and they can choose to only spend money when new stuff comes out, and only on the new stuff that they feel is worth the money.

And having more people in the game is good for everyone. Instead of struggling to find someone to group with or PvP against, especially in "off-peak times," you have a lot more options for enjoying uninterrupted gameplay. That keeps subscribers happy, and feeling that this online world is "alive" enough to warrant $15 per month (which prevents a lot of subscription loss).

Basically, the F2P model allows a wider number of players to "name their price," rather than saying, "The price is $15 per month, and only people who agree with that price may play our game."

 

[darksuccubus]

Not all F2P are like that. Take Rusty Hearts for example: you can do anything you want and the cash shop has things that most of us can live without - costumes and such.

 

[BabySinclair]

I'll echo LotRO since you can earn the pay store credits in game and so long as non-cosmetic items that provide content or bonuses are purchasable through gameplay, it's not unbalanced. If someone wants to level up a little faster, who cares? Doesn't make them a better player.

LoL, LotRO, Star Trek Online, Vindictus, GW2 (presumably) have it right. Cosmetics or convenience only.

 

[WanderingFool]

Well, if falls down to whether it's F2P or P2W.

That is the rub.

When you can buy an item that grants you some awesome abilities or whatnot, and you find you can also earn it in game for free, you might be willing to pay for it early to gain a slight advantage, or you will simply play through and get it the harder way.

But when the item in question can only be baught, and does have a almost superior aura about it, than thats just fucking things up.

 

[AdmiralMemo]

Star Trek Online is actually a good counter to this problem. They offer two paid services that are both going to keep them competitive as an MMO and keep their profits up with out pulling that sort of trickery. Especially because they are going free to play. There you can pay for some account extras, or play for free with a little less. There is also their C-Store where you can get unique goods. Most of them are cosmetic, a few are better ships, or weapons or tribbles, but they're not totally necessary.

The other thing that makes their whole C-points thing good is that you could sell C-Points for Dilitihium. Which gave you the option of buying more rare and powerful equipment, but since there are missions that pay dilithium you could avoid it. The real beautiful part is that you can also hoard Dilithium and sell it for C-points to get the unique goods without paying a penny. Truly the right way to do things in the F2P enviroment.

Fallen Sword [http://www.fallensword.com/?ref=1359876] has been using this model for years, with gold and Fallen Sword Points replacing dilithium and C-Points, respectively. Hunted Cow Studios is rolling in cash due to this, relative to the size of their company. It's given them enough money to make their own 3D MMORPG, Eldevin [http://www.eldevin.com/]. (Eldevin has actually always been their main focus, but they needed other on-going projects to give them enough money to make it. Thus, Fallen Sword, and several other browser-based MMORPGs came into being.)

As a Star Trek Online player, I'm glad to see that larger companies are finally realizing this model works very well.

 

[Cowabungaa]

If you consider that I said "anymore" you might be able to deduce that I once played MMOs (mostly WoW). I played the shit out of that game for several years and it's basically all I did. It's not an uncommon occurrence either.

It's a well-known occurence that bitter ex-hardcore players are the hardest MMO bashers out there, as if they're trying to shift the blame to the games instead of looking at their own inadequacies that made them such lifeless sods.

Well, not saying that that's the case with you. Okay that was pretty venomous. Sorry 'bout that.

Now excuse me while I go make fun of "bronies."

*gasp*

 

[DementedSheep]

I prefer having a game free to play and then buying more content at my own pace. I don?t know why but having a mouthy fee is stressful to me, even if it?s not allot and I tend to play mmo?s on and off. If I?m paying a subscription I feel like I need to play the game to get my money?s worth. However if an mmo is heavily based around PVP its better just to be subscription. Weapons in Cash Shops that you can't get in game destroy PVP as dose releasing expansions with clearly better skills.

 

[Joccaren]

I love F2P MMOs. They are the only MMOs I can play, and the only ones my friends can play. Monthly is the shittiest plan ever, as unless you're willing to drop at least $15/month, you can't do anything. F2P, sure, you might miss out on some content and such, but at least you can play. Besides, that content often goes on sale for 1 or 2 dollars, and I've even been emailed with offers of free content on occasion, and I'll be damned if that's bad.

It all depends on what is being sold, look at it this way:

Runes of Magic

Damn near all the fun and cool items (Mounts, Pets, Housing Goods, Weapons, Armour, Pots) can be bought with money. This will break the game as those who can easilly buy great armour right away will beat those who can't. Also those who buy Pots that increase your health to substantial levels will easilly survive most boss fights.

You also end up paying more, say you find a mount, cool 5 bucks, then you need diamonds, 10, pots? Another 3. Maybe you want that cool chair or pet you saw someone else have, 10.

You would have spent 28$ when you could have spent 15$ on a monthly fee. That 15$ gives you everything in the game. No annoying bullshit of "Can't have this until you buy this many pots or diamonds!".

Once again, this is just an example of Runes of Magic (A terrible, TERRIBlE game) and not necessarilly what many F2P MMOs are like.

For highly competitive players, Monthly payments may be cheaper, but for anyone who isn't exactly trying to be competitive, and just wants to play the game, F2P is better. I couldn't care less if someone else has a ton more stats than me, can kill a boss faster than I can, could beat me in any PvP challenge if I decided to face them. That sort of stuff doesn't bother me at all. I'm fine playing through the game at my own pace, and if I decide that I do want that one bit of extra content, its $5 or so spent. Less than one month of a subscription, and often I'd have been playing for more than one month by that time. Monthly MMOs I have no chance with, no way to constantly refill my time and no money to do that with either. F2P I can at least play, and if I do happen across some money that I can use online, I can get some bonus stuff for a one time payment (Usually).

 

[anthony87]

I actually think that EVE online has a good system. Sure you may have to pay for the first month or two, but if you're really good at the game you can play it month through month without paying a thing.

 

[Chalacachaca]

Free to play, not everyone has dollars as his country's currency.

 

[Dosbilliam]

F2P is about a thousand times better because you can choose what you want to pay for. You really need an extra bag in LoTRO? Then buy, you really want an extra skin in LoL? Then buy it.

If it remained aesthetic, that would be fine. But it never does. It'll start out with small stat bonuses. Then those bonuses will increase higher and higher as the developers push to get more and more money until it gets to the point you don't set foot in high end content or pvp without dropping some serious dough.

You know why Diablo 3 auction house got an outrage? Because it was most definetly a pay2win, which is not what F2P is. Sure there are some shitty F2P here and there which are basically P2W, but some of them, like LoTRO and LoL, you can't pay to be better in cobat than everyone else.

There's a simple fix to the problem with the P2W of Diablo III...be the person selling the items to the people wasting their money on the game.

 

[Techsmart07]

I like F2P, especially (as was said) the turbine model. If I pay monthly for a game, I feel obligated to play the game for at least x hours a month, which makes it feel like a job, moreso than a game. Also, if I don't like the game for one reason or another, I didn't lose anything. There are very few mmorpgs I like. If I had to pay a $10 monthly fee before I knew what the game was like, I would never have tried half the mmorpgs I have played. the other thing I like with models like turbine is that once I buy it, its mine... forever (well, as long as they don't delete the account). If I decided tomorrow to go back and play DDO, I could still be a drow favored soul, even though I haven't been on in a while, without paying a penny.

 

[Rednog]

I honestly prefer the monthly model, too many F2P models just nickle and dime you for damn near everything, and you honestly have to drop so much cash in the end to get as much out of the F2P as the monthly.
I prefer to just pay my $15 up front and get everything.