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DCUO Free to Play thoughts
Harbinger1975
Member UncommonPosts: 244
With the severe drop in subscriptions in DCUO, the hopes of the game going Free to Play has popped up more times than not.
IF the game went Free to Play, do you think Sony Online would try to make the game Pay to Win?
Comments
Of course they would. What else could they possibly sell that would be worth anything? XP boosts? You get to 30 in a week as it is. Content packs? Not worth it for like 1 weeks worth of 'fun'. There's just nothing else for them to sell aside from P2Win items, things PvPers feel are MUST HAVES.
This game should have just been free to play in the first place. First off, one of the largest areas of appeal is that it is the only mmorpg on the PS3 in the US market. I think Sony just forgot that one of the biggest appeals of having a PS3 over the hype-box is that PSN is free. PS3 users have shown that they are willing to shell out a moderate amount of cash with the expectation that they will be able to FULLY use their systems online and offline without having to spend any extra money.
So what does $OE do? They completely ignore this caveat and decide to make DCUO p2p. The game is fun, but there simply isn't enough open world content to justify paying $15/mo to keep playing it. Personally, I bought the game. Played the first month. I didn't hit the level cap but let's face it... this is an action adventure MMO. Once I've punched the crap out of a couple thousand of enemies and participated in just as much PVP there wasn't much else to explore. Would I have kept playing the game if there was no subscription fee? Hell yes. In all honesty, I probably would have even spent a couple bucks on microtransactions from time to time. A subscription fee cannot be justified by slapping the title MMORPG on it.
F2P in general is just a bad idea.
they are always pay to win, and then you have all the unfavorable types who never pay for anything.
so the playerbase is inevitably split down the middle with your group of people who pay to win, and your free-loaders who never really get anywhere, but are just constantly there.
it might make it look like there are more people on the servers, but you are generally going to have the same, or probably less, people who can actually do end-game activities in the pay to win crowd.
i would honestly say you will most likely end up with even less end-game players because you will lose a certain percentage by just going to a F2P model. i know i would most likely quit the day it happened. i dont like the F2P model, or the community they create, id move on.
^ e0r must have never spent much time in guildwars if he thinks the above
Selling that ridiculously grindy T2 gear to the trustfunded EPeeners would be a small price to pay for F2P for everyone else. Not like it gives a big enough advantage anyway. They'd have to make all new even more idiot-proof gear for some people to win at end-game stuff.
I've subscribed to both LoTRO and CO, and I've also done the F2P versions of each.
I've been in both games before and after F2P happened. I've watched the population, I've interacted with players (especially new) after F2P.
You are wrong when it comes to both of the popular F2P models that have come along. Dead wrong.
In neither game do you have the much touted "Pay To Win" model happening, either.
Dcuo shoyld never have been an MMO. It would have done perfectly well as a short single player game with online Co-Op. there is no point in having this huge open world if nothing ever happens in it and you spend most of the time in instances. As much as i think DCUo would benefit from F2P, they are like NCsoft in that a game is either running or shut down. Nothing in between. (dungeon runners being the exception as that game was a freemium model before anyone ever heard of the word).
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
I don't know how they could make this game free to play wthout putting in a lot of locks on levels and content that would have to be unlocked.
Well instead of going F2P, I hope the game goes B2P in a GW format, obviously that lessen the need for overpowered cash shop item.
Also they can also sell specialised costume packs (like really special ones, not just taking away ingame content and put a price tag on them), then account services like changing name, server transfer.....or swapping PvE to PvP since they are doing the mega server shitzel.
then
1.huge expansion packs for more box price income, with fast hotfix updates to fix bugs, hacks and pvp balance.
OR
2. monthly releases of optional content, so players can choose to pay this monthly release of content at a price of $15, so its like a subscription, but it pushes devs to be on time with the promises of monthly updates. If you are late, we shouldn't have to pay for it, also since the content is optional, you can enjoy all the content you bought as long as you want.
or just F2P instead of the whole B2P thing, but that makes the devs require a bit more cash shop items to outset the income needed.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
Seen this happend so many time. New game, no trial, ok then I buy, ok it was shit, turns free2play,still shit, game over, next game.
xKingdomx Brings up a good point about updates, expansions and patches. Please, whatever they do, separate the Q&A for PC and PSN. Do we really need to be celebrating St. Patrick's Day in May?
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
Free to play or pay once play forever is going to be the wave of the near future and will soon be adapted to some degree by any pay to play mmo company that dont want to fail..
Currently p2p is of somewhat better overall quality but within the next few years the f2p item shop games are going to catch up and creatively even go ahead of the existing static monthly pay dinosaurs...
As far as players go ROM and other F2P games have a far better free playerbase community than WoW has and free players certainly have not hurt lotr nor AO but instead have infused some life into them and the same will be true of AOC..
There may always be that exceptional/phenominal game or two that can get by with charging monthly but the always more creative and cunning f2p wave will be breathing down even their throats..
If any company converting from monthly payments to f2p would try to go pay to win while leaving free players unwilling to play their game it would be sony where the bottomline always comes last by trying to make it come first..
Playing GW2..