Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Free to Play, why?
Akerbeltz
Member UncommonPosts: 170
Good day:
My idea of a filling and fun MMORPG is one that ideally provides with a virtual world with a high degree of freedom and interaction. In this sense, The Repopulation looks very interesting, and the more I read and see about its features and current status, the more convincing I find it.
Thing is the other day I almost fell of my chair when I found out in The Repop Website that the payment model was to be Free to Play based.
I think the ideal model for a substantial MMORPG is a subscription based one: it gives a sense of exclusivity to the gamer, very especially when a particular MMORPG looks oriented to a niche public that looks for a long-term gaming experience. In addition to this, I think the subscription model in certain way ensures customer’s tranquility with regards to maintenance, missions updates, dev run events and the so. No need to mention that, in my opinion, a subscription model discourages undesirable MMO fauna (trolls, kids, MMO tourists…).
For the reasons given above, I have the sensation that FTP might not be the best model for The Repop. Anyway, this could be a personal prejudice or perhaps there’s something I’m not getting.
What is your opinion about this?
Thanks in advance!
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Comments
It's an indie game on a shoestring budget, and without any sort of marketing department. There's a large amount of MMO fatigue as well, which means any game requiring a subscription had better damn well be a good one. I don't mean Eve Online niche market good either.
The game was, unfortunately, destined to be a niche game at best. Making it F2P is probably smart because it just doesn't have the mass appeal for most people to want ot plop down $60 and a sub fee for yet another MMO that probably won't pan out.
You make me like charity
"You are all going to poop yourselves." BillMurphy
"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."
Two opinions: First that your opinion is about 8 or so years out of date when it comes to F2P and second trolls aren't discouraged by a sub model, kids either, they'll just be more vicious in a rules appropriate way respectively get mommy's credit card and tourists are always good for an MMO because some tourists decide they wanna stay
happens both in MMOs and in real life, most won't stay but that small group that does will bring new faces, new strife, new friendships to the community which in a sandbox type game isn't nice, it's crucial.
I agree that F2P is usually bad for community.
On the other hand I won't pay for a MMO anymore unless I get at least a free trial period, some open beta or it is even f2p. Sorry, so much trash MMOs get released. And the only way to find out if a MMO is worth my money is to play it myself.
Aside from EVE and WoW name two communities of P2P games which are dedicated to their game more than the best F2P communities, until such a time keep your opinions under the format of opinions not facts.
I agree free to play is the only bad thing about this game
Still its the only MORPG im really looknig forward to this year.
The three largest reasons:
Those are problems with the implementation though and not the model. Developers are still trying to find what they can and can't do, and some are still trying to nickel and dime players for as much as they can get. That's certainly not the approach being taken with Repop though. We value free players. And the membership options are similar to just a box price with no subscription (with the lower end ones being cheaper). Aside from some skill gain bonus potions (which give a much smaller bonus than in many of the other titles out there), there really won't be any performance gain from cash shop items. You'll be unlocking perks (more bank space, more inventory space, more mission slots, etc), purchasing cosmetic items (purely cosmetic/no stat differences), and the like.
The difference really just comes in how developers perceive free players. A common way early on of treating non-paying players was to make their lives difficult so that they either quit or paid. Some games still use that same approach. But the approach Repop (and numerous other free to play titles) is taking is that free players are valuable to the game. Sure you need paying customers to stay afloat. But when you create a game where only paying customers can play effectively, you drive away free players. And that is a bad thing. Those players add to the community. Maybe one day they turn into a paying customer, maybe not. But maybe they introduce someone else to the game who does. Maybe they have or become friends with players who are and their being around makes the other players happy.
Noone enjoys an empty world. MMOs are about being social. We'd rather have 50,000 players with only 5,000 of them paying than we would to have 5,000 subscribers. And the reality is with free to play, if you build it they will come. Getting a large number of players to try your game isn't difficult with a free to play title. They have nothing to lose except for download time. Free to play gets them in the door, and then it's up to developers to create a product that will keep them there. That's all you can really ask for.
That's not to say free to play is a perfect model. It is more difficult to get rid of problem players without a barrier of entry. But noone likes to use months (or years) of work. The problem players in free to play titles are generally gold spammers and things of that nature. You can circumvent them with ignore commands, report and auto-detection methods. Overall you just have to weigh the bad with the good. And there are more positive things to be gained from free to play than a subscription model for this title.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
Thank you for your concise and impartial response to the thread Mr Smith -suddenly feels the need to put on a leather coat and shades-. I've already signed up for alpha testing ^^ and I'll be there when the game launches either way, the crafting system sounds good and the ability to be a gunslinger samurai (by mixing and matching skills) in-game makes my little EVE-loving black heart grow in size.
(yes I am weird)
Vanguard:SoH - Even though it was on life support with no real dev tem for years, it had several vibrant guilds raiding and grouping. Went F2P and a few months later most all the big raiding guilds have packed up and moved on. The existng ones can't even reliably form 6 man groups. The F2P cash shop model eliminated the need for end game content as BIS gear now drops from L10 boxes you need to buy a key to open.
Lineage 2 - Went F2P about a year ago, now no one raids, no one seiges, no one PvP's, pure casual heaven. The guild there went from 20-50 online in any single night, to often <5 on in prime time. The Dragon raids that required 100+ people never seem to happen.
Aion - Alliances would form everytime a Fortress would go vulnerable, they regularly changed hands. Went F2P and it went from 2 fortress attack/defenses a night to 1 maybe 2 nights a week. Same number of people around, the Season boss would get mobbed, just no one cared to work to own a fortress any more.
EQ1, EQ2, DDO, went Freemium so are only technically F2P, you need to pay to get full content. Age of Wushu is looking to be the same. Allods is pure P2W.
Games that are designed F2P from scratch may fair better, as GW1/2. I cannot speak about SWTOR as I left long before F2P and refuse to look back.
Having money to pay for a Sub does not mean they aren't trash.
On allot of the MMO's I play on are sub based and have an overabundance of trash.
I think this is a poor argument. 80%-90% of the FTP MMO's out their are Garbage. Not all of them. I think they should be judge on an individual Basis.
I feel the complexity of the game will weed out the folks that normally bring the kiddie drama into F2P.
/2cents
Keep in mind that they do have Membership packages that sort of makes it Buy to Play for people looking to have cities, etc. so at least those people will have put something down. I plan on the 2nd tier myself.
There are 3 membership levels available and the higher end memberships offer more slots. Additionally, Silver membership will offer access to be part of the City Council and be part of Nation Leadership, Gold Membership will open up being a City Mayor, and Platinum Membership will allow you to create a Nation.
So at least those taking part in City leadership and nation leadership will be people who would make this game BtP over FtP.
[quote]Keep in mind that they do have Membership packages that sort of makes it Buy to Play for people looking to have cities, etc. so at least those people will have put something down. [/quote]
That's actually incorrect, though the wording used in the quote is definitely confusing. What the memberships are required for is creating a nation, having leadership of a nation transferred to you or being a part of a city's leadership (mayor or council). For creating nations the problem is the alliances and relations. We don't want every free to play player being able to create a nation as there would be a ton of nations with the minimum number of free players having to be tracked in the system. But without some type of a leadership transfer restriction they would be able to have a person with a membership create for them and transfer, so there had to be some type of a restriction there.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
Free to Play instead of Free Trial. Sigh.
Oh well. Another game filed into the "could have been decent" bin.
Guess I won't be taking a break from EVE after all.
That is what I was meaning, people who create the city, etc. I meant this also of course as a possitive as I love this aspect of the game. I'm 190% a Repop fan and will be paying the $100.00 soon for the higher membership level and perks. Wife and both sons will also be buying and playing this also.
We had 4 copies of SWG back in the day and was the only MMO we played together and all 4 members of the family agreed on was amazing and fun. Soooo looking forward to this coming out.
Spread the word everyone about this amazing game and get everyone on board :-)
Tera is free, LOTRO is free, SWTOR is free, Vanguard is free, AOC is free, Gw2 is free (with Repop you have to buy a one time sub to unlock), secret world is free (with Repop you have to buy a one time sub to unlock), Age of Wushu is free, several other big titles coming this year are free as well. Not sure why we are even asking why Repop is free.
+ 1
I agree, I have seen far worse communities in some P2P games I have played than any of the f2p games I have tried.
I don't know why so many people are in denial regarding F2P and B2P being the predominant business models for MMO's going forward. You've only got to look at the games list on this site to see how few MMO's use the subscription model anymore. Most of the ones that do are aging games with tiny player numbers too. Eve and WoW are the notable exceptions.
I realised last year that it's unlikely I will ever be tempted to buy a subscription game again. I have bought and played numerous ones over the years but have never stayed with any of them beyond the first two or three months other than SWG, which I played for about eighteen months continuously until the CU ruined it., Indeed I had multiple subscriptions being a mayor and guild leader.
That is the way the MMO industry worked back in the early days and the alternatives also required a monthly sub so there wasn't much choice. However, Guild wars turned everything on its head by being buy to play and a year or so later, I got into the early stages of the LotRO closed beta and was impressed enough that I leapt at the chance of a lifetime sub when it launched in 2007. Since then, I've tried a few F2P games and never felt ripped off by any of them. I just bought things as and when needed, on a pay as you go basis. Most recently, I've been playing GW2 and Defiance, both B2P and with most of the sub games I played in recent years also going F2P once their populations fell I now have a pretty large choice of games available to me that don't require a sub.
Any new game has to appeal to people like me and I'm sure the Repopulation people are going in the right direction with their financial plans. I'm really looking forward to this game and just hope it turns out as good as it sounds. It's not like I'm expecting something for nothing, I've already pledged a chunk of money to help with development costs but if it had been slated as a monthly sub game, I probably wouldn't have done that.
What you said is exactly how I feel. I cant expand on it any further, well said.
So much crap, so little quality.
I have replied about this on a different post, I study Game Production and been in the industry the market is moving away from F2p, because its a bad method, some games it works for, some it doesn't , this game it won't work. They shouldn't go sub based either, most people hate subs today, I like them, but I been running a community for 14 years most games play 2 -4 games and can't afford a sub with all these games, they should do what Defiance, TSW and GW2 does, Buy the game and sell stuff in the store.
I mean F2P ruins community's and cheaters will take over watch and see... I have high hopes for this game minus the F2P model, they need to hire someone with some marketing sense, alot of companys fail short due to bad marketing and no sense of payment model
This game may not do that well with F2P, because any gamer with any sense will leave due to all of the cheaters and whiners, that F2P bring, so they need to rethink this, which I doubt this will, which I think could be the death of it, I have played every MMO to date nearly and can tell you what these games bring, and by making games, and studying I think this game would do well if they sold it, for like 50 bucks, like the other MMO's... Sell stuff in the store and be done with it, win , win for everyone.....
F2P sigh.... Who ever is in charge of this, should be open minded.......
@DarkCrystal: Defiance, TSW, GW2 had huge advertising campaigns running, pre-existing IPs, and were on store shelves. You don't see the difference between that and an indie company with online distribution? Putting a barrier of entry on this game would prevent many gamers from trying it in the first place. There is a stigma against indie titles after many disappointing games over the past few years.
My background is also in the MMO game industry since 1997, starting in the media and database development, and moving on to more of a technical and development role in the later years. To say that the industry is moving away from F2P is highly debatable. Yes, a handful games have begun moving to box + store. Not so much to keep out the free to play players though, but because the box sales are a quick injection of cash, and then they can use the store in place of subscription. It should also be noted that TSW did not start as a box + store model, it started as subscription and moved to free like so many games before them. T
I don't think you can say that the subscription communities are much better than free to play communities at this point. Have you tried using the Group Finder in WoW recently? When you have a large number of players who will often never see each other again and do not need one another, its easier for people to be jerks. That happened when games all became very soloable. In the old days people had to be relatively social due to the forced grouping mechanics. If they were jerks they would only really have other like-minded players willing to group with them. Those players have certainly always existed though. Subscription or no subscription. Now it's easier for them to get away with things like power looting, clicking Need on things they just want to sale, or generally just acting in poor manners. Because even if their group boots them, they are just one group finder or one battleground away from a new one.
There is more to lose from being a problem player due to the up front cost, but that doesn't seem to stop trouble players. It is only really a problem in entry level areas, because while players may not be investing $50 up front, they are investing time. Nobody wants to have a character they have spent, weeks, months, years progressing get banned, even if they never paid a penny. And it certainly doesn't stop gold farmers. There are other avenues that can be taken to fight things like spammers. An option to block global or area chat from non-members, for example, as well as the normal ignore options.
We don't want to put up any barriers of entry on players. The more players we can get exposed to our game, the better. If the game doesn't meet up to their expectations, they can move on with zero risk. That puts the honus on us to retain those players. That's all we can ask for really.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.