This is by far the worst written article on MMORPG I have seen over all the years I have been a member for.
Disagreeing with someone's topic doesn't make it poorly written. If you have any technical complaints about the writing, feel free to send them over. From a purely written point of view, I don't see what you have to complain about.
I'm a writer by profession and many times when someone disagrees with what I've written, I get the "you are a bad writer" comment.
i like f2p, yes most of them are poor quality but you noly wasted some time playing no money.
and i still have not found a p2p game to get my attention. and i bought WAR for £35 and only played for 20 hours max :S
the truth is F2P suit's my life style (my current MMO of choice is RF:online) i only play now and again due to work / college and i don't feel scammed out of money (which i would if i played a F2P)
First off let me say that Quizzical’s post was fantastic.
That being said, I disagree with a couple of things, to a point. You both assume that every player is trying to catch up to or beat the community in terms of prestige. Lets face it, this is true for a large amount of players, including myself, but it is not true for all; especially players new to an mmorpg, which are the vast majority or F2p players.
You are essentially saying the object of the game is a competition for everyone is to kill monster A, get item B and gain Level C before the other player does. This constitutes “winning”. Since item malls give players who spend money an advantage over the players who choose to spend nothing i.e. “play for free”, the players who play free “play to lose”. Well…
By your logic ALL mmorpg games are “play to lose” because the advantage you give to spending money in an item mall is no different than the advantage of time. Players who have more time to play can also kill monster A, get item B and gain Level C faster than people who can’t play as much. An age-old bone of contention with mmorpgs and sadly your logic reveals this to be true, as has been known forever.
Consider players X, Y and Z who want to compete for prestige. Players X and Y like most of us do not have a lot of time to play. Z has no life and plays 22 hours a week. It is frustrating for players X and Y to watch player Z rocket ahead of them (age old bone of contention). Enter the item mall. As if the time issue was not enough, now player X, who does not have much money either, has to watch player Y rocket ahead of him because now Y can spend money on double xp cards in the item mall. To make matters worse for player X, he has to watch player Z rocket ahead even further since he has time to play AND money to spend. Y can compete with money, Z can compete with money and time, X who was ok with the handful of players who played 22 hours a week, now has to deal with the item mall as well. If he wants to compete for prestige and spends no money or excessive amounts of time, he essentially “plays to lose”. I agree with you in context to the play to compete for prestige, measuring everything you do against other players in the game.
While part of a traditional mmorpgs mechanic is the de facto competition for prestige gained by out leveling those around you or having the coolest gear/clothes etc, success at this mechanic is not required to actually play the game. Either way, as a player I can still kill monster A, get item B and gain Level C, and enjoy doing it. Just because I can’t do it as easily as those who buy items (or spend more time playing) doesn’t mean I lose.
Granted, for those without money or time to burn, the sale of a double-xp card or more powerful items in an item mall is a direct disadvantage to those who compete for prestige in this way, as are the sale of “cool” clothes and pets, but still these items are not necessary to actually play and enjoy combat and other aspects of the game such as exploration, socializing with friends etc. This is proven by the amount of players who do play F2p mmorpgs and don’t use the malls. Ultimately, you can use the item mall or not, or play 10 minutes a week or 100 hours, but you can still play them game, and enjoy it; it just depends on your expectations and play style.
For example, I played Maplestory until about level 30 with my character. I absolutely loved the retro console-game play style and the look and feel of the world. I found it quite immersive and enjoyable. In addition, these games have a real charm to them. It was enough to keep me playing for a while. I scanned the item mall and there were many items I could have used or would have liked to own, but since I could play without them and I had no cash to burn, I chose not to purchase anything. Players who did buy these items were of course, way ahead of me in terms of prestige, level, and consuming content but I didn’t care and I still had fun. For a while…
Why I quit
I did not play the game looking for complexity; I wanted fun. Despite its charm, what chased me away was the endless, painful and mind numbing grind-the hallmark of F2p mmorpgs like Maplestory, Angels Online (PAIN) and a multitude of others. Players new to mmos and the “grind” mechanic might stick around for a long time, especially if they invest any money in their character. Experienced players like myself who have played many P2p mmorpgs have different expectations in terms of what we can expect to get for our valuable time spent grinding. In P2p, we have access to everything in the game, essentially the more we grind the more we get. Not so in F2p.
“Free”
F2p games are theoretically “free” to attract a multitude of players in the hopes of snaring the portion of those players who compete hard for prestige at any cost, knowing that their competitive nature will have them spending money in the item malls. The players who do not play make up the bulk of ‘society” and they are the ones the elite show off too and feel better than. Any player concerned with prestige will think about shopping at the mall, some will spend a little to compete, some will spend a lot, some will quit and be angry, justifiably criticizing the game, based on their expectations, as “free to lose”.
Finally, addressing the original point of the OP.
Since you don’t “need” to purchase items to play, technically it’s “free to play”. This doesn’t mean all F2p mmorpg games suck, but that they are different, some good some bad. It means that while offering many enjoyable experiences to their own communities, paying or otherwise, they offer significantly less when it comes to the expectations of a seasoned P2p mmorpg player. They offer less and even offend those that compete for prestige (which I would venture to say comprises the majority on these forums) and multiply the age old problem of time with the addition of item malls. Similar to why P2p mmorpgs try to shut down gold sales. This can translate into hatred and the review that “they all suck” very easily. On a forum overwhelmingly populated by traditional P2p players of mmorpg games what did you expect?
It must be noted that F2p games attract a lot of new players which is very important for the industry since many will go on to try other games when they leave. I would venture to say they are good for the growth of the industry.
Now, with all that being said, I believe someone saying they all “suck”, although a little strong or uncouth, is a fair extrapolation of what the average player from this site looking for a game that will meet or exceed their expectations will ultimately experience after playing one. LOL
I used Maplestory as an example because its one of the most successful of the F2p models and Nexon is the expert in micro payment models, working and innovating them since around 1992.
If anyone cares, I think this is the best review ever of Maplestory and I think sums up most F2p mmorpgs in general in terms of what they offer.
P.S. I assume that the OP first language is not English. If people who generalize their criticisms into the form of “it sucks” bothers you enough to post a rebuttal, then I highly suggest you get someone to check your articles for grammar mistakes. Otherwise, you will be pulling out your hair out, as everyone who disagrees with you will begin their posts by attacking your writing skills.
You are essentially saying the object of the game is a competition for everyone is to kill monster A, get item B and gain Level C before the other player does. This constitutes “winning”. Since item malls give players who spend money an advantage over the players who choose to spend nothing i.e. “play for free”, the players who play free “play to lose”. Well… @quizzical
By your logic ALL mmorpg games are “play to lose” because the advantage you give to spending money in an item mall is no different than the advantage of time. Players who have more time to play can also kill monster A, get item B and gain Level C faster than people who can’t play as much. An age-old bone of contention with mmorpgs and sadly your logic reveals this to be true, as has been known forever.
The goal is not simply to level the fastest or gain the most prestige. As I said elsewhere in this thread, I don't like games that are basically a contest of who has the most free time. Anyone who is impressed by your spending a lot of money on a game or having a lot of free time isn't worth impressing.
Rather, what I want is for a game to provide interesting challenges. If I set out to kill some mobs to do a quest, the question is how hard is it to kill the mobs. If it's all but undoable without buying stuff from the item mall, then buying the stuff from the item mall is essentially mandatory. Likewise, if it's all but undoable without spending a bunch of time grinding levels, then grinding levels is mandatory, and that's game-breaking.
If a game has PvP, the advantages of levels or item malls are far more important. PvP doesn't become interesting until everyone is essentially at the level cap with perfect gear. In some games, that never happens. In an item mall game, that probably requires you to buy a ton of stuff from the item mall. If one can't avoid PvP in those games, that destroys the game.
If a game caps the amount that you can spend to make your character stronger at a reasonably low level (as a subscription game typically does), then it's not a contest of whoever pays the most wins. Liikewise, if a game caps how long you can advance your character (e.g., by letting you reach the level cap and so forth quickly), then it's not a contest of who has the most free time.
If a "free to play"/item mall game were to say that you could spend $20/month and get all the possible advantages from the item mall at that price, I'd consider playing it. But with the game getting $0 from most of its players, the typical model requires them to get a lot more than that from the handful of players who do pay.
Its a fair point, i enjoy mmo's of all kinds if people dont like free to play mmos thats ok. u will always get haters thats what some people are like. i think f2p is popular an a good place to start mmo'ing, so go for it if anyone wants to get into it. i dont think that collum post was really called for but then again i would be pretty pissed if someone called what i was exploring shit then i would probably write something similar.
Do any of you realize how flawed the argument of "it isn't free to play, I have to spend money on item malls! the marketing is a lie!" is?
YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO USE THE ITEM MALLS. You WANT to, because by doing so it allowed you to skip a large amount of tedium. Stop confusing wants with needs.
I have yet to see a F2P game that isn't free to play.
This is by far the worst written article on MMORPG I have seen over all the years I have been a member for.
Disagreeing with someone's topic doesn't make it poorly written. If you have any technical complaints about the writing, feel free to send them over. From a purely written point of view, I don't see what you have to complain about.
This is true, but I believe it's quite obvious that writing Diry instead of Dirty and then writing a sentence like this.
Many people "free to play" is a dirty word.
Which says enough for me, it's poorly written english. Please.. read it and patch it up.
Oh the news item, that is far from his fault. I must have rushed through it, both typos were exclusively mine. Neither of those typos appear in the actual article, apologies.
Sorry, I was actually talking about you. I think I should have included my source right away.
And still you have one more mistake in your post.
> To many people "free to play" is a dirty word.
To many people believe "free to play" is a dirty word.
...
As for the guy responding with, "they suck" I personally think he needs to have a sock put into his mouth, either give valueable input to the matter or do not say anything at all. Not all of the F2P games suck actually, nor do all of them have bad spelling in them. There are definitely quality F2P games out there.
OH NOZ! a typo, this invalidates EVERYTHING he said!
What I replied to has nothing to do with what he said, seems you have nothing better to do then flame people. Without even knowing what I am talking about in the first place.
Your saying a few typos make this the "worst article ever". I was just matching your extremes. you also, need to read more MMORPG.com articles.
As a writer, I can tell you that the mark of a "good" writer is not in his/her spelling, but in the ability to remember to run spell check.
My main issue with F2P games is that they su..uhm, they don't seem to be on par with subscription based games when it comes to quality of gameplay and funfactor. They are mostly grindathons with average mobs, very little variety and ai in mobs and hardly any deep and unique environments that roleplayers can enjoy. I've tried many of them, and i'd say the exception sort of is guild wars though that is not a completely free to play game as you still have to buy the game boxes (you can pick up the whole series for about 60 dollars now though.
The last free to play games i tried where atlantica online and runes of magic. I couldnt get into the combat system of Atlantica Online, it just wasn't fun to me, and runes of magic just felt like a cheap rip off from WoW. We invest more then money in these games, we also invest a lot of time (time we could use to make money for example) and to invest a lot of time in a game that literally feels like a poor man's WoW is a lot of waste in my opinion.
What I lack from this article on MMORPG.COM is examples. If F2P games aren't so bad, okay fine, but what are these F2P games that aren't so bad you speak of? Because if there is one out there that can really compete with subscription games then I'd really like to know.
Furthermore, I really put questionmarks at these claims that millions of people are playing these F2P games. The thing I've noticed with a couple of these games is they advertise their game as being huge successes, they literally advertise claiming to have over 1 million subscriptions, but then you log in only to find 2-3 servers at max. When you log into WoW europe you can see more then 40 servers many of them heavy population, and then you don't even count the spanish, english, french and russian wow servers. I'm pretty sure that in the west, WoW alone has more players then all free to play games combined. In the far-east it might be different.
I would love to find a good F2P game that I enjoyed. I have tried quite a few, but they have all been disappointing (possibly because I don't like anime models).
I never said they wernt MMO's, of course thats your only argument? That I said something I in fact did not? NAME A F2P TITLE, I DARE YOU, WITHOUT ITEM MALLS, AND WITH DEPTH - EDIT: Excuse me....INNOVATION remember bloodworth you have to NAME one...no atlantica doesnt count cause thats pure item mall
I am going to call you on this... and you are not going to like it....
Let me name 3 Games.....
Eve
Everquest 2
World of Warcraft
Free to play is a marketing term, and as such has nothing to do with item malls (which is microtransactions). All three of these games offer free options, and as such just as much free to play as any game with an item mall.
Once you are paying to play, it doesnt matter how you pay (item mall, subscription, etc), the game is no longer free for you. The free option is only for those that dont pay.... and pretty much every competitive game has that today.... and so can be called Free to Play.
P.S. The next time you see a store with a Buy One, Get One Free sale, you should go protest that the second one isnt free, and that they are taking advantage of people by saying so.
I don't understand what you are saying...Eve, WoW and EQ2 are subscription games, not F2P.
Only in north America. Every where else, they use a different model. Eve in the NA, also lets you buy credits.
Not really. WoW is also subscription based in Europe, Russia, South Korea, Australia and New Sealand. The only region where WoW uses a different model is China.
I never said they wernt MMO's, of course thats your only argument? That I said something I in fact did not? NAME A F2P TITLE, I DARE YOU, WITHOUT ITEM MALLS, AND WITH DEPTH - EDIT: Excuse me....INNOVATION remember bloodworth you have to NAME one...no atlantica doesnt count cause thats pure item mall
I am going to call you on this... and you are not going to like it....
Let me name 3 Games.....
Eve
Everquest 2
World of Warcraft
Free to play is a marketing term, and as such has nothing to do with item malls (which is microtransactions). All three of these games offer free options, and as such just as much free to play as any game with an item mall.
Once you are paying to play, it doesnt matter how you pay (item mall, subscription, etc), the game is no longer free for you. The free option is only for those that dont pay.... and pretty much every competitive game has that today.... and so can be called Free to Play.
P.S. The next time you see a store with a Buy One, Get One Free sale, you should go protest that the second one isnt free, and that they are taking advantage of people by saying so.
I don't understand what you are saying...Eve, WoW and EQ2 are subscription games, not F2P.
Only in north America. Every where else, they use a different model. Eve in the NA, also lets you buy credits.
Not really. WoW is also subscription based in Europe, Russia, South Korea, Australia and New Sealand. The only region where WoW uses a different model is China.
And even then it's pay by the minute/hour. Hardly FTP.
I would love to find a good F2P game that I enjoyed. I have tried quite a few, but they have all been disappointing (possibly because I don't like anime models).
I have the same problem, I am a anime fan but many games use anime graphics as an excuse to use low polygone count models and that just looks bad.
But that is not the problem, really. The problem is that all F2P games (unless you count Guildwars as a F2P game) are very shallow and boring. I care about gameplay and it is her the F2P games are generally a lot worse.
Games like Perfect world, Runes of magic and Sword of the new world looks nice but they are not fun, at least not in the long run. The better P2P games are fun for months or even years, and until F2P games can deliver that I stay with P2P.
Item malls dont bother me really, the ones that moan are the ones that have no money, but then again i only currently play the monthly subscription games becouse all the F2P so to say ive tried which is around probally 90% of the current ones have shite graphics which is why they are so quick to market, usually around 4 weeks production lol, the korean game style of stand there and whack 10,000 creatures to level, and no content what so ever which to me sounds as much fun as pulling my own teeth out with pliers.
Playing: FFXIV Future: wishing for SWG 2, World of Warcraft Classic Played: Most current and extinct MMO's - 18 Years in....
The article itself offered very little explanation as to why F2P was a viable alternative to subscription based games, anyone with a keyboard can contrust an argument of equal strength. Giving a single generic example of an hypothetical situation (an extreme one at that) to illustrate your point is just as simple-minded as the fictional protagonist who claims all F2P games suck.
And what if they were all in China? Do players there somehow count for less? Numerically, it's the world's largest market by far, and if it's not already the leader in terms of overall revenue, it's catching up very quickly.
Let's face it, the Asian market is nothing like it's NA/EU equivalent. F2P grindfests are released all the time, many don't make it to this part of the world because quite frankly, they're not up to the much higher standards we expect from our games. It's a totally different mindset, one which doesn't translate extremely well to European/American markets. Aion is a fairly good representation of this, I wouldn't pay to play an unfinished, bug-ridden game and I don't know many people who would. I understand it is doing just fine over there though.
As for F2P games themselves, you get what you pay for, which in this case is nothing. That means lower quality goods, poor support, etc, etc. Many (not all) F2P games do lack the depth associated with P2P, mostly because they are developed by independant companies that lack the manpower to dedicate the required time and effort to providing a top quality product. To make up for the lack of this, you'd expect (or demand) gameplay to exceed the norm to compensate and let's face it, very few meet the required standards to compete with their bigger P2P rivals. Those that have genuinely original ideas are often let down by a multitude of sins in other departments that generally see them ending up as just another game on the growing list found here.
Generally, F2P games lack that undefinable characteristic that makes a "good game." I understand this is most likely down to personal preference, but the mass of F2P games I've tried have all been missing that certain something that sinks it's hooks in and leaves you yearning for more. I'm sure there is a large market for F2P, but I doubt it will ever rival subscription based games that large companies can sink vast amounts of cash into. It would take a minor miracle (or an act of God) to make an F2P game that could seriously compete with the giants of P2P.
Nice strawman argument there. It might help if the author were to address the actual argument of why the "free to lose"/item mall games get such negative reactions from so many players. If you get an e-mail from someone claiming to have $10 million US in Sierra Leone and wanting your help to get it out of the country and promising you a substantial portion of it, do you have to follow through to know it's a scam? If you follow through on a few such e-mails and get scammed, do you then know that the next such spam e-mail you get is also a scam, or do you have to try that one, too? The reason why a game being completely free gives it such a bad reputation is simple economic reality. Companies that make games in pursuit of a profit aren't charities that merely want to give you a good game to play. They're trying to make money, and they have to get money from you somehow. The question is how they get money from you, and it's best if their source of revenue is obvious. For a subscription game, they get substantial revenue from everyone who plays, so they have no need to nickel and dime you for additional revenue. (That may not stop SOE from doing so, but I digress.) If you have to buy a box before you can play the game, as with most single-player games, then again, the revenue source is obvious, and there's no need to worry that they'll try to impose additional charges on you later. There can even be some genuinely free games where the "revenue" source is still obvious. A flash game that some geek coded by himself in his free time doesn't have enormous expenses to meet, and a bit of advertising on the site with the game, or even having the game distributed for free by other sites, could well meet the game's expenses. Some games are themselves advertisements, most commonly cheaply done things on a corporate web site where the premise of the game is that the corporations products are really wonderful. Occasionally there can even be larger budget such advertising games, such as America's Army, which was basically an advertisement for the United States Armed Forces. NASA is apparently working on such a game, too. But when one gets to a game that advertises itself as free to play, but clearly cost quite a lot of money to develop, one has to be quite naive to think that the company isn't going to try very hard to get revenue out of you somehow. If they say that their revenue source is an item mall, but you don't have to actually buy anything from it, alarm bells should go off that they're probably at best being intentionally deceptive. If buying items from an item mall doesn't give any gameplay advantage, most players won't, and the company will get virtually no revenue. A company can't allow that, and will have to give large gameplay advantages for buying things from the item mall. And the economic situation is worse than that when one considers who is playing those games. The author says that millions of people in "this region" play various "free to lose"/item mall games. I'm not entirely sure what "this region" means, but even if it means the United States only, I find the claim quite believable. Many of the people who play those games do so because they can't afford to play anything else. Perhaps they are kids who can't afford $15/month for a game subscription, or whose parents won't allow them to use a credit card online. If the reason they're playing an item mall game is that they can't pay a subscription, then they won't be able to buy anything from the item mall, either. A company making a "free to lose"/item mall game thus gets no revenue from a large fraction of its players. The company thus needs to get a lot of revenue to pay for the game, and needs to get it from a relatively small fraction of the playerbase. The company thus usually needs to get quite a lot of revenue from the relative handful of players who do pay. The only way to do that is to make it so that further payments give further gameplay advantages up to a pretty high threshold--much higher than the $15/month of a typical subscription game. That means that either the "free to play" game is actually quite expensive, and far more so than a normal subscription game, or else that it's "free to lose" as I've been repeatedly saying here, as you'll be at a big gameplay disadvantage as compared to those who do pay a lot of money. Indeed, economic reality dictates that if a "free to play"/item mall game has an item mall that doesn't really unbalance anything and doesn't get the company much revenue, they'll probably have to make the item mall more unbalancing in order to get more revenue in the future. Losing money in the first few months after launch while attracting players, only to try to make it up later with a more unbalancing item mall, is quite a plausible business strategy, and indeed, has been done on quite a number of occasions. Could there be exceptions? While there could, if a company were making its marketing strategy one of telling players, we're not like those other "free to lose"/item mall games, and you can't gain any further gameplay advantage beyond $X/month, why wouldn't they display that prominently? A lot of the item mall games won't even tell you what's in their item mall until you get into the game, for about the same reasons as the stereotypical drug dealer saying, "Try it. You'll like it. The first one is on me." And so, a challenge to the author: if you want anyone to believe that there are genuinely free to play item mall games that have considerable development costs, aren't in themselves more an advertisement than a game, and don't really mean "free to lose" unless you buy quite a bit from the item mall, then name one. Just one. It should be one that's been out for quite a while, so as to rule out the "lose money at first, but add a lot more to the item mall to make it up later" model.
This poster just pretty much owned the author in every shape form and fashion. I really have nothing to add to this because this person pretty much said it all. In other words /agree
Add to that things such as multiple content "boxes" you purchase where you have a certain percentage chance to get the item(s) you want and it's very easy to spend $200-300 or more in a week trying to get items that facilitate gameplay.
Wow, that's again, YOUR CHOICE. Is there something about video games that removes common money Sense from people?
Your blaming developers, because people are dumb? Looks to me like they gave that person just what they wanted.
If you'd get off your own defensive kick and actually read what I wrote (instead of cherry-picking that why don't you quote the whole thing so that it can be read in the way I meant it), and also put out of your mind our past disagreements in another thread, you'd see that I was speaking solely for moi. Not anyone else. I gave the reason why I don't won't play them. I'd offer that there is something about forums that removes reading comprehension...
I'm pretty sure I didn't "blame" anyone. They decided to make their game that way (F2P) and I'm deciding not to play it because I see the, in my eyes, trick. Playing on the impulse buying habits of your typical human being and their ego to be better than the next guy. As for the example I gave, which came from Atlantica Online, no, they didn't give the person what they wanted. That person never got the item from the random box they bought and were complaining about it on the forums. Personally, I don't care. I see the system for what it is and didn't buy Item Mall crap, though I did go have a look to verify the items there and see what impact they had on gameplay. That impact was significant enough to sucker people who already don't have fiscal control of their real lives to continue it in their virtual lives.
All that said, I have not attacked nor proclaimed your precious F2P games "suck". You can continue to feel good about playing them. Carry on.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
I love the game although many will say "it sucks". It hasn't cost me one cent and probably never will and I have been playing close to a year now. Now that really sucks!
No I am not an uber top level player and probably never will be. Does this bother me? No because I am having fun! For free!
And personally it doesn't bother me one bit that the "F2P's suck!" crowd doesn't like them. I think it makes for a much better community ingame because more people are playing for fun (it's free) rather than playing because they paid $50 bucks plus subscription for a game they hate and now feel they have to play to get their money's worth, all while telling everyone else how much their P2P game "Sucks".
PS: you can also trade ingame money for item mall goodies and thus still be Uber without having to pay. Thank god some people do pay though otherwise we wouldn't have this great F2P game!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
There's no reason to even have this arguement based on the fact that you're (the OP) trying to reason with ignorance. To provide a horrible example, this task is similar to trying to put out a fire with olive oil or alcohol. The more you become infuriated, the more you try to convey, and persuade these ignorant, incessantly moronic, skull heads, the more you provide pleasure for such fools. You, and you're hypothetical opponent (which may comprise more than half of the world) are not striving for similar goals--in fact your goals have no relavence. While you try to win an argument with reason and logic for the perferred product of a sound conclusion, you're opponent is trying to win with juvenile tactics--such as, "Dude....you're mom...lolomfgNewb"-- for the purpose of frustrating you. I ask, why bother? You can't change ignorance with reason or logic. You can't convey ideas and perspective to someone who is not willing to even contemplate such things. Let the morons rant about how F2P games suck. They are not persuading anyone of sound mind to think differently of the genre, they're only leading their knuckle-head friends off the perverbial cliff anyways. Besides, would you even what such idiocracy manifested in human form to contribute to the F2P communities? If you start a lemonade stand, why invite big, fat, booger-eating Charlie smash the un-officail concession stand to tiny, little bits?
I can see people are taking too seriously P2P and F2P models as a whole, but I believe these models cannot be treated as a whole anymore.
Most F2P criticism are about:
- The lies of being free while it is actually Free to play, they never said it was free to be competitive, it is a marketing (which many people consider to be evil, tricky, devil contract, etc) strategy;
- About Item Malls, which may trick you in spending more money than you would ever believe you could be able to - it's an endless possibility and game updates will be directed in that way;
- About lower quality. And that is why they created this genre, which merely stands for "endless trial" as your trial for that game is not bound in time, but rather in content or competitivity in the game, as the game was full of great Pay to Play games and there has always been the crowd that wants to play for free as long as they want, the chance of these lower budget games to stand up against the current juggernauts was low. Unfortunately this opened doors to even lower quality/budget games which have created a horrible impression of the F2P genre.
Well i can tend to agree with most of the content that the writers here put out,i can't agree this time.
F2P has one VERY large black mark and that is allowing RMT to flourish untouched because they can make limitless accounts.Also it seems that F2P = low budget operation so you will also get low budget anti cheat as we all know of as "GAME GUARD".A totally useless pile of trash and EVERYONE knows it does NOT work,so why do these F2P developers keep using it?because they are low budget,and the game is always low budget as well.
Many would argue GW is good,i would agree for a single player,instance game it is alright,but it should not be i nthe MMO genre and it is not quite free as you have to buy the game and expansions.
Back to the F2P scheme of things,i ask myself why would a game allow thousands/millions of freebie users to utilize their bandwidth?All these RMT botters do not support the game,so the game gets no money from these RMT's.Well i know it sounds skeptic but i believe they have their hands tied into the RMT,i am not sure how involved but they are most definitely get some kinfd of kick back or are directly running these operations themselves,outside of the main operation of course.This allows them to make real life money that is not taxed under any government and is put directly into their pockets.This way they can actually claim their operation as a loss of profit and sit on the beach in Maui,sipping Pina Coladas.
There is yet another problem that botting creates,besides ruining the game economy,it allows players to vault above all others while not even at their PC.This is huge if the game involves open PVP or there is strict competition for elite high level bosses.The solution of charging for subscriptions is a start ,but the developer still has to free the game of any botting and use a working anti-cheat and so far i have not see na F2P utilize any of it.Even worse the RMT botters using illegal software link 3/4/5/6/7 players together,so they can follow each other around the game and heal and wipe anything in their path.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Nice strawman argument there. It might help if the author were to address the actual argument of why the "free to lose"/item mall games get such negative reactions from so many players. If you get an e-mail from someone claiming to have $10 million US in Sierra Leone and wanting your help to get it out of the country and promising you a substantial portion of it, do you have to follow through to know it's a scam? If you follow through on a few such e-mails and get scammed, do you then know that the next such spam e-mail you get is also a scam, or do you have to try that one, too? The reason why a game being completely free gives it such a bad reputation is simple economic reality. Companies that make games in pursuit of a profit aren't charities that merely want to give you a good game to play. They're trying to make money, and they have to get money from you somehow. The question is how they get money from you, and it's best if their source of revenue is obvious. For a subscription game, they get substantial revenue from everyone who plays, so they have no need to nickel and dime you for additional revenue. (That may not stop SOE from doing so, but I digress.) If you have to buy a box before you can play the game, as with most single-player games, then again, the revenue source is obvious, and there's no need to worry that they'll try to impose additional charges on you later. There can even be some genuinely free games where the "revenue" source is still obvious. A flash game that some geek coded by himself in his free time doesn't have enormous expenses to meet, and a bit of advertising on the site with the game, or even having the game distributed for free by other sites, could well meet the game's expenses. Some games are themselves advertisements, most commonly cheaply done things on a corporate web site where the premise of the game is that the corporations products are really wonderful. Occasionally there can even be larger budget such advertising games, such as America's Army, which was basically an advertisement for the United States Armed Forces. NASA is apparently working on such a game, too. But when one gets to a game that advertises itself as free to play, but clearly cost quite a lot of money to develop, one has to be quite naive to think that the company isn't going to try very hard to get revenue out of you somehow. If they say that their revenue source is an item mall, but you don't have to actually buy anything from it, alarm bells should go off that they're probably at best being intentionally deceptive. If buying items from an item mall doesn't give any gameplay advantage, most players won't, and the company will get virtually no revenue. A company can't allow that, and will have to give large gameplay advantages for buying things from the item mall. And the economic situation is worse than that when one considers who is playing those games. The author says that millions of people in "this region" play various "free to lose"/item mall games. I'm not entirely sure what "this region" means, but even if it means the United States only, I find the claim quite believable. Many of the people who play those games do so because they can't afford to play anything else. Perhaps they are kids who can't afford $15/month for a game subscription, or whose parents won't allow them to use a credit card online. If the reason they're playing an item mall game is that they can't pay a subscription, then they won't be able to buy anything from the item mall, either. A company making a "free to lose"/item mall game thus gets no revenue from a large fraction of its players. The company thus needs to get a lot of revenue to pay for the game, and needs to get it from a relatively small fraction of the playerbase. The company thus usually needs to get quite a lot of revenue from the relative handful of players who do pay. The only way to do that is to make it so that further payments give further gameplay advantages up to a pretty high threshold--much higher than the $15/month of a typical subscription game. That means that either the "free to play" game is actually quite expensive, and far more so than a normal subscription game, or else that it's "free to lose" as I've been repeatedly saying here, as you'll be at a big gameplay disadvantage as compared to those who do pay a lot of money. Indeed, economic reality dictates that if a "free to play"/item mall game has an item mall that doesn't really unbalance anything and doesn't get the company much revenue, they'll probably have to make the item mall more unbalancing in order to get more revenue in the future. Losing money in the first few months after launch while attracting players, only to try to make it up later with a more unbalancing item mall, is quite a plausible business strategy, and indeed, has been done on quite a number of occasions. Could there be exceptions? While there could, if a company were making its marketing strategy one of telling players, we're not like those other "free to lose"/item mall games, and you can't gain any further gameplay advantage beyond $X/month, why wouldn't they display that prominently? A lot of the item mall games won't even tell you what's in their item mall until you get into the game, for about the same reasons as the stereotypical drug dealer saying, "Try it. You'll like it. The first one is on me." And so, a challenge to the author: if you want anyone to believe that there are genuinely free to play item mall games that have considerable development costs, aren't in themselves more an advertisement than a game, and don't really mean "free to lose" unless you buy quite a bit from the item mall, then name one. Just one. It should be one that's been out for quite a while, so as to rule out the "lose money at first, but add a lot more to the item mall to make it up later" model.
This poster just pretty much owned the author in every shape form and fashion. I really have nothing to add to this because this person pretty much said it all. In other words /agree
This doesn't say it all. There is no logically necessity between method of payment and game quality having to be directly related, if they are related at all. If hypothetical game "A" can be good, and be free, then--no thing if this is ACTUALLY possible, not if you DON"T LIKE IT-- method of payment is not a NECESSARY aspect for game quality.
This post only talks about "scams," and other such hodge-podge. Ever played Warhammer Online? They billed me outright, but they most certainly were not donating that money to charity. Oh, and the game sucked...but it was a P2P game...uh, oh. I have a different opinion. I might as well put on my ignorant cap, because that's the only way to win an argument.
If hypothetical "scam" can-- remember possibly, this isn't a question of preference--exist as a P2P game, then you're theory that all F2P games is illogical, because the quality of being a "scam" is not necessary to the category of F2P games.
Exercise a little open-mindedness and perspective before you declare your viewpoint supreme.
My biggest issue with the entire idea of a F2P "column" is still the "who cares" factor.
I'm not interested in playing them for a variety of reasons much more defined than "they suck". They tend to be horrid clones in a genre already lacking in diversity. The graphics tend to be exceptionally poor and very "old tech". The gameplay tends to be even more of a repetitve grindfest than most Sub-based MMOs. They tend to lack any real story or writing. Oh yeah, I also dislike the microtransaction payment method for anything, to me it's like having to buy every individual nut, screw, spring, washer and widget to get a fishing pole...and then having to pay for the fish too.
So, I'm not (edit doh!) interested in the games, so I certainly don't want to see a column devoted to the sort of fluff press coverage this site gives to most up and coming/new games. I certainly don't want to debate the ins and outs of playing one of the games. So what's left? A fairly boring academic debate of the "merits" and details of various business models...yawn.
I read this site for info on games I might be interested in playing....and that's subscription based MMOs....
(and when surfing the anime porn gets boring, so I can argue with some of you!)
You know what? I actually like the idea of winning because you pay more money. Why? Because in that arena I'm very competitive, I'd say I can afford to shell out enough to keep me in the top third of the competitive tier. Contrast that with most standard MMORPG's that reward players who have lots of free time on their hands to play. Time is a precious commodity for me and I can never put in enough time to bring myself out of the bottom third tier. So for me, paying to win is a feasible model. Understandable that some folks might not want to compete in the manner, but for me, it works out well. EVEs another great game for me. My training happens even when I'm logged off, and if I need ISK, I can buy what I want to fill the gaps that my lack of farming time might leave. (hasn't really been a problem once I got past the starting 6 months or so) Back on topic. I tried a number of free to play games. (lets say 10 or). I didn't like them. I felt they were either simplistic rip-offs that used the Lineage 2 engine, or badly translated, and poorly implemented. Then I found Runes of Magic, and changed my mind completely about the model. Finally I found a quality game in the "F2P" genre. (but boy, is F2P truly a misnomer in that game) Never the less, I grouped with 2 players (level 33 or so) that had not spent a cent on the game, so it is possible to do so.(but they've been living w/o a mount, which I find to be their real accomplishment, because the game sucks w/o a mount)
I'm with Kyleran. If I ever play a fun, engaging F2P(item mall) game. I won't hesitate to buy my way to a more enjoyable time. I have no moral quandaries when it comes to playing video games. Its my hobby, and I don't mind spending money on a fun game.
The only problem I have is I've never played a fun, engaging F2P game.
I dont think there should even be an argument about this semantic nonsense, can't we just leave that aside and discuss the issues that really matter? Like how much enjoyment are we getting out of f2p games when they're free and how much enjoyment are we getting when we pay 14.95US in itemmall purchases a month? Are the levels of enjoyment competative? If I decided to go crazy and spend 45 dollars a month on itemmall purchases how much is my enjoyment of the game going to grow? Will it be 3X or just slightly? OR will it be more?
Comments
Disagreeing with someone's topic doesn't make it poorly written. If you have any technical complaints about the writing, feel free to send them over. From a purely written point of view, I don't see what you have to complain about.
I'm a writer by profession and many times when someone disagrees with what I've written, I get the "you are a bad writer" comment.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize.
back on topic..
i like f2p, yes most of them are poor quality but you noly wasted some time playing no money.
and i still have not found a p2p game to get my attention. and i bought WAR for £35 and only played for 20 hours max :S
the truth is F2P suit's my life style (my current MMO of choice is RF:online) i only play now and again due to work / college and i don't feel scammed out of money (which i would if i played a F2P)
@Quizzicle
@ Player_420
First off let me say that Quizzical’s post was fantastic.
That being said, I disagree with a couple of things, to a point. You both assume that every player is trying to catch up to or beat the community in terms of prestige. Lets face it, this is true for a large amount of players, including myself, but it is not true for all; especially players new to an mmorpg, which are the vast majority or F2p players.
You are essentially saying the object of the game is a competition for everyone is to kill monster A, get item B and gain Level C before the other player does. This constitutes “winning”. Since item malls give players who spend money an advantage over the players who choose to spend nothing i.e. “play for free”, the players who play free “play to lose”. Well…
@quizzical
By your logic ALL mmorpg games are “play to lose” because the advantage you give to spending money in an item mall is no different than the advantage of time. Players who have more time to play can also kill monster A, get item B and gain Level C faster than people who can’t play as much. An age-old bone of contention with mmorpgs and sadly your logic reveals this to be true, as has been known forever.
Consider players X, Y and Z who want to compete for prestige. Players X and Y like most of us do not have a lot of time to play. Z has no life and plays 22 hours a week. It is frustrating for players X and Y to watch player Z rocket ahead of them (age old bone of contention). Enter the item mall. As if the time issue was not enough, now player X, who does not have much money either, has to watch player Y rocket ahead of him because now Y can spend money on double xp cards in the item mall. To make matters worse for player X, he has to watch player Z rocket ahead even further since he has time to play AND money to spend. Y can compete with money, Z can compete with money and time, X who was ok with the handful of players who played 22 hours a week, now has to deal with the item mall as well. If he wants to compete for prestige and spends no money or excessive amounts of time, he essentially “plays to lose”. I agree with you in context to the play to compete for prestige, measuring everything you do against other players in the game.
@Quizzicle
@ Player_420
Here is where I disagree, to a point ;p
While part of a traditional mmorpgs mechanic is the de facto competition for prestige gained by out leveling those around you or having the coolest gear/clothes etc, success at this mechanic is not required to actually play the game. Either way, as a player I can still kill monster A, get item B and gain Level C, and enjoy doing it. Just because I can’t do it as easily as those who buy items (or spend more time playing) doesn’t mean I lose.
Granted, for those without money or time to burn, the sale of a double-xp card or more powerful items in an item mall is a direct disadvantage to those who compete for prestige in this way, as are the sale of “cool” clothes and pets, but still these items are not necessary to actually play and enjoy combat and other aspects of the game such as exploration, socializing with friends etc. This is proven by the amount of players who do play F2p mmorpgs and don’t use the malls. Ultimately, you can use the item mall or not, or play 10 minutes a week or 100 hours, but you can still play them game, and enjoy it; it just depends on your expectations and play style.
For example, I played Maplestory until about level 30 with my character. I absolutely loved the retro console-game play style and the look and feel of the world. I found it quite immersive and enjoyable. In addition, these games have a real charm to them. It was enough to keep me playing for a while. I scanned the item mall and there were many items I could have used or would have liked to own, but since I could play without them and I had no cash to burn, I chose not to purchase anything. Players who did buy these items were of course, way ahead of me in terms of prestige, level, and consuming content but I didn’t care and I still had fun. For a while…
Why I quit
I did not play the game looking for complexity; I wanted fun. Despite its charm, what chased me away was the endless, painful and mind numbing grind-the hallmark of F2p mmorpgs like Maplestory, Angels Online (PAIN) and a multitude of others. Players new to mmos and the “grind” mechanic might stick around for a long time, especially if they invest any money in their character. Experienced players like myself who have played many P2p mmorpgs have different expectations in terms of what we can expect to get for our valuable time spent grinding. In P2p, we have access to everything in the game, essentially the more we grind the more we get. Not so in F2p.
“Free”
F2p games are theoretically “free” to attract a multitude of players in the hopes of snaring the portion of those players who compete hard for prestige at any cost, knowing that their competitive nature will have them spending money in the item malls. The players who do not play make up the bulk of ‘society” and they are the ones the elite show off too and feel better than. Any player concerned with prestige will think about shopping at the mall, some will spend a little to compete, some will spend a lot, some will quit and be angry, justifiably criticizing the game, based on their expectations, as “free to lose”.
Finally, addressing the original point of the OP.
Since you don’t “need” to purchase items to play, technically it’s “free to play”. This doesn’t mean all F2p mmorpg games suck, but that they are different, some good some bad. It means that while offering many enjoyable experiences to their own communities, paying or otherwise, they offer significantly less when it comes to the expectations of a seasoned P2p mmorpg player. They offer less and even offend those that compete for prestige (which I would venture to say comprises the majority on these forums) and multiply the age old problem of time with the addition of item malls. Similar to why P2p mmorpgs try to shut down gold sales. This can translate into hatred and the review that “they all suck” very easily. On a forum overwhelmingly populated by traditional P2p players of mmorpg games what did you expect?
It must be noted that F2p games attract a lot of new players which is very important for the industry since many will go on to try other games when they leave. I would venture to say they are good for the growth of the industry.
Now, with all that being said, I believe someone saying they all “suck”, although a little strong or uncouth, is a fair extrapolation of what the average player from this site looking for a game that will meet or exceed their expectations will ultimately experience after playing one. LOL
I used Maplestory as an example because its one of the most successful of the F2p models and Nexon is the expert in micro payment models, working and innovating them since around 1992.
If anyone cares, I think this is the best review ever of Maplestory and I think sums up most F2p mmorpgs in general in terms of what they offer.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/229576/Maplestory-Korean-grind-festReview.html
P.S. I assume that the OP first language is not English. If people who generalize their criticisms into the form of “it sucks” bothers you enough to post a rebuttal, then I highly suggest you get someone to check your articles for grammar mistakes. Otherwise, you will be pulling out your hair out, as everyone who disagrees with you will begin their posts by attacking your writing skills.
Dev
www.TXcomics.com "Your daily webcomics broadcast"
The goal is not simply to level the fastest or gain the most prestige. As I said elsewhere in this thread, I don't like games that are basically a contest of who has the most free time. Anyone who is impressed by your spending a lot of money on a game or having a lot of free time isn't worth impressing.
Rather, what I want is for a game to provide interesting challenges. If I set out to kill some mobs to do a quest, the question is how hard is it to kill the mobs. If it's all but undoable without buying stuff from the item mall, then buying the stuff from the item mall is essentially mandatory. Likewise, if it's all but undoable without spending a bunch of time grinding levels, then grinding levels is mandatory, and that's game-breaking.
If a game has PvP, the advantages of levels or item malls are far more important. PvP doesn't become interesting until everyone is essentially at the level cap with perfect gear. In some games, that never happens. In an item mall game, that probably requires you to buy a ton of stuff from the item mall. If one can't avoid PvP in those games, that destroys the game.
If a game caps the amount that you can spend to make your character stronger at a reasonably low level (as a subscription game typically does), then it's not a contest of whoever pays the most wins. Liikewise, if a game caps how long you can advance your character (e.g., by letting you reach the level cap and so forth quickly), then it's not a contest of who has the most free time.
If a "free to play"/item mall game were to say that you could spend $20/month and get all the possible advantages from the item mall at that price, I'd consider playing it. But with the game getting $0 from most of its players, the typical model requires them to get a lot more than that from the handful of players who do pay.
Its a fair point, i enjoy mmo's of all kinds if people dont like free to play mmos thats ok. u will always get haters thats what some people are like. i think f2p is popular an a good place to start mmo'ing, so go for it if anyone wants to get into it. i dont think that collum post was really called for but then again i would be pretty pissed if someone called what i was exploring shit then i would probably write something similar.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Do any of you realize how flawed the argument of "it isn't free to play, I have to spend money on item malls! the marketing is a lie!" is?
YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO USE THE ITEM MALLS. You WANT to, because by doing so it allowed you to skip a large amount of tedium. Stop confusing wants with needs.
I have yet to see a F2P game that isn't free to play.
Disagreeing with someone's topic doesn't make it poorly written. If you have any technical complaints about the writing, feel free to send them over. From a purely written point of view, I don't see what you have to complain about.
This is true, but I believe it's quite obvious that writing Diry instead of Dirty and then writing a sentence like this.
Many people "free to play" is a dirty word.
Which says enough for me, it's poorly written english. Please.. read it and patch it up.
I am just giving my opinion, plain and simple.
source: http://www.mmorpg.com/newsRoom.cfm/read/13712/utm_campaign/MMORPG%20News%20Alert%20Email/utm_source/MMORPG/utm_medium/email
Oh the news item, that is far from his fault. I must have rushed through it, both typos were exclusively mine. Neither of those typos appear in the actual article, apologies.
Sorry, I was actually talking about you. I think I should have included my source right away.
And still you have one more mistake in your post.
> To many people "free to play" is a dirty word.
To many people believe "free to play" is a dirty word.
...
As for the guy responding with, "they suck" I personally think he needs to have a sock put into his mouth, either give valueable input to the matter or do not say anything at all. Not all of the F2P games suck actually, nor do all of them have bad spelling in them. There are definitely quality F2P games out there.
Twitter @Phantium
What I replied to has nothing to do with what he said, seems you have nothing better to do then flame people. Without even knowing what I am talking about in the first place.
Your saying a few typos make this the "worst article ever". I was just matching your extremes. you also, need to read more MMORPG.com articles.
As a writer, I can tell you that the mark of a "good" writer is not in his/her spelling, but in the ability to remember to run spell check.
My main issue with F2P games is that they su..uhm, they don't seem to be on par with subscription based games when it comes to quality of gameplay and funfactor. They are mostly grindathons with average mobs, very little variety and ai in mobs and hardly any deep and unique environments that roleplayers can enjoy. I've tried many of them, and i'd say the exception sort of is guild wars though that is not a completely free to play game as you still have to buy the game boxes (you can pick up the whole series for about 60 dollars now though.
The last free to play games i tried where atlantica online and runes of magic. I couldnt get into the combat system of Atlantica Online, it just wasn't fun to me, and runes of magic just felt like a cheap rip off from WoW. We invest more then money in these games, we also invest a lot of time (time we could use to make money for example) and to invest a lot of time in a game that literally feels like a poor man's WoW is a lot of waste in my opinion.
What I lack from this article on MMORPG.COM is examples. If F2P games aren't so bad, okay fine, but what are these F2P games that aren't so bad you speak of? Because if there is one out there that can really compete with subscription games then I'd really like to know.
Furthermore, I really put questionmarks at these claims that millions of people are playing these F2P games. The thing I've noticed with a couple of these games is they advertise their game as being huge successes, they literally advertise claiming to have over 1 million subscriptions, but then you log in only to find 2-3 servers at max. When you log into WoW europe you can see more then 40 servers many of them heavy population, and then you don't even count the spanish, english, french and russian wow servers. I'm pretty sure that in the west, WoW alone has more players then all free to play games combined. In the far-east it might be different.
I would love to find a good F2P game that I enjoyed. I have tried quite a few, but they have all been disappointing (possibly because I don't like anime models).
I am going to call you on this... and you are not going to like it....
Let me name 3 Games.....
Eve
Everquest 2
World of Warcraft
Free to play is a marketing term, and as such has nothing to do with item malls (which is microtransactions). All three of these games offer free options, and as such just as much free to play as any game with an item mall.
Once you are paying to play, it doesnt matter how you pay (item mall, subscription, etc), the game is no longer free for you. The free option is only for those that dont pay.... and pretty much every competitive game has that today.... and so can be called Free to Play.
P.S. The next time you see a store with a Buy One, Get One Free sale, you should go protest that the second one isnt free, and that they are taking advantage of people by saying so.
I don't understand what you are saying...Eve, WoW and EQ2 are subscription games, not F2P.
Only in north America. Every where else, they use a different model. Eve in the NA, also lets you buy credits.
Not really. WoW is also subscription based in Europe, Russia, South Korea, Australia and New Sealand. The only region where WoW uses a different model is China.
I am going to call you on this... and you are not going to like it....
Let me name 3 Games.....
Eve
Everquest 2
World of Warcraft
Free to play is a marketing term, and as such has nothing to do with item malls (which is microtransactions). All three of these games offer free options, and as such just as much free to play as any game with an item mall.
Once you are paying to play, it doesnt matter how you pay (item mall, subscription, etc), the game is no longer free for you. The free option is only for those that dont pay.... and pretty much every competitive game has that today.... and so can be called Free to Play.
P.S. The next time you see a store with a Buy One, Get One Free sale, you should go protest that the second one isnt free, and that they are taking advantage of people by saying so.
I don't understand what you are saying...Eve, WoW and EQ2 are subscription games, not F2P.
Only in north America. Every where else, they use a different model. Eve in the NA, also lets you buy credits.
Not really. WoW is also subscription based in Europe, Russia, South Korea, Australia and New Sealand. The only region where WoW uses a different model is China.
And even then it's pay by the minute/hour. Hardly FTP.
I have the same problem, I am a anime fan but many games use anime graphics as an excuse to use low polygone count models and that just looks bad.
But that is not the problem, really. The problem is that all F2P games (unless you count Guildwars as a F2P game) are very shallow and boring. I care about gameplay and it is her the F2P games are generally a lot worse.
Games like Perfect world, Runes of magic and Sword of the new world looks nice but they are not fun, at least not in the long run. The better P2P games are fun for months or even years, and until F2P games can deliver that I stay with P2P.
Item malls dont bother me really, the ones that moan are the ones that have no money, but then again i only currently play the monthly subscription games becouse all the F2P so to say ive tried which is around probally 90% of the current ones have shite graphics which is why they are so quick to market, usually around 4 weeks production lol, the korean game style of stand there and whack 10,000 creatures to level, and no content what so ever which to me sounds as much fun as pulling my own teeth out with pliers.
Playing: FFXIV
Future: wishing for SWG 2, World of Warcraft Classic
Played: Most current and extinct MMO's - 18 Years in....
Interesting Fact - I own 27 Tarantula's
The article itself offered very little explanation as to why F2P was a viable alternative to subscription based games, anyone with a keyboard can contrust an argument of equal strength. Giving a single generic example of an hypothetical situation (an extreme one at that) to illustrate your point is just as simple-minded as the fictional protagonist who claims all F2P games suck.
And what if they were all in China? Do players there somehow count for less? Numerically, it's the world's largest market by far, and if it's not already the leader in terms of overall revenue, it's catching up very quickly.
Let's face it, the Asian market is nothing like it's NA/EU equivalent. F2P grindfests are released all the time, many don't make it to this part of the world because quite frankly, they're not up to the much higher standards we expect from our games. It's a totally different mindset, one which doesn't translate extremely well to European/American markets. Aion is a fairly good representation of this, I wouldn't pay to play an unfinished, bug-ridden game and I don't know many people who would. I understand it is doing just fine over there though.
As for F2P games themselves, you get what you pay for, which in this case is nothing. That means lower quality goods, poor support, etc, etc. Many (not all) F2P games do lack the depth associated with P2P, mostly because they are developed by independant companies that lack the manpower to dedicate the required time and effort to providing a top quality product. To make up for the lack of this, you'd expect (or demand) gameplay to exceed the norm to compensate and let's face it, very few meet the required standards to compete with their bigger P2P rivals. Those that have genuinely original ideas are often let down by a multitude of sins in other departments that generally see them ending up as just another game on the growing list found here.
Generally, F2P games lack that undefinable characteristic that makes a "good game." I understand this is most likely down to personal preference, but the mass of F2P games I've tried have all been missing that certain something that sinks it's hooks in and leaves you yearning for more. I'm sure there is a large market for F2P, but I doubt it will ever rival subscription based games that large companies can sink vast amounts of cash into. It would take a minor miracle (or an act of God) to make an F2P game that could seriously compete with the giants of P2P.
This poster just pretty much owned the author in every shape form and fashion. I really have nothing to add to this because this person pretty much said it all. In other words /agree
Wow, that's again, YOUR CHOICE. Is there something about video games that removes common money Sense from people?
Your blaming developers, because people are dumb? Looks to me like they gave that person just what they wanted.
If you'd get off your own defensive kick and actually read what I wrote (instead of cherry-picking that why don't you quote the whole thing so that it can be read in the way I meant it), and also put out of your mind our past disagreements in another thread, you'd see that I was speaking solely for moi. Not anyone else. I gave the reason why I don't won't play them. I'd offer that there is something about forums that removes reading comprehension...
I'm pretty sure I didn't "blame" anyone. They decided to make their game that way (F2P) and I'm deciding not to play it because I see the, in my eyes, trick. Playing on the impulse buying habits of your typical human being and their ego to be better than the next guy. As for the example I gave, which came from Atlantica Online, no, they didn't give the person what they wanted. That person never got the item from the random box they bought and were complaining about it on the forums. Personally, I don't care. I see the system for what it is and didn't buy Item Mall crap, though I did go have a look to verify the items there and see what impact they had on gameplay. That impact was significant enough to sucker people who already don't have fiscal control of their real lives to continue it in their virtual lives.
All that said, I have not attacked nor proclaimed your precious F2P games "suck". You can continue to feel good about playing them. Carry on.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I play Voyage Century. F2P with Item mall.
I love the game although many will say "it sucks". It hasn't cost me one cent and probably never will and I have been playing close to a year now. Now that really sucks!
No I am not an uber top level player and probably never will be. Does this bother me? No because I am having fun! For free!
And personally it doesn't bother me one bit that the "F2P's suck!" crowd doesn't like them. I think it makes for a much better community ingame because more people are playing for fun (it's free) rather than playing because they paid $50 bucks plus subscription for a game they hate and now feel they have to play to get their money's worth, all while telling everyone else how much their P2P game "Sucks".
PS: you can also trade ingame money for item mall goodies and thus still be Uber without having to pay. Thank god some people do pay though otherwise we wouldn't have this great F2P game!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
There's no reason to even have this arguement based on the fact that you're (the OP) trying to reason with ignorance. To provide a horrible example, this task is similar to trying to put out a fire with olive oil or alcohol. The more you become infuriated, the more you try to convey, and persuade these ignorant, incessantly moronic, skull heads, the more you provide pleasure for such fools. You, and you're hypothetical opponent (which may comprise more than half of the world) are not striving for similar goals--in fact your goals have no relavence. While you try to win an argument with reason and logic for the perferred product of a sound conclusion, you're opponent is trying to win with juvenile tactics--such as, "Dude....you're mom...lolomfgNewb"-- for the purpose of frustrating you. I ask, why bother? You can't change ignorance with reason or logic. You can't convey ideas and perspective to someone who is not willing to even contemplate such things. Let the morons rant about how F2P games suck. They are not persuading anyone of sound mind to think differently of the genre, they're only leading their knuckle-head friends off the perverbial cliff anyways. Besides, would you even what such idiocracy manifested in human form to contribute to the F2P communities? If you start a lemonade stand, why invite big, fat, booger-eating Charlie smash the un-officail concession stand to tiny, little bits?
I can see people are taking too seriously P2P and F2P models as a whole, but I believe these models cannot be treated as a whole anymore.
Most F2P criticism are about:
- The lies of being free while it is actually Free to play, they never said it was free to be competitive, it is a marketing (which many people consider to be evil, tricky, devil contract, etc) strategy;
- About Item Malls, which may trick you in spending more money than you would ever believe you could be able to - it's an endless possibility and game updates will be directed in that way;
- About lower quality. And that is why they created this genre, which merely stands for "endless trial" as your trial for that game is not bound in time, but rather in content or competitivity in the game, as the game was full of great Pay to Play games and there has always been the crowd that wants to play for free as long as they want, the chance of these lower budget games to stand up against the current juggernauts was low. Unfortunately this opened doors to even lower quality/budget games which have created a horrible impression of the F2P genre.
Well i can tend to agree with most of the content that the writers here put out,i can't agree this time.
F2P has one VERY large black mark and that is allowing RMT to flourish untouched because they can make limitless accounts.Also it seems that F2P = low budget operation so you will also get low budget anti cheat as we all know of as "GAME GUARD".A totally useless pile of trash and EVERYONE knows it does NOT work,so why do these F2P developers keep using it?because they are low budget,and the game is always low budget as well.
Many would argue GW is good,i would agree for a single player,instance game it is alright,but it should not be i nthe MMO genre and it is not quite free as you have to buy the game and expansions.
Back to the F2P scheme of things,i ask myself why would a game allow thousands/millions of freebie users to utilize their bandwidth?All these RMT botters do not support the game,so the game gets no money from these RMT's.Well i know it sounds skeptic but i believe they have their hands tied into the RMT,i am not sure how involved but they are most definitely get some kinfd of kick back or are directly running these operations themselves,outside of the main operation of course.This allows them to make real life money that is not taxed under any government and is put directly into their pockets.This way they can actually claim their operation as a loss of profit and sit on the beach in Maui,sipping Pina Coladas.
There is yet another problem that botting creates,besides ruining the game economy,it allows players to vault above all others while not even at their PC.This is huge if the game involves open PVP or there is strict competition for elite high level bosses.The solution of charging for subscriptions is a start ,but the developer still has to free the game of any botting and use a working anti-cheat and so far i have not see na F2P utilize any of it.Even worse the RMT botters using illegal software link 3/4/5/6/7 players together,so they can follow each other around the game and heal and wipe anything in their path.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
This poster just pretty much owned the author in every shape form and fashion. I really have nothing to add to this because this person pretty much said it all. In other words /agree
This doesn't say it all. There is no logically necessity between method of payment and game quality having to be directly related, if they are related at all. If hypothetical game "A" can be good, and be free, then--no thing if this is ACTUALLY possible, not if you DON"T LIKE IT-- method of payment is not a NECESSARY aspect for game quality.
This post only talks about "scams," and other such hodge-podge. Ever played Warhammer Online? They billed me outright, but they most certainly were not donating that money to charity. Oh, and the game sucked...but it was a P2P game...uh, oh. I have a different opinion. I might as well put on my ignorant cap, because that's the only way to win an argument.
If hypothetical "scam" can-- remember possibly, this isn't a question of preference--exist as a P2P game, then you're theory that all F2P games is illogical, because the quality of being a "scam" is not necessary to the category of F2P games.
Exercise a little open-mindedness and perspective before you declare your viewpoint supreme.
My biggest issue with the entire idea of a F2P "column" is still the "who cares" factor.
I'm not interested in playing them for a variety of reasons much more defined than "they suck". They tend to be horrid clones in a genre already lacking in diversity. The graphics tend to be exceptionally poor and very "old tech". The gameplay tends to be even more of a repetitve grindfest than most Sub-based MMOs. They tend to lack any real story or writing. Oh yeah, I also dislike the microtransaction payment method for anything, to me it's like having to buy every individual nut, screw, spring, washer and widget to get a fishing pole...and then having to pay for the fish too.
So, I'm not (edit doh!) interested in the games, so I certainly don't want to see a column devoted to the sort of fluff press coverage this site gives to most up and coming/new games. I certainly don't want to debate the ins and outs of playing one of the games. So what's left? A fairly boring academic debate of the "merits" and details of various business models...yawn.
I read this site for info on games I might be interested in playing....and that's subscription based MMOs....
(and when surfing the anime porn gets boring, so I can argue with some of you!)
I'm with Kyleran. If I ever play a fun, engaging F2P(item mall) game. I won't hesitate to buy my way to a more enjoyable time. I have no moral quandaries when it comes to playing video games. Its my hobby, and I don't mind spending money on a fun game.
The only problem I have is I've never played a fun, engaging F2P game.
I dont think there should even be an argument about this semantic nonsense, can't we just leave that aside and discuss the issues that really matter? Like how much enjoyment are we getting out of f2p games when they're free and how much enjoyment are we getting when we pay 14.95US in itemmall purchases a month? Are the levels of enjoyment competative? If I decided to go crazy and spend 45 dollars a month on itemmall purchases how much is my enjoyment of the game going to grow? Will it be 3X or just slightly? OR will it be more?
----ITS A TRAP!!!----