How is Lotro F2P model better. Free player in Lotro can't participate in any form of PvP (Age of Conan F2P does allow you join PvP) and how does Lotro tomes of permanent stat increase+10 (farily cheap in Store / nearly impossible to get in game ) differ from AoC store items?
For now you can't PVP in lotro as free player becouse Monster Play wasn't "cash shop ready" when FTP launched. Rise of Isengard is just around the corner now and it's bringing updated and expanded monster play to free players.
Stat tomes - like you said, are cheap in store.
In lotro you can earn turbine points ingame. Play the game, get points, buy stat tomes. Not only that. Buy permanent gold cap removal or permanent access to endgame expack and dungeons. No silly 3 day pass crap like in AOC. No rare/epic quality gear you can buy while leveling or at max lvl on PVP server.
Some people proved that playing on few characters in lotro you can permanently unlock everything from quest packs / dungeons / skirmishes / stat tomes to expacks and all endgame content without spending real money.
Dont want to spend money ? Take your time accumulating turbine points. Want everything NOW ? Pay for it.
One way or another though - you don't need sub, and you keep access to the zones you payed for. Forevaa!
LOTRO is doing it right. This is what should be copied.
How is Lotro F2P model better. Free player in Lotro can't participate in any form of PvP (Age of Conan F2P does allow you join PvP) and how does Lotro tomes of permanent stat increase+10 (farily cheap in Store / nearly impossible to get in game ) differ from AoC store items?
For now you can't PVP in lotro as free player becouse Monster Play wasn't "cash shop ready" when FTP launched. Rise of Isengard is just around the corner now and it's bringing updated and expanded monster play to free players.
Stat tomes - like you said, are cheap in store.
In lotro you can earn turbine points ingame. Play the game, get points, buy stat tomes. Not only that. Buy permanent gold cap removal or permanent access to endgame expack and dungeons. No silly 3 day pass crap like in AOC. No rare/epic quality gear you can buy while leveling or at max lvl on PVP server.
Some people proved that playing on few characters in lotro you can permanently unlock everything from quest packs / dungeons / skirmishes / stat tomes to expacks and all endgame content without spending real money.
Dont want to spend money ? Take your time accumulating turbine points. Want everything NOW ? Pay for it.
One way or another though - you don't need sub, and you keep access to the zones you payed for. Forevaa!
LOTRO is doing it right. This is what should be copied.
I agree. DDO is ok but the LOTRO model ..imo is the best. I think for most companies though....it still doesn't provide the desired return. I am fine with AoC's model for the most part. The most annoying thing is I purchased RotGS expansion...but if I go free ..then I have to purchase most of the content again (much like I had to purchase the LOTRO:SOA content again though I owned the box set). I'm not even sure if it's a one time purchase either. I'll have to check into that if I ever bother to play those areas. I don't raid much so all the original content is pretty much available unhindered.
Yeah the Freemium model will just become more popular now.
Only among the games which rightfully failed and got dumped by every almost mmorpg-player with his head at the right place.
Games coming from companies that were thinking they can get a piece of the big cake with products delivered broken, empty promises, PR spin and otherwise as little effort as possible.
Yeah the Freemium model will just become more popular now.
Only among the games which rightfully failed and got dumped by every almost mmorpg-player with his head at the right place.
Games coming from companies that were thinking they can get a piece of the big cake with products delivered broken, empty promises, PR spin and otherwise as little effort as possible.
Yeah, because giving a company money every month to play a game you already paid for when you and they know it doesn't cost them nearly that much to run the game means you have your head in the right place.
I for one hope the LotRO version of the "freemium" model or the GW2 B2P model ends up prevailing over the stupid P2P model. I think it will increase competition while giving players more choices on their purchases. If a player does it right, they can spend essentially only the box prices on a particular game and get as much enjoyment out of it as if they paid the subscription.
I say if AoC adopts a model similar to LotRO and is successful, more power to them and I hope the other devs are watching.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
I'm still waiting for that Funcom stock collapse and bankruptcy Azrile promised us years ago.
Yep, I was wrong. I honestly had no idea a company could be unprofitable 11 out of 12 quarters, write off 25M of a loss while bringing in only 4M in revenues and still be in business. It defies logic. Very few companies last long having non-stop negative profits quarter after quarter.
I'm still waiting for that Funcom stock collapse and bankruptcy Azrile promised us years ago.
Yep, I was wrong. I honestly had no idea a company could be unprofitable 11 out of 12 quarters, write off 25M of a loss while bringing in only 4M in revenues and still be in business. It defies logic. Very few companies last long having non-stop negative profits quarter after quarter.
You should have checked their cash reserve. After launch of AoC they had no debt and about USD 30 mill in cash. Now they still have some cash left and will soon (april) have two MMOs. Also AoC as an separate entity has been profitable for years now, they simply cut costs. The money they have spent has been on developing TSW.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
AoC is a fun game i like how it's really graphic and unique, even though of course they had to change the canon for the gaming industry a little.
What's funny is seeing all the naysayers of F2P models (western Freemium to be exact) continue to say their troll stuff over and over again when Lotro is STILL making mad money off it's model to this day even without releasing hardly any new content in the past few months. (two skirms and a dungeon don't count) so, when people say oh well yeah its freemium lets see how well it does bla bla, the fact remains that is the new model that this economy can handle and still be competative and still receive revenue, it's a fact.
AoC has some trouble still but it looks like they are fixing the problems, hell even STO is going F2P at some point and they are revamping EVERYTHING from what i've read so this model of games ROCKS. we just have to watch out for P2W games like Allod's or games that CALL themselves F2P like Age of Empires Online when they are nowhere near that model AT ALL when deciding what to play.
I was one of the people that came back because it went f2p.Walked around for a hour,wasn't impressed ....again,but hopefully they do well with it.Just because i think there combat system is a pos doesn't mean others have to also.
If your on the side that likes it great. If your on the side that doesn't,thats great.If your on the side that will argue til your face turns blue about pointless this or that comparisons,you've come to the right gaming site.
The release says it has a 4 FOLD increase in players. Fold means doubled. If they said 4x´s the number of players, that would be 4xs the number of players. Fold is double.
37.5k doubled is 75k doubled is 150k doubled is 300k. 37.5 to 300k is a 4 fold increase in players. They specifically used the word ´fold´.
Quoted from dictionary for enlightenment:
fourfold - four times as great or many; "a fourfold increase in the dosage"
fourfold - by a factor of four; "the price of gasoline has increased fourfold over the past two years"
Also, they said '300k new players', not '300k players in total'.
So, to summarize, a 'four fold increase in players' means that the number of players compared to the pre-F2P situation has increased by a factor of 4 for the month of July, or has become 4 times as large.
If 300k new players were seen in July, then that means that the number of players before F2P was about 100k players.
100k players + 300k new players = 400k players = 4 times the number of players before F2P, or otherwise said a 'fourfold increase'.
Mind you, that's not saying anything about PCU, peak concurrent users, or such.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
300k new players? They launched how many new servers to accomodate ALL of those active and new players? I applaud AOC's success-i think its a perfectly fine game. But i do chuckle at comparisons to EVE and a few other games that have either dozens of active servers or 60k + CONCURRENT users. Dont think AOC is supporting that kind of playerbase on what? 4 servers?
But creative and courageous revival of an "older" and "struggling" game-I applaud it! Anything that keeps the genre growing and positive works for me.
I don't understand how anyone can see this as anything but a success. I'm just a F2P player at the moment and frankly haven't been motivated to play in the last week or two. But they've doubled the revenue and quadrupled their active player base.
I hate their model and I hope things go back down so that they will reconsider their store model. But congratulations to Funcom for reviving their dying game.
300k new players? They launched how many new servers to accomodate ALL of those active and new players? I applaud AOC's success-i think its a perfectly fine game. But i do chuckle at comparisons to EVE and a few other games that have either dozens of active servers or 60k + CONCURRENT users. Dont think AOC is supporting that kind of playerbase on what? 4 servers?
But creative and courageous revival of an "older" and "struggling" game-I applaud it! Anything that keeps the genre growing and positive works for me.
It is simple. 300 K people did create accounts since F2P transition , but question is how many people still play?
Surely not all of those. Many people just created f2p account and left after few days/weeks and are not playing anymore ,but they are still counted.
In P2P games when your subscription run out you're not counted anymore. In F2P you don't have subscription and your account is not deleted (in many games there is even no possibility to delete account f.e. Lotro) game developes can overstate amount of users.
How to count how many actual playing users F2P game has? There is no definition so no wonder that game studios do definite it into their favour for press and investors.
I did create account in AoC and I am sure I am counted in those 300 k of new players even though I don't play anymore lol
True test for AoC will be if they are able to sustain those numbers and revenue.
Becasue most of F2P games do tell about player number increase after transiction but are a bit quiet about it year later for example.
Actually, have you seen any other game that would allow you to buy Tomes that permanently rise your attribute (strength/agility/vitality/fate/will) by 10 points that you can buy in-game for cash and which are nearly impossible to get in game. And when I say nearly impossible, I mean, you see it drop once per month of everyday 5-10 dungeon grinding?
Because those tomes iN lotro exist, why aren't you guys trolling Lotro forums about their Pay to Win strategy?
You think DDO is different? Because you know, the tomes of permanent stat increase exist in DDo as wel, which are again, cheap from Store and impossible to get in-game.
Because you don't need those tomes to do the hardest content, because the people that do find them sell them in the AH and because they are basically free if you choose to spend your monthly points on them. I bought 4 agil and 4 vit tomes because I had nothing else to spend my points on.
I played the game up to aprox level 60, on two different characters, and I simply don't like it. I'm not an end game player, so a game has to be fun for me during the journey, and this one just wasn't. I can't even bring myself to play it for free. But ultimately, I am happy that they are seeing some success with this new model... as the more revenue they bring in, the better off "The Secret World" will be, and that's one I am looking forward to
Wauw you made about 2 characters to level 60 before you found out you didn't like it. Okay.....atleast you seem to have given it a fair change. but 2 lvl (almost 60).......
Anyway it's pretty good to see a MMORPG increase in players during the summer time as with most MMORPG during the summer subs mostly drop because of the summer.
300k new players? They launched how many new servers to accomodate ALL of those active and new players? I applaud AOC's success-i think its a perfectly fine game. But i do chuckle at comparisons to EVE and a few other games that have either dozens of active servers or 60k + CONCURRENT users. Dont think AOC is supporting that kind of playerbase on what? 4 servers?
But creative and courageous revival of an "older" and "struggling" game-I applaud it! Anything that keeps the genre growing and positive works for me.
It is simple. 300 K people did create accounts since F2P transition , but question is how many people still play?
The claim is 300k new accounts and 2 million accounts total, including many free loaders as Tortage was FTP. However, the player numbers are still much lower than they were last year when the expansion launched making it highly unlikely that more than 100,000 people play. Which is bad news as it indicates a flaw in the game and especially the expansion that is minimizing player retention.
If this game wanted players it needed to focus on PvE stuff for entire guilds to do, rather than rely on single player daily quests for the best gear. The other option was to determine what PvP players wanted and implement content and systems to reflect that. There are quite a few MMOs that people are playing due to being WoW or fufilling a special nitch better.
In conclusion, AoC can market all it wants or not market at all like they did with the movie. However, player retention needed to improve by improving the actual gameplay and content to a level on par with the MMOs people are playing today and future MMOs like GW2 and Star Wars otherwise the players will leave and development will continue to be slow while producing amature level content.
I played the game up to aprox level 60, on two different characters, and I simply don't like it. I'm not an end game player, so a game has to be fun for me during the journey, and this one just wasn't. I can't even bring myself to play it for free. But ultimately, I am happy that they are seeing some success with this new model... as the more revenue they bring in, the better off "The Secret World" will be, and that's one I am looking forward to
Odd, AoC was one of the most enjoyable leveling experiences I had in a game. Well written adult themed quests and settings where refreshing.
Revenue and profit are not the same thing. Thats like saying your salary and your spending money are the same thing.
Regardless, I'm torn on this. On one hand I'm happy that Funcom has turned AoC around a bit and maybe now they will be able to develop some of the flaws to make the game a more full expirence. On the other hand I don't much care for the F2P model. We will see how this develops.
Comments
LOTRO is doing it right. This is what should be copied.
I agree. DDO is ok but the LOTRO model ..imo is the best. I think for most companies though....it still doesn't provide the desired return. I am fine with AoC's model for the most part. The most annoying thing is I purchased RotGS expansion...but if I go free ..then I have to purchase most of the content again (much like I had to purchase the LOTRO:SOA content again though I owned the box set). I'm not even sure if it's a one time purchase either. I'll have to check into that if I ever bother to play those areas. I don't raid much so all the original content is pretty much available unhindered.
Only among the games which rightfully failed and got dumped by every almost mmorpg-player with his head at the right place.
Games coming from companies that were thinking they can get a piece of the big cake with products delivered broken, empty promises, PR spin and otherwise as little effort as possible.
Yeah, because giving a company money every month to play a game you already paid for when you and they know it doesn't cost them nearly that much to run the game means you have your head in the right place.
I for one hope the LotRO version of the "freemium" model or the GW2 B2P model ends up prevailing over the stupid P2P model. I think it will increase competition while giving players more choices on their purchases. If a player does it right, they can spend essentially only the box prices on a particular game and get as much enjoyment out of it as if they paid the subscription.
I say if AoC adopts a model similar to LotRO and is successful, more power to them and I hope the other devs are watching.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
Yep, I was wrong. I honestly had no idea a company could be unprofitable 11 out of 12 quarters, write off 25M of a loss while bringing in only 4M in revenues and still be in business. It defies logic. Very few companies last long having non-stop negative profits quarter after quarter.
You should have checked their cash reserve. After launch of AoC they had no debt and about USD 30 mill in cash. Now they still have some cash left and will soon (april) have two MMOs. Also AoC as an separate entity has been profitable for years now, they simply cut costs. The money they have spent has been on developing TSW.
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
AoC is a fun game i like how it's really graphic and unique, even though of course they had to change the canon for the gaming industry a little.
What's funny is seeing all the naysayers of F2P models (western Freemium to be exact) continue to say their troll stuff over and over again when Lotro is STILL making mad money off it's model to this day even without releasing hardly any new content in the past few months. (two skirms and a dungeon don't count) so, when people say oh well yeah its freemium lets see how well it does bla bla, the fact remains that is the new model that this economy can handle and still be competative and still receive revenue, it's a fact.
AoC has some trouble still but it looks like they are fixing the problems, hell even STO is going F2P at some point and they are revamping EVERYTHING from what i've read so this model of games ROCKS. we just have to watch out for P2W games like Allod's or games that CALL themselves F2P like Age of Empires Online when they are nowhere near that model AT ALL when deciding what to play.
I was one of the people that came back because it went f2p.Walked around for a hour,wasn't impressed ....again,but hopefully they do well with it.Just because i think there combat system is a pos doesn't mean others have to also.
If your on the side that likes it great. If your on the side that doesn't,thats great.If your on the side that will argue til your face turns blue about pointless this or that comparisons,you've come to the right gaming site.
Quoted from dictionary for enlightenment:
fourfold - four times as great or many; "a fourfold increase in the dosage"
fourfold - by a factor of four; "the price of gasoline has increased fourfold over the past two years"
Also, they said '300k new players', not '300k players in total'.
So, to summarize, a 'four fold increase in players' means that the number of players compared to the pre-F2P situation has increased by a factor of 4 for the month of July, or has become 4 times as large.
If 300k new players were seen in July, then that means that the number of players before F2P was about 100k players.
100k players + 300k new players = 400k players = 4 times the number of players before F2P, or otherwise said a 'fourfold increase'.
Mind you, that's not saying anything about PCU, peak concurrent users, or such.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Tried to explain him before...
Lets see if he reads your english better than mine.
Annoying really, with people trying to disprove 1+3 = 4
The Ultimate Breakdown
300k new players? They launched how many new servers to accomodate ALL of those active and new players? I applaud AOC's success-i think its a perfectly fine game. But i do chuckle at comparisons to EVE and a few other games that have either dozens of active servers or 60k + CONCURRENT users. Dont think AOC is supporting that kind of playerbase on what? 4 servers?
But creative and courageous revival of an "older" and "struggling" game-I applaud it! Anything that keeps the genre growing and positive works for me.
I hate their model and I hope things go back down so that they will reconsider their store model. But congratulations to Funcom for reviving their dying game.
It is simple. 300 K people did create accounts since F2P transition , but question is how many people still play?
Surely not all of those. Many people just created f2p account and left after few days/weeks and are not playing anymore ,but they are still counted.
In P2P games when your subscription run out you're not counted anymore. In F2P you don't have subscription and your account is not deleted (in many games there is even no possibility to delete account f.e. Lotro) game developes can overstate amount of users.
How to count how many actual playing users F2P game has? There is no definition so no wonder that game studios do definite it into their favour for press and investors.
I did create account in AoC and I am sure I am counted in those 300 k of new players even though I don't play anymore lol
True test for AoC will be if they are able to sustain those numbers and revenue.
Becasue most of F2P games do tell about player number increase after transiction but are a bit quiet about it year later for example.
Because you don't need those tomes to do the hardest content, because the people that do find them sell them in the AH and because they are basically free if you choose to spend your monthly points on them. I bought 4 agil and 4 vit tomes because I had nothing else to spend my points on.
Wauw you made about 2 characters to level 60 before you found out you didn't like it. Okay.....atleast you seem to have given it a fair change. but 2 lvl (almost 60).......
Anyway it's pretty good to see a MMORPG increase in players during the summer time as with most MMORPG during the summer subs mostly drop because of the summer.
The claim is 300k new accounts and 2 million accounts total, including many free loaders as Tortage was FTP. However, the player numbers are still much lower than they were last year when the expansion launched making it highly unlikely that more than 100,000 people play. Which is bad news as it indicates a flaw in the game and especially the expansion that is minimizing player retention.
If this game wanted players it needed to focus on PvE stuff for entire guilds to do, rather than rely on single player daily quests for the best gear. The other option was to determine what PvP players wanted and implement content and systems to reflect that. There are quite a few MMOs that people are playing due to being WoW or fufilling a special nitch better.
In conclusion, AoC can market all it wants or not market at all like they did with the movie. However, player retention needed to improve by improving the actual gameplay and content to a level on par with the MMOs people are playing today and future MMOs like GW2 and Star Wars otherwise the players will leave and development will continue to be slow while producing amature level content.
Odd, AoC was one of the most enjoyable leveling experiences I had in a game. Well written adult themed quests and settings where refreshing.
Revenue and profit are not the same thing. Thats like saying your salary and your spending money are the same thing.
Regardless, I'm torn on this. On one hand I'm happy that Funcom has turned AoC around a bit and maybe now they will be able to develop some of the flaws to make the game a more full expirence. On the other hand I don't much care for the F2P model. We will see how this develops.