the fact these games exist suggests there is large number of people that pay2win.
1.do they just impulse buy and not realise how badly they are being ripped off. Some people aparentyl spend $100s or even $1000s of dollars on these games. they could have been playing sub games.
2.do they play these games with the intent of purchasing advantage so they can be the best.
Or 3. They just play casually, having fun and not pay a dime until they reach the point where they can't progress any further without paying, and then they just create a new char or move on to a different game, which IIRC from an article I read, would be about 90% of the people that play them (I remember it said something like only 10% of the people that play F2P titles actually pay anything).
the fact these games exist suggests there is large number of people that pay2win.
1.do they just impulse buy and not realise how badly they are being ripped off. Some people aparentyl spend $100s or even $1000s of dollars on these games. they could have been playing sub games.
2.do they play these games with the intent of purchasing advantage so they can be the best.
Or 3. They just play casually, having fun and not pay a dime until they reach the point where they can't progress any further without paying, and then they just create a new char or move on to a different game, which IIRC from an article I read, would be about 90% of the people that play them (I remember it said something like only 10% of the people that play F2P titles actually pay anything).
intresting 90%.
I will say that is exactly how I plan to work it if F2P hits the games I play which at the moment they dont because I am busy playing skryim
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
the fact these games exist suggests there is large number of people that pay2win.
1.do they just impulse buy and not realise how badly they are being ripped off. Some people aparentyl spend $100s or even $1000s of dollars on these games. they could have been playing sub games.
2.do they play these games with the intent of purchasing advantage so they can be the best.
I would say the people that pay to win are really no different from the hardcore raiders who raid 40+ hours a week and spend even more time preparing for the raid. In all reality there is no difference. As the saying goes time is money. Think of how much money the elite players in a game like WoW could have made if they crawled out of their parents basement and got a job. Some people just prefer to work and make real money rather than work and make fake gold or get make believe magic gear. Spending real money in order to "pwn a nubz" doesn't seem worth it to me but neither does spending more than half of my life in front of the computer to accomplish the same goal. To each their own I guess but I really dont see why people bash the hell out of the pay to win folks when they really are not very different from the hardcore $15 a month sub people at all.
I think there are varying degrees of the spending money on gaming. Some people spend money here and there for companion pets, others spend it on ingame currency, still others spend it on items that enhance/improve their gameplay, and I even read an article about a man who mortgaged his home to pay the developer to create ingame real estate for him (which he then sold for real money). I think he made a profit, but that's the extreme end of the scale to me. If I'm not mistaken, the game was Second Life. Anyway, the P2W mentality seems to be largely embraced by the casual gamers who have money to spend, and that's how they enjoy spending it.
I don't think the amount of money has anything to do with it.
It's all about what GAMES are all about. There is an old saying that the only time when a begger can be greater than the king is while thay're playing chess... and this is equally sweet for both the beggar and the king. The moment RL circumstance begins to influence the outcome of the game, the spell is broken and the game stops being a game.
The very point of games, the reason why we play them is that they divorce us from the mores of our everyday life and status. Games which are dependent on your social circumstance are pointless and useless as games, pretty much by definition. They might be called "entertainment" of sorts but they are not really games because they do not fulfill one of the basic psycho-social functions of the phenomena we call "games."
I'd never play a game that has a "P2W" component, not because I'm cheap but because I can see no point or entertainment value whatsoever in that. I'll pay a 100 $ a month sub for a game that really entertains me, but if i see that someone, including me can get 1% edge over the others for just one measly cent, I'm gone. It's not a game anymore, it's an ego whorehouse and I'm out.
This includes all MMORPGs ... if you are in college and you can play 10x the amount that a guy works can.... then guess what? your real life circumstances impacted the game.
Time = money.
If some guy trains 10 hrs a day at tennis compared to my 2hrs for whatever reason he deserves to win, if he trains 2 hrs and buys a bionic arm then fuck it, I am not playing the game.
If some guy trains 10 hrs a day at tennis compared to my 2hrs for whatever reason he deserves to win, if he trains 2 hrs and buys a bionic arm then fuck it, I am not playing the game.
I've used this argument many times as well in the past. For some reason, it doesn't seem to hold too well.
In the manner that Professional Bodybuilding (juiced) will never be acknowledged by the Olympic commitee, P2W games will never be truly respected by gamers.
If some guy trains 10 hrs a day at tennis compared to my 2hrs for whatever reason he deserves to win, if he trains 2 hrs and buys a bionic arm then fuck it, I am not playing the game.
I would argue that if a person trained smartly for 2hrs a day with a skilled, professional coach, whereas I just hit balls around the court for 10 hrs a day, a fair fight is definitely expected.
If some guy trains 10 hrs a day at tennis compared to my 2hrs for whatever reason he deserves to win, if he trains 2 hrs and buys a bionic arm then fuck it, I am not playing the game.
I've used this argument many times as well in the past. For some reason, it doesn't seem to hold too well.
In the manner that Professional Bodybuilding (juiced) will never be acknowledged by the Olympic commitee, P2W games will never be truly respected by gamers.
Was reading an article a few months ago about how by 2025 bionic limbs will be a big part of sports. A football player has a dodgy knee? Get him a better knee! Tennis player needs a better serve? Install a better arm!
Life is P2W, you're all fighting a battle that was lost many moons ago with this
Can you name a pay to win game ? Or are you making the assumption that all that are free to play games have some component in them that gives a significant playing advantage ?
edit: needed a verb...
the worst one I ever encountered was BSG online. Bigpoint is famous for p2w
the fact these games exist suggests there is large number of people that pay2win.
1.do they just impulse buy and not realise how badly they are being ripped off. Some people aparentyl spend $100s or even $1000s of dollars on these games. they could have been playing sub games.
2.do they play these games with the intent of purchasing advantage so they can be the best.
So called "pay to win" games are played by a variety of people.
1. They tend not to inpulse buy and generally don't feel ripped off. The muppets who spend £100s or £1000 are near the edges of the bell curve. These are usually PvPers who are ultra-competative and will take any perceived advantage in any game they play. Most cash shop users buy a little here and there to ease their journey and are generally OK with not being as kitted out as the next guy. I would go so far to say that it's really those to have a handle on not being concerned about be competition and are happy to just enjoy the ride.
2. No. Most play these games because they are cheaper. Being responsible for their own actions and impulse control keep costs doen a great deal. it's always more about having fun that being the "best". Type A personalities need not apply.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy. ______________________________ "This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
When my son was growing up, whenever we got a new game for the Nintendo the first thing he did was jump online and find the cheat codes sites. Without even trying the game first, he had the cheat codes. I finally broke him of that habit (I hope).
This is the type of person I envision "paying to win" in online games. The people who look for shortcuts, who copy answers on tests, who just do not understand the concept of achieving what they get. I guess some people who achieve in real life may feel they deserve to "pay to win" in their leisure time.
Truly, I don't know. These are just my perceptions of the people who "pay to win."
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
The way I look at it people who have been playing WoW since launch have spent over $1000 on subscriptions alone, not to mention the cost of expansions, so it doesn't surprise me some people spend the same in free to play games. I wonder if Blizzard sees those long term customers as their whales.
I play quite a few games where they have unique features or items that can only be unlocked with real cash, a good example would be something like League of Legends, you can unlock new stuff faster if you pay real money, but you can also do it through normal in game grinding. I'd venture the average user doesn't spend more then 15 a month on it, but I could be wrong. I spend maybe $2-5 dollars a month on it when I see a skin on sale that I like, there is usually about one each month that catches my fancy, but $2-5 dollars a month isn't that bad for a game I enjoy. Also another advantage to a set up like this is I can take a few weeks break without feeling like I'm losing out on my subscription fee, since when I do spend money on the game it's for something I'll use right away.
My experince with games like Ragnarok Online have been similair, if there is something I really want, that can't be got through normal gameplay, I usually shell out for it, but the total per month almost never exceeds the 15 a month budget for a online game. However to be fair I don't go for +10 gear which people do spend boatloads of money on since upgrade attempts fail so often, and to not break the weapon it requires cash shop upgrade material. The advantage to the +10 gear is pretty marginal over the +7 gear that is well within the reach of a more casual player. For example the difference between a +10 weapon and a +7 weapon was 15 damage, but when you have around 500 base damage at max level that's only about a 3% advantage.
There are also lot of cheapos, poeple that really want to play a coop/solo game with a chat box, and of course people that don't want believe that game X is P2W, play those games.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
When my son was growing up, whenever we got a new game for the Nintendo the first thing he did was jump online and find the cheat codes sites. Without even trying the game first, he had the cheat codes. I finally broke him of that habit (I hope).
This is the type of person I envision "paying to win" in online games. The people who look for shortcuts, who copy answers on tests, who just do not understand the concept of achieving what they get. I guess some people who achieve in real life may feel they deserve to "pay to win" in their leisure time.
Truly, I don't know. These are just my perceptions of the people who "pay to win."
I played EQ2 for years...had the max # of alts...even bought additional slots...had the mansion and all. I had years of fun and good memories.
I just logged on to the 'free' EQ2 and choked! Out of all my alts only 4 were available to me to play...all the others were 'locked' unless I paid for additional char slots. heheh. Nevermind, that as a previous subscriber I already paid for those slots.
It was a great lesson to learn. SOE is losing it's customer base and is now using all sorts of tricky tricks to pull in some cash.
I was affronted...but then laughed. You want to play you gotta pay (some way, some how).
When my son was growing up, whenever we got a new game for the Nintendo the first thing he did was jump online and find the cheat codes sites. Without even trying the game first, he had the cheat codes. I finally broke him of that habit (I hope).
This is the type of person I envision "paying to win" in online games. The people who look for shortcuts, who copy answers on tests, who just do not understand the concept of achieving what they get. I guess some people who achieve in real life may feel they deserve to "pay to win" in their leisure time.
Truly, I don't know. These are just my perceptions of the people who "pay to win."
And it's only worse, accept a quest it points you in the right direction. WoW use to not be like this I started my addiction when it went open beta that is why it was magical you had to take the time to unlock the magic. And I still to this day don't know why the combat log is hidden, it should come out of the closet that shy window is an RPG's best asset it needs to be shown off. /sigh
This is why when someone mentions a town or area in WoW I could easily envision where it's located I wonder if a newer player to WoW would even be able to do this since they just follow arrows, buttons, and sparkles.
I met someone in Maple Story that said he/she had spent over 3,000 dollars in the first 2 months they played the game..... There were a couple of other games where I met players that had spent alot but I dont remember the games offhand...... Generally speaking though there does seem to be a certain personality type that pays ridiculous money for some of these games......ITs probably no different than some people who spend thousands more on a car, a pair of shoes, a dinner, clothes, whatever.....Some people have zero sense of how to handle money and some will spend every dime they have to either try to impress others or try to be better than others.
It has less to do with the inability to handle money and more to do with the personality of the person IMO. People that can't control their impulses, much like gamblers or even a drug addicts, are the ones who spend all that money. If it wasn't in a video game, it would be somewhere else. Many f2p publishers know this and they prey on those people. F2p publishers have figured out that only a small percentage of people actually spend money on f2p games, and a very tiny percentage of people are the ones doing most of the spending, so some of them really take advantage of said people. In the end, it doesn't really matter because it is their money. As long as they aren't hurting the people around by spending the money it doesn't much matter. It sucks that people support this predatory payment model, but IMO it will eventually die out. The f2p market is oversaturareted and will hopefully thin itself out at some point...hopefully.
It's not just the F2P gaming market that is oversaturated. Have you taken a look at Steam lately? It didn't have near that many games back when WoW first came out. We are in an awesome time right now so many choices. That is why the F2P & Subscription based models will eventually die. Simply because there are so many online multiplayer games to choose from there is no way for an MMO to keep itself massive since the gaming community is spread across hundreds of games. This will force everything back to the buy to play market which is the way it needs to be.
Id like to point out that everyones buy to play game , the great the inventive, the transcendent gw2 while buy to play will have a cash shop just like free 2 play titles like rom
Oh not all free 2 play games sell buy 2 win items. Rom tried to stay away from that. I havent been in there cash shop in a while but they pretty much steared away from pay to 2 win type items ,
So while gw 2 will only have fluff items , they are still gonna have a cash shop, if anything free 2 play wont die, sub wont die either for the top aa titles
Its kinda naive to actually believe this. I for one like the sub model, so much better then any model with a cash shop , pay 2 win or not . I dont mind paying a sub for a game that gives me updates regularly . Hell ive subbed to wow since 2005 so id ont even need patches every month
That said buy 2 play is never gonna take over mmo's for alot of reason. One being mmo's cost more then cosnole games or computer single player games to make. So they have to have other streams of revenue
Dont think so everyones fav dev, the altuistic anet who would give u there games for free if nasty ncsoft would let the, Is gonna have a cash shop/
Using the term pay2win for mmos is utterly ridiculous.
mmorpgs are not a competition. You´re not winning anything by advancing in the game. Also, I don´t know of any game where you can actually advance in levels or buy equipment. that would defeat the point of an mmorpg.
the fact these games exist suggests there is large number of people that pay2win.
1.do they just impulse buy and not realise how badly they are being ripped off. Some people aparentyl spend $100s or even $1000s of dollars on these games. they could have been playing sub games.
2.do they play these games with the intent of purchasing advantage so they can be the best.
I played Eden Eternal for a good 6 months, and I'd consider it a Pay2Win game. It is one of the Online RPG's where you "enhance" or "buff" your equipment from 0 up to 10. With each step having a failure chance and the failure chance increasing as it goes up. Failure causes the weapon to break or reset, so you have to use cash shop items to prevent the failure from destroying the progress. Several other free2play korean games have this kind of item upgrade model (Scions of Fate, and Nostale, from what I've played) I think Cabal Online might have it too.
So, I played the game for 6 months and never spent a single penny. However, I did play the game all the time, and craft/trade intelligently, as well as farm for rare items and gold.
I had several heated debates in guild chats where I was using the anti-cash shop argument, and pro-cash shop argument people were voicing their reasons. In the end, I just pissed alot of Pay2Win addicts off by telling them how wasteful they were being.
So here are four different personality/role types I experienced when playing Eden Eternal, each of these types I had alot of interaction with on ventrilo as well as guild chat, and all of these player types made purchases.
The stay at home wife - she was the guild leader of the guild I spent most of my gaming term in. Her husband was the original founder of the guild but he had a full time job and had his wife take over the guild for him. He was a very smart guy with a good job and made good money. Every week when new items would come out in the cash shop, the guildmates would then joke about how our guild leader was going to beg her husband for some cash shop items once he gets home from work. The wife was not allowed to make purchases without the permission of her husband, since he was the one with the job. They were a couple in their late twenties. The wife was willing to pay money for the cash shop items, and the husband was not really thrilled about it, but he would appease his wife.
The lonely teenage girl - There was a girl who was in my guild for a while. She wasn't the most intelligent person in the world, and I'm saying that nicely. She did not make cash shop purchases often, she rarely did it. But when she would make them, it was on almost purely cosmetic stuff, like pets etc. She would use her own hard worked money. The majority of the time she would buy an item and then give it to someone else in the game as a gift to earn their friendship or affection. She only had a part time job and so she did not have a very high income. Whenever she would tell me about a purchase she made or I'd hear about it, I'd get upset with her, because I knew she was wasting her money and how little IRL money she had. She would shrug off my warnings and say stuff like "oh well I'll just work a few more hours this week". I was wanting a in-game pet that gives a significant tanking buff, since I did alot of tanking. I would mention it here and there but I couldn't afford it because I didn't have enough in game gold to buy one off a player. So the teenage girl gave it to me as a gift. I took it, but later regretted it, because I didn't like that she wasted her money on other people. So I mailed her back an equivalent amount of gold once I had earned it.
The rich loser - there were a handful of males in the game who would get ALL of their items to the maximum power level, +10 as soon as they would get the item, and as soon as it would be released from the cash shop. Basically these guys had max'ed out stuff as soon as possible and spent whatever amount of IRL cash was required. These guys were very elitist and arrogant. They also had striking personality flaws. Basically you only had to be in ventrillo with them for a good hour or two to realize how big of a massive tool they were IRL. So basically these guys had bad social skills, bad enough to hinder their success in real life, so they would make up for this, or attempt to, by being the biggest "winners" in-game. These guys who dumped literally thousands on the game would often talk about their IRL financial status, in a bragging manner. So basically they were rich guys in corvettes compensating for something, but it was an in-game corvette.
The average joe addict The last type I can think of is one of the officers of my guild. He was a very intelligent guy, he had a decent job, it was nothing super special but he had spare income to play with, but he wasn't wealthy/rich IRL. He would spend maybe about 100-400 dollars on the game per month. I remember him once having deposited 200 bucks into his account and complaining about how much money he just dumped, regretting it. He was a nice guy, easy to get along with, he seemed very normal. But he was an addict to the game. He liked to be decently powerful, like bargain powerful. He'd get his stuff powerful enough to get stuff done and to handle business in PVP, but he wouldnt just dump tons of cash like the rich loser would. So I can only say that this is the average addicted Pay2Win player. They know they are addicted, they know they are dumping their money away, but they are having fun in the game so they feel its justified.
The rare spender / cheapskate (Me) - This guy has way too much free time on his hands. He has no girlfriend, and no significant hobby besides gaming. His IRL / local friends are also gamers, so maintaining the friendships while still gaming a ton is easy. He thinks pay2win and cash shop games are a rip off, except for the subscription'esque type items that some games offer. (Some games call it "premium" or "gold" status. Basically the most bang for your buck in cash shop games) This player is very content with themselves as a person, both in-game and IRL, so doesn't need to feed their ego by being the best in the pay2win games. The player has enough time to devote to gaming that they can experience almost all of what the pay2win games have to offer without spending any money. They can compete with the cash shop spenders because of how many more hours they put into the game as compared to the spenders. The player is perfectly fine with being mediocre and enjoy the game for the gameplay itself and not the items/power status symbols. The player is in-game economy savvy and knows a good cash shop deal when it comes along. This type of player plays most Free2Play games for free for the entire duration, or spends at most 30 dollars per month for subscription/exp boost type purchases. A good example of this type of player would be to say they were able to unlock almost all the champions in League of Legends and all of the runes they needed for every possible build they wanted, without paying a single penny to Riot Games, because of the sheer volume of matches the person played and exp was gained.
Oops, I listed 5 types instead of 4. Well the last one is kind of the non-spender, but they still deserve a description I think.
Everything in this post is 100% accurate and true. I have played many many Free2Play as well as subscription games, and I've played the piss out of them, and these are my experiences with F2P spenders.
Using the term pay2win for mmos is utterly ridiculous.
mmorpgs are not a competition. You´re not winning anything by advancing in the game. Also, I don´t know of any game where you can actually advance in levels or buy equipment. that would defeat the point of an mmorpg.
You probably shouldn't post opinions like this unless you've actually gotten your feet wet in some F2P games.... Allow me to enlighten you.
Eden Eternal:
There are territories (capture nodes) in the game which can only be owned by a single guild. That guild which owns them gets a reward of gold per day. A tax from the NPCs of that territory if you will.
When a guild defends their territory, they are being attacked by all the other guilds on the server who choose to participate. So there is a prestige type reward, as well as a physical gold reward for territory ownership. The "Territory Wars" battle is pretty much just a gigantic Arathi Basin with hundreds of players on the server from many different guilds. Success relies mostly on the guild's strategy, and the power of the gear worn by the players. Player skill is a small factor but no where near as huge as item power.
Players power in pvp is very strongly affected by how "buffed" or "enhanced" their items are. Items start at +0 (normal), and are increased to 10. The items get much much stronger the higher they go, and it becomes increasingly expensive to go higher. Most players are content with items in the 3-7 range.
These items are useful in Territory Wars, Arena battles, and PVE as well. There is a very direct correlation between character strength and amount of gold/USD invested into the gear.
There are many, many other Free2Play games like this.
I have been paying attention to the free to play model and its evolution for quite a while, so be assured that my opinion is not based on wild speculation.
What you just described is a pvp scenario that only a small amount of people actually particupate in. PVP is not the focus of any MMORPG and most that have tried to make it so have failed and for good reason.
PVP is merely one aspect of any MMORPG and doing well at PVP is not winning the game. If you do well at a pvp scenario you just described, you get ingame financial benefits. You´re not competing with anyone when your character levels up and gets stronger by gear.
and lets face it, leveling up and getting gear is the only reason to play an mmorpg.
so does buying buffs help in the pvp scenario you just described? Yeah probably. It is only one aspect of the game and to describe the entire game as pay2win because of it is silly. I would argue that there are far bigger aspects in pvp in mmos that lead to imbalance and im not just talking about differences inside the game.
Comments
Or 3. They just play casually, having fun and not pay a dime until they reach the point where they can't progress any further without paying, and then they just create a new char or move on to a different game, which IIRC from an article I read, would be about 90% of the people that play them (I remember it said something like only 10% of the people that play F2P titles actually pay anything).
What can men do against such reckless hate?
intresting 90%.
I will say that is exactly how I plan to work it if F2P hits the games I play which at the moment they dont because I am busy playing skryim
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I would say the people that pay to win are really no different from the hardcore raiders who raid 40+ hours a week and spend even more time preparing for the raid. In all reality there is no difference. As the saying goes time is money. Think of how much money the elite players in a game like WoW could have made if they crawled out of their parents basement and got a job. Some people just prefer to work and make real money rather than work and make fake gold or get make believe magic gear. Spending real money in order to "pwn a nubz" doesn't seem worth it to me but neither does spending more than half of my life in front of the computer to accomplish the same goal. To each their own I guess but I really dont see why people bash the hell out of the pay to win folks when they really are not very different from the hardcore $15 a month sub people at all.
I don't think the amount of money has anything to do with it.
It's all about what GAMES are all about. There is an old saying that the only time when a begger can be greater than the king is while thay're playing chess... and this is equally sweet for both the beggar and the king. The moment RL circumstance begins to influence the outcome of the game, the spell is broken and the game stops being a game.
The very point of games, the reason why we play them is that they divorce us from the mores of our everyday life and status. Games which are dependent on your social circumstance are pointless and useless as games, pretty much by definition. They might be called "entertainment" of sorts but they are not really games because they do not fulfill one of the basic psycho-social functions of the phenomena we call "games."
I'd never play a game that has a "P2W" component, not because I'm cheap but because I can see no point or entertainment value whatsoever in that. I'll pay a 100 $ a month sub for a game that really entertains me, but if i see that someone, including me can get 1% edge over the others for just one measly cent, I'm gone. It's not a game anymore, it's an ego whorehouse and I'm out.
This includes all MMORPGs ... if you are in college and you can play 10x the amount that a guy works can.... then guess what? your real life circumstances impacted the game.
Time = money.
If some guy trains 10 hrs a day at tennis compared to my 2hrs for whatever reason he deserves to win, if he trains 2 hrs and buys a bionic arm then fuck it, I am not playing the game.I did in one game that I loved to play. OMG! Once I hit $750/mo to play I had to quit.
the same people who love gear grinders. *coughinferioritycomplexescough*
I've used this argument many times as well in the past. For some reason, it doesn't seem to hold too well.
In the manner that Professional Bodybuilding (juiced) will never be acknowledged by the Olympic commitee, P2W games will never be truly respected by gamers.
But not the kind who love freeform sandboxes. *cougheliteistdbagscough*
Hmm, I think you might be contagious.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
I would argue that if a person trained smartly for 2hrs a day with a skilled, professional coach, whereas I just hit balls around the court for 10 hrs a day, a fair fight is definitely expected.
Was reading an article a few months ago about how by 2025 bionic limbs will be a big part of sports. A football player has a dodgy knee? Get him a better knee! Tennis player needs a better serve? Install a better arm!
Life is P2W, you're all fighting a battle that was lost many moons ago with this
the worst one I ever encountered was BSG online. Bigpoint is famous for p2w
So called "pay to win" games are played by a variety of people.
1. They tend not to inpulse buy and generally don't feel ripped off. The muppets who spend £100s or £1000 are near the edges of the bell curve. These are usually PvPers who are ultra-competative and will take any perceived advantage in any game they play. Most cash shop users buy a little here and there to ease their journey and are generally OK with not being as kitted out as the next guy. I would go so far to say that it's really those to have a handle on not being concerned about be competition and are happy to just enjoy the ride.
2. No. Most play these games because they are cheaper. Being responsible for their own actions and impulse control keep costs doen a great deal. it's always more about having fun that being the "best". Type A personalities need not apply.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
When my son was growing up, whenever we got a new game for the Nintendo the first thing he did was jump online and find the cheat codes sites. Without even trying the game first, he had the cheat codes. I finally broke him of that habit (I hope).
This is the type of person I envision "paying to win" in online games. The people who look for shortcuts, who copy answers on tests, who just do not understand the concept of achieving what they get. I guess some people who achieve in real life may feel they deserve to "pay to win" in their leisure time.
Truly, I don't know. These are just my perceptions of the people who "pay to win."
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
SoE customers.
The way I look at it people who have been playing WoW since launch have spent over $1000 on subscriptions alone, not to mention the cost of expansions, so it doesn't surprise me some people spend the same in free to play games. I wonder if Blizzard sees those long term customers as their whales.
I play quite a few games where they have unique features or items that can only be unlocked with real cash, a good example would be something like League of Legends, you can unlock new stuff faster if you pay real money, but you can also do it through normal in game grinding. I'd venture the average user doesn't spend more then 15 a month on it, but I could be wrong. I spend maybe $2-5 dollars a month on it when I see a skin on sale that I like, there is usually about one each month that catches my fancy, but $2-5 dollars a month isn't that bad for a game I enjoy. Also another advantage to a set up like this is I can take a few weeks break without feeling like I'm losing out on my subscription fee, since when I do spend money on the game it's for something I'll use right away.
My experince with games like Ragnarok Online have been similair, if there is something I really want, that can't be got through normal gameplay, I usually shell out for it, but the total per month almost never exceeds the 15 a month budget for a online game. However to be fair I don't go for +10 gear which people do spend boatloads of money on since upgrade attempts fail so often, and to not break the weapon it requires cash shop upgrade material. The advantage to the +10 gear is pretty marginal over the +7 gear that is well within the reach of a more casual player. For example the difference between a +10 weapon and a +7 weapon was 15 damage, but when you have around 500 base damage at max level that's only about a 3% advantage.
There are also lot of cheapos, poeple that really want to play a coop/solo game with a chat box, and of course people that don't want believe that game X is P2W, play those games.
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
This
I played EQ2 for years...had the max # of alts...even bought additional slots...had the mansion and all. I had years of fun and good memories.
I just logged on to the 'free' EQ2 and choked! Out of all my alts only 4 were available to me to play...all the others were 'locked' unless I paid for additional char slots. heheh. Nevermind, that as a previous subscriber I already paid for those slots.
It was a great lesson to learn. SOE is losing it's customer base and is now using all sorts of tricky tricks to pull in some cash.
I was affronted...but then laughed. You want to play you gotta pay (some way, some how).
I did have fun for years...and that is that.
And it's only worse, accept a quest it points you in the right direction. WoW use to not be like this I started my addiction when it went open beta that is why it was magical you had to take the time to unlock the magic. And I still to this day don't know why the combat log is hidden, it should come out of the closet that shy window is an RPG's best asset it needs to be shown off. /sigh
This is why when someone mentions a town or area in WoW I could easily envision where it's located I wonder if a newer player to WoW would even be able to do this since they just follow arrows, buttons, and sparkles.
Is this the end of MMORPG's for me?
It's not just the F2P gaming market that is oversaturated. Have you taken a look at Steam lately? It didn't have near that many games back when WoW first came out. We are in an awesome time right now so many choices. That is why the F2P & Subscription based models will eventually die. Simply because there are so many online multiplayer games to choose from there is no way for an MMO to keep itself massive since the gaming community is spread across hundreds of games. This will force everything back to the buy to play market which is the way it needs to be.
Id like to point out that everyones buy to play game , the great the inventive, the transcendent gw2 while buy to play will have a cash shop just like free 2 play titles like rom
Oh not all free 2 play games sell buy 2 win items. Rom tried to stay away from that. I havent been in there cash shop in a while but they pretty much steared away from pay to 2 win type items ,
So while gw 2 will only have fluff items , they are still gonna have a cash shop, if anything free 2 play wont die, sub wont die either for the top aa titles
Its kinda naive to actually believe this. I for one like the sub model, so much better then any model with a cash shop , pay 2 win or not . I dont mind paying a sub for a game that gives me updates regularly . Hell ive subbed to wow since 2005 so id ont even need patches every month
That said buy 2 play is never gonna take over mmo's for alot of reason. One being mmo's cost more then cosnole games or computer single player games to make. So they have to have other streams of revenue
Dont think so everyones fav dev, the altuistic anet who would give u there games for free if nasty ncsoft would let the, Is gonna have a cash shop/
Using the term pay2win for mmos is utterly ridiculous.
mmorpgs are not a competition. You´re not winning anything by advancing in the game. Also, I don´t know of any game where you can actually advance in levels or buy equipment. that would defeat the point of an mmorpg.
I played Eden Eternal for a good 6 months, and I'd consider it a Pay2Win game. It is one of the Online RPG's where you "enhance" or "buff" your equipment from 0 up to 10. With each step having a failure chance and the failure chance increasing as it goes up. Failure causes the weapon to break or reset, so you have to use cash shop items to prevent the failure from destroying the progress. Several other free2play korean games have this kind of item upgrade model (Scions of Fate, and Nostale, from what I've played) I think Cabal Online might have it too.
So, I played the game for 6 months and never spent a single penny. However, I did play the game all the time, and craft/trade intelligently, as well as farm for rare items and gold.
I had several heated debates in guild chats where I was using the anti-cash shop argument, and pro-cash shop argument people were voicing their reasons. In the end, I just pissed alot of Pay2Win addicts off by telling them how wasteful they were being.
So here are four different personality/role types I experienced when playing Eden Eternal, each of these types I had alot of interaction with on ventrilo as well as guild chat, and all of these player types made purchases.
The stay at home wife - she was the guild leader of the guild I spent most of my gaming term in. Her husband was the original founder of the guild but he had a full time job and had his wife take over the guild for him. He was a very smart guy with a good job and made good money. Every week when new items would come out in the cash shop, the guildmates would then joke about how our guild leader was going to beg her husband for some cash shop items once he gets home from work. The wife was not allowed to make purchases without the permission of her husband, since he was the one with the job. They were a couple in their late twenties. The wife was willing to pay money for the cash shop items, and the husband was not really thrilled about it, but he would appease his wife.
The lonely teenage girl - There was a girl who was in my guild for a while. She wasn't the most intelligent person in the world, and I'm saying that nicely. She did not make cash shop purchases often, she rarely did it. But when she would make them, it was on almost purely cosmetic stuff, like pets etc. She would use her own hard worked money. The majority of the time she would buy an item and then give it to someone else in the game as a gift to earn their friendship or affection. She only had a part time job and so she did not have a very high income. Whenever she would tell me about a purchase she made or I'd hear about it, I'd get upset with her, because I knew she was wasting her money and how little IRL money she had. She would shrug off my warnings and say stuff like "oh well I'll just work a few more hours this week". I was wanting a in-game pet that gives a significant tanking buff, since I did alot of tanking. I would mention it here and there but I couldn't afford it because I didn't have enough in game gold to buy one off a player. So the teenage girl gave it to me as a gift. I took it, but later regretted it, because I didn't like that she wasted her money on other people. So I mailed her back an equivalent amount of gold once I had earned it.
The rich loser - there were a handful of males in the game who would get ALL of their items to the maximum power level, +10 as soon as they would get the item, and as soon as it would be released from the cash shop. Basically these guys had max'ed out stuff as soon as possible and spent whatever amount of IRL cash was required. These guys were very elitist and arrogant. They also had striking personality flaws. Basically you only had to be in ventrillo with them for a good hour or two to realize how big of a massive tool they were IRL. So basically these guys had bad social skills, bad enough to hinder their success in real life, so they would make up for this, or attempt to, by being the biggest "winners" in-game. These guys who dumped literally thousands on the game would often talk about their IRL financial status, in a bragging manner. So basically they were rich guys in corvettes compensating for something, but it was an in-game corvette.
The average joe addict The last type I can think of is one of the officers of my guild. He was a very intelligent guy, he had a decent job, it was nothing super special but he had spare income to play with, but he wasn't wealthy/rich IRL. He would spend maybe about 100-400 dollars on the game per month. I remember him once having deposited 200 bucks into his account and complaining about how much money he just dumped, regretting it. He was a nice guy, easy to get along with, he seemed very normal. But he was an addict to the game. He liked to be decently powerful, like bargain powerful. He'd get his stuff powerful enough to get stuff done and to handle business in PVP, but he wouldnt just dump tons of cash like the rich loser would. So I can only say that this is the average addicted Pay2Win player. They know they are addicted, they know they are dumping their money away, but they are having fun in the game so they feel its justified.
The rare spender / cheapskate (Me) - This guy has way too much free time on his hands. He has no girlfriend, and no significant hobby besides gaming. His IRL / local friends are also gamers, so maintaining the friendships while still gaming a ton is easy. He thinks pay2win and cash shop games are a rip off, except for the subscription'esque type items that some games offer. (Some games call it "premium" or "gold" status. Basically the most bang for your buck in cash shop games) This player is very content with themselves as a person, both in-game and IRL, so doesn't need to feed their ego by being the best in the pay2win games. The player has enough time to devote to gaming that they can experience almost all of what the pay2win games have to offer without spending any money. They can compete with the cash shop spenders because of how many more hours they put into the game as compared to the spenders. The player is perfectly fine with being mediocre and enjoy the game for the gameplay itself and not the items/power status symbols. The player is in-game economy savvy and knows a good cash shop deal when it comes along. This type of player plays most Free2Play games for free for the entire duration, or spends at most 30 dollars per month for subscription/exp boost type purchases. A good example of this type of player would be to say they were able to unlock almost all the champions in League of Legends and all of the runes they needed for every possible build they wanted, without paying a single penny to Riot Games, because of the sheer volume of matches the person played and exp was gained.
Oops, I listed 5 types instead of 4. Well the last one is kind of the non-spender, but they still deserve a description I think.
Everything in this post is 100% accurate and true. I have played many many Free2Play as well as subscription games, and I've played the piss out of them, and these are my experiences with F2P spenders.
You probably shouldn't post opinions like this unless you've actually gotten your feet wet in some F2P games.... Allow me to enlighten you.
Eden Eternal:
There are territories (capture nodes) in the game which can only be owned by a single guild. That guild which owns them gets a reward of gold per day. A tax from the NPCs of that territory if you will.
When a guild defends their territory, they are being attacked by all the other guilds on the server who choose to participate. So there is a prestige type reward, as well as a physical gold reward for territory ownership. The "Territory Wars" battle is pretty much just a gigantic Arathi Basin with hundreds of players on the server from many different guilds. Success relies mostly on the guild's strategy, and the power of the gear worn by the players. Player skill is a small factor but no where near as huge as item power.
Players power in pvp is very strongly affected by how "buffed" or "enhanced" their items are. Items start at +0 (normal), and are increased to 10. The items get much much stronger the higher they go, and it becomes increasingly expensive to go higher. Most players are content with items in the 3-7 range.
These items are useful in Territory Wars, Arena battles, and PVE as well. There is a very direct correlation between character strength and amount of gold/USD invested into the gear.
There are many, many other Free2Play games like this.
I have been paying attention to the free to play model and its evolution for quite a while, so be assured that my opinion is not based on wild speculation.
What you just described is a pvp scenario that only a small amount of people actually particupate in. PVP is not the focus of any MMORPG and most that have tried to make it so have failed and for good reason.
PVP is merely one aspect of any MMORPG and doing well at PVP is not winning the game. If you do well at a pvp scenario you just described, you get ingame financial benefits. You´re not competing with anyone when your character levels up and gets stronger by gear.
and lets face it, leveling up and getting gear is the only reason to play an mmorpg.
so does buying buffs help in the pvp scenario you just described? Yeah probably. It is only one aspect of the game and to describe the entire game as pay2win because of it is silly. I would argue that there are far bigger aspects in pvp in mmos that lead to imbalance and im not just talking about differences inside the game.
MMORPGS are not exclusively pvp.