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I'm tired of all these game being "free to play" / "Buy to play" , it simply ruins the game, the whole mindset of the DEV's will change depending on what pay model you use. Look at GW2, it's a great game, has decent amouth of content, but it's aimed at the casual crowd and the cash shop has too much impact on the game. Simply because you can buy ingame currency for real money and if you've played it it's obvious alot has been designed around not letting the player farm.
B2P can be good, but at the point where you let people get ingame currency for real money and in game currency converted into cash shop money, the mindset of the DEV's change, there will be more restrictions on farming, the amounth of money you can make from just playing.
IF Wildstar goes for B2P, I really hope they won't let you buy ingame currency llike GW2 does.
Enough of my rant, I just hope they make the right choice and as it looks right now they cater to the more hardcore/end game experience and I doubt they will do what GW2 did.
A B2P model won't bring enough income simply by having services(name change etc.) and cosmetic items only unless you are League Of Legends. Ofc you can say, yes it will, but not really. If the DEV's have to put out exp packs, monthly and weekly changes as they have talked about. Raids will have changes every week. You need to have a steady income and B2P just won't give that.
I guess my opinion is pretty clear, what's you'rs?
Comments
I still don't understand how devs are somehow more "serious" about a game because of its payment model. To say this would be sort of like saying, when they inevitably go F2P, they are no longer serious about their game.
What?
Good devs make good games, payment model has less to do with that than people want to believe.
By the way, I played Cataclysm. The largest amount of income rolling in for an MMORPG, and they barely managed a few content updates over the course of a year. People complained about it quite loudly. So where did all that "sub" money go? And don't say the giant statues of Blizzard characters in their home office lobby, because I already know about that. lol
Can't we get past the whole 15 bucks a month crap. It's a standard set so far back and nowadays you can't tell me it costs that much to keep up servers! I call bull***/malarkey etc . 5 dollars seems more likely and such a better deal. I swear you would get a ton more subs paying 5 dollars a month and better numbers per MMO game. Especially when (like me) you have more than one person playing in the house hold and subs can get pretty expensive per family.
Come on man get with the times and economy and embrace the lower monthly fees, it's a win win for all eh!
So yeah 5 dollars a month is my vote lol
If GW2 Store is considered a "Medium ground cash shop".... then, i don´t know how to define what Turbine has to offer or in the worst scenario Neverwinter.
Except for some add. Character Slot (if yo uneed more than 5) or if you need some extra Bank-Space.. there is absolutely notin in the Store required to p`lay the game. No need to buy new questpack, no need to buy echantments or runes to gear up.. zero, niente, nada, nichts, notin.
Lotro Shop : til evel 40 free, after buy questpacks (2 character slots only, but F2P)
STWOR : bet the same as Lotro.. dunno, stopped after 3x chars at lvl15
DDO: same as LOTRO.. but more expensive
RiFT : no clue, yet
AoC: well.... forget about ti (can one still buy full Armor sets?)
NVO: same... as AOC, still worse though (AOC has at least more content to offer
Tera : Dont remember, but about the same as Lotro ( not 100% sure)
GW2: Get Retail Box, get 5 Slots, play the game til 80, convert ingame $ to gem, get bank space (if you theory craft a lot, all armor sets (they are going to adress this, own tab) or simply like to store all the loot)
I don´t see any similarities, explain to us, why did you define GW2 store as a >medium ground cash shop< or tell us, which game as a better shop implemented with similar stuff listed or less, because GW2 store has zero game impact, getting some bank space (which is optional)... does not make you a better player.
The industry is going one way, so it's natural that there will be an outspoken minority pulling the other. It would be best for them to pick whatever makes them the most money in both the short and long term. I'm not convinced anything but great Public Relations and a model similar to Guild Wars 2 would do that. Perhaps it will release with a sub model and eventually go F2P, but that will be detrimental to those who want some sort of "barrier" in the game and not great for the long term player base in my opinion.
Going the way of "GW2" is probably the best medium for both the community and their pockets with what payment models are available today. If they manage to bring about a new model that's accepted by most, then that would be exceptional as well. It just sucks when those who hope for a P2P game then see it go F2P a year later; hopefully the B2P model can help avoid that fate from ever happening if it's employed from the onset. Granted, I'll likely never play another P2P game unless there's some significant change to the payment model. I've spent about three to four thousand on just WoW, and came to the realization that I was just renting that game when I finally decided to quit. Thousands of dollars for a single game that I don't have access to anymore. /sad face
If there could be a subscription model whereby I still have access to what I paid for in the box or in those months, I'd probably jump on that. Though even still, that would make it so I would only play one or two games a month as I wouldn't want to waste money on playing just a few hours a week/month. At this point I'd sooner help someone in need of the money as opposed to just wasting it like that. To date I've helped quite a few people, and intend to potentially donate the $90-105 monthly fee I paid for all these online games buying food for animals at the shelters.
One things for sure, though... I will never rent another online game unless there's a significant change to the payment model and or the game really needs my support for a time (such as FFXIV and their intent to completely remake the game for their fans and their image). There may be a crowd that just prefers the cheapest model available, but there are quite a few of us that are morally against subscriptions for the same reasons I have and more. I'm all for giving the developers their due money, but at present I just feel the fool and ripped off by the current premium and how my characters are basically held for ransom each month. If it's to pay for staff and new content, fine, but one patch every six months or so is like $90 for one account. With that I could buy five games on Steam, and these patches typically only have a new raid and little else (not equal to the same content of entire video games or even a new $50 computer game). Bandwidth is much cheaper than it was as well.
Wouldn't mind the whole "buy 720 hours" thing for $15 whereby the time only expires when you're online. That way you don't end up paying $90 on six games that you only play a few hours a month and have to keep on playing because your characters are being held for ransom (and you want to play them an hour or two when you have the time). The whole thing of having B2P servers and P2P servers would also be interesting.
Watching the various Wildstar interviews, one of the devs brought up a good point. When deciding between payment models keep in mind that b2p,f2p anything with an active cash shop REQUIRES gating. Content, speed, professions, etc all need incentive to generate cash. To those that cry about subscriptions, doesn't the cash shop limit the normal player and allow cash spenders to scale even better? While it may not be buy-to-win status, those that spend money will get better stuff than the non-spenders. In p2p, it's an even playing ground. We all have equal access to everything, end of story. I much prefer spending $15 a month to get everything everyone else is getting and letting my play time/skill differentiate my characters.
edit: thinking about this more, I am playing neverwinter right now and the cash incentive are not directly buy-to-win, but it's close. Cash gets you bag/bank slots, finishes profession jobs instantly, translates to AD to buy materials from AH, etc. Cash gives such an advantage that scales to hundreds of hours of game time, if not thousands. So it is possible to attain everything by playing but it's almost unrealistic to get that stuff w/o cash. Are other cash shops any different? And why are people in favor of allowing cash players such an advantage instead of $15 a month?
Psst... don't bring logic into the mmorpg.com forums.... you'll anger the trolls....
You conveniently left out the MMOs that are sub with cash shops. Man I love those. Don't forget that unless you buy the new expansions (and keep paying the $15 on top of it), it's the biggest "gate" that ever existed. How many people are going to keep paying a sub without paying for the new content? Even I've felt forced to upgrade so I could play with my friends. That's pretty shitty.
It's not all either black or white. F2P's have gating, and I've illustrated how P2P isn't perfect and never will be.
20 minutes? Damn, that makes the boat in Aion's Sanctum look like a short trip.
No I don't remember that, since I didn't play EQ, but I do remember having to wait a week to try and upgrade my gear because Blizzard wants to get richer than they already are.
That's an interesting way to think about it.
"I finished this week's raid and got no upgrades... Here boss, take an additional $3.70 and gimme another shot next week."
xD
I've conveniently left out subs+cash shop because I was comparing WoW to neverwinter/dragon nest/TERA and I wouldn't want to play a sub+cash shop.
Also how bad are expansions? WoW had expansions every 2 years and they introduced a metric shit-ton of material each time. I think it would have been nice to buy WoW+previous expansions for like $10 when getting the latest expansion, but that's not my call.
EVE-Online: Sub game, free client, free expansions, nuff said on the how bad WoW is in terms of sub games.
Well it's not such a per-instance basis. It's more like "These guys will keep paying as long as they're gearing up, so we'll combine low drop rates with week long lockouts. It'll take them months to get 5 pieces of virtual junk, and all the while they're paying. Let's smoke some rolled up 20's and thank sub-only gamers for their devotion, fellas"
That's my personal definition of a scam.
Buy game and sub!
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Yea....Wow didnt make much money or keep millions of people content for years..... you sure got me.
Same age, one's a niche of a friggin niche (sandbox and open world pvp), one's a kid's playground, guess which is the most updated, the better looking and the one that's currently growing in sub numbers. Do not kid yourself because EVE maybe a tortoise but it will win the race (it'll likely outlive project Titan as well because there's truly no limit to what they can do with EVE, how many other games they can link into the core game, christ do I even have to mention the Occulus Rift fighter combat game prototype a few of the CCP devs whipped up on the company's annual period dedicated to developer innovation?).
Playing: TSW, D&D NW, Defiance (more the tv show than game >.> ) LotRO, DCUO
I am starting to get old, and things don't get to me as easy as they used to. But sir/ma'am your post brought a smile to my face and an audible chuckle. Thank you very much.
Uhm, ok. Please list a Sub fee game that lets the player buy ingame currency and design the whole game with limitations everywhere on how much the player are allowed to farm a certain thing.
One interesting thought is that since nc soft owns gw2 and W* it may not be beneficial to have both games b2p. If you like one more, you may not spend any fluff money on the other. But if one is sub, maybe you'll buy the box of the other.
Edit. Actually, if you like one more than the other, there is little incentive for the other game regardless of payment model.
honestly, I hope for b2p. 15 a month? For a gear grind? No thanks.
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