reddit post why F2P is bad (Duh!)

Anilahation

http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1vsez2/why_im_happy_eso_is_not_f2p_by_someone_who_works/

Vis

Anyone who has played Lotro in the last 3 years know how toxic the f2p model can truly become.

Anilahation

I don't see how anyone can honestly enjoy F2P

Ragnar_Lodbrok

I dont know isnt Lotro making money6 now that its gone to f2p? Btw I have a lifetime sub, andthe game isnt toxic at all. Quit railing against reality, this game IS going to go f2p, I doubt they have 100k subs left.

NadiusMaximus

Sorry but it costs $2.99 to post on the forums. Please access your account and purchase Posting Privileges

Ragnar_Lodbrok

NadiusMaximus wrote: »

Sorry but it costs $2.99 to post on the forums. Please access your account and purchase Posting Privileges

Your problem with that? We pay 15 dollars a month to post here. Sounds like thats the better deal.

Sturmwaffel

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

I dont know isnt Lotro making money6 now that its gone to f2p? Btw I have a lifetime sub, andthe game isnt toxic at all. Quit railing against reality, this game IS going to go f2p, I doubt they have 100k subs left.

Anybody read that poll on dislike buttons? Yeah now it would be more useful than ever.

Trollbait, by the way.

Vis

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

I dont know isnt Lotro making money6 now that its gone to f2p? Btw I have a lifetime sub, andthe game isnt toxic at all.

Yes, because a life-time founder's sub is the equivalent of the majority of Lotro players.

Turbine stopped making content for fun a long time ago and now only produce content for micro-transactions.

No proof this game is going f2p. Those who claimed it would happen in 1 month have been proven wrong. So have those who said 2 months or 3 months. And those who cried 6 month are well on their way to being wrong too.

Syndy

I disagree.

I am not for f2p, I do believe that their is a certain "cancer" (mostly due to players paying money to the game thinking they are entitled to more than someone who has not payed a dime) that it can cause in a community.

I do believe that pay to play creates a good barrier to entry for some of this "cancer".

I have no issue paying a sub to any game. I payed a sub to WAR for 2 years, and got absolutely ZERO content, and can count on 1 hand the amount of patches the game received in that time...

I enjoyed WAR regardless.

I have played many f2p games, and most are done as quick money grabs etc. There are a few that are done right. LoL, and Marvel Heroes. Just two off the top of my head.

I think I have spent more money on MH in a year than I ever spent on WAR subscription fees for 2 years. It's not because of Pay to Win either. Everything in MH can be attained for free besides bank space. Everything else can drop in the game, or be attained through just playing the game.

The devs in MH actually care about what players think and want, They push out new content like no other development team I have ever seen. After playing that game, and being part of the player to dev interactions they have on their forums, it changed the way I view f2p games.

steveb16_ESO46

Vis wrote: »

Anyone who has played Lotro in the last 3 years know how toxic the f2p model can truly become.

Agreed. But it depends how it's done. Turbine did it by systematically dismantling the game. Perfect World made Star Trek Online a lot better. In LOTRO being an ftp player is not feasible. In STO you can have a parfectly good time.

crislevin

i take it you rather not have this game than playing it f2p.

Metacon

Basically theres some truth hidden in the article.. but the author forgot to look at what drives a Pay2play game company.

just two quotes from this article:

Yes f2p games are basically free to play, but let's be honest, if the companies behind them wouldn't make money the model would simply not exist.

So i could reply, asking: and a P2P game does somehow NOT need a company earning money behind it?

I will rephrase the quoted sentence to match the case of a p2p game:

"Yes, p2p games are basically not free to play, but lets be honest, if the companies behind them wouldnt make enough money the model simply would not exist."

You see the difference? There ist mostly none. In any case a company does NOT develop a game just for the sake of it. Games are developed to EARN money... and the more the better. If either business model does not pay out - the game is gone - or changed into another business model.

Next quote:

All f2p games strive to maximize their ARPU which is the average revenue per user. Whether you earn money with a free to play game or not is a simple equotation: If your ARPU is Higher than your CPL you have basically won.

I rephrase this to match the business model of p2p games:

"All p2p game sstrive to maximize their ROI which is the return on investment. Whether you earn money with a subscription game or not is a simple equation: If your ROI is basically higher than your expenses, you have basically won."

(Continuing this reasoning then would boil down to the fact of keeping as many players subscribing as possible while on the other hand have as little expenses as possible (as few staff members on your payroll as you can possibly afford), the fewest/weakest/cheapest amount of servers you can run your game on and still get away with user experience. and so on...)

In both worlds, there are companies with bad behavior towards customers.. and it shows in different ways..

In F2P i would call this phenomenon: "pay2win hazard"
in P2P I would call it "lazyness hazard"

In F2P games, the companies have a tendency to hardcode artificial barriers into the game which in turn force the player to open his wallet (oh look you have to grind this boring instance 300 times to get ONE piece of your wanted set item.. but buy this "scroll of enhanced grinding" wich last for 1 hours on use for 5€... and you earn double the grind points during that time...)

In the past I have witnessed some companies who deliberately removed features from a game during patching.. just to reintroduce them a couple of weeks later to the ingame shop with a real life price tag.

In other game the developers offer items for sale that give the players a blatant advantage in power over any other item one could possibly aquire during normal gameplay (which refers to the dreaded "pay 2 win" concept...

On the Other hand there is what I call "lazyness hazard" in P2P games.. (maybe a bad expression for it)

First is starts our with promised content updates at certain intervalls... the intervalls get longer over time.. and being excused to the players with "we needed that additional time due to quality reasons".. and slowly the invervalls of content updates get longer and longer.. all the while the player subscription payments have to come in every 30 days..

Then some suits might come to the decition that the game has matured.. and you dont need 300 developers to earn money in the long run.. so half of them are laid off... player amount (and active subscriptions) stay the same.. Wheres the profit? Well, companies profits just rose, because.... same income.. but LESS expenses.... it will take players weeks, if not months to realize that development of new content.. of fixing bugs takes even longer.. because same work has to be done by even fewer programmers.

The bottom line is.. P2P games have the inherent hazard of trying to put as little work and effort as possible into a product where you know you get a certain amount of subscription money every month... regardless of how many programmers or servers you have to pay at a given moment. (Of course this will quite obviously hurt subscription numbers in the long run.. but so does the Pay2win hazard with f2p games as well)

In a general way: players (= paying customers) dont like being taken for fools, regardless of what business model you chose to apply.

steveb16_ESO46

JoseDelgadoCub17_ESO wrote: »

I don't see how anyone can honestly enjoy F2P

I enjoy STO fine thanks. Took out a nicely priced lifetime sub in the current sale. If I want to waste money on TOS uniforms for my crew or poncing around in an old style constitution cruiser for a rank tier then that's my business.

I like all the little extra's. There's no open world pvp so having a ship with an extra bridge station or whatever makes no difference to anyone else most times. And when I'm in a group Borg encounter I'm more than happy if the USS More Money Than Sense rocks up to help.

It's a different gaming world and when I look around sometimes I see people in ships that must have cost them two months subs. But it's their money and if that gives them some tiny practically hypothetical advantage in PvP then, well life isn't fair.

twev

crislevin wrote: »

i take it you rather not have this game than playing it f2p.

I'd rather leave a game than have it overrun by zergs of weekend-warriors with no involvement with community and nothing better to do than swarm in out of boredom to ransack the place.

If it goes f2p, and I leave, you're welcome to the leavings, though...

crislevin

I really don't understand the hate of F2P, there are a million ways to do F2P, they can even do F2P and P2P side by side, and to categorically deny all of them is just premature.

The game needs customers, simple as that. I would rather game surviving than sticking to my pure P2P and end up with nothing.

Bryong9ub17_ESO

crislevin wrote: »

I really don't understand the hate of F2P.

Did you not read that article?

crislevin

Bryong9ub17_ESO wrote: »

crislevin wrote: »

I really don't understand the hate of F2P.

Did you not read that article?

I did, I just don't believe his implication, that somehow "P2P is so much better".

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

JoseDelgadoCub17_ESO wrote: »

I don't see how anyone can honestly enjoy F2P

What F2P games have you played?

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

crislevin wrote: »

I really don't understand the hate of F2P

Gamer snobbery, just like the sneering about console players, WOW players etc.

hk11

It ends up costing me more and the game becomes brazil/russia.

RazielSR

f2p is the worst thing can happen. i would like that don't happen to TESO, but sadly, seems its going to happen sonner or later. But I guess I'm wrong. Better.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

F2P games end up more expensive than sub games. That is a fact that many just brush under the carper.

Look at World of Tanks. Properly free game yes? Nothing hidden under the hood as on normal F2P RPGs.

However if you want to progress more than tier 6 no matter how good player you are, you need a premium account of you lose money per battle.

You played well and fought hard to gather 500,000 credit for a module. (eg Gun rammer). However that one is gone, if you plan to reuse the garage slot with another tank. Except if you have "gold", where you can just remove it and reuse it.

And the list goes forever.


F2P MMORPGs are even worst.

Nope. I rather pay £9 per month and have the full game there to play. How I want, how much I want, and have devs keeping an eye on it.

Show me another MMORPG that had free added content and bug fixing during it's first three months.
Show me another MMORPG that got better in that small amount of time.

None. Only TESO.

And my experienced is based on UO, DAOC, SWG, SB, EVE, DF, AoC. Between 1997 and

So kudos to ZoS and the trolls should go back to their caves.

Aett_Thorn

I have played two "F2P" games before. The first was when City of Heroes went and did their hybrid model. That I didn't mind so much. You could either pay a subscription and basically get everything, or you had to pay piecemeal for stuff, even access to two of the classes. I think the Devs there had invested in the P2P model, though, and so knew how to keep the subscribers happy without pissing them off with all sorts of micro-transaction stuff.

Then there was Neverwinter. Man did I hate that model, and was glad when ESO came out. It was all just a money-grab, with more Dev effort going towards the new shinies for people to pay for than any real semblance of game balance between classes. I don't know how anyone could have been happy with the way things were run over there. Pay for this, pay for that, "Oh, you paid for this, well it's not any better than the thing you didn't need to pay for, oops."

So it can be done well, but I honestly don't think that a truly F2P game will lead to good things. A hybrid model can work well though, because the Devs want to keep steady money coming in, and subscribers do that. And then they can add new shinies for the F2P people to bring in spikes of money.

Psychobunni

The problem I have with f2p games is that I know the drive behind developing patches and content for one. You are no longer concerned with what your users actually want or what would be cool to add to the game, you are only concerned with how to get their money by pretending to give them what they want.
^^ from the OP link. This, YES....THIS!

For all the faults I find with ESO atm,, they are continuing to work and build it. If this goes F2P, I'll cancel out the same as LOTR.

NobleX35

Vis wrote: »

Anyone who has played Lotro in the last 3 years know how toxic the f2p model can truly become.

Lol agreed to the infinite power...

Lotro was an amazing game in SoA and Moria...then Turdbine got super greedy, stopped caring about their customer base, and tried to milk as much money as they possibly could from the loyal people who remained. Their f2p model is a joke and ruined an incredibly amazing game...

What people fail to realize is that f2p games end up costing so much more than just the $15 monthly sub to really play the game. And if you don't pay the $15 sub and dont pay anything in the store then you are severly gimping your experience and will probably not have a very enjoyable time.

It's $15 a month, just pay it once and if you enjoy the game remained sub'd and if you dont then unsubscribe...

crislevin

p_tsakirisb16_ESO wrote: »

Show me another MMORPG that had free added content and bug fixing during it's first three months.
Show me another MMORPG that got better in that small amount of time.

As far as vast majority of players concerned, Craglorn is not new content for them. For them, there is no new content since launch.

Got better in first 3 months? Should we also consider how bad shape the game was in when released?

Show me a P2P MMO that has as many bug/balance/function/exploit issues as ESO when released.

NobleX35

p_tsakirisb16_ESO wrote: »

Show me a P2P MMO that has as many bug/balance/function/exploit issues as ESO when released.

Swtor...enough said!

KORJ

For ESO Is too late switch to F2P model.
Is not an option.
No new players, and those that are immediately gone.

nothing to discuss

Aett_Thorn

City of Heroes had large balance issues for a long time, both inter-archetype and intra-archetype. Most people just didn't care that much because the Devs were trying and the game was fun. Heck, even when the game shut down after eight years, there were still some balance issues.

Neverwinter had pretty severe balance issues and the Devs were actually making some of them worse when I left. And there were plenty of exploits in that game.

Basically, bugs, balance issues, and exploits can exist regardless of business model. Even some successful P2P MMOs can have balance issues long into the game.

Digiman

That article seems to have been written from someone who worked on a failing mobile phone company trying to make a new MMO for a saturated market.

My point is that lately F2P games actually been hugely successful especially for attracting new customers and getting them to support your product by buying stuff. There is a term used by people in this company who call those who keep paying for those extras "whales" and compete to keep them landed and forking out money with attractive options.

Yes when you do a poor F2P model you will make poor money. But you are dead wrong if you think that means all F2P is for dying companies because LoL would like a work with you on that.

Besides spouting financial logic in a static business plan, the idea for a freemium model in which everyone can get on to play and those who pay a subscription model will get extra benefits, like priority queues, faster leveling and loyalty rewards and add cosmetic stuff would be attractive.

Take the Palimino horse, they intentionally designed it to make it easier for people to travel through the game, but would be utterly pointless for end game purposes where you spend gold for premium horses. The problem with this is that at $15 dollars to get a one time mount not very many would buy it over say the collectors addition one which has more stuff at an extra $15.

If it was at $5 you would not only get people trying to buy it for faster travel, but even those who already had great horses just looking to increase their collection.

Now rather then a horse, say now you get the option of being able to buy wonderful looking costumes? Or a Bind on use chest that had an random assortment of exclusive and attracting looking stuff? With Equipment that would bind on you when you used it? You have a further market to make extra cash while also allowing players sell their unwanted goods from that chest to other players.

Adding a further desire to spend extra cash on this game.

I say this because not only have we heard of friends or players who actually spent money on extra lives in say candy crush, but I also confess at spending some extra money at a chance to get an sweet looking mount. Like SWTOR and DCUO their is plenty of extra cosmetic stuff in those markets that are desirable and spend money on and these games do very well and have a pretty nice communities for a freemium based game.

However this company however, is just flat out charging you more money for services to already dissatisfied customers in a product that still feels like charged beta testing, especially in consoles in a period of the MMO market where it should be trying to attract new customers and keep old ones from returning to their previously invested games.

It's only saving grace, or life support is the mega servers. This prevents population plummets when customers who no longer keep subscribing leave without further taxing the company who runs it.

TL;DR: Original poster is very wrong in thinking this game wouldn't benefit from going to F2P their are already countless success stories of a game who changed their ways to avoid dying off and ended up getting fat from it.

I want this game to be the best, and to justify the reason why I keep playing it. If it doesn't intend to keep customers loyal, there are other games out there that they will return to.

Aeradon

The best MMO I have played is P2P. (not WoW)

The MMO that took most of my money is F2P.

Then there are great MMO that are p2p and f2p, p2p got lazy, f2p collapses due to player loss.

P2P or F2P are both MMO, they both provide fun. They both need revenue. I would rather go for P2P, I pay a fixed amount, I get everything they put online.

Onward to development. This is totally dependent on company decisions and has nothing to do with pay model. Both will worry about their income, both will strive to maintain player base. Whether or not they choose to do it by stunts or development is another thing.

Question is, do I like where this is going?
I love it. It reminds me of the best I've played. Sure, you have the usual Bethesda/Zenimax hiccups and bugs. It just reminds me of the old NES games or PS games that never had updates or bug fixes. I find a way to play through, I relog, throw mage runes, spam E, jump around; it's fun in a sense that it lets me know that, "If there's no way, make a way." Septima Tharn has a twin? Bring it on.

Then there's the regular maintenance. I love maintenance. It's just like buying a Ferrari and knowing you have it well maintained for 7 years.

Then there's content updates. Sure, they might hold back some content and release it later or whatever. But at least the content as of now comes every two months. (I believe CoH was held back, I sincerely believe so.) I remember waiting for 6 months for an update, and it was p2p, and that game was still amazing, came to a point where there's too much content and it was time to move on. Some F2P has content updates too! But with each update I pay more than a sub to get what I want.

Then there's the price. It doesn't really scales with inflation IMHO. It's $0.50 per day, back when I was 11, I was already paying that sub. Back then I had to save up and skip lunch to play a game I love. Now it's less than a tip to the bell boy or change from Mc Donald's that I place in the charity box almost every day.

Look, I just want my characters to look cool, ESO comes with Imperial, I bought it, but played as Khajiit. Palomino? Hell yes. Then I still work my way to the Imperial Motif. All the while playing through quests and paying $15 per month. New content patch? Still paying $15 per month. Nothing is locked, and I don't feel like I have to make a choice of whether to spend another $2.99 every time I log in.