Poll: I don't like F2P MMOs

[Hisshiss]

Recently, the mmo that has consumed my life for more years than I'd like to think about, City of Heroes, has become free to play.

When it made the transition, I took my leave.

The "Free to play" label is quite deceptive. Yes, you can play, but to access higher end content, or to pvp you usually have to dump some cash. And, normally, the people with the most cash to dump perform the best. This sets up a situation where you're constantly being baited to spend money and I HATE it. The last thing I want to be on my mind while I'm playing a video game is how much I wish I had more money. Escaping the sad facts of my dirt poor existence is a big reason WHY I play video games.

Sure, with the monthly subscription, you have to spend 15 bucks a month. But it's ONLY 15 dollars a month. F2P models can bait you into dropping several times that much if you wish to stay competitive. This is why so many MMOs are making the switch to F2P. They make a LOT more money with it.

They milk their player base for FAR more than 15 dollars a month each. The transition to F2P increases an MMO's revenue to three times that of a subscription based.

Its really funny you mention that, I just tried to get back into city of heroes yesterday and didn't even get as far as creating a character before I was destroyed by bullshit freemium ware strategy.

Free to play has become so rampant these days that you can't ever really avoid it entirely, but Ile be damned if I play something like CoH that rips you off every 12 seconds instead of a freeware game with some actual fuckin respect.

At the very least they should add a feature where if you pay the subscription instead you get like, a 90% discount on everything in the cash shop, or a monthly allowance. CoH does technically have that second one, but it's like, 5 bucks worth of points per month. Which will get you nothing.


...Sometimes I miss just getting the free "Hook" month and then paying a flat sub. Atleast you didn't feel like you were always being nickle and dimed, or in the case of some games, 5 and 20'ed, just to have everything your "Supposed" to get.

 

[Paladin Anderson]

Recently, the mmo that has consumed my life for more years than I'd like to think about, City of Heroes, has become free to play.

If you want to win at PvP, you just make a Dark/Robot Mastermind - or an Elec/Elec Blapper. That's always been the case. PvP should never have been allowed into CoX - it was far more damaging than GDN, ED or F2P.

Oh I know. The pvp was the WORST I've ever seen. It functioned completely differently from the PvE so anyone wanting to get into it was in for a learning curve the size of Mount Everest. Then when you did get into it there were only a very select few builds that worked. But then they'd update pvp which invariably made all those builds neutered and made other builds the best so you had to roll up a new character and start all over again.

And looming over it all was the fact that click and wait game play does not lend itself to pvp at all.

Though, in my opinion, Mission Architect was more damaging than pvp or even F2P. I mean, the game is a grind as it is but MA made it even worse. Now, instead of having different maps and enemies to fight, you have one grind map and one enemy you kill for hours, get to lvl 50, roll a new character, start all over. It's still bad to this day but when AE first came out it was so rampant every zone was devoid of life except for Atlas Park. I canceled my subscription until they got it under some form of control.

I, personally, think that there should have been no rewards for playing AE. No exp, no drops, etc unless you're playing an Developer's Choice mission. Harsh, but they opened Pandora's box with having AE having rewards.

But, at least, every other MMO developer who are working on such a system can look at AE and say "Well we're not going to make THAT mistake."

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

And looming over it all was the fact that click and wait game play does not lend itself to pvp at all.

Well there's a huge number of reasons behind that.
Stalkers being untagetable one-shotters, Granite Tanks not being able to move, Super Reflexes sitting anywhere, Defences dropping, Toggle dropping from Blapping, Melee powers requiring one test while Ranged powers required 2, Teleport Other, Stamina...

Though, in my opinion, Mission Architect was more damaging than pvp or even F2P. I mean, the game is a grind as it is but MA made it even worse. Now, instead of having different maps and enemies to fight, you have one grind map and one enemy you kill for hours, get to lvl 50, roll a new character, start all over. It's still bad to this day but when AE first came out it was so rampant every zone was devoid of life except for Atlas Park. I canceled my subscription until they got it under some form of control.

I still think the killing point was when they made Lusca so insanely hard. In the beta/early alpha there were hundreds of people who rushed off to fight her - and in doing so made friends (especially the Healers) It was a training ground of sorts.

When they made her harder than Hami, I just sat down in Independence Port and wept. It was like the destruction of Grokk, or the SW:NGE or the PoK stones...the challenges that binded the players together were replaced by "PRESS A BUTTON! YOU WIN!".

Horrifying. Brings a short burst of PL'ers, wrecks the community and then bleeds out the corpse of the game.

Still take the occasional character to FrostFire though. Just for the Ice slides.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Runescape is really Pay2Play. Like playing WOW up to level 20, you are locked out of most of the content until you cough up a monthly fee. It is distinct from Pay2Win or Pay2WearStupidHats that usually masquerades as free.

Yeah, in a sad admittance of age I remember when they first implemented the optional subscription. Didn't add an entire lot back in those days, a new quest in a new area and some crafting skills. Haven't really played much past the first upgrade to 3D.

And while we're on the subject, have a trope!

Allegedly Free Game.

 

[Milo Windby]

Third Option: I don't care as long as the game itself is good.

 

[Seventh Actuality]

Bear in mind that at least 50% of the people voting free to play are people who don't play MMOs period.

 

[Wolfram23]

I prefer not playing MMOs, personally. My life isn't that empty anymore lol.

 

[Substitute Troll]

I would never pay for something I've already bought. That's why I like GW2 so much, no silly subscription, but you still have to pay for it

 

[Kevon Huggins]

F2P cause if I like it i will invest in it if i do not I will go back to Arrows and knees.
Monthly payments you rely can never try before you buy and you buy based on your friends or reviews or popularity etc never on your preference

 

[Kevon Huggins]

I prefer not playing MMOs, personally. My life isn't that empty anymore lol.

I must say you and I are two sides of the same coin

 

[Cowabungaa]

I've played both free and payed MMO's, and I have yet to play a free MMO that beats a payed MMO.

That is, an MMO that started out as a free one. For example, Age of Conan was still made with the budget of a payed MMO, same for Star Trek Online or something. But true free MMO's, like the freight-load of Korean MMO's...no thanks.

You know why Diablo 3 auction house got an outrage? Because it was most definetly a pay2win, which is not what F2P is. Sure there are some shitty F2P here and there which are basically P2W, but some of them, like LoTRO and LoL, you can't pay to be better in cobat than everyone else.

It isn't a Pay2Win, the stuff you can get in Diablo 3's auction house is still available in the game itself. You can still get to all that gear without paying a dime. The auction house is just a shortcut.

I prefer not playing MMOs, personally. My life isn't that empty anymore lol.

Hahahaha...hahaha....ha...yeeees...funny *cough*

Really now, I would've thought MMO-bashing had gone out of fashion by now.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I abhor the monthly model. I do not care 1 iota how much you or anyone else thinks that it is only ?15 or whatever a month that is still ?15 a month(same goes for XBL). I do not want to be tied down to having to spend that much money to play for one month when I am not guaranteed that I will have enough time to spend on it to make it worth. In short I think it is too much up front.

F2P I don't mind as some companies do it well with microtransactions others screw you the fuck over. In this model it really depends on the type of microtransactions that they have.

 

[orangeban]

But you can still pay a monthly subscription to CoH can't you? I thought that was how it worked, you get to be a "premium" player or something.

 

[Wolfram23]

I prefer not playing MMOs, personally. My life isn't that empty anymore lol.

Hahahaha...hahaha....ha...yeeees...funny *cough*

Really now, I would've thought MMO-bashing had gone out of fashion by now.

If you consider that I said "anymore" you might be able to deduce that I once played MMOs (mostly WoW). I played the shit out of that game for several years and it's basically all I did. It's not an uncommon occurrence either.

Not trying to say all MMO players are no-life losers, as I'm quite sure there's plenty of people who play casually on the weekends or whatever... but there's definitely a massive amount of people that are as addicted as I was and it's not a good thing.

Regardless, I can bash whatever I want. Now excuse me while I go make fun of "bronies."

 

[JasonKaotic]

There are a lot of games that are F2P without any extra payments. But between charging for some items fucking everything that won't get you killed all the time and charging monthly... I definitely prefer the latter.
Besides, F2P usually has a 'member' or 'gold' or whatever payment that makes you pay monthly to be able to play the game without excruciating frustration anyway. Along with all the extra payments.

 

[Zantos]

World of Warcraft has gone F2P up to level 20. They get their hooks into new players and then the wallets open up.

What's the expression crack dealers use? The first hit is free, but after that it'll cost ya.

OT: I play pay monthly now, and Rift is a very good quality game for the price. Before though, I played a free to play MMO called Runes of Magic and did actually have a lot of fun without spending a penny. If I'd wanted to, I could have bought up extra stats, but there was nothing I couldn't do just by playing the game for free.

 

[Dastardly]

Sure, with the monthly subscription, you have to spend 15 bucks a month. But it's ONLY 15 dollars a month. F2P models can bait you into dropping several times that much if you wish to stay competitive. This is why so many MMOs are making the switch to F2P. They make a LOT more money with it.

They milk their player base for FAR more than 15 dollars a month each. The transition to F2P increases an MMO's revenue to three times that of a subscription based.

While some people certainly do choose to spend more than $15 per month, you'll probably notice (with some research) that a lot of these F2P games still offer the option of subscribing monthly for $15. Folks that would spend more usually exercise that option.

The reason that F2P games see massive hikes in their revenue is because more people begin playing. For every game, there are probably thousands of players who are interested... but not enough to risk a $50 box and $15 per month. As a result, they never try the game -- not even the "free trial," because they know it will run out eventually and they know they don't want to pay monthly.

But when a game goes F2P, these players have a chance to really try the game, with the knowledge that (if they do like it) they won't be roped into $15 a month. One of those players might decide to spend, say, $5 per month -- and now the folks behind the MMO are getting $5 where they normally would have gotten $0.

You also have players that leave because the game is no longer worth the subscription to them. They might try to only renew when a big patch drops, but that sticks them with all sorts of trouble (they're out of practice, or the new content isn't worth a full month, etc.) Now, those players have no cost to keep their character active, and they can choose to only spend money when new stuff comes out, and only on the new stuff that they feel is worth the money.

And having more people in the game is good for everyone. Instead of struggling to find someone to group with or PvP against, especially in "off-peak times," you have a lot more options for enjoying uninterrupted gameplay. That keeps subscribers happy, and feeling that this online world is "alive" enough to warrant $15 per month (which prevents a lot of subscription loss).

Basically, the F2P model allows a wider number of players to "name their price," rather than saying, "The price is $15 per month, and only people who agree with that price may play our game."

 

[darksuccubus]

Not all F2P are like that. Take Rusty Hearts for example: you can do anything you want and the cash shop has things that most of us can live without - costumes and such.

 

[BabySinclair]

I'll echo LotRO since you can earn the pay store credits in game and so long as non-cosmetic items that provide content or bonuses are purchasable through gameplay, it's not unbalanced. If someone wants to level up a little faster, who cares? Doesn't make them a better player.

LoL, LotRO, Star Trek Online, Vindictus, GW2 (presumably) have it right. Cosmetics or convenience only.

 

[WanderingFool]

Well, if falls down to whether it's F2P or P2W.

That is the rub.

When you can buy an item that grants you some awesome abilities or whatnot, and you find you can also earn it in game for free, you might be willing to pay for it early to gain a slight advantage, or you will simply play through and get it the harder way.

But when the item in question can only be baught, and does have a almost superior aura about it, than thats just fucking things up.