The F2P joke

Waaghpowa

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There are good F2P games and bad. Good? TF2, Tribes Ascend and Global Agenda.

TF2 is obvious. In Tribes you can earn everything in the game through normal gameplay without spending a cent. Same with Global Agenda and coincidentally, Tribes and GA are both by the same developer.

Bad? Pay to win games like Battlefield F2P. Basically any game where you can't earn something through normal play and must be bought. On top of that, if you buy something, and you can only use it for X amount of time.
 

CrazyJew

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Team Fortress F2p is amazing. I became a good player without ever wasting a penny. I got a 1000 backstabs achievement pretty fast, I was praised for my game. I was an MVP spy. I went on a mod game server to troll and lol where the other players divided into 2 haters and 20 people who friended me, and one day one of them got me premium.

And, honestly? I could've lived without it. TF2 does it right, paying customers don't get an unfair advantage in the game itself. Only in hatcred.
 

Gennadios

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One of my mates dropped about 800 USD on some Korean F2P recently. To say that I was aghast is a bit of an understatement, you'd have to play WoW for about 5 years (well, the old WoW, before server transfers and purchaseable mounts came into play.)

Personally I've never been a fan of the F2P model, I will drop some cash once in a while if I feel a company deserves it (Iron Grip: Marauders<3) but I'll uninstall as soon as it becomes clear that putting hours into the game will still never put you on par with the payers.
 

anthony87

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wintercoat said:
Good F2P model: Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online

Bad F2P model: Everquest 2, Age of Conan
Care to elaborate? I've been meaning to check one or both of those games out once I get bored with Star Trek Online.
 

Frostbite3789

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BloatedGuppy said:
I never get tired of linking this particular cartoon, because it's always so relevant to this discussion.



"Free to Play" always, ALWAYS, means "Grease up your cornhole, here come the microtransactions". I find it hilarious that people continue to indulge in this fantasy that games going FTP have somehow failed to make the cut as subscription based titles. They're going "FTP" because there are buckets of money to be made.
What's funny is how that doesn't apply here really at all. In LoL the only things you can buy with real money are skins for characters, or characters. Characters can also buy bought with IP, the stuff you have to earn by playing the game. All the stat boosting stuff (runes/masteries) either come free by levelling, or you buy them...again with IP. The in game only currency.

LoL nailed the F2P model on the head, and has made a ton of money, while not being pay2win.
 

Bostur

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The most problematic part about the F2P idea, is a conflict of interests. What is good for the developer/publisher isn't good for the player. A publisher would want some demand of the goods in the cash shop. The most direct way to get that is to design the game so that it needs those goods. The end result is usually a game that is less fun than what it would have been with traditional funding. It's almost impossible to strike a good balance, and even when it happens the result is only almost as good as a traditionally funded game.

The best F2P games I have played always left me with the feeling that they would have been better with a subscription plan. The caveat of course is, that they may never have been able to launch and reach popularity with traditional subscriptions.

I think generous demos and micro-subscriptions is a better way to go.
 

Sixcess

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Maze1125 said:
City of Heroes is a great example of F2P.
I think of City's 'F2P' as more of an extended trial. No controllers, no masterminds, a very small number of character slots (for such an alt heavy game) and no access to the invention system. Virtually all of the new content - zones, story arcs, costume pieces, powersets - is locked into the cash shop as well.

I don't begrudge them making money, and I suppose it offers an adequate experience for new players, but as a returning former player I find it very limiting - certainly compared to other F2P titles like Lord of the Rings Online and Fallen Earth.
 

Akyho

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Alistair Crook said:
I call your (well-aimed and well deserved) rant and raise you team fortress. At least their problem is more tangible than the F2P features. Or so I am told. I personally quite like it as a whole, but meh.
I bought the game a year before it was F2P and that was just when the MannCo store went up. Which means if you have money you can buy the item instantly. I have spent £5 on tf2 since purchase and that was on keys for crates. However its not important to me since I dont care about useing strange weapons (special crate only wepons that keeps score of your kills with it and changes name.) I myself have found or created items and once or twice traded crap I dont want for something I do want.

Items are given very freely and often. Just logging in can get you an item. The thing that is nice. There isnt a scale things such as "OH you see that new shotgun....money only...for 6 months." no its "Hey that new shotgun...you want it? make if with these items. Not got them? trade other people for them. Still no luck...maby youll get it randomly." not "PAY ME NOW!"

Which Star Trek online works fine its F2P you play fine, however extra stuff is money only. Such as certain ships have extra features you have to play real money however you can use the rest. Also items that are simply aesthetic.

So its runs fine. Unlike as OP which is two minutes in "you only get this. and thats it! pay me! for more!" instead F2P should work were you can play for free however paying gives bonuses or saves time.

So you can choose to pay, not make it mandatory.
 

wintercoat

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anthony87 said:
wintercoat said:
Good F2P model: Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online

Bad F2P model: Everquest 2, Age of Conan
Care to elaborate? I've been meaning to check one or both of those games out once I get bored with Star Trek Online.
Age of Conan requires you to pay for all but a few things, and requires a subscription in order to use the Alternate Advancement trees, which are required for endgame play. Everquest 2...instead of listing everything I find wrong with it, how about I just blanket it by stating that it's worse than Age of Conan.

LOTRO and DDO, however, allow you to literally unlock everything, and I mean everything if you are willing to grind for it. That's including the expansions. There's not a single thing that can be bought that you can't get with a bit of time and patience. Plus, if you subscribe for even just one month, you unlock a bunch of freebies that stay unlocked even if you don't resub.
 

Valanthe

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Frostbite3789 said:
BloatedGuppy said:
I never get tired of linking this particular cartoon, because it's always so relevant to this discussion.



"Free to Play" always, ALWAYS, means "Grease up your cornhole, here come the microtransactions". I find it hilarious that people continue to indulge in this fantasy that games going FTP have somehow failed to make the cut as subscription based titles. They're going "FTP" because there are buckets of money to be made.
What's funny is how that doesn't apply here really at all. In LoL the only things you can buy with real money are skins for characters, or characters. Characters can also buy bought with IP, the stuff you have to earn by playing the game. All the stat boosting stuff (runes/masteries) either come free by levelling, or you buy them...again with IP. The in game only currency.

LoL nailed the F2P model on the head, and has made a ton of money, while not being pay2win.
Damn, ninja'd.

as I was gonna say anyway though, this comic is absolutely irrelevant to the thread, LoL is a F2P model done correctly, people pay for things from the game because they -want- to, not because they -have- to. case in point, I currently have three heroes that I cycle through depending on my mood. Sivir, Tristana, and Annie, and how much have I spent on the game, not a damn penny.

Now however, back on topic, I noticed above someone mentioned Maple Story, which is made by Nexon, a company that makes exclusively F2P games, and I disagree with how they handle their micro transactions. In order to buy weapons in their game Combat Arms (And anyone who plays it, feel free to correct me if this is changed, when I played, it was still in Beta) you had to 'rent' them with money you earned from kills, now for basic weapons, this wasn't too bad, but it quickly became obvious that to support my chosen playstyle, I was either going to have to play 60 hours a week to keep up the income needed to repurchase all my equipment, or start shelling out real money, and -still- not get permanent access to the items. so I gave up and went back to WoW.
 

deth2munkies

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I avoided that game as soon as I saw "Sony Online Entertainment". There are plenty of F2P games out there that don't suck, just because one (or even some) are terrible, let you buy power, or require you to pay for fun doesn't mean they all follow those horrible guidelines.
 

RuralGamer

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I've stayed away from FP2 since they started; most, if not all I've seen are really Pay-To-Win. I can remember there was one where everything is realistically attainable without ridiculous amounts of grind and I'd considered getting it, but now I've forgotten what it was about and what it was called...
 

Maze1125

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Sixcess said:
I think of City's 'F2P' as more of an extended trial.
It gives you the entire original game for free, bar controllers. How is that just an "extended trial"?

Yeah, the game has improved huge amounts since then, but people used to pay $15 a month just for what they're giving away entirely for free now.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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Well it's the same as all business, some play fair and others are out to rape your ass, you always need to watch your backside when someone starts asking for money.

Even with Valve and the whole hat malarkey, they constantly play on peoples compulsion to unlock new shit and those items are ludicrously overpriced, you get most games on Steam cheaper then that one fucking model or better yet a color setting... just ridiculous.
 

octafish

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Adam Jensen said:
Star Trek Online does F2P really good. I already clocked more than 20 hours on it. I love it.
Indeed. I like it so much I bought extra character slots. I'm time-poor so subscriptions aren't worth my time. You don't need to buy anything if you don't want, but raising energy caps, extra character slots and a larger inventory smooths the experience. The other purchases are mostly just short cuts and fluff, some of which I'll buy, not because I need to to enjoy the game, but because I like what Cryptic has made.
 

DaHero

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Maze1125 said:
The worst you lose from not paying anything is the ability to use all the chat features, but that's only to stop spammers.
That's actually EXTREMELY false, given that any good private channel is built on an invitation only system, and even the public ones require an admin to un-silence people. What the chat restriction does is screw over the RPers on the Virtue server, that's it. There's also character slots, Incarnates, Joining a guild, AE, and pretty much anything that makes CoH a fun social experience, which is what it stands on.

Sure, it stands well on its RP/social environment, but that's all they've got going for them, gameplay is slow and boring.
 

AlternatePFG

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Waaghpowa said:
In Tribes you can earn everything in the game through normal gameplay without spending a cent. Same with Global Agenda and coincidentally, Tribes and GA are both by the same developer.
While I do really like what I've played Tribes Ascend, some of the weapons and equipment in that game take an absolutely absurd amount of XP to get. The amount of XP for unlocking classes is reasonable, but some weapons are like 5 times as much.

Edit: Never mind, turns out as of today's patch they lowered the prices for some a bit. My bad.

OT: Right now I'm playing LOTRO and I'm feeling a bit mixed about the F2P in that particular game. Don't get me wrong, you get the option for a subscription and you pretty much get access to everything that was in the game before the F2P change, but some of in store items are starting to get a bit worrying. You can buy better gear in the store (You can earn TP in game but you have to grind like hell to get a significant amount) and there are permanent stat boosting items you can buy. Thankfully, none of it is necessary to succeed in the game, and none of the gear is close to endgame level, but I hope Turbine stops it there. Some of the prices are a bit wonky too. 20$ for a limited edition horse? I don't care how cool that horse looks, it sure as hell ain't worth 20$.

Overall though, I find it rather unobtrusive. I haven't spent any money in the store (Not counting the subscription) other than for some cosmetic crap that I wanted.