114676-on-f2p-the-possibility-of-page-2

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Rift and AA are both F2P models.
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It's easy… the f2p business model means the developers are required to think about monetization first, and the game design becomes subservient to that.
 
There is no scenario where that is a good thing for players.  So, it's not worth investing in long-term with that in mind. 
 
F2P always has and always will be bad for players.
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Yes, Rift and AA are both F2P models but they both also have monthly subscriptions as well @ $14.99 a month to do everything. Micro transaction with F2P if you want to do everything.
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I don't get how you can love a game but leave based on it's support system. We haven't even seen the model yet. I used to be all of you guys: "Free To Play is the Devil!!"
 
These aren't Year 200X Asian MMORPGs with shady figureheads. The model has improved greatly. Some months you'll spend money. Some months you won't. In either case you still get to play the game you "love".
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You earn benefits with Patron and access to more souls, bags and Auction slots but the game is more than playable from level 1 to End Game without spending a Dime if you are willing to do the work(No Content is not limited to Patrons only).
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 I see a lot of talk about loving the game but you are willing to let it die rather than spend the 15 dollars you spend on a sub in an item shop, instead?<-- Think about that. Yes. YOU are being ridiculous. If you like WildStar, support it. That's the best way to continue playing what you love.
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Because if I ever have to aske the question "Do I want to pay real money for this?", then it makes the game not fun for me. I don't want to have to think about my financial responsibilities and budget when I play a game. And I don't want to play a game where the developers are trying to lure me into spending money I don't intend or want to spend. Sure I have good will power and can always say "no". But saying "no" isn't fun for me. Fun is playing the game and getting upgrades through my accomplishments while doing so.
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You earn benefits with Patron and access to more souls, bags and Auction slots but the game is more than playable from level 1 to End Game without spending a Dime if you are willing to do the work(No Content is not limited to Patrons only).
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You should be asking: "Is the game is Worth supporting". "Am I having enough fun in this game to the point where I want to support them by buying this out of place Anime Maid Outfit?". Things of that nature...
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That is correct. One is able to F2P all Rift's contents without being a patron. A patron status offer daily cash shop potions, summon vendor NPCs, and cash shop discounts. Bascially a patron is more like a discounted cash shop package to make progression easier.  
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Patron status also offers Loyalty Points. As you hit specific targets, you get some unique items like mounts, costumes,dimensions and pets that aren't available in the shop.
 
IMHO, Rift is the model for the way hybrid games should work. Although, I imagine it would be difficult to launch a game with that model. It's much easier to convert to it from a sub to a hybrid model, and offer benefits so that people who are subbing feel it's worth it to continue subbing, than to start off as a hybrid game offering a full game experience to F2P players and trying to entice people into subbing. ;)
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I thought if you consumed a REX you earn loyality points. Patron gain double the loyalty points by buying credits and then spending those credits in cash shop. From RIFT's introducing loyalty page, "This means you can gain Loyalty without ever spending real money at the RIFT Store."
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Ok, Im pretty pissed off. There was an interesting thread that someone started about the possibility of Carbine relaunching the game like Real Reborn did. Not only did the mod lock it...it was completely deleted immediately. The OP wrote it in a pretty friendly manner too.
 
So since I "replied" to it but when I clicked to post it, it had already disappeared. I'm going to copy/paste my response here. I don't think this would be off topic since it does have to do with this whole thing.
 
 
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This is an interesting idea that I have thought about to myself before.
 
Obviously there are pros and cons to any decision you make....but for Real Reborn, it was a huge success.
 
Its no surprise to anyone at this point just how low WS's population is. For all we know, and this has been said numerous times in the forums, we wouldn't be none the wiser if their megaservers is just transferring everyone into one of their regular old servers. One for pvp and pve. I mean, I'm in Pergo....as is literally 99.9% of the PvP server players...and it doesn't seem that crowded. It feels like when I used to play WoW on a kinda shitty server during off hours. Yes....if you haven't noticed yet, game population is THAT low!
 
So what to do about it? Square-Enix chose to scrap it and start over again....and all the other mmo's either went F2P or a hybrid of it. For those who went F2P/hybrid, their game changed for the worse imo. For Square-Enix it paid off. They chose the hard route and, even though I haven't played it, from what I have read, most praise it as a good solid quality product. If it wasn't for WS, I would have probably gotten into Realm Reborn.
 
This decision all depends on what NCSoft wants to do. Re-launching the game will cost a lot of extra money. Going F2P/Hybrid...not so much. One will end up as a better product and the other one will be forgotten as a failed product. 
 
If after Drop 3 hits live and the population is still as pitifully low as it is. Then imo it would be better to relaunch the game. Otherwise, it will for sure go the F2P/Hybrid model or just get shut down like Tabula Rasa. I would rather the game re launch as a real kick ass product than get my toy taken away. 
 
I would actually say give everyone creed for the months that they stayed subbed and give all of us loyalty in game crap for having essentially been paid beta testers. Refund all real cash to creed transactions to players inventory. Relaunch the game in a couple of months. Don't worry about WoW expansion. Their concurrency always spikes but then starts dying down as players start beating the content. I would say try to aim for a before Christmas re-release if possible, but realistically for the amount of work they have ahead of them, probably next year. 
 
 
-Begin hiring a ton of talented individuals to fix key problem areas. Some key areas of improvement should include casual content, semi casual content, game optimization, PvP, class balance and skill reworks, bugs, etc. You gotta pay this devs a fair salary! Glass Door says you don't Carbine! A happy employee is a productive employee!
 
 
 
-Leave the only two real servers we have open. Pergo and whatever it is for PvE. Let us continue advancing our characters but officially designate it as beta PTR servers which lets you keep your progression once the game relaunches. One of the major problems of a beta test is that players don't test (or care) as much as they should because they don't get to keep their progression. This is specially important in an mmo game. 
 
 
 
-Obviously ton of new content should be released with the relaunch
 
 
 
-Before the relaunch, have a big marketing campaign. Get the hype train going!
 
 
 
-To keep the hype train going, let anyone who wants in on the action to play the game for 30 days free. Once their "free trial" is over, then players gotta pay for the box price (which includes another 30 days free). After that, just a reg sub of $15 is good.
 
 
Obviously is late at night with nothing to do but my dreams. BUT Square Enix actually pulled off their relaunch...so its not just a pipe dream of mines. If NCSoft and Carbine do what I listed, they could potentially have a multibillion dollar product like WoW on their hands. The key is to bend over backwards to the players and take your time fixing and evolving the game. But cupcakes...who I'm I kidding, its NCSoft we're talking about....
 
 
 
 
 
Now that i think about it. The reason Carbine left this thread open and the other about relaunching the game disappeared. There is probably a 95% chance that after drop 3 hits, an announcement about the game going F2P hybrid (or B2P) will inevitably happen. 
 
Going from monthly to quarterly releases already says it all. Which is probably why Drop 3 is also taking longer than all of us expected. 
 
1) Announce megaservers. - Why in the hell would we need megaservers when the players that are left can all fit into one plain old server? Because with the announcement of F2P/Hybrid, there will be a big flood of players coming in.
2) Announce they are going from monthly to quarterly releases. - Staff "reductions"
3) Announce that Drop 3 won't be ready till November. - They need the extra time to finalize and implement the F2P hybrid model.
3) Allow threads like this (discussing F2P) when they never allowed it at the beginning. - This is Carbines smart way of letting the notion of F2P/B2P sink in to our minds. This is basically like lube to prepare us for it.
 
Hopefully their F2P Hybrid model/B2P won't be too bad. I don't have a replacement for this game yet. I guess I can buy myself a PS4 or Xbox One to play those console exclusives. Gigantic looks like a very good moba style game btw. Has cartoonish graphics like Wildstar does...just a lot better.
I can see how a F2P Hybrid model/B2P can help this game...i mean, there's barely any players as is. But at the same time, i just can't stop thinking that its a shame they had to go this way.
 
PS. If this thread is closed....when its been going for so long...you are basically saying that im right on the mark.	
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Now that i think about it. The reason Carbine left this thread open and the other about relaunching the game disappeared. There is probably a 95% chance that after drop 3 hits, an announcement about the game going F2P hybrid (or B2P) will inevitably happen. 
 
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Now that i think about it. The reason Carbine left this thread open and the other about relaunching the game disappeared. There is probably a 95% chance that after drop 3 hits, an announcement about the game going F2P hybrid (or B2P) will inevitably happen.
 
Going from monthly to quarterly releases already says it all. Which is probably why Drop 3 is also taking longer than all of us expected.
 
1) Announce megaservers. - Why in the hell would we need megaservers when the players that are left can all fit into one plain old server? Because with the announcement of F2P/Hybrid, there will be a big flood of players coming in.
2) Announce they are going from monthly to quarterly releases. - Staff "reductions"
3) Announce that Drop 3 won't be ready till November. - They need the extra time to finalize and implement the F2P hybrid model.
4) Allow threads like this (discussing F2P) when they never allowed it at the beginning. - This is Carbines smart way of letting the notion of F2P/B2P sink in to our minds. This is basically like lube to prepare us for it.
 
Hopefully their F2P Hybrid model/B2P won't be too bad. I don't have a replacement for this game yet. I guess I can buy myself a PS4 or Xbox One to play those console exclusives. Gigantic looks like a very good moba style game btw. Has cartoonish graphics like Wildstar does...just a lot better.
 
I can see how a F2P Hybrid model/B2P can help this game...i mean, there's barely any players as is. But at the same time, i just can't stop thinking that its a shame they had to go this way.
 
PS. If this thread is closed....when its been going for so long...you are basically saying that im right on the mark.
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Tera used the same system and when it went free to play it let people sell the credd to the npcs for the max Auction house price, I hope this game does go f2p, and starts working heavily on cosmetics/ aesthetics/ hoverboard system challenges/ territory war system-rip warplots- This game has so much content applied in the wrong way, hopefully the future will be bright. 
 I have 12 credd stocked up, and I wouldn't mind losing all of it for free as long as they made the game available to everyone.	
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having played games that went free to play.
I would just leave, It basically just murders everything I like about mmo's
the communities turn toxic as hell, everything worth doing gets put behind pay-gates, all the cool cosmetics become cash transactions instead of earned achievements
"free" games cost 10x as much as subscriptions for a similar experience anyways. Why anyone would desire it is just beyond me
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Please, leave the kids to their... who knows what it is. Apparently the consumer has no role in the economy.
 
(Hint: a sub model is also commercial. Wow!)
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Because if I ever have to ask the question "Do I want to pay real money for this?", then it makes the game not fun for me
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That's free to play for you. Asking that question leads to the very famous answer: You aren't forced to buy from the shop. If you don't want to spend real money in a fictional world, then don't.
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Again, that's included free to play MMOs. People are paid to create fancy illustrations to draw your eyes in to the cool looking hoverboard that you can buy for $10. The same goes with every commercial or advertisement. They're trying to persuade you why you should spend $19.99 on their crappy brand, rather than going out and getting multiples of the same object for less.
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There's no need for speculation and rumor mongering. It was removed because we already have enough threads on the state of the game, players opinions on where the game is headed, etc. Instead of creating duplicate topics, we prefer players keep all information in one place. It's as simple as that, there's no need to read more into it. Moderators are just that, moderators. 
 
- Team WildStar 
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Its pretty simple really.
 
P2P = I pay and play.
F2P = I dont do either.
 
Id say the CREDD thing we have will give us a better chance at not going F2P but then I remember TERA ....	
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I think you're a pony, but that is just my two cents.
 
Added on top what I've already said some pages ago. It really is a hit and miss if f2p is a good idea or not. Just depends how long the publisher(NCSoft in this case) is willing to let it last and how many players play/pay monthly. I mean the obvious downside is the lost of jobs for the devs
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On P2Win: All games are pay to win. The only difference is the currency. In P2P your currency is time. You spend time, months of it in grinding up rep, in game currency, etc. The developer extracts their value from you during that time through the cost of your subscription. In F2P, instead of spending time you spend money (i.e., time you have invested doing real world activities as opposed to in game activities.) The turn around is faster, the profit is more direct for the developer as that they want your money, not your time really. However, the exchange is the same.
 
On F2P and Wildstar: I've played several F2P and B2P variants with cash shops and without. In my experience, cosmetically, cash shops are a boon, mostly because without them there's few ways to monetize the creation of the art assets that are required. Want new hairstyles? Then chip in five bucks for a set. Want a LBD for that RP event? Well there's a nice selection of them available. Content gates vary in extremity of annoyance, but essentially act as clubs to "encourage" players to out lay for a subscription of some sort. Some are onerous (SWTOR), some are what I would term as "fair" (TSW).
 
Regardless though, these things just make theme park MMOs into what theme parks are in real life. Been to one lately? There's two types, pay per ride and pay for the day. Guess what you do in pay for the day parks? That's right... you wait in a line... hum. Sound familar? And if you pay per ride, you get a lot more fun in a lot less time, but of course you pay a lot more too. Ayep, sounds pretty much the same. In the end it comes down to which currency you have to invest, time or money, but trust me... you're going to pay.	
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There's no need for speculation and rumor mongering. It was removed because we already have enough threads on the state of the game, players opinions on where the game is headed, etc. Instead of creating duplicate topics, we prefer players keep all information in one place. It's as simple as that, there's no need to read more into it. Moderators are just that, moderators. 
 
- Team WildStar 
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			F2P is bad, 	
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The number of f2p players needed to make up the guaranteed revenue of even 100,000 subscribers is... an order of magnitude. Or more.
 
The game isn't going f2p anytime soon.
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			I think WildStar can go with a decent free to play set up. They could give two different accounts, the free account and the subscription account. People with the free account can have things locked to them like housing. While the person who pays the sub gets a bunch of bonuses like first in line of any queue and free Eldan Data Fragments.I wouldn't mind if Wildstar went f2p, as long as it doesn't get p2w.	
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			I would rather spend my time moving through the content than paying to experience it.  I am in no hurry.  If it goes F2P I am out.  Always enjoyed the sub-based model, even when things are time gated, because eventually they nerf the time it takes to do something.  You also get more quality content in a sub-based model (although W* has been lacking the last month and a half).  Hoping Drop 3 makes up for it, and hope mega servers and Halloween event come before the drop.  The community definitely needs something sooner rather than later.	
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Do you have any idea how many MMO's forms have had this very thing said, and how many of them are now F2P and make more money then they did? I'd rather not see this game go F2P, because even in games like that I often subscribe anyway because I don't want to deal with any restrictions. When I went back to SWTOR I sub'ed, when I went back to LotRO I subbed...
 
So for me, even if WS went F2P, unless it was like Rift in which there was quite honestly no reason at all to sub, I'd sub.
 
But the idea that WS would make less money as a F2P then a P2P game has been proven false so many times that I can't believe anyone would even suggest such a thing. The fact is that every game I can think of that's gone F2P has increased it's bottom line. There may be one or two out there that hasn't but they're the exception.
 
DDO, LotRO, STO, CoH, CO, SWTOR, Rift, Tera, and on and on, are all games that were Sub based, have gone F2P and seen both an increase in content and in profit.
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In the past, duplicate threads have been locked and a redirect posted to the more appropriate thread for continuing the discussion. I am wondering why the first P2P/F2P discussion thread was deleted instead of just locked with a redirect if this was an issue of duplicate threading. Could we maybe have an explanation for the extreme measure? 
 
I know that my first reaction on finding that thread gone was "Yup, that's it, F2P confirmed and they don't want the sub-or-die folks jumping ship a few months early and depressing revenues even more," because it seemed like the obvious conclusion to draw. Particularly since I had just logged on to the game before looking at the forum boards and there was a message on the character choice screen saying "Have you visited our official forums??" ...Why yes. Yes I have....and they are deleting active discussion threads without explanation. (Just logged in right now and it's still there in fact!)
 
It's your board and you can do what you want (obviously) but I think deleting an active discussion thread completely is a really bad move in terms of customer relations. Everyone on this board currently has an active NCSoft account, after all. My second reaction was that I was sufficiently pissed off by the high-handedness of the move that I considered dropping my sub completely and not even waiting out the Big Patch. 
 
Lock-and-redirect would have been sufficient and you would have completely avoided the "speculation and rumor mongering" problem.
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Do you have any idea how many MMO's forms have had this very thing said, and how many of them are now F2P and make more money then they did? I'd rather not see this game go F2P, because even in games like that I often subscribe anyway because I don't want to deal with any restrictions. When I went back to SWTOR I sub'ed, when I went back to LotRO I subbed...
 
So for me, even if WS went F2P, unless it was like Rift in which there was quite honestly no reason at all to sub, I'd sub.
 
But the idea that WS would make less money as a F2P then a P2P game has been proven false so many times that I can't believe anyone would even suggest such a thing. The fact is that every game I can think of that's gone F2P has increased it's bottom line. There may be one or two out there that hasn't but they're the exception.
 
DDO, LotRO, STO, CoH, CO, SWTOR, Rift, Tera, and on and on, are all games that were Sub based, have gone F2P and seen both an increase in content and in profit.
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			There isn't a single f2p game that has come even close to meeting my standards for quality AND not making the monetization blindingly obtrusive.	
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I'm neither for or against F2P/B2P, and I don't see transitioning to one or the other as a sign of abject failure.  I don't think I would stop playing WS if it made the transition, it just wouldn't pay monthly for it anymore.  I really think it depends on the kind of F2P/B2P model that they transition to, all are not created equal.  I personally like TSW's model (access to several months worth of content that was available prior to the transition, purely optional paid DLC, cosmetic items, optional sub-fee that gets you the DLC for "free" or you can spend your subscriber points on other stuff if you already got the DLC).  Sub fees only work if there is a large enough player base to garner the revenue from.  I do have a job, I don't think $15 a month is "too much", so the F2P/B2P transition really wouldn't be for my benefit.  I like the game and I will P2P until I get bored and move on (which seems to be the trend that started the conversation to begin with).  But a thought exercise to liven things up a bit:
 
As far as the "toxic communities" argument... I've run into more elitist a-holes in Subscription games in a single month than I have while playing for 3 months in a B2P title.  People playing without paying monthly seem more relaxed.  I don't know what it is, or what causes that, but if I had to guess it is because wiping repeatedly in a dungeon doesn't translate to "I paid for this, money = time, and you're wasting my time, so therefore you're wasting my money!".  Just my take on it though.  I've actually quit playing WoW for months at a time after running into those guys in game because I got sick of the "toxic" behavior.  I would imagine that a game that focuses so heavily on "hardcore" challenges would only be worse when it comes to encouraging the elitist behavior.
 
Moving on to the "the devs will stop caring about the game" argument... Pragmatically, they will care regardless - this is how they pay their bills.  Even if the game is B2P/F2P they cannot, and will not focus solely on the Cash Shop.  People don't play MMOs to blow money on cosmetics in the Cash Shop.  They will work it enough to keep the revenue coming in, but ultimately their goal will still be to keep expanding the game - the Cash Shop is the means to the end, there.  Besides, if their subscription base is taking a nose-dive, how do you expect them to deliver on that regular content, anyway?
 
"If they go F2P I'll quit!"... Ok, bye?  Seriously, you'll be replaced by many, many others.  You have to understand that when you gripe about "pay-walls" in a B2P/F2P game, you're blatantly neglecting the Sub-Fee "pay-wall", which is the most obstructive pay-wall for anyone who's on the fence about even trying the game, let alone thinking about coming back after taking a break - it's the "I don't know if I want to dish out $15 bucks just to find out that they didn't fix the things I didn't like, so I just won't play at all" thinking.  Without that barrier, on the other hand, many more people will actually stop in just to see what's new and different, some will even stick around and possibly spend money or even take the developer up on that optional Subscription so they can have full access to everything else.
 
Think of a P2P model in today's market like this (purely for "hypo/metaphorical" illustration):
 
- Why keep paying the American Eagle clothing store in the Mall $15 a month just so that you can walk in there, when you can just as easily walk into the Old Navy next door or the J.C. Penny's for free to look around?  <-- This is the MMO market of today, more competition than ever.  Rolling with the punches is just something that businesses have to do to keep their jobs going.  Switching models isn't personal, it's business.	
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DDO, LotRO, STO, CoH, CO, SWTOR, Rift, Tera, and on and on, are all games that were Sub based, have gone F2P and seen both an increase in content and in profit.
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"If they go F2P I'll quit!"... Ok, bye?  Seriously, you'll be replaced by many, many others.  You have to understand that when you gripe about "pay-walls" in a B2P/F2P game, you're blatantly neglecting the Sub-Fee "pay-wall", which is the most obstructive pay-wall for anyone who's on the fence about even trying the game, let alone thinking about coming back after taking a break - it's the "I don't know if I want to dish out $15 bucks just to find out that they didn't fix the things I didn't like, so I just won't play at all" thinking.  Without that barrier, on the other hand, many more people will actually stop in just to see what's new and different, some will even stick around and possibly spend money or even take the developer up on that optional Subscription so they can have full access to everything else.
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- Why keep paying the American Eagle clothing store in the Mall $15 a month just so that you can walk in there, when you can just as easily walk into the Old Navy next door or the J.C. Penny's for free to look around?  <-- This is the MMO market of today, more competition than ever.  Rolling with the punches is just something that businesses have to do to keep their jobs going.  Switching models isn't personal, it's business.
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This is a misnomer.  The idea would be like if you paid 15$ a month, got to walk into American Eagle, and take all the clothes you wanted, that's a sub.  Then you've got the F2P model, which is that you walk in, you can look around, but you can't buy anything without putting down a lot more money to pay for the people who just walk through the door to look and get a free pair of socks.
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In an F2P game, I can walk in, look around, and buy what I want. In most cases, I can go into American Eagle's cellar, kill a ton of rats, and get store credit to fund what I want to buy.
 
In a P2P game, I pay my $15 to walk in, look around, and can get anything I want... after a requisite amount of time killing the rats in the cellar for a different form of store credit. No cash at the drawer, just Rat Credit. So if you have plenty of time to get that Rat Credit, great! If you don't, well, that cash shop in the F2P store next door is looking mighty appealing, ain't it?
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			As many others have stated, if this game goes F2P then my wife, myself, and our three friends that joined with us are out.  I don't mind having time sinks in a game to ensure the publisher gets their money over time, but if I suddenly have to spend hundreds of dollars to compete with people that have more money than they know what to do with, and still try to support a family, then the game is no longer fun.	
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This is one of the most heavily-moderated forums I've ever been a part of. Honestly it's probably nothing nefarious; more likely the mods have a very strict set of rules that they have to follow (for instance, this post will probably be deleted and/or warned).
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I will clarify my F2P hatred.
I'm sure there are some good ones out there, since not everything can possibly be bad...I have enjoyed several F2P games, until you get to the higher-end levels and everything is dominated by CSers. They have the gear, they have the mounts, the crafting upgrades, the gear upgrades...true, they sell the Zen/Diamonds/Credits/Whathaveyou to players, but at prices that are cupcaking ridiculous. Thus they also have all the gold.
 
Sure, some games don't sell play-style upgrades in the cash shop, only vanity things. Dye (that you have to buy over and over and over and over), Mounts, Costumes/Fashion, and those cupcakebedamned Party Packs/Lock Boxes that you have a -chance- to win something cool (if you can call opening hundreds of the damn things and getting drek in return a chance). Those boxes almost always require a key to open...a key obtainable via the Cash Shop. Saving up in game money, or even using real money, to buy all those keys and getting bullhockey in return...ugh. For those of us who love customization, who are housing addicts or costume lovers or mount collectors, etc, the cash shop is a major turn off when it bars great items behind a lot more money than a subscription would have cost. Sure, WoW does it...and yes, I bought most of those mounts/pets...but I still disagree with the idea. I -especially-, vehemently, disagree with the Buy-a-90 shtick.
 
I have made some friends that I still play with from a few of those games and I've made even more good friends in the Sub Community, and I won't rage about the toxic community thing. I've seen plenty of holier-than-thou players in Sub Communities, too (especially in ESO and SWTOR, holy poo).
 
I've played a couple games that had housing, but all of the worth-while stuff was CS-bought. Including the better houses, crafting furniture, etc. I've probably spent more money on F2P games than I ever have in all my years of Subscription-based games. If WildStar went F2P, I guess it reaaaally would depend on what they did. I love this game and would hate to leave it; it brought back the Fun in online gaming to me...but I just can't see it as a good F2P thing.
 
As for the people above me, using Store Analogies...I think of it this way:
Back in Saint Peters, we had a lot of Pizza Places. Pizza Hut, Dominos, Imos, some local places, and Pizza Street. I enjoyed most of them. However, at Pizza hut, I buy a pizza, I buy the sides, I buy the drink, I tip the waitress/waiter. The more stuff we buy, the bigger the tip has to be. I leave as soon as the meal is done. Lots o' money spent in a little time. Same with Dominos and Imos. However, if I went to Pizza Street, it was 5 bucks a person and all you can eat - of anything. True, I only ever ate the Alfredo Pizza with a Coke, instead of trying everything. My friends liked their own different versions, too. You could ask for any pizza combination, and if they could do it, they would. I paid 5 bucks to get in and could be there as long as I liked, eat whatever I wanted, and that was that. Now, in Norfolk, we only have Pizza Hut and Dominos. Both are good, sure...but I miss Pizza Street.
 
Maybe that was kinda...not a good example. It started out sounding like it in my head. Point being, as good as the typical pizza places were, I much preferred spending a set amount each time and getting access to everything, if I so wished.
 
Maybe when I was a teenager and had nothing worth spending my money on, it was fine to use the cash shop. Now, however, I am twenty three. I have a husband, a home, and a daughter and puppy to take care of. I can easily fit a game subscription into our monthly plans instead of gambling on what we might want from the Cash Shop this time.
 
But overall, the F2P version isn't worth it to me.	
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This is a misnomer.  The idea would be like if you paid 15$ a month, got to walk into American Eagle, and take all the clothes you wanted, that's a sub.  Then you've got the F2P model, which is that you walk in, you can look around, but you can't buy anything without putting down a lot more money to pay for the people who just walk through the door to look and get a free pair of socks.
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As many others have stated, if this game goes F2P then my wife, myself, and our three friends that joined with us are out.  I don't mind having time sinks in a game to ensure the publisher gets their money over time, but if I suddenly have to spend hundreds of dollars to compete with people that have more money than they know what to do with, and still try to support a family, then the game is no longer fun.
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I would be okay with 'pay for convenience' and cosmetics etc, but there is a fine line there and it's easy to overstep into 'pay 2 win'.
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Yeah while a lot of the games have pay for cosmetics, that does not seem to appeal to the RP crowd at least some of them, and to be honest with no legacy IP paying for cosmetics means they need to be really cool.
 
I have no issue with F2P being for cosmetic and perhaps QoL things and access (perhaps only one active AB for F2P and limited gold etc etc).
 
But going F2P would perhaps be the only way to make the PVP get back out of the swamps.
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Again, that's included free to play MMOs. People are paid to create fancy illustrations to draw your eyes in to the cool looking hoverboard that you can buy for $10. The same goes with every commercial or advertisement. They're trying to persuade you why you should spend $19.99 on their crappy brand, rather than going out and getting multiples of the same object for less.
 
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I think a better model is "dining a la carte" versus "dining prix fixe".  "A la carte" ("From the menu")  is the way the vast majority of people eat out -- go to a restaurant, see what's on the menu, order what you want, pay the listed price.  "Prix fixe" ("fixed price") is when you go to a restaurant, pay a rather pricey sum for a meal, and then get served the whole meal from appetizer to dessert based on what the chef thinks goes together well.  If you don't like the salad or the wine he chose, that's too bad -- that's all you're getting.  So you have to trust the chef to really be able to design a meal where you'll enjoy all of it, or you have to be willing to put up with the fact that while you might enjoy the entree, you really didn't care for that experimental frozen cactus juice dessert he came up with, and you weren't allowed to just order a slice of cake instead.  
 
Prix fixe dining is still available in many urban centers, but it's not what most consumers want, which is to choose from a menu and pay only for what sounds good to them. They don't want to just hand over a wad of money to the chef for the chef to do as he pleases, and then hope that the result is tasty and worth what they paid.  So prix fixe dining is for a limited group of eaters only, and they pay well for their dinners. They are the "hardcore" restaurant-goers, in other words. 
 
So games with subs are Prix Fixe. Pay one price, get what the devs decide to serve you, and hope they've cooked up something tasty.  Non-sub games are A La Carte -- devs provide stuff in the game they hope you'll like, and you pick and choose. 
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And none of those game had a CREDD-like concept at the time. That is the main differentiator... because all of the players you see are subscribers -wether they're paying for it themselves or not.
It's a much different situation with WildStar from the start. And those other game?
 
Just because there's more players or more revenue doesn't mean there's more profit.
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In B2P?  This would be in a box to buy.  In F2P?  Why would you even get rid of the crippling RNG, rune slots, and logistics?  You could make people pay for them, either with a pay-in method or by selling the individual items, like rune slot rerolls and token gear in a store.
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"If they go F2P I'll quit!"... Ok, bye?  Seriously, you'll be replaced by many, many others.
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Do you honestly think that CREDD is working?
 
Taking my server (Ikthia) CREDD went from 8-9p to 14-18p. One was perfectly achievabl for a larger group of players, the other range is hardly achievable for most people.
Even looking at Ascendancy CREDD is at 12-14p currently, that's just not sustainable.
When the CREDD crowd drops because it becomes unaffordable for most, there is less people needing CREDD, so overall sales will even drop further.
 
 
CREDD only works if people actually need Platin. Guess what? I never ever felt that i'd do something wrong with buying CREDD, because there wasn't anything i'd need Platin for.
And the 3 month drop schedule (and the lack of more Platin sinks in Drop3) isn't helping much either.
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Who's still selling CREDD on Ikthia?  Everyone moved to a few servers.  I'm surprised ANYONE is still selling CREDD on Ikthia.
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Surely you joke.
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That's what you take from it? CREDD prices are close to not affordable on the high pop servers.
Do you believe that Carbine thinks that way? For them CREDD buyers are also important, as without CREDD buyers, there won't be much sellers. Without many sellers, they loose out money, and that's not good in the long term.
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The incentive becomes, "How can we get people to buy the things we'll make money on..." rather than, "How can we make the game better so that the subscribers stay, old players return, and new players come in?"
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Surely you haven't looked at the game since it's gone F2P then. Whole new planets, new systems guild star ships and housing coming out,5 more levels, more quests and end game stuff, ect...
 
There's been a ton of content added to SWTOR since the game went F2P.
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Surely you joke. SWTOR had a lot of content, yeah. In the cash shop. Not so much in the game.
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Surely you haven't looked at the game since it's gone F2P then. Whole new planets, new systems guild star ships and housing coming out,5 more levels, more quests and end game stuff, ect...
 
There's been a ton of content added to SWTOR since the game went F2P.
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If you're okay with being forced to buy things you want instead of being charged at entry and everything else being at your fingertips, I suppose everyone has different tastes.
 
Honestly, if you're looking to skip the gameplay (as this analogy goes) and go right to having everything by paying for it, then why are you playing the game?  Similarly, if you aren't having fun "killing rats", why on Earth would you want to spend more money than you would on a subscription so that you can kill them at even greater rates of speed?
 
And if the alternative to that is spending eons more time farming rats, if that's even a possibility, it's not really free to play anymore, is it?
 
No, I play games to play the games, not to get stuff.  I own real swords that I buy with my real money.  And Wildstar's rat killing is the best rat killing I've done in a long time.  Why would I want Carbine to be incentivized to make rat killing a complete pain in the ass unless I fork over enough money to pay for myself and the ten guys who play for free for a few months and leave?
 
I mean, say what you want about the length of development for drop 3, but in B2P game, you're paying for that drop after a year's development time as an expansion.  Or the improvements are sold through a cash shop or you can just deal with fighting the RNGods for the rest of eternity.
 
You don't get to walk into your metaphorical F2P shop and buy whatever you want at a price they can use to fund you and nine other players.  Or you walk into your the metaphorical sub shop, you pay your entrance fee, you get everything in the store you want to get. and you only pay your little socialist share of the administration cost.
 
I'd rather Carbine be focused on making this game as good as it can be for everyone involved, trying to increase their playership, than to make the game a billboard for whatever they want to hock to make money off of me.  I'll go elsewhere for that.  I'd rather use my RL money to buy RL swords, not get nickel and dimed to death or face RNG Hell worse than this game will ever have.
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They made several design errors with GSF leaving it with limited appeal and GSH is also getting a big WTF? from housing fans.
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I never made a comment on how good the content was, I was simply responding to the claim that there was none.
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Well that's a little disingenuous.
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Because there's a point where game play goes from fun to tedious. In a B2P/F2P game, one can shortcut that with cash. In a P2P game, no such luck. In fact, the P2P is geared to stretch out that sub money by making that earning grind nice and long. So instead of having fun, one is stuck having to grind their way to the cool stuff that makes playing fun. If one likes that grinding, more power to them. There's a good chunk of us who don't roll that way.
 
And before you say, 'why bother playing', I've been playing Guild Wars 2 for a year and a half and I'm still active there. I played Champions Online for about six months before that and I just returned after my disaffection with Wildstar. (Though admittedly, it helped that I'm still paying a sub for the full character fun there.)  I still have an inkling to go back to trying Star Trek Online, DC Universe Online, or The Secret World, all without subs and all with barely touching the cash shop.
 
I play the games to play the game. If paying cash helps me get stuff that makes the game fun - costumes, starships, the odd XP booster if I'm powerleveling another new alt - then shut up and take my money. 
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You don't get a Drop 3 in F2P games across the board because F2P games make no money that way.
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Expect it doesn't actually work that way in other games... STO and SWTOR both have put out major content releases since going F2P and have not charged extra for that content. No one had to pay extra for the Romulan stuff in SWTOR, if you played though it as a Fed or Klingon, likewise SWTOR released whole new planets that you didn't have to pay for.
 
Both have released events and new systems you don't have to pay for either.
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It's simply the way the market works.  It has nothing to do with Carbine; they don't set the price.  It's on a free market.  When you've got more CREDD sellers than CREDD buyers, as it was at launch, prices fall.  When you've got more CREDD buyers than CREDD sellers the price will rise.  If you buy CREDD you are at the mercy of the sellers.  Your function in the equation, at that point, is to remove CREDD from the economy to get people to buy more (since that's where NCSoft makes money on CREDD, on the front end).  And if there are more buyers than sellers, you will see prices rise as the law of scarcity takes effect.
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How long passed between those drops, exactly?
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{| class="blockquote"
The chances for a F2P Hybrid is 3.25% and B2P is 4.71%.
 
Yeah, that's right, I pulled those numbers from the same place you did. Hint: the sun does not shine there.
 
1) Or they anticipate that the people who left because of dead servers, itemization, PvP imbalance, rune slots, etc will come back when that is fixed? And that the game will continue to grow because it is awesome?
2) They went to quarterly releases because we whined incessantly about buggy releases.
3) The extra time is needed to make sure nothing is broken (also itemization touches everything, so you kind of have to do much of it in one package).
4) They have always allowed those threads, just not dozens of duplicate threads - like they do with any threads that are unnecessary duplicate (or there are similar conspiracies going on in housing, crafting etc. seriously).
 
The subscription model is fine. CREDD works (look at EVE Online and it's PLEX).
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That's how a normal market works...
 
... here we have just one difference: Once you can't buy, you're out of the market.
 
On patchday you now have a state of buyers < sellers => CREDD for cheap. Buyers will stock up on CREDD => Buyer <<< Sellers = > Sellers will stop selling, as buyers no longer exist => Prices rise with the few CREDD left in market, unaffordable buy the buyers who didn't stock up => they leave the market => Now where is this going?
 
A CREDD market requires stable prices - stable prices require sellers - sellers require frequent platin sinks - frequent platin sinks require frequent patches OR less frequent patches with more expensive platin sinks (bad for subscribers) OR less frequent patches with more platin sinks (costs extra dev time)
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If we get what we're getting out of Carbine and we can get it for less money, I'll back you.
----
			
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This is what I replied to. The comment that the content added to the game was all in the cash shop and not in the game itself. A statement that is blatantly false.
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I know, but it had to be said. I wouldn't say "nefarious", but I would say "extremely ill-advised," particularly when combined with that "Come to our forums!!" message on the character choice screen. These forums already have a bad reputation around the gamesphere for being hostile to open discussion about Wildstar, and discovering that the P2P/F2P thread had vanished instantly put me in the frame of mind of "Well, no point in continuing to participate in the boards, I guess. Might as well just wash my hands of the whole Wildstar business completely and unsub." Have you noticed how dead these boards are these days? The overall number of posts has slowed to a trickle. There are several reasons for that, I'm sure, but an impression of "No reason to discuss Wildstar on the official boards, it's a waste of time, threads vanish without explanation" can't be in the slightest bit helpful in raising forum traffic.
 
It's yet another weird example of the split personality problem with Carbine -- the right hand says "Come and participate in our forums!" and the left hand says "We're deleting 20+ page threads without saying why!" Inconsistent much? 
 
Mind you, it wasn't even my thread. I was just really interested in the discussion about which non-sub monitization setups provoked the most and least bad reaction from some player groups, and why.
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That said, as I pointed out, the idea that F2P games add nothing but stuff you need to buy is simply untrue. Because again, a game with no new content that everyone can play though, is a dead game, and dead games don't generate income no mater what's in the cash shop.
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In my experience, F2P games offer a noticeable worse experience than subscription games.
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In a subscription game, all your income is from the "good game" category.
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Never said you should, and I don't want one either. But that doesn't change the fact that far more content has been released in SWTOR outside the cash shop then was released inside it.
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In the past, duplicate threads have been locked and a redirect posted to the more appropriate thread for continuing the discussion. I am wondering why the first P2P/F2P discussion thread was deleted instead of just locked with a redirect if this was an issue of duplicate threading.  Could we maybe have an explanation for the extreme measure? 
 
I know that my first reaction on finding that thread gone was "Yup, that's it, F2P confirmed and they don't want the sub-or-die folks jumping ship a few months early and depressing revenues even more," because it seemed like the obvious conclusion to draw. Particularly since I had just logged on to the game  before looking at the forum boards and there was a message on the character choice screen saying "Have you visited our official forums??"  ...Why yes. Yes I have....and they are deleting active discussion threads without explanation. (Just logged in right now and it's still there in fact!)
 
It's your board and you can do what you want (obviously) but I think deleting an active discussion thread completely is a really bad move in terms of customer relations. Everyone on this board currently has an active NCSoft account, after all. My second reaction was that I was sufficiently pissed off by the high-handedness of the move that I considered dropping my sub completely and not even waiting out the Big Patch. 
 
Lock-and-redirect would have been sufficient and you would have completely avoided the "speculation and rumor mongering" problem. 
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1) You highly underestimate todays players. Once players leave, its difficult to make them come back. Go look anywhere on the web and it will be the same thing. "WS sucks" "WS is dead" etc etc etc. Sorry but drop 3 aint gonna drop that perception. If WS is to recuperate, and i hope it does, its going to be done slowly....specially since it requires players who quit to pony up another 15 bucks. 
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I usually prefer to pay for a sub, but at this point I would rather see it going f2p with a reasonable 'plan' and see the game flourish with players (hopefully).
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Baseless statistics offend me. It's a damage from my background. Apologies if I came off as overly aggressive.
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And none of those game had a CREDD-like concept at the time. That is the main differentiator... because all of the players you see are subscribers -wether they're paying for it themselves or not.
It's a much different situation with WildStar from the start. And those other game?
 
Just because there's more players or more revenue doesn't mean there's more profit.
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Look, Wildstar is at the point where it is losing the battle for interest and curiosity. Free to Play(with hopefully a Patron style option for me) is Carbine's best option to generate interest and drum up and exploit curiosity. Not with drop 3. Maybe January or February. That way you can scoop a thousands of WoW (and others) players that just wanted to get in 1 more Tier before they retire(this is a real thing). There is nothing they can do at this point to generate interest the way F2P will. They can introduce new modes ect. but only the people here will care about it. We all know you only get 1 chance at a 1st impression in the MMORPG market.
 
Free To Play guarantees: a second look from people who liked it but didn't think it was worth 15 a month, people who prefer free to play, people who were curious but not 40- 60 dollar Box curious and, yes, trolls who at first came to laugh at you because your game "failed" to topple WoW but ultimately, end up falling in love with the game( lol).
 
That is how you win the battle for interest.
 
Please tell me what else they can do to generate INTEREST at this time. Advertisement is a debt trap. New modes? Who cares I'm raiding in WoW now. Ain't nobody got time fo dat. Bug fixes? Too little, too late. I'm riding my 150 buck Land Shark mount through water walls in Rift now. Loot Changes? Great for the people in-game already. I've just never seen someone quit their current MMORPG because another game made loot changes. Free trial? That leaves you open to "fun but not 15 bucks a month fun people". That means you've wasted time you should have spent working on a full fledged Free To Play conversion. Rift actually went through this phase before Trion took the plunge and changed what a lot of us thought about the Free To Play business model.
 
F2P means: People can come in, check out the changes and potentially stay. Curious Fence-sitters are now fans. People in other F2P games are now splitting time and money between WildStar and their other game. Sub loyalist drop off but you don't lose them all. Doesn't really matter because people who love the game can "over-support"(they spent 20 bucks in the shop instead of the 15 the Developer would have gotten, in addition to, being a Patron) if they want.  That offsets the revenue loss of the guy who was clearly looking for a reason to go back to WoW :lol:.	
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I agree, but instead of F2P, i would rather see this game as B2P. F2P just cheapens the brand too much. 
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The biggest problem for Wildstar now is getting enough new bloods to start playing it. Wildstar is considered to be a sinking ship on popular MMORPG sites such as Massively and MMORPG.com. Bad press prevents potential customers to spend money on a dying game. Those that do decide to give Wildstar a try will be disheartened with low to mid level ghost zones. Unless Drop 3 to 6 is nothing less than spectacular fun which earn appraisal from critics, Wildstar's population and profits wont see a major improvement. At this stage, the best and easiest way to increase Wildstar's population and profits is going F2P.
 
I know some of you have a deep grudge towards F2P but unfortunately business is cruel with NCsoft.	
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If someone was thinking of leaving SWTOR before it went F2P I'd say they'd have no issue going to a different game. But WS does have a lot to offer that other games don't, F2P or P2P...
 
That said, as I pointed out, the idea that F2P games add nothing but stuff you need to buy is simply untrue. Because again, a game with no new content that everyone can play though, is a dead game, and dead games don't generate income no mater what's in the cash shop.
 
Again I don't want to see WS go F2P, because I'd still sub even if it were, unless they go the Rift method... I'd rather see 100% of the dev's time devoted to new content and such, and not cash shop items. But when I see people making untrue and in some cases what seem to be uninformed statements about F2P I think someone needs to set the record straight.
 
WS going F2P does not mean Drop 4, 5 and 6 all being on par with Drop 3 won't ever happen, because other F2P games have put out updates of the same size.
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Not really a solid argument. SWTOR launced with terrible engame, tanked and they despreately went F2P to salvage it. Literally anything would be better than what it was at launch.
 
If the massive player loss had not occurred, and if it stayed subscription based, it could very well be better than what it is today.
 
But saying "it got better after F2P" is not really a good argument - being better wasn't really hard given the state at launch.
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{| class="blockquote"
Look, Wildstar is at the point where it is losing the battle for interest and curiosity. Free to Play(with hopefully a Patron style option for me) is Carbine's best option to generate interest and drum up and exploit curiosity. Not with drop 3. Maybe January or February. That way you can scoop a thousands of WoW (and others) players that just wanted to get in 1 more Tier before they retire(this is a real thing). There is nothing they can do at this point to generate interest the way F2P will. They can introduce new modes ect. but only the people here will care about it. We all know you only get 1 chance at a 1st impression in the MMORPG market.
 
Free To Play guarantees: a second look from people who liked it but didn't think it was worth 15 a month, people who prefer free to play, people who were curious but not 40- 60 dollar Box curious and, yes, trolls who at first came to laugh at you because your game "failed" to topple WoW but ultimately, end up falling in love with the game( lol).
 
That is how you win the battle for interest.
 
Please tell me what else they can do to generate INTEREST at this time. Advertisement is a debt trap. New modes? Who cares I'm raiding in WoW now. Ain't nobody got time fo dat. Bug fixes? Too little, too late. I'm riding my 150 buck Land Shark mount through water walls in Rift now. Loot Changes? Great for the people in-game already. I've just never seen someone quit their current MMORPG because another game made loot changes. Free trial? That leaves you open to "fun but not 15 bucks a month fun people". That means you've wasted time you should have spent working on a full fledged Free To Play conversion. Rift actually went through this phase before Trion took the plunge and changed what a lot of us thought about the Free To Play business model.
 
F2P means: People can come in, check out the changes and potentially stay. Curious Fence-sitters are now fans. People in other F2P games are now splitting time and money between WildStar and their other game. Sub loyalist drop off but you don't lose them all. Doesn't really matter because people who love the game can "over-support"(they spent 20 bucks in the shop instead of the 15 the Developer would have gotten, in addition to, being a Patron) if they want.  That offsets the revenue loss of the guy who was clearly looking for a reason to go back to WoW :lol:.
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At what point does that make you think "F2P" instead of "free trial for 7 days or to level 20"?
 
If this game goes F2P, it won't be me paying for a bunch of people to play for free by nickel and diming me to death for the rest of the stuff I might want.  The game already has a CREDD system where I can directly trade someone's game time for game currency if I so desire.  I get directly compensated in Wildstar for paying for someone else to play, if I were to do that.
 
Why would I stay and be charged more for the complete game content so that people can play for free who won't benefit me at all?  Obviously, they wouldn't be coming to the game to actually pay for it.
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I answered the Trial question in the post you are quoting. I always give the Forum users direct and honest answers. You can either accept it or not. Either way this is the reality WildStar is facing.
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At what point does that make you think "F2P" instead of "free trial for 7 days or to level 20"?
 
If this game goes F2P, it won't be me paying for a bunch of people to play for free by nickel and diming me to death for the rest of the stuff I might want.  The game already has a CREDD system where I can directly trade someone's game time for game currency if I so desire.  I get directly compensated in Wildstar for paying for someone else to play, if I were to do that.
 
Why would I stay and be charged more for the complete game content so that people can play for free who won't benefit me at all?  Obviously, they wouldn't be coming to the game to actually pay for it.
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F2P models usually implement a way for players to trade cash shop items or credits to F2Pers for gold. So getting directly compensated for paying for someone else isnt a problem.
 
Having more people to play with and the posibility of meeting new friends wont benefit you at all? 
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I tried to envision the venn diagram and the area of overlap between "Hardcore Raid Progression" and "Free-to-Play" and in my mind's eye that tiny little sliver in the middle looked like a toothpick connecting two manhole covers... ()
 
There are many, many things they could change about this game to improve its position other than its payment model.	
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I'm only pointing out that they have a LOT more options than you're giving them, and going free to play isn't a panacea.  Such as your idea that people will take a free trial and go, "Oh, it's not 15 dollars a month good."
 
If it's not 15 dollars a month good during a free trial, then that person is nothing but dead weight.  There's a very fundamental logical point being glossed over here.  Nothing matters if they don't generate more money.  If you get a lot more people that pay no more money, then F2P is only going to lose your current subscriber money (and by the sound of it, a lot of your subscriber players period, including myself).  The only way this works is if you somehow convince people it's free, but you end up essentially charging more money elsewhere and making up the difference.
 
That's what other F2P games did.  They didn't do it by being benevolent and driving up interest, they did it by making up the money elsewhere using sleight-of-hand while convincing people that the game was "free-to-play".
 
The only exception for this is if you have money coming from a third source.  In-game advertising is the only way you can make more money with a game without charging the players more somehow.  If you don't do that, you're not magically generating the money from nowhere, and Wildstar can nosedive just as easily as succeed if it goes that way.  Either way, if it does, people like me will go back to other games.  I'm not paying more money to support players who aren't paying so that I can access all the developed game content.  Honestly, I would rather pay a higher subscription rate to cover them leaving than pay extra for those people to play who simply didn't think the game was 15 dollars good.
 
Because to make more money for Carbine and NCSoft this way, someone's going to pay their 15 dollars somewhere.  And if CREDD isn't doing that now, I have no interest in the alternatives, and Wildstar may as well be cancelled to me before I let NCSoft fleece me to pay for dead weight to use as talking heads.
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{| class="blockquote"
 
 
There are many, many things they could change about this game to improve its position other than its payment model.
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There's likeable and Legitimate F21P models now.
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I tried to envision the venn diagram and the area of overlap between "Hardcore Raid Progression" and "Free-to-Play" and in my mind's eye that tiny little sliver in the middle looked like a toothpick connecting two manhole covers... ()
 
There are many, many things they could change about this game to improve its position other than its payment model.
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No, there are not. There are "less bad" and "awful", but definitely not "likeable".
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			chua smell rowsdower @#$%...chua think only CREDD hoarders afraid of f2p...chua know they already play for free...chua ask what good CREDD then to hoarders after f2p? chua think he already smell it	
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