119089-the-generic-mandatory-f2p-thread

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Hello fellow Nexians, now as you know the last large f2p thread was locked down due to personal arguments and attacks happening, SO I MADE ONE, As I think this is a hot topic right now and should be talked about in one major thread instead of a megacablillion other ones.
 
There is no way I will sub to WS every month, I will do what I did with RIFT and sub every few months. BUT, I dont think F2p Would be that bad either
                             I DONT WANT F2P, A mod seemes to edit the part out where I said that, SO I WILL RETYPE IT, ME NO LIKE F2P!!!!
If they did go the f2p route I would want to see Carbine blend Rifts f2p system, With Guild wars's, Rift has armor, but not very good armor, but the shop should primarily only have cosmetics ala GW2. WIldstar does have the perfect game for a f2p system and it could work out very well in terms of population. but before I say Why I dont want f2p I will say the f2p stereotypes i DISAGREE WITH
 
F2p equals less quality Content: This is so untrue it hurts, RIFT released and expansion that is pretty great, Tera is realeasing a high quality xpac, same with swtor, EQ2, Neverwinter, ect. See what I am getting at, these are all f2p games, releasing good to great expansions, Rift supports their game fully just as much As wildstar...
 
F2P players suck: Also not true, many people (including myself) love having 1-3 mmos to play and their better off if one of them is free.
 
F2p=P2W, Again only semi-true, having a cash shop doesnt make you p2w, hell even selling armor on it doesnt...
 
Now to what I agree with
 
F2p community equals more trolls, more bots, and more gold sellers. While I do think f2p games can have great communities, some of them just get riddled with wow fanboys, god sellers, bots, ect
 
What if they make less money? They may have to fire some folk they cant pay, which is bad
 
So in the end If WS went f2p I would still play it, but I prefer it as a sub game with the Credd option
 
LET THE MEGATHREAD BEGIN
 
(try being nice and not mean to each other)
 
moderator edit: content  
			
				
	Edited November 27, 2014 by GorenKillChua	
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			No. /Loud noises.People are tired of this discussion, no one has anything left to discuss about it or any new points to be made for it.	
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			Thats a lot of rage! *Hands you a strawberry cupcake with sprinkles* :)	
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			Just stop opening threads about it, please.	
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The things have been said. The roads have been tread. The horses have been beat.  Bye now.  I'm gonna go eat.
 
 
ps - generic mandatory HOW ABOUT NO.  because it's mandatory.	
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The things have been said. The roads have been tread. The horses have been beat.  Bye now.  I'm gonna go eat.
 
 
ps - generic mandatory HOW ABOUT NO.  because it's mandatory.
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Enjoy your food :D,  but also, no, the topic has barely been talked about, its just insane "NO" people saying that the game is doomed and refusing reason vs people saying its doomed without f2p who refuse to listen to reason, lets prove out forum isnt a bunch of angry monsters like what has been said a few times on the internet.
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That may the the majority of the "discussion", but the things have indeed been said at some point. 
 
Here are a couple of mine.  The history doesn't go back far enough to get all the ones I remember.  Or maybe my memory is flawed.  Also, one massive threadnought that contained a lot of real good discussion (except the last couple pages) got completely deleted, so you won't find that discussion with search.
 
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/118342-why-is-f2p-thought-as-a-bad-thing/page-3&do=findComment&comment=1233518
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/114676-on-f2p-the-possibility-of/page-2&do=findComment&comment=1192685
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			Does the op realize all the free to play games he listed were quite... Crappy?	
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Does the op realize all the free to play games he listed were quite... Crappy?
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Really, every post so far the majority is against it*
Please stop trying to make it happen. These 15/month ain't the end of the world.
And if it is, you shouldn't be playing/spending them in the first place.
 
 
* of forum posters	
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			No to free to play. Stop beating a dead horse. We were having these topics for like 4 months now.	
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			Nothing starts my day off better than a cup of coffee and a giant NO.	
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Search is your friend ... we have multiple F2P threads ... (consolidation perhaps ... but no ... )?
 
And my answer is as it was in the other multiple threads on F2P .... No! :P	
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Hi Folks,
 
Just a reminder to please remain constructive and polite to your fellow community members. The previous F2P thread was locked, as such we don't currently have an active one. I know you may all be tired of seeing the subject come up, but we never want to discourage folks from talking about their concerns and opinions. You don't all have to see eye to eye, but we do ask that you please try to remain courteous. Lets try to stay on topic please. 
 
Thank you
- Team WildStar 	
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You couldn't just let the topic die could you?
 
I'm saying no, for the multitude of reasons already discussed ad nauseum in every thread since launch.
 
I believe I speak for a great many forum goers when I say we're tired of reading about this topic, tired of talking about it, and tired of repeating ourselves.
 
P.S. When you said Nexians, I totally read Mexicans and was confused...
 
P.P.S.  Of the three most recent threads on this topic, two are still not locked. You really just wanted yours to be on the front page, I guess.
 
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/118719-free-to-play/
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/118342-why-is-f2p-thought-as-a-bad-thing/
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/118394-wildstar-free-2-play-what-if-ideas-within/	
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Oh this thread again... You know you're not the only one having played several F2P games. And I'll tell you that even if some of them are fine, many of them just feel toxic on the long run. Such threads aren't limited to sub games, there's a lot of threads about how the game would be better if it used a subscription model on F2P game forums too.
 
About content: yes, F2P game release less/lesser content. You've said that you've played neverwinter. I've played it too! And if you dare saying that they're releasing more content than the Wildstar team I'll call you a liar. :) They release ONE new instance every 3 or 4 months and it's a "one size fits all" dungeon. Which means that they're willing to keep it playable by new players. While I agree making more content accessible for new players is a good thing for a game, ignoring what your long term players want - you know, the people having a couple of $500 characters - sucks and just make them leave. Big surprise I was one of them. No new content for me in 6 months, well I had to leave. Here when I go to the PTR forums I see they're planning to make a new dungeon and a new raid. And they're making a new daily zone for casuals/noobs too.
 
No pay to win... Um... That's the case for a very, very small minority of free to play games. Selling power in the cash shop is usually the easiest way to make a lot of money and studios do it because it works! As soon as you sell something making your character more powerful in the cash shop you are paying for power, which is what people call "pay to win". But I like "pay for power" better because that's more accurate. And it sucks.
 
F2P communities aren't "worse" per se they're just different. Subscription based games tend to appeal to a different, a bit more dedicated, population. They're here to stay, at least for a couple of months. Some of them even consider gaming as their hobby. Since they're here to stay well the mindset is a bit different.
 
I've seen very dirty stuff when I was playing F2P games. Top spenders could do whatever they wanted to do, get several warnings, behave like dicks with everyone, exploit the shit out of the game and would never get banned. I'm not sure that's what we want here. And when someone accidently banned the whale for a week for exploiting, throw a tantrum to customer support and you get unbanned in the next 24h.
 
Nowadays when a studio choses to make a subscription based game, it's almost an ethical choice. Yes, free to play will bring more players. Yes free to play can be very profitable sometimes. But you have to rely on predatory marketing strategies, you have to play with your player's frustrations to keep them logging in or making them pay money, you have to make stuff expensive because only 10% of your playerbase will pay for the bills, and since you have a small dev team you're ignoring your long-term players - they've bought or sometimes farmed all your cash shop items so why keeping them? F2P games are rarely about making a fun, engaging experience people may want to pay for, they're more about how to milk the playerbase, "find new ways to monetize content", instead of just making the game better to get more subscribers.
 
I understand that you like F2P but no thank you. Also the F2P market is already quite crowded and the competition is harsh. Many F2P games fail. Free to play doesn't equal successful. The worldwide MMO population is small. It's a niche genre. So why would Wildstar fail if the purpose is having high quality content instead of the "one size fits all" dog food every single F2P game makes with every new expansion? If they up their standards and manage to make an engaging experience for most players, new ones, dedicated players and casuals, I don't see why it would fail. Oh it won't be a game with several millions of players. But who cares? As long as there's enough players to pay for the bills and to play all the content, it's enough.	
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Even though I may likely play the game again if it went f2p, I really think it is a bad idea.  I really hate how f2p is becoming the way to go because no matter what people try and tell you, the quality of the game drops a lot.  You lose out on a lot more content updates along with the quality of those updates because the cash shop will always become the priority.  Rift and SW:ToR isn't bad being f2p, but having played SW from beta I stopped a little before f2p but went back to try it again as f2p and there is a huge difference.  They are still making small expansion and adding things but for as long as it has been out so far, there should be a lot more showing for it then 1 or 2 more raids since it whent f2p along with more pvp things for those who pvp etc.
 
Rift is another which is okay, but all of chat is mostly now selling stuff you buy off the cash shop.
 
Subs may have declined a lot since it's biggest peak, but if CREDD is selling extremely along with their months subs and can make a profit still running the game like this then they will be fine.  If they are spending more then making or barley seeing any type of profit, they can say "We will shut down before going f2p" but in reality if it came down to it they will go f2p. 	
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Oh dang another one!
 
I will stick with my answer, NO!
 
I await the next F2P thread. My answer will remain the same. (If I could go a week without a F2P thread going up....that be amazing)	
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			I *imagine* the majority of players here want to support the game and might see the monthly sub as a way of doing that. I do anyway, I'd rather know the money I spend is going towards people building content rather than commodities. The population problem I expect is partly one of marketing - Dominus knows they've got a battle on their hands with that one. Nothing that the right campaign and a slew of free trials can't fix without sabotaging the whole thing with F2P though. 	
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I *imagine* the majority of players here want to support the game and might see the monthly sub as a way of doing that. I do anyway, I'd rather know the money I spend is going towards people building content rather than commodities. The population problem I expect is partly one of marketing - Dominus knows they've got a battle on their hands with that one. Nothing that the right campaign and a slew of free trials can't fix without sabotaging the whole thing with F2P though. 
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Since this topic has only "just scratched the surface" of what is to be debated.  Would you care to highlight the points that have not been made?  The only thing I can think of is creating more analogies to a F2P model, which actually doesn't bring anything new to the table.
 
Or have we only "just scratched the surface" because the forum posting community doesn't agree with you, and you want to say more things until we all change our mind?  This thread will not settle anything, nor will it bring anything new.  Of THAT I can guarantee.	
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You don't need to pay for advertisement if your game is great. You only need positive reviews in the press, free trials and word of mouth will do the rest. Maybe adding it to steam, even if it's expensive.
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What, ANOTHER ONE?
 
People, please. F2P isn't a one size fits all answer that's going to solve the game's population and possible financial issues. If it were go F2P right now, it would only bring in a small surge of new and returning players, who would all most likely quit the game again with complaints like "OMG it's still not optimized?!", "Itemization still sucks", "Still no content, Little to no incentive to do anything outside of raiding", "Why can't my P.O.S toaster of a PC run this game properly?! This game looks like WoW so I should be able to run it just fine!" "OMG I keep wiping on the first dungeon this game is so stupid hard", and "There's not enough skimpy outfits for me to dress my slutty character in? FREAKING DROPPED" and so on.
 
This game needs A LOT of work if it's going to stay afloat, but me and others can assure you that F2P ISN'T THE (ONLY) SOLUTION.	
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Look we get it, some people are too cheap, can't borrow their parent's credit card, etc.
 
But $15 a month is a bargain for the hours of entertainment it provides. Compare it to...
 
$50 - trip to the bar
$15 - movie ticket
$60 - game that lasts 20 hrs
$5 - new contume on F2P MMO
 
If Wildstar keeps me from the bar one night a month it's done its job.
 
I've played F2P MMO's they all end up focusing dev effort on their cash shop rather than actual interactive content. Not only this, but I end up spending more money on micro transactions than a sub fee. Please don't try to change Wildstar into something its not, go find an MMO that's already F2P.	
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Look we get it, some people are too cheap, can't borrow their parent's credit card, etc.
 
But $15 a month is a bargain for the hours of entertainment it provides. Compare it to...
 
$50 - trip to the bar
$15 - movie ticket
$60 - game that lasts 20 hrs
$5 - new contume on F2P MMO
 
If Wildstar keeps me from the bar one night a month it's done its job.
 
I've played F2P MMO's they all end up focusing dev effort on their cash shop rather than actual interactive content. Not only this, but I end up spending more money on micro transactions than a sub fee. Please don't try to change Wildstar into something its not, go find an MMO that's already F2P.
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Since this topic has only "just scratched the surface" of what is to be debated.  Would you care to highlight the points that have not been made?  The only thing I can think of is creating more analogies to a F2P model, which actually doesn't bring anything new to the table.
 
Or have we only "just scratched the surface" because the forum posting community doesn't agree with you, and you want to say more things until we all change our mind?  This thread will not settle anything, nor will it bring anything new.  Of THAT I can guarantee.
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Really, every post so far the majority is against it*
Please stop trying to make it happen. These 15/month ain't the end of the world.
And if it is, you shouldn't be playing/spending them in the first place.
 
 
* of forum posters
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WHat do you mean doesnt agree with me, from what I have read the community completely agrees with me when I said I dont want f2p, and what i mean is all f2p topics are is pointless fanboys vs doomsayers refusing reason and ignoring what the other has to say. And it looks like it hasn't changed.
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What, ANOTHER ONE?
 
People, please. F2P isn't a one size fits all answer that's going to solve the game's population and possible financial issues. If it were go F2P right now, it would only bring in a small surge of new and returning players, who would all most likely quit the game again with complaints like "OMG it's still not optimized?!", "Itemization still sucks", "Still no content, Little to no incentive to do anything outside of raiding", "Why can't my P.O.S toaster of a PC run this game properly?! This game looks like WoW so I should be able to run it just fine!" "OMG I keep wiping on the first dungeon this game is so stupid hard", and "There's not enough skimpy outfits for me to dress my slutty character in? FREAKING DROPPED" and so on.
 
This game needs A LOT of work if it's going to stay afloat, but me and others can assure you that F2P ISN'T THE (ONLY) SOLUTION.
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So in the end there was no point in making this thread is what you're getting at? 
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No no no, the original point in the creation of this thread was getting people to say why they dont want f2p, but possibly realize that it wouldnt be the end of the world, as mostly EVERYONE thinks that it would become a p2w piece of shit, which I dont agree with. But I still prefer the base Idea of p2p, Im just saying that a f2p alternative, wouldn't make it so bad.
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No no no, the original point in the creation of this thread was getting people to say why they dont want f2p, but possibly realize that it wouldnt be the end of the world, as mostly EVERYONE thinks that it would become a p2w piece of shit, which I dont agree with. But I still prefer the base Idea of p2p, Im just saying that a f2p alternative, wouldn't make it so bad.
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Hello fellow Nexians ...
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 Olivar, you disappoint me, you seem to have not read the part where I said I didnt want f2p either, I just thought it was still a necessary conversation to be discussed.
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			Also one thing grinds my gears. Why people keep concentrating on the way how exactly developers get their money instead of enjoying good game? Why this is so important have these holy 15 bucks monthly to pay? In f2p version you can spend more, and to be honest, if you really like something, why not pay more? f2p model allows you do this. And hey, in this world there is A LOT of free2enjoy things to do. Why peeps complaining so much if we gonna share this freaking awesome game with more people?	
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Also one thing grinds my gears. Why people keep concentrating on the way how exactly developers get their money instead of enjoying good game? Why this is so important have these holy 15 bucks monthly to pay? In f2p version you can spend more, and to be honest, if you really like something, why not pay more? f2p model allows you do this. And hey, in this world there is A LOT of free2enjoy things to do. Why peeps complaining so much if we gonna share this freaking awesome game with more people?
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F2P communities aren't "worse" per se they're just different. Subscription based games tend to appeal to a different, a bit more dedicated, population. They're here to stay, at least for a couple of months. Some of them even consider gaming as their hobby. Since they're here to stay well the mindset is a bit different.
 
I've seen very dirty stuff when I was playing F2P games. Top spenders could do whatever they wanted to do, get several warnings, behave like dicks with everyone, exploit the shit out of the game and would never get banned. I'm not sure that's what we want here. And when someone accidently banned the whale for a week for exploiting, throw a tantrum to customer support and you get unbanned in the next 24h.
 
Nowadays when a studio choses to make a subscription based game, it's almost an ethical choice. Yes, free to play will bring more players. Yes free to play can be very profitable sometimes. But you have to rely on predatory marketing strategies, you have to play with your player's frustrations to keep them logging in or making them pay money, you have to make stuff expensive because only 10% of your playerbase will pay for the bills, and since you have a small dev team you're ignoring your long-term players - they've bought or sometimes farmed all your cash shop items so why keeping them? F2P games are rarely about making a fun, engaging experience people may want to pay for, they're more about how to milk the playerbase, "find new ways to monetize content", instead of just making the game better to get more subscribers.
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			By the gods, please refrain from starting this same thread over and over. The horse is dead, disintegrated, buried, burned and is now nutrients for the earth.	
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			the vocal minority wants to sound a lot bigger than it really isworks in politics why wouldn't it work anywhere elsepersonally, the day they announce f2p is the day i uninstall wildstar and never look back but what will come will come. Highly doubt the devs give a crap what any of us think so why even bother stressing over something you have no control over	
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			I would rather they keep the sub model and give the client away, since I think that's actually the biggest barrier to entry.  Don't like the sub fee?  Farm trees and dailies to pay your sub.	
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I would rather they keep the sub model and give the client away, since I think that's actually the biggest barrier to entry.  Don't like the sub fee?  Farm trees and dailies to pay your sub.
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Again recycled...unless you forgot a word in that sentence.
 
Also when you say the discussion has been dominate by "pointless fanboys vs doomsayers refusing reason and ignoring what the other has to say" well I disagree. Please read through ALL of the other threads on this topic and you will find objective points of view.
 
I'm not trying to criticize here but you would really do yourself a favour regarding how you present your argument if you read through those other posts. From reading what you wrote, I don't feel you have. I believe this is why you are seeing the reaction you have seen in this thread. We are running in circles. Just my two cents.
 
I will no longer feed this troll.
I will no longer feed this troll.
I will no longer feed this troll.
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I think it would be that bad.  I've played enough F2P games to see how the cash shop slowly poisons everything about the game.
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			Yes, it has been suggested to remove the box price and just stick to the subscription.  Nobody has any problems with that from previous threads.	
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Your not calling me a troll are you, I have been here supporting this game sense like may, I will continue to support it no matter what, I dont want f2p, I just wanted to see Why people didnt want it, but also for them to acknowledge the good parts of it, people dont do that, they assume f2p is only ever bad and just completely ruins a game no matter what
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Great Idea, I would prefer that as well, I mean, WS is only 20 bucks anyway
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Rift lately has been pretty mediocre I will agree to that, but generally it is still decent, none of the games I listed (except neverwinter) are really that bad, in fact I think they all lie within the decent to good ratio :)
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Yes, it has been suggested to remove the box price and just stick to the subscription.  Nobody has any problems with that from previous threads.
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This will never happen. Even arenet wasn't dumb enough to try this.
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Probably not.  Obviously Arenanet wouldn't drop the box price and stick to their sub, because they have no sub. 
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			This again? The reason they keep locking these threads is there's nothing left to say that hasn't already been said 20+ times on these forums. It all reverts to personal attacks because you've all run out of any substantional information and just wanna discredit the other guy. Carbine knows how the community feels about F2P... we've made it abundantly clear.	
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This is a lie.
 
I played RIFT when it was a sub based game for 2 years.
 
Since it went fail2play its become nothing but a downhill pay2win game with content thats not even close to what it used to be when it was sub based.
 
Pay2win= RIFT. MAKE NEW TOON. LEVEL BOOST IT TO MAX LEVEL, OPEN CASH SHOP, BY 2ND BEST SET OF GEAR IN GAME FOR PVP OR PVE STRAIGHT OF THE CASH SHOP.
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If Neverwinter passes as "good to great" content to you, what can I say. 
 
F2P = P2W trash almost each time. Only Grinding Gears Games are moral people in this scene and their model is the only one that is acceptable.
 
Game having an entry fee will protect it from most kiddies as well.
 
PS: Oh I see you later wrote NW is kinda lame. Yup it's lame and a good example as how shitty the F2P games usually are.	
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I cannot speak on Nightmare Tide but Storm Legion was very good even when it was f2p, I had a good set of raiding gear without spending a dime.
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So please let us refrain from pointless bickering and why dont you give actual feedback and not what a f2p game may have... I will provide games with decent f2p systems
 
RIFT
Tera
Neverwinter (game kinda lame though)
Marvel heroes (pretty sure its free :P)
Shaiya online
Bad f2p games include
Swtor
Allods
Runes Of magic
Every facebook game ever made ever :P
 
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I would rather they keep the sub model and give the client away, since I think that's actually the biggest barrier to entry.  Don't like the sub fee?  Farm trees and dailies to pay your sub.
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A lot of people who don't like the sub fee don't like it because they don't spend enough time in-game to justify paying one. They're not going to spend their limited in-game time farming and doing dailies. If WildStar can survive and flourish with a small, dedicated player-base (or expand that dedicated player base), then continuing with a sub model is fine. If not, then a hybrid model, where a more dedicated player-base gets loyalty benefits from subscribing and casual players have a F2P option, is the way to go.
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So they can't spend enough time in the game to justify a $15 sub fee, but they can justify $35 mounts and $15 vanity pets, and $10 costumes, yeah?
 
If they're the type that don't pay anything, why should they get access to the game in the first place?
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I used to be a fan of F2P when they first started in the West, but my experience in LOTRO, Rift and GW2 has soured me on them.  Any kind of serious cash shop leads inevitably to P2W.
 
Now P2W is fine for a casual game you are just playing to pass the time with friends.  But for a game that is trying to corner the niche of "challenging PvE" (abandoned by most mass-market MMORPGs), it would be a death sentence for W*.
 
Don't get me wrong, F2P would bump W*'s population in the short term, but long-term the game and its quality would decline, losing everything that made it distinctive.	
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I cannot speak on Nightmare Tide but Storm Legion was very good even when it was f2p, I had a good set of raiding gear without spending a dime...
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So they can't spend enough time in the game to justify a $15 sub fee, but they can justify $35 mounts and $15 vanity pets, and $10 costumes, yeah?
 
If they're the type that don't pay anything, why should they get access to the game in the first place?
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i have two active MMO subs. $1/day.
i'd rather drop the other game but its what my BF plays, I'm happy to keep my WS sub alive even if i don't play it as much as the other game, just because i want WS to work its way into its groove.
 
If WS converted to F2P, I wouldn't even stop to consider if I shouldn't be uninstalling.  F2P, as far as i have ever had the 'joy' of experiencing.... is just badsauce.
 
Also, SW:tor and Rift started as Sub based games. /Just_saying
 
 
moderator edit: content 
			
				
	Edited November 29, 2014 by Chillia	
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The horse has been beat so bad that its now dust.
 
Stop with the F2P threads... enough is enough... 4months now of these... really.
 
My answer as well as many others remains .........NO	
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The horse has been beat so bad that its now dust.
 
Stop with the F2P threads... enough is enough... 4months now of these... really.
 
My answer as well as many others remains .........NO
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