114676-on-f2p-the-possibility-of-page-5

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A well-implemented F2P/B2P will actually make those problems avoidable. There's no fragmentation I know of at GW2, for starters.
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A well-implemented F2P/B2P will actually make those problems avoidable. There's no fragmentation I know of at GW2, for starters.
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@Drebble, that's correct, I don't care if they buy the million AP sword and walk through content in two days to my thirty. If I/you care about playing, if playing is my/your reward, then I/you don't care how other folks go about it. I/you "Win" by playing the game. In that sense, I/you can not "Pay to Win" even if I/you wanted to, because "Play to Win" is all that works for me/you. I/you am not in a race, I/you do not care if they get there before me/you. The act of getting there is why I'm/you're playing.
 
I intentionally have used this I/you construct to point out that I could be talking about myself or I could be talking about you. If what is of concern is working at it, so to speak, then whether others are working at it should not be of import. The term "shallow" is not an insult directed at you, it is a description of the commitment being shown from the argument against F2P/Cash shop. I say shallow, because the enjoyment of the game is destroyed unless everyone plays exactly as the proposer of the argument sees fit. So play is not the important thing, the thing that defines their enjoyment. Competition, "keeping up with the Jones" is the important thing. That is basic materialism.
 
Also note, I'm not saying the 1000000AP weapon is a good thing™ or that I would want such a thing in game. I like you get my enjoyment, at least partially, out of "working for it." Such an item would negate any challenge and make involvement in the game boring for me personally. However, if someone didn't enjoy working at it and wanted to (IMO) waste their money so they could wave around the "Sword of the ArchAngel Michael" in a game world, then I wouldn't have a problem with the devs handing it to them and letting them go to town... in so far as it didn't screw up the game for other players, i.e. them smiting the world boss every 30 sec, making it impossible for players to enjoy the game their way. We can draw these things out to extremes of silliness with these uber weapons that would never be implemented by a rational designer for hyperbole's sake, but there's no value in that and it doesn't refute the point: so long as how they play doesn't effect me/you personally, I/you should be fine.
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I can agree on the accomplishment part, but you wrote about advantage, which is not the same. For me, the accomplishment is downing a boss, not getting the loot it drops. Never understood this whole purple fever in MMOs. Gear is a tool to get me further, to beat the next challenge. That is exactly why I like the costume system, because whatever ugly purple statstick I get, I can cover it up with some nice looking skin. :)
 
I'm neither with or against F2P, I will simply play the game as long as it is fun for me. There's a funny thing though: if you pay the monthly fee in real money, isn't it similar to buying something in a cash shop, compared to CREDD, which you earn with ingame playing...?^^
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Well, there is advantage. Just as you define advantage as "things that help me down the next boss easier", advantage can just as well be "things that let me get an awesome costume easier".
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One is completely objective in terms of game advantage.
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			What is the advantage in wearing a different costume?	
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What is the advantage in wearing a different costume?
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I feel rewarded by meaningful effort.
 
I do not feel rewarded by doing pointless, inefficient or stupid things, no matter how much effort they require.
 
If they nerfed dungeons to faceroll easy mode, I would complain. I could just switch to level 45 blue items and get aproximately the same challenge as before, but it would cease to be me against the game and instead be me against some arbitrary rule made up by me.
 
Similarily, if the optimal strategy is to buy the Sword of the Archangel, using anything else would be suboptimal play. It would be intentionally playing worse than the game allows.
 
In the same way, grinding pixels for weeks to get something that can be had for less than 5 minutes of real life work time is also a wasteful strategy.
 
It is not so much the knowledge that someone else has bought their way past effort, but that it can be done at all.
 
So spending effort for something that is in the cash shop is wasteful, inefficient and stupid. And buying from the cash shop gives no "effort" based reward. Result : anything touched by the cash shop becomes valueless.
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So spending effort for something that is in the cash shop is wasteful, inefficient and stupid.
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I try not to quote, because I don't want folks to feel like I'm throwing their words back in their face. In this case however, I kind of have to because I want to point out a central thing for you, Drebble. You state you feel rewarded by "meaningful effort" and then you state that you don't want to go up against some arbitrary rule made by you. But what's meaningful is a decision that you yourself make. You yourself are deciding that the only good effort is what you call optimal effort... arbitrarily, based on your preferences. If challenge is what you want, then putting on 45 blues would indeed give it to you. However in the scenario you describe, that's not good challenge because you chose it for yourself. The game designers didn't provide it to you intentionally, but what is the difference? You were challenged, right? The difference is arbitrary, a matter of your choice. The challenge was there for the taking, the exact same level of challenge, but if you had to choose it as opposed to having it put upon you, then it's valueless? Why? Only because you say it's so. It seems completely obvious and self evident to you, because they're your own opinions. They're not written in stone though and they don't necessarily hold for anyone but yourself.
 
Wasteful, inefficient and stupid... what? Play? The value of play, is fun, no? In the end, you're earning rewards and accolades in a fictive realm, with no reality. It's all a waste of time. No concrete gain will ever be had of it. Time which you enjoyed spending is never wasted time, even if at the end of it you have nothing to show for it. Its value is in your enjoyment and that's dependent on the choices you make with regards to meaning and fun.
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By this definition, buying CREDD for gold is wasteful, inefficient and stupid, since you can buy it via "cash shop".
 
And regarding housing: what about those gazillion housing parts that can be bought in the AH for gold, those have no value according to you? You only use housing parts which are not acquirable with gold? That's not much.
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There is no indication of profit or revenue.
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I don't think it's really the model itself people are annoyed with, it's the shift in focus and the broken promises that drive off the loyal player base.
 
I mean if the game were to transition to F2P any time remotely soon it would be a giant middle finger from Carbine to the player base and there wouldn't really be any other way of interpreting it.
 
We've been waiting patiently for content fixes, new content, and general bug fixes for classes for a long time. Long enough of a time that roster churn is debilitating many raids. Economies were falling apart and announcements on Megaservers, crafting fixing and itemization changes have pushed nearly all of the game play to 'casual mode' for many servers, which are rightly so ghost towns now (players correctly used the free transfers to get to the most populated servers). It's difficult to not feel you were sticking around to fund development of a game you didn't purchase. As a consumer you purchased the box and subscribed to explore it and are still here because you enjoyed it and love the game. Not giving us the content when it was promised and then delivering something entirely different would be terrible.
 
The failed delivery of new content coupled with the inevitable shift in focus from bringing us new zones to explore and more of the lore/story of the game would just be a betrayal of the good will we all have for WildStar.
 
Plus switching to a F2P model would demand a massive nerf to the game because the F2P crowd is generally less dedicated and skilled, any nerf would be sad.	
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Plus switching to a F2P model would demand a massive nerf to the game because the F2P crowd is generally less dedicated and skilled, any nerf would be sad.
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Here you go, please feel free to try and refute the facts...
 
DDO for example saw a 500% increase in revenue after going F2P.
 
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/118359/Going_Free_Boosts_Turbines_DDO_Revenues_500_Percent.php
 
LotRO doubled it's income after going F2P
 
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/07/lord-of-the-rings-online-doubles-revenue-since-going-free-to-pla/
 
SWTOR's income doubled after going F2P
 
http://www.pcgamer.com/swtors-average-monthly-revenue-has-doubled-since-going-f2p/
 
Tera increased it's revenue after going F2P
 
http://www.pcgamer.com/swtors-average-monthly-revenue-has-doubled-since-going-f2p/
 
So there you go, proof that many of the big name AAA MMO's see an increase in revenue after going F2P. When you consider that a MMO costs money to keep running, it seems highly unlikely that all those companies would keep a game running at a loss. If they are making more money then they did as a subscription based game, and are still running. The only logical conclusion based on the evidence is that they are making a profit, and a larger one then they were as subscription MMO's.
 
Unless of course you want to try to argue that Turbine, had a net loss with DDO after going F2P, and decided to take LotRO F2P knowing that they'd see a loss of profits in that game to... Oh and that Turbine is still producing new content for DDO 8 years after it was released, 5 years after going F2P.
 
I don't especially want to see WS go F2P, but the facts are the facts and many of those against F2P don't have the facts on their side.
 
I'd also like to point out that some people are so vehemently against it, they'd rather see everyone lose out on WS then let it go F2P where a number of people will still be able to play and enjoy the game...
 
Just how childish can some people be that if they don't want to play, that means no one else should be able to play it either.
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Would love to see some actual facts to back up that statement.
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I wouldn't call any of those AAA games except maybe SWTOR.  Just picking nits.
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I don't think it's really the model itself people are annoyed with, it's the shift in focus and the broken promises that drive off the loyal player base.
 
I mean if the game were to transition to F2P any time remotely soon it would be a giant middle finger from Carbine to the player base and there wouldn't really be any other way of interpreting it.
 
We've been waiting patiently for content fixes, new content, and general bug fixes for classes for a long time. Long enough of a time that roster churn is debilitating many raids. Economies were falling apart and announcements on Megaservers, crafting fixing and itemization changes have pushed nearly all of the game play to 'casual mode' for many servers, which are rightly so ghost towns now (players correctly used the free transfers to get to the most populated servers). It's difficult to not feel you were sticking around to fund development of a game you didn't purchase. As a consumer you purchased the box and subscribed to explore it and are still here because you enjoyed it and love the game. Not giving us the content when it was promised and then delivering something entirely different would be terrible.
 
The failed delivery of new content coupled with the inevitable shift in focus from bringing us new zones to explore and more of the lore/story of the game would just be a betrayal of the good will we all have for WildStar.
 
Plus switching to a F2P model would demand a massive nerf to the game because the F2P crowd is generally less dedicated and skilled, any nerf would be sad.
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Points at everybody who left because they couldn't do silvers.
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Here you go, please feel free to try and refute the facts...
 
DDO for example saw a 500% increase in revenue after going F2P.
 
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/118359/Going_Free_Boosts_Turbines_DDO_Revenues_500_Percent.php
 
LotRO doubled it's income after going F2P
 
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/07/lord-of-the-rings-online-doubles-revenue-since-going-free-to-pla/
 
SWTOR's income doubled after going F2P
 
http://www.pcgamer.com/swtors-average-monthly-revenue-has-doubled-since-going-f2p/
 
Tera increased it's revenue after going F2P
 
http://www.pcgamer.com/swtors-average-monthly-revenue-has-doubled-since-going-f2p/
 
So there you go, proof that many of the big name AAA MMO's see an increase in revenue after going F2P. When you consider that a MMO costs money to keep running, it seems highly unlikely that all those companies would keep a game running at a loss. If they are making more money then they did as a subscription based game, and are still running. The only logical conclusion based on the evidence is that they are making a profit, and a larger one then they were as subscription MMO's.
 
Unless of course you want to try to argue that Turbine, had a net loss with DDO after going F2P, and decided to take LotRO F2P knowing that they'd see a loss of profits in that game to... Oh and that Turbine is still producing new content for DDO 8 years after it was released, 5 years after going F2P.
 
I don't especially want to see WS go F2P, but the facts are the facts and many of those against F2P don't have the facts on their side.
 
I'd also like to point out that some people are so vehemently against it, they'd rather see everyone lose out on WS then let it go F2P where a number of people will still be able to play and enjoy the game...
 
Just how childish can some people be that if they don't want to play, that means no one else should be able to play it either.
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Why people left this game doesn't have anything to do with a f2p model and you can't actually back-up that statement either because you don't know how many players that left for that reason, if that reason at all.
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If you'd like, we could go back to July and start quoting you some threads.  That was a major stated reason, generally filed under attunement.  That's why they hotfixed in the shift to bronze.  That was a two-week shit storm in July, though.
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1. Not everyone lurks on the forums.
 
2. You can't generalise it from the forums because you don't actually know how many people left for that reason merely based on forum threads.
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Okay, ranked by difficulty, besides, Wildstar, what's seen as the most difficult and hardcore MMORPG on the planet?
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Okay, ranked by difficulty, besides, Wildstar, what's seen as the most difficult and hardcore MMORPG on the planet?
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It would be completely insulting to us, as players that funded Carbine, that we suddenly find out our sub money bought development that the people coming in wouldn't even have to pay for.  Right now, I'm perfectly fine paying my sub because I know all of us are paying the same amount to get the next drop.  Suddenly hearing I funded it for people to just drop in so that Carbine could figure out ways to make more money from me to support them?  I have notoriously good patience with the developers based on the faith I have in their ability.  That would cross way over even my limit.
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It's not what you call it. "In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced "triple A") is a classification term used for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion."
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(game_industry)
 
 
He showed you that an AAA game can actually make a profit from fp2, providing they implement it reasonably.
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Why people left this game doesn't have anything to do with a f2p model and you can't actually back-up that statement either because you don't know how many players that left for that reason, if that reason at all. You can't provide facts for your 2 statements because it is your own guess and not facts. Statements are backed up with information.
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Again, none of those games except SWTOR had a whole lot of promotion, even at launch, and their production values speak to their limited budgets.
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I wouldn't say hard, unforgiving for pick up groups sure since we are on the subject of silver and dungeons.
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Exactly.  And their payment models?
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EvE Online and Final Fantasy XI
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I can spend some time wading through Rift where PuG's can't actually do any of the Expert Dungeons anymore. Used to be before F2P the player base there was good enough to do a lot of public evens and the random dungeons and you could expect a slight struggle with under geared players, but now it is terrible and players barely comprehend how to hit buttons. Thankfully WildStar doesn't have room for players who can't actually do the content.
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EvE : Sub + PLEX
FF11 : Sub or promo sub through ff14 (sub'd) or Crysta
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Okay, if we're dodging, we'll just go into the logic end.  A sub based game makes its money by making people want to continue logging in regularly.  Length of content keeps people subbed in.  B2P makes no money on the journey, only on completion, so they need people completing on their release schedule.  If they're making money on the cash shop, they can make money by forcing the gear numbers up, but not on the content.  Subscription games make money by keeping people in and playing the game, not by steering people towards the ways they can actually make money.
 
Hence, it's logical to assume, if you don't like the evidence we have at hand, that subscription games have the most natural incentive of the currently discussed models to have difficult gameplay that takes time to master.
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High and Low budgets, where does the line go then? What defines a low budget game and how much is a high budget game? Who defines it?
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It would be completely insulting to us, as players that funded Carbine, that we suddenly find out our sub money bought development that the people coming in wouldn't even have to pay for.  Right now, I'm perfectly fine paying my sub because I know all of us are paying the same amount to get the next drop.  Suddenly hearing I funded it for people to just drop in so that Carbine could figure out ways to make more money from me to support them?  I have notoriously good patience with the developers based on the faith I have in their ability.  That would cross way over even my limit.
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I place more weight on the production values than the actual budget anyways.  DDO and LOTRO in particular were horrible to play, and awful to look at, which speaks directly to why they lost subscribers.  I honestly don't know where the money went making them but they were both awful at launch.
 
TERA was a lot more fun to play, and was quite strong visually too as long as you didn't have a problem with the art style, but it was a very small game from a world size point of view, which signalled its low budget.
 
SWTOR was the only one out of the 4 that had the looks, and enjoyable (albeit generic) gameplay to get my "good production values gold star" .  It's a shame that it was thoroughly un-Star Wars, and the group content was trivial and forgettable.
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Since WildStar is providing the option to buy CREDD in game, then it contradicts it. There might be loads of players playing for free already in WS. People stated they bought CREDD so cheap at the start that they were set for 6+ months. I don't see any evidence provided, only guesses and 'assumptions' as you said yourself, from yourself. A subscription based game doesn't equal difficulty, nor guaranteed quality. If I had a penny every time I saw/heard someone say they got bored of WoW because it's too easy, and as you know it has a subscription.
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			I don't know if you guys realize this but this thread is really going nowhere lol.  Most of it is talking at each other rather than talking with each other, no evidence provided for each counter argument, dodging questions, etc.Time for you guys to regroup!	
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Except, unlike both the B2P and F2P models we're talking about, CREDD isn't F2P.  CREDD users have to essentially consume 20 dollars monthly rather than 15, just someone else pays.
 
Carbine doesn't have to rely on their generosity, charity, or semi-annual box sales.  CREDD subscribers, as I described, don't change the model, it means people can play a sub game for free if they grind enough plat.
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We've already received what we paid for; they don't owe us any more than that. Games go on sale all the time without invalidating the money that previous purchasers spent. At this point they can do whatever they want with their money.
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Stop trying to ignore it.
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I can spend some time wading through Rift where PuG's can't actually do any of the Expert Dungeons anymore. Used to be before F2P the player base there was good enough to do a lot of public evens and the random dungeons and you could expect a slight struggle with under geared players, but now it is terrible and players barely comprehend how to hit buttons. Thankfully WildStar doesn't have room for players who can't actually do the content.
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Exactly.  And their current status over a decade after both their launches?
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1. Not everyone lurks on the forums.
 
2. You can't generalise it from the forums because you don't actually know how many people left for that reason merely based on forum threads.
 
 
So, 'some' threads doesn't give actual facts to back up that the 'majority' left for that reason.
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People do tend to appreciate different things in a game. A lot of people said they hated the WS look being cartoony, I for one really like it.
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Not without insulting us.  They haven't released a patch in over two months.  Which is fine, if I get to enjoy all the content they developed for my subscription dollars.  If they start throwing us developed content we have to pay for on top of that?  They used all those months of my money to develop content I have to pay for again.
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I think you forgot to read the rest of my post or you just ignored it because you don't know what to say?
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I wouldn't call any of those AAA games except maybe SWTOR.
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EvE : around 500k subs
ff11:  around 500k Subs
ff14 : around 2 million subs
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No, that was just the end of the point.  Your point was that CREDD somehow invalidates the point.  IT does nothing but reinforce it.  CREDD users aren't turning it into a F2P game because they are always having their time bought and paid for.  They just have someone else do it and trade them plat.
 
Unless you're talking about the comment on WoW, which seriously misses the point.  The point isn't that all sub games are challenging, but challenging games tend heavily towards the sub model, therefore (as was stated and which you did deny) Wildstar would have every reason to aim lower if they go F2P.
 
Obviously, if they're shooting for the most amount of people online and fleecing them for money, they do NOT benefit from developing anything difficult as they have now.  They benefit from making the content faster, easier, and selling you buffs to make the content even faster and easier to get through.  The only thing they may benefit from is making the grind longer as a barrier to people who aren't paying in.  I was trying to be respectful of your crowd who are saying that idea is long dead.
 
There's a reason that the two first thoughts on the hardest MMORPGs on Earth are two decade long, highly profitable sub games.
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New players buying the box in November or December will get identical content for half price, and they will have used your sub money to develop that content for them. Does this retroactively decrease the enjoyment you got out of the game those previous months?
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I don't see how you can make that statement. Sub based games have no guarantee of being 'hard'. Your just assuming things like you said yourself, I haven't seen any actual information provided to back up your statements. "challenging games tend heavily towards the sub model".
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We're talking about the two most difficult and hardcore MMORPGs in the world right now, both subs.
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As was pointed out, what you'd call them doesn't matter. They are considered triple A mmo's.
 
 
BS. LotRO had a ton of promotion at release, and both LotRO and DDO are fairly old games, so it's only natural that they don't look as good. The fact is they are Triple A MMO's, unless you have the budget numbers those games had at release and can compare it to what was considered a triple a budget when they were released... You're just making up excuses to ignore facts you don't like.
 
Even if we do accept your premise, which is massively flawed, because you base it on subjective opinion not actual facts. Even you admit that SWTOR was a Tripple A MMO that has increased it's revenue and player base after going F2P, which proves it can and does happen.
 
Also again, before Lethality comes and makes a even bigger fool of himself by making claims that he can't support or are easily proven false.
 
I do not want to see WS go F2P, perhaps the CREDD system will be enough to keep it above what ever minimum profit margin NCSoft demands... I actually hope this is true.
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I'm saying that at launch it looked awful and played that way too.
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Again that's subjective opinion, not a fact.
 
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I'm not saying you don't have a point but you're walking pretty close to the Association Failicy... Just because the hardest games have a subscription does not prove that sub based games are more difficulty.
 
It can be argued just as effectively that the people who really enjoy truly difficult MMO's are willing to pay for them, and if there were a F2P MMO of equally difficulty that they'd be playing that instead.
 
It can also be argued but less effectively that those two games have captured the market for people who enjoy those types of games, and there isn't room for another.
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yes... totally subjective.
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There's no reason to think Wildstar wouldn't survive and thrive in a sub model if given enough development time to get the wind in the sails.
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			Why is this not locked yet lol	
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You haven't come close to refuting my point, just simply trying to shift the argument around to avoid it.
 
fact: LotRO and other MMO's make more money after going F2P then they did as a sub based game. Please refute this if you are able. Changing the argument, trying to define victory or all the other stuff doesn't cut it.
 
Again, how can anyone define 'victory' as being anything other then a game that is running and producing new content? As long as it is doing so, it is by an reasonable meaning of the word a success... Unless you believe that companies like NCSoft and EA operate MMO's as a charity and are quite happy to take a loss on them.
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You want to play a low quality F2P game, you have no right to complain when stuff doesn't go your way because the only thing you're technically paying for is a costume, which works perfectly despite your class being broken.
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@Drebble (and other anti-F2P, etc.), while I completely understand the "get it through the game, earn your stuff" idea you're espousing here, you are again substituting your preferred currency, Time, for other players' preferred currency, Money. Not every player has the former, some instead have plenty of the latter. I don't see where its fair to prefer your currency over theirs. In fact, it's likely in the developers' interest to prefer Money over Time. It seems to me ideal to support both as the best case scenario.
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I believe I've said a number of times now that I don't think WS has to go F2P, and that I don't want it to go F2P.
 
 
That's an assumption, and it may be correct. But we can't actually know that. Most F2P mmo's don't offer anything in their cash shop that makes content easier, 95% of it is cosmetic in nature. No potions of super strength or mega shields that I've seen.
 
Most of the MMO's that have gone F2P have not lowered the difficulty over all, unless it was too high to start with, which may be part of the downfall, I know in LotRO one of the biggest gripes was the difficulty and group-centric nature of the game.
 
Maybe WS would have to lower the difficulty, maybe not. But that's also something they seem to be doing anyway, or at least making the game more casual friendly then it was.
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I'm not accusing you of wanting the game to go F2P.
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I understand that point, but Wildstar had a huge influx of people who jumped into the game.  They've listed a lot of reasons for departure, including bugs, RNG, content, etc.  Payment model is sometimes offered as a way to return, but it wasn't like a lot of people didn't show up willing to pay the subscription.  A lot of people said they would come back if a few changes were made to improve the game.  There's no reason to think Wildstar wouldn't survive and thrive in a sub model if given enough development time to get the wind in the sails.  Of all games, Wildstar, as a high-difficulty, high-end content game would benefit from the sub model.
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We're talking about the two most difficult and hardcore MMORPGs in the world right now, both subs.  Would you like to discuss a more difficult F2P game?
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Stop trying to give Carbine excuses to go F2P.
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I'm a little confused here, Vic.  You're talking about EVE and FFXI, right?  But the biggest sub game is, of course, WoW, by an INSANELY large margin, and WoW regularly gets criticized (although, in my opinion, unfairly) for being "too easy" and "too casual" and having "welfare epics" and all that exclusionist garbage.   
 
So how is saying "Two niche games continue to make money on subs because they're hard!"  relevant to the sub model overall when the industry's 900 lb gorilla exists as a counterexample?  Also, FFXIV is doing just fine with subs, and it's absolutely casual-centered, at least at the entry levels.  
 
I think a more accurate summation of the MMO subscription model picture would be that you can choose one of two paths if you want a successful sub-based game:
 
1) Aim for a small, underserved niche; cater to their interests; build your business model around the concept of starting small and slowly growing as you find and retain your audience.  
 
2) Aim for the widest possible base of players -- go all-in on the idea of "easy to learn, hard to master." Make entry into your game trivially easy and rewarding, but be sure to have some significant challenge at the far end of it for those who are interested.  
 
Unfortunately for Wildstar, Carbine's split personality issues currently keep the game from landing in either of these categories.  They did not aim for a small subscriber base and offer a unique experience; they aimed for a large subscriber base and offered something very similar to the standard MMO experience, but they made the game tougher across the board, and as early as level 20 players find themselves in five-man dungeons that require coordination via voice chat to complete reliably. The earlier levels like Galeras are packed with high mob density and hard-to-spot Primes lurking everywhere -- not welcoming to the lowbie at all. And then you get to the grind that is Whitevale.  Essentially, Carbine left out the "easy to learn" part.  Wildstar's low-middle game needed to be substantially more welcoming, and, dare I say it, more fun overall.  More fluffy stuff and more attention to QoL.    
 
After looking at MMO releases in the past five years or so, a pattern seems quite clear to me. The path to success is "easy to learn, hard to master."  An open door, a low barrier to entry, a fun low-level experience -- and  some meaningful challenges at the far end for the dedicated player.  You can't skimp on either of those in a modern MMO or you'll be struggling. 
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I think Carbine has been rather clear that they have no desire to see this game go F2P. Again I hope they can swing it, because even if it does go F2P I'll stick around and keep subscribing, assuming subscribing actually makes sense. Some games it does, like LotRO, or SWTOR, some it doesn't because they offer subscribers nothing worth the money IMO at least, games like Rift.
 
Plus I'd rather believe that F2P isn't the only viable option any more, that there's room for a Subscription based MMO like WS. There is no question that for most of us, having 100% of the updates devoted to free stuff rather then CS is better.
 
 
The real question however is will NCSoft give them that time? Perhaps Drop 3 will fix enough stuff that the population will pick back up again... But IME every MMO I've played that had one of these "soft launch" patches that was going to fix everything and were considered to be on kin with the Second Comming, were a massive disappointment compared to the expectations everyone had. This in turn can make things even more toxic which in turn drives people away.
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I think Carbine has been rather clear that they have no desire to see this game go F2P.
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I think the thing that should be most alarming to those opposed to F2P is that the people at Carbine who have been most vocally opposed to F2P have now left. It's anyone's guess what comes next, because nearly everyone who can be held accountable for anything said up until now has been replaced or is about to be.
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If NCSoft didn't have their reputation and track record for ordering games to commit seppuku or face execution, we wouldn't be worried.
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People in other new MMO's are worried too. This is a fairly common topic in the ESO boards, or on WoW boards too.
 
 
The people behind SWTOR, STO, CO, ect... They all said they were vocally opposed to F2P up until the point that they announced that they were going F2P.
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Yeah, but WoW just disproves that you ever need to go F2P.
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WoW only proves that WoW can do it. Consider the 3 games that have lasted a year or more as sub based games. WoW, EVE and FFXI... EVE and FFXI are both sort of nitch games, especially EVE. A big part of what drives WoW is that it's WoW... Or in other words it could very well be the exception that proves the rule.
 
Plus it has the advantage of a massive amount of inertia. Because as you point out they add some truly bad stuff to the game but people keep on playing it, no matter how many better options there are out there.
 
 
You're right, CREDD is alternative revenue stream, same as a cash shop is in other games. I think everyone can agree that the monthly sub for most games isn't enough, they need something else to keep the game afloat. CREDD may be enough, it seems to work with EVE, although EVE is a special case, it has and needs a much smaller dev team, with less overhead because 95% of the games content comes from the players.
 
WoW is also a special case, because it's so huge, that it makes more then enough money to turn a profit. Smaller games, which is anything with less then say 5 million people, will likely need something besides just subs to make it.
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Although  as mentioned before I'm against F2P, Wildstar is unlikely to ever recover reasonable subscription numbers without going F2P. If an IP as big as Star Wars had to go that route (and personal opinion about the overall game aside, it had way less vocal criticism of its launch systems/bugginess), then what chance does Wildstar have? There's even more competition in 2014, more burnout, and less chance of people coming in post-launch than in the SWTOR situation.
 
After reading over some comments here the last few days, and taking in the recent Nexus Report, here's my prediction, and I make it with no happiness: Megaservers aren't going to do much but put a lot of bored and negative people together. Then we have a few weeks of wait for a drop that as far as I've heard so far doesn't fix the most criticized problems (RNG, poor reward system for endgame, new content that isn't a grind). It's focused primarily on bug fixes, things that most players probably feel should have been dealt with pre-launch, given the number of bugs, or at the least, not four months after launch and at the expense of other game stuff. The only really good thing I see coming from drop 3 are housing updates, which make me very happy, and yet I know I'm a minority and probably less than 10% of overall players care.
 
All evidence considered, my opinion is that this game will have to go F2P just to draw attention. SWTOR and RIFT were both dying games, and it seems to have worked somewhat for them, while FFAAR had to actually shut down for a year and relaunch to set itself right.
 
 
edit in a ray of light: I hope megaservers ignite something unexpected within the community; I pray that I log in the first day and see a bustling city and guild recruitment spam and hell, throw in some bots just cause. :P
 
We really really need that positive reinforcement right now.	
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Although  as mentioned before I'm against F2P, Wildstar is unlikely to ever recover reasonable subscription numbers without going F2P. If an IP as big as Star Wars had to go that route (and personal opinion about the overall game aside, it had way less vocal criticism of its launch systems/bugginess), then what chance does Wildstar have? There's even more competition in 2014, more burnout, and less chance of people coming in post-launch than in the SWTOR situation.
 
After reading over some comments here the last few days, and taking in the recent Nexus Report, here's my prediction, and I make it with no happiness: Megaservers aren't going to do much but put a lot of bored and negative people together. Then we have a few weeks of wait for a drop that as far as I've heard so far doesn't fix the most criticized problems (RNG, poor reward system for endgame, new content that isn't a grind). It's focused primarily on bug fixes, things that most players probably feel should have been dealt with pre-launch, given the number of bugs, or at the least, not four months after launch and at the expense of other game stuff. The only really good thing I see coming from drop 3 are housing updates, which make me very happy, and yet I know I'm a minority and probably less than 10% of overall players care.
 
All evidence considered, my opinion is that this game will have to go F2P just to draw attention. SWTOR and RIFT were both dying games, and it seems to have worked somewhat for them, while FFAAR had to actually shut down for a year and relaunch to set itself right.
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We're talking about the two most difficult and hardcore MMORPGs in the world right now, both subs.  Would you like to discuss a more difficult F2P game?
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It would be completely insulting to us, as players that funded Carbine, that we suddenly find out our sub money bought development that the people coming in wouldn't even have to pay for. Right now, I'm perfectly fine paying my sub because I know all of us are paying the same amount to get the next drop. Suddenly hearing I funded it for people to just drop in so that Carbine could figure out ways to make more money from me to support them? I have notoriously good patience with the developers based on the faith I have in their ability. That would cross way over even my limit.
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I don't define WoW as hardcore. People always define hardcore differently as well, not to mention there are a lot of people saying WoW is too easy. You have your opinion, but that's it, no actual facts since hardcore have different definitions.
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I wanted it to be F2P from the start, or B2P or whatever the hell term means I buy the box and play the game, and make further cash shop purchases as time goes by when I feel like it.
 
Beta left me with no desire to buy the game if it was P2P. Only when CS published the massive polish updates right before early release was I convinced to buy the game. These past few months which have basically been an extended beta (with issues from the actual beta and then some) have been rough, but I've made it F2P for myself using their CREDD system.
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Please re-read the conversation you grabbed that quote from.  We were talking about FFXI and EVE Online.  Nobody called WoW hardcore.
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WoW is subscription based. I don't reckon you understand what I'm saying.
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No, I do, I'm just wondering when we switched subjects from hard-games-tend-to-subscription-models to subscription-models-are-hard.
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WoW only proves that WoW can do it. Consider the 3 games that have lasted a year or more as sub based games. WoW, EVE and FFXI... EVE and FFXI are both sort of nitch games, especially EVE. A big part of what drives WoW is that it's WoW... Or in other words it could very well be the exception that proves the rule.
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No, I do, I'm just wondering when we switched subjects from hard-games-tend-to-subscription-models to subscription-models-are-hard.
 
Those are two very distinct concepts, the latter of which isn't really relevant in a discussion of whether Wildstar goes F2P and gets dumbed down.
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So...? That is completely different from just buying something off a cash shop.
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I'm not ignoring it... I'm refuting the statement that you made. you said and I even quoted it "There is no indication of profit or revenue." so I provided 5 examples of an increase in revenue...
 
So you come back with something completely irrelevant to what I said, because you can not in fact refute the proof so you try to shift the argument. So admit that you were proven wrong, that F2P does in fact mean an increase in revenue, or prove to everyone you have no real credibility in this argument, because all you can do is try and shift the argument away from actual facts while claiming your opinions are facts.
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Regardless of your stand on the issue of converting to F2P in general, the problem with converting Wildstar to free to play/buy to play any time within the next couple months is that it's not going to be a silver bullet for the game's problems. In fact, it's more likely to act as a giant magnifying glass for them.
 
Like I said much earlier in the thread, even if Drop 3 pulls off an absolute miracle the game will still be, at best, half way to where it should have been when it launched: all that Drop 3 really has in it is a massive pile of bug fixes and a daily zone that was technically ready to go live at the beginning of September; most significant endgame system fixes aren't planned to be seen until Drop 4 or beyond.
 
Let's look at a few things that won't be fixed in Drop 3:
 
1. Warplots will still require far too many people to be feasible. Even lowering the requirements from 40 per side to 30 only means that the number of players who will see a warplot will jump from 0.25% of the game's population to about 0.35% (yes, I'm making those numbers up, but the point stands that it's still way too many people needed).
 
2. Attunement will still be a ridiculous process. The process should be this: one, hit level 50; two, do all the Vet Adventures once; three, do all the Vet Dungeons once; four, you're done attuning; five, go kick some ass in GA. Anything else is a waste of the player's time.
 
3. Still far too much RNG. Runes will still be RNG dependent; the "rune transformation kit" will be a rare loot drop, making the value of it's existence dubious at best. Gear upgrades will be 80% RNG dependent, and Elder Gem vendors will still not carry complete gear sets which lessens the usefulness of their supplementary nature. Architect, Technologist and Cooking will still have a stupid amount of RNG in them. Amp and Ability Point drops will still be far too rare.
 
4. PVE leveling will still be a tedious process. The moment you get half way through Whitevale about 90% of the content is identical to the other faction's for the rest of the game. The questing drags the player on a singular path from one to fifty with no variation, no choices and no consequences; thus has no real meaning. Dungeons, Adventures and Shiphands will still not be viable for leveling all the way through to max level. Questing in general does little to create any real incentive to team up for anything other than bounty missions.
 
5. Soloists/Non-Raiders will still be locked out of meaningful endgame progression. The gear that they'll have to spend a month grinding faction reputation will still at best be an incremental improvement over the crafted gear they'll be able to buy the moment they hit level 50; which makes the situation that meets them at max level worse than in pretty much any other MMORPG today, because in pretty much every other game on the market, the soloist can count on at least a couple weeks of game play before hitting their glass ceiling.
 
Looking at that list, you get the picture that while the foundation of Wildstar's game play is sound, the house built on top of it is nowhere near finished. While it's true that you can't invite new players into a buggy game and expect them to want to start paying for it, you also can't start trying to bring them into an unfinished one and expect them to want to pay for that either. 
 
It's a Catch-22. The game needs some type of major shift in it's monetization plan in order to stop the current population hemorrhaging and bring in an audience large enough to sustain it long term; but bringing the in with all of the current problems is more likely to repel newcomers from staying than make them want to stay. However, the longer they wait to make that type of shift in their business plan, the less likely they'll be able to keep or attract any players at all.	
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Regardless of your stand on the issue of converting to F2P in general, the problem with converting Wildstar to free to play/buy to play any time within the next couple months is that it's not going to be a silver bullet for the game's problems. In fact, it's more likely to act as a giant magnifying glass for them.
 
Like I said much earlier in the thread, even if Drop 3 pulls off an absolute miracle the game will still be, at best, half way to where it should have been when it launched: all that Drop 3 really has in it is a massive pile of bug fixes and a daily zone that was technically ready to go live at the beginning of September; most significant endgame system fixes aren't planned to be seen until Drop 4 or beyond.
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Okay, ranked by difficulty, besides, Wildstar, what's seen as the most difficult and hardcore MMORPG on the planet?
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Am I the only one that doesn't care if f2p is more profitable or not? 
 
I don't want it to go f2p because the paywall reduces the amount of gold spam and other various scrubs from turning the game into a cesspool. 
 
I also can't stand having the game try to shake you down for more money everyone something opens in game.	
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Am I the only one that doesn't care if f2p is more profitable or not? 
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Sadly, it doesn't actually matter if you -- or any player -- cares or not. The folks making the call are NCSoft, and they care very, very much about what business model is more profitable. We're not voting on it here, because we don't get a vote. We're just discussing whether or not it's likely to happen, what might happen to the player base, what kind of model might be chosen, and so on. 
 
About the only practical difference players caring or not may (or may not) make is this: If enough people scream that they'd rather see the game dead than F2P, then, should it come down to making the call between transitioning the pay model and shutting down the game, NCSoft might decide there's no point in ponying up for the model transition and just...you know....kill the game. What they will not do is keep operating the game at a loss, or at an insufficient profit, just because the players think they should. That ain't gonna happen, cupcake.
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Here you go, please feel free to try and refute the facts...
 
DDO for example saw a 500% increase in revenue after going F2P.
 
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/118359/Going_Free_Boosts_Turbines_DDO_Revenues_500_Percent.php
 
LotRO doubled it's income after going F2P
 
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/07/lord-of-the-rings-online-doubles-revenue-since-going-free-to-pla/
 
SWTOR's income doubled after going F2P
 
http://www.pcgamer.com/swtors-average-monthly-revenue-has-doubled-since-going-f2p/
 
Tera increased it's revenue after going F2P
 
http://www.pcgamer.com/swtors-average-monthly-revenue-has-doubled-since-going-f2p/
 
So there you go, proof that many of the big name AAA MMO's see an increase in revenue after going F2P. When you consider that a MMO costs money to keep running, it seems highly unlikely that all those companies would keep a game running at a loss. If they are making more money then they did as a subscription based game, and are still running. The only logical conclusion based on the evidence is that they are making a profit, and a larger one then they were as subscription MMO's.
 
Unless of course you want to try to argue that Turbine, had a net loss with DDO after going F2P, and decided to take LotRO F2P knowing that they'd see a loss of profits in that game to... Oh and that Turbine is still producing new content for DDO 8 years after it was released, 5 years after going F2P.
 
I don't especially want to see WS go F2P, but the facts are the facts and many of those against F2P don't have the facts on their side.
 
I'd also like to point out that some people are so vehemently against it, they'd rather see everyone lose out on WS then let it go F2P where a number of people will still be able to play and enjoy the game...
 
Just how childish can some people be that if they don't want to play, that means no one else should be able to play it either.
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			I really hope it goes Free to Play. A lot of my friends, and myself, would come back. In doing so I'd hope they'd offer a subscription offer as well that would offer enough benefit so that microtrans wouldn't feel necessary for hardcore players.For everyone who posts that they'd quit on the boards, a hundred would come in to try what is a great game.	
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