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Is this game still completely P2P?Follow

#1 Mar 21 2014 at 11:15 AM Rating: Excellent
Payment model discussion here, for those dying to discuss it.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 10:20am by Thayos
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#2 Mar 21 2014 at 11:23 AM Rating: Default
Yeah, they just raised it by $4 a month without asking us. I feel like if I want full access to the game at this point I have to buy the extra retainers to use the venture system fully and my inventory space has just been made impossible to manage.
#3 Mar 21 2014 at 11:59 AM Rating: Decent
49 posts
Thanks for opening up this thread Thayos. From the looks of it the game is going to change from a P2P business model to a P2P + Cash Shop business model; for now. I'm going to break this response into 2 major parts. The first one is what I posted over at MMORPG.com (which highlights all of the questions and answers and topics) that pertains to the P2P and/or F2P model from the Dengeki interview as well as the Famitsu article. The second post is going to cover the current landscape of the Westernâ„¢ MMORPG genre that exclusively uses the P2P business model.


Original article can be found here:

http://dengekionline.com/elem/000/000/824/824505/


Translation can be found here:

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/120472-March-19th-Dengenki-Online-Article?p=6061123&viewfull=1#post6061123


A Realm Reborn has familiar aspects to WoW?


Yoshida: Absolutely. People who are familiar with WoW will recognize a lot of the systems in A Realm Reborn, but there are many players in Japan who are not familiar with them and may question their implementation. That's one of the differences that we see between North American and Japanese players. However, we have about a half and half split for people who are happy with the current degree of difficulty and people who think it's too difficult. The difficulty of WoW has dropped considerably, but the people who loved the time when WoW was difficult are the people who like the difficulty in A Realm Reborn.

As far as the monthly billing goes, people are becoming more pragmatic and they're only willing to pay for the things that they want to use. What that means to monthly billing is that there are players who would rather pay based on the amount of time they play in a particular month, after they've played. There used to be no debate about this, since monthly billing was the only standard for MMORPGs, but now F2P is a consideration. We see this desire for players who would rather buy items especially in North America.


By the way, based on the number of planned users, what's your goal for the total global number of concurrent connections?


Yoshida: Since Shanda Games is operating the Chinese version, it's hard to say, but they have different goals that we have compared to Japan. However, we shouldn't just be talking about the number of simultaneous connections. In South Korea and China, F2P online games have been gaining a lot of momentum, and many users are only playing for the free period. We are taking this seriously, but it's one reason why the number of simultaneous connections may not be a measure of the success of the game.


Do you think it's good to have two different billing systems for a MMORPG (F2P and subscription)?


Yoshida: I don't think F2P is necessarily a bad thing, it's just one option. Talking about MMORPGs in general, there were a number of MMORPGs that launched around 2005, and almost all of them were subscription based. The thought was that this would guarantee profit from the start, and the development team wanted to depend on a stable number of users and a stable income. With the F2P model, employment is unstable, since what you sell in one month doesn't necessarily predict the next month's profits. This makes developers uneasy and makes it hard to create a roadmap for the game. It's important that content is provided reliably over time, and you need a development team and a steady income to do that.

To have stable sales for a MMORPG, you have to keep development going. After all, you need to keep providing content with updates and people need to be entertained by that content to want to keep playing. With a F2P game, though, you're not getting money from the content, but just from selling items. So then to make a lot of content you have to make a lot of items, which isn't necessarily linked to the players' enjoyment of the game. Rather than having 100% content update, then, you'd have to dedicate, say, 30% of that to items created to make money. Then it goes back to the ultimate question of what are our goals for the game in the first place.

The development of a MMORPG requires an incredible investment. It takes a lot of money raised from investors, and if you don't get the number of users you planned for at the start of your subscription service, the investors might immediately go into panic mode trying to figure out how to increase profit. These games might be forced to go F2P so that they can use the revenue to return the money to their investors.

There are many users now who don't like the idea of being bound to a game for a long time. I feel that way myself, so that I can stop at any point. I think this model works well for these kinds of games where you play for a long time overall but only play a little at a time. These aren't MMOs, but F2P works well for games like "World of Tanks" and "League of Legends."

If there are particular elements which are strongly customizable, F2P works well for those cases so that players can pay to instantly expand their experience. I think that's why the choice was made for those types of games. It's important that the business model for the game is selected based on the kind of experience that you want to provide. It could be a positive change for a game to move from subscription based to F2P as long as the change is based on the users' needs rather than trying to turn an unprofitable game around.

>>>If there's an impression that I'm determined to stick to a subscription service, that's a mistake.<<<



Do you have a response to the example users you gave in the U.S. who are interested in buying items?


Yoshida: We hope to offer some items for sale, but nothing that will affect game balance.


It seems that a lot of users are interested in sales of Fantasia (the item to change your character model), so how about that?


Yoshida: We're going to be talking about that in the LIVE producer letter on the 21st. Also, we're planning to introduce the ability to purchase an additional service which increases the number of available retainers. It'll be even more valuable with the additional retainer systems available with the patch which will make retainers more useful than ever.


Famitsu posted this article yesterday which includes this slide that talks about the F2P option.

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201403/20050235.html

http://www.famitsu.com/images/000/050/235/l_532a6ebc8b1cc.jpg
#4 Mar 21 2014 at 12:08 PM Rating: Default
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Inb4 SE botches the P2P/F2P hybrid and alienates more players than they add.
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Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#5 Mar 21 2014 at 12:09 PM Rating: Excellent
I think you're totally right... looks like increased RMT activity is in the pipeline, but hard to say to what extent. To me, looks like he's leaning toward P2P with more of a cash shop, while perhaps making the game F2P in China, or something like that.

He also talks a lot about players "wanting to pay for the time they actually played" or something to that affect... so maybe instead of an item cash shop, he's considering a "F2P-ish" model in which you pay for blocks of game time, or pay a subscription for unlimited time? That would actually be a cool way to go about it... SE would still be guaranteed income from everyone who played, which would stabilize development costs.

Quote:
Famitsu posted this article yesterday which includes this slide that talks about the F2P option.

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201403/20050235.html

http://www.famitsu.com/images/000/050/235/l_532a6ebc8b1cc.jpg


There's a ton of cool stuff in those slides, too.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 11:10am by Thayos

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 11:11am by Thayos

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 11:11am by Thayos
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#6 Mar 21 2014 at 12:09 PM Rating: Good
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LucasNox wrote:
Yeah, they just raised it by $4 a month without asking us.
Would be a waste of time asking. You're going to pay it anyway.
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#7 Mar 21 2014 at 12:11 PM Rating: Default
lolgaxe wrote:
LucasNox wrote:
Yeah, they just raised it by $4 a month without asking us.
Would be a waste of time asking. You're going to pay it anyway.


You as in me, or the general population? Because I'm definitely not going to. I don't know about anyone else. It would bring me to $19 a month for ARR. Since this is only the first thing and they plan to add more items, I should probably just quit now. This is clearly becoming a game that I can't afford.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 2:11pm by LucasNox
#8 Mar 21 2014 at 12:11 PM Rating: Decent
49 posts
Notice that one of the questions (as well as a couple of Yoshida's responses) pertain to the U.S. Why would this be the case? They know that the market has shifted quite considerably since 2002. As it currently stands from:

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/394763/page/2


These are the remaining exclusive P2P MMORPGs (out of the 600+ MMOs released in the West):


Games released prior to 2005 that still use the P2P business model:

Dark Age of Camelot 2001
A Tale in the Desert 2003
EVE Online 2003 (Has a cash shop)
FFXI 2003
World of Warcraft 2004 (Has a cash shop)
Vendetta Online 2004



Games released post 2005 that still use the P2P business model:


DarkFall 2009 (Asia sector has a cash shop)
The Hammers End 2013
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn 2013 (Will have a cash shop)



Games being released between tomorrow and 2016 that have announced their payment model that is not F2P:

The Elder Scrolls Online 2014 (Will have cash shop)
WildStar 2014 (Will most likely have a cash shop: remember this is a game published by NCSOFT)



Every other MMORPG released from 1996 till present that started out using the P2P business model has either shut down, gone F2P, or in most cases F2P + P2W. I only know of 2 MMOs that went from P2P to B2P.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 2:15pm by AmbrosiaAmor
#9 Mar 21 2014 at 12:17 PM Rating: Decent
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LucasNox wrote:
Yeah, they just raised it by $4 a month without asking us.


Well, yeah I suppose, but in theory they could have just raised the subscription cost without giving any additional benefits. This is an optional service and not mandatory. Your own thoughts on absolutely needing the feature are all summed up by the fact you want to be on the same page as everyone else. Which is a valid point I suppose, but it also to me doesn't seem to be game breaking to not pay for the service. Right now we don't even have a complete sense of what the benefits are really going to be. Could be crafting all over again, seems good in theory and certainly get use out of it, but not exactly necessary to stay completely competitive in the game [Read high-level raiding].

I can't really say I'm for or against it, but one way or the other whether I choose to indulge or not doesn't seem to be changing the overall game to me in the slightest. I'm more curious if you can pay in increments like subscription or if it will be entirely such and such cost for 30 days reoccurring. Would be more troublesome to me to pay 90-day subscription but still see charges every 30 days for the retainer.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 2:18pm by Aquidar
#10 Mar 21 2014 at 12:19 PM Rating: Default
Ventures making this game P2W would have made for an amazing thread, why'd you have to lock it...

preludes-level material right there.

Quote:
This is an optional service and not mandatory. Your own thoughts on absolutely needing the feature are all summed up by the fact you want to be on the same page as everyone else. Which is a valid point I suppose, but it also to me doesn't seem to be game breaking to not pay for the service.


Better not tell him he ceased being on the same page as everyone else without paying up more money the moment we got a) CE bonuses b) OST bonuses c) cumulative sub time bonuses.



Edited, Mar 21st 2014 6:24pm by Hyanmen
#11 Mar 21 2014 at 12:21 PM Rating: Default
I just feel like if I'm paying for a subscription already, I shouldn't need to feel like I need to buy all these bonus items all the time just to stay competitive. :/

And if I give in now, when does it end? $50 a month? $100 a month? I really need this storage but it's already going to bring me to almost $20 a month, and that's before I most likely move to Ultros because my server is dead.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 2:21pm by LucasNox
#12 Mar 21 2014 at 12:28 PM Rating: Decent
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LucasNox wrote:
I just feel like if I'm paying for a subscription already, I shouldn't need to feel like I need to buy all these bonus items all the time just to stay competitive. :/

And if I give in now, when does it end? $50 a month? $100 a month? I really need this storage but it's already going to bring me to almost $20 a month, and that's before I most likely move to Ultros because my server is dead.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 2:21pm by LucasNox


Again, it seems like you're reading into more storage or ventures as a necessity to be competitive with the rest of the player base. To me I just don't see that being the case. Will people pay for them? Absolutely! Will the entire player base? Unlikely.

Players have gotten by this far with the amount of storage available. I don't see the NEED to have more, you want more and if that is your desire you now have the ability to get it. Otherwise manage the space you do have better. I definitely could use some more space, but don't necessarily need it either. I could definitely get by with doing some spring cleaning with what I have stored now. If I can't be bothered doing that I can now buy some additional space and eventually run into the problem all over again eventually. The root of the problem isn't the amount of storage space, but what is being kept by players and now there are two viable methods to circumvent that.


#13 Mar 21 2014 at 12:32 PM Rating: Decent
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I can make 8 characters, level them all to 17 and have the same service for the hefty price of time spent playing. That's 16 retainers. And if I'm really strapped for Space I can make my own free company, invite them, and have even more space with the FC Chest. I don't really see what the fuss is for something you don't ever need and can work around if that $4/month means that much to you.
#14 Mar 21 2014 at 12:34 PM Rating: Decent
46 posts
Of course it's P2P completely, you can't play if you aren't paying.
#15 Mar 21 2014 at 12:43 PM Rating: Default
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135 posts
LucasNox wrote:
I just feel like if I'm paying for a subscription already, I shouldn't need to feel like I need to buy all these bonus items all the time just to stay competitive. :/

And if I give in now, when does it end? $50 a month? $100 a month? I really need this storage but it's already going to bring me to almost $20 a month, and that's before I most likely move to Ultros because my server is dead.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 2:21pm by LucasNox


It's great you feel that way.

Your feelings =! reality. If what you say is right, that this is needed to be 'competitive' either you have to come to terms with not being competitive or paying more to be competitive. For someone who claimed in the other thread to be heavily researched in the games industry, you are acting far too naive about this. This has been the state of the games industry for quite some time now. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet. If you continue to give SE money, congratulations, you're now officially part of the problem so you don't get to *****.

If you feel 'compelled' to get the retainer (much like you would be compelled to use the Echo buff as you said), that's on you and your attitudes.

Back OT:
The game is clearly going to P2P/F2P hybrid like DCUO/WoW. Hopefully the base game never gets as crippled DCUO is though.
#16 Mar 21 2014 at 12:50 PM Rating: Default
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Thayos wrote:
He also talks a lot about players "wanting to pay for the time they actually played" or something to that affect... so maybe instead of an item cash shop, he's considering a "F2P-ish" model in which you pay for blocks of game time, or pay a subscription for unlimited time? That would actually be a cool way to go about it...


You get what you pay for. Is it that far of a stretch to only want to pay for what you get? Just curious, but what made you evolve your position here Thayos? In previous threads you were always making the case that you preferred a flat fee so you could 'set and forget'. What makes you 'cool' with now being asked to pay for additional services when you were so adamant about only paying one fee for full and complete access?

nonameoflevi wrote:
I can make 8 characters, level them all to 17 and have the same service for the hefty price of time spent playing. That's 16 retainers. And if I'm really strapped for Space I can make my own free company, invite them, and have even more space with the FC Chest. I don't really see what the fuss is for something you don't ever need and can work around if that $4/month means that much to you.


Why are players being pushed to find work-around if they're already subscribing? I think that's the question people are uneasy asking themselves. In F2P games it's somewhat expected that you have to work harder or at least, invest more time to unlock things that players can pay for. It makes sense there because you pay nothing if you like or pay for the convenience if it suits you. It doesn't transpose well to a model that is already asking you to pay.
____________________________
Rinsui wrote:
Only hips + boobs all day and hips + boobs all over my icecream

HaibaneRenmei wrote:
30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#17 Mar 21 2014 at 12:58 PM Rating: Decent
FilthMcNasty wrote:


Why are players being pushed to find work-around if they're already subscribing? I think that's the question people are uneasy asking themselves. In F2P games it's somewhat expected that you have to work harder or at least, invest more time to unlock things that players can pay for. It makes sense there because you pay nothing if you like or pay for the convenience if it suits you. It doesn't transpose well to a model that is already asking you to pay.


I'm sure those being inconvenienced by the lack of this feature are struggling with this question. All two dozen of them.

Until they realize that their sub fee is already getting them more content than any F2P game could ever hope for. So let's not act like suddenly the sub fee means nothing. The sub fee gives you more value in this game than in any other P2P or F2P game of today. That fact will not change anytime soon, and that fact gives SE leverage.

The only way for this faux-outrage to work is if we take the sub fee at face value. In other words if we ignore the reality. Haters will make this into a bigger issue than it is and destroy their karma in the process because people see through their bullcrap. For ZAM, it was just an ordinary Friday.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 7:00pm by Hyanmen
#18 Mar 21 2014 at 1:01 PM Rating: Default
Hyanmen wrote:
Until they realize that their sub fee is already getting them more content than any F2P game could ever hope for.


You would really be surprised at some of the expansive F2P MMORPGs available. It's pointless to get into how they might compare to ARR in terms of quality but there's definitely a lot of F2P games with plenty of content to do.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 3:02pm by LucasNox
#19 Mar 21 2014 at 1:03 PM Rating: Excellent
Quote:
You get what you pay for. Is it that far of a stretch to only want to pay for what you get? Just curious, but what made you evolve your position here Thayos? In previous threads you were always making the case that you preferred a flat fee so you could 'set and forget'. What makes you 'cool' with now being asked to pay for additional services when you were so adamant about only paying one fee for full and complete access?


My position remains unchanged.

With a "pay what you play for" model, there could still be a flat subscription fee with unlimited play time, and that's what I would do.

"Set and forget"... couldn't have said it better myself.
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#20 Mar 21 2014 at 1:04 PM Rating: Default
LucasNox wrote:
Hyanmen wrote:
Until they realize that their sub fee is already getting them more content than any F2P game could ever hope for.


lol... you would really be surprised at some of the expansive F2P MMORPGs available. It's pointless to get into how they might compare to ARR in terms of quality but there's definitely a lot of F2P games with plenty of content to do.


Yeah that kind of a slaughter would be completely pointless. Let's leave the F2P alone, it wouldn't be fair to compare them to the juggernaut that is ARR content cycle.
#21 Mar 21 2014 at 1:07 PM Rating: Good
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LucasNox wrote:
And if I give in now, when does it end? $50 a month? $100 a month?
Do you intern for Fox News? Consider it curiosity, but $15 a month for a game you don't enjoy is okay, but $19 is where you draw the line?
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#22 Mar 21 2014 at 1:08 PM Rating: Default
Thayos wrote:
Quote:
You get what you pay for. Is it that far of a stretch to only want to pay for what you get? Just curious, but what made you evolve your position here Thayos? In previous threads you were always making the case that you preferred a flat fee so you could 'set and forget'. What makes you 'cool' with now being asked to pay for additional services when you were so adamant about only paying one fee for full and complete access?


My position remains unchanged.

With a "pay what you play for" model, there could still be a flat subscription fee with unlimited play time, and that's what I would do.

"Set and forget"... couldn't have said it better myself.


If you agree with the "set-and-forget" model, then you probably don't agree with $4 retainer purchases that need to be re-purchased every 30 days, with more fun items coming soon.
#23 Mar 21 2014 at 1:12 PM Rating: Default
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LucasNox wrote:
Thayos wrote:
Quote:
You get what you pay for. Is it that far of a stretch to only want to pay for what you get? Just curious, but what made you evolve your position here Thayos? In previous threads you were always making the case that you preferred a flat fee so you could 'set and forget'. What makes you 'cool' with now being asked to pay for additional services when you were so adamant about only paying one fee for full and complete access?


My position remains unchanged.

With a "pay what you play for" model, there could still be a flat subscription fee with unlimited play time, and that's what I would do.

"Set and forget"... couldn't have said it better myself.


If you agree with the "set-and-forget" model, then you probably don't agree with $4 retainer purchases that need to be re-purchased every 30 days, with more fun items coming soon.


Please site your source. I want more fun Items to soon.
#24 Mar 21 2014 at 1:13 PM Rating: Default
Somewhere in all that fun stuff that Ambrosia posted they said that they're adding more items for sale.
#25 Mar 21 2014 at 1:24 PM Rating: Decent
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lolgaxe wrote:
LucasNox wrote:
And if I give in now, when does it end? $50 a month? $100 a month?
Do you intern for Fox News? Consider it curiosity, but $15 a month for a game you don't enjoy is okay, but $19 is where you draw the line?


If you believe the "Savior" thread, Nox is pro-F2P. It's not the $4 he's upset about but the $15. I'm not sure where this long-road arc of a troll argument he's trying to lead Thayos to, but you can bet he's trying to get him on the side of dropping the sub fees and the rest is just subterfuge to that end.
#26 Mar 21 2014 at 1:28 PM Rating: Good
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LucasNox wrote:
I just feel like if I'm paying for a subscription already, I shouldn't need to feel like I need to buy all these bonus items all the time just to stay competitive. :/

And if I give in now, when does it end? $50 a month? $100 a month? I really need this storage but it's already going to bring me to almost $20 a month, and that's before I most likely move to Ultros because my server is dead.

Edited, Mar 21st 2014 2:21pm by LucasNox



I bolded a couple of key words that keep popping up in your opinion which I feel are... exaggerated. You don't need anything in XIV. You want more storage space, for whatever reason. My guess would be because you feel you need to keep everything that drops. Why are you holding on to so much stuff that it fills 350 slots of retainer space and 100 slots of personal inventory? You can only ever do one thing at a time, and even if you split that between War, Magic, Hand and Land, I can't see how you're using up all those slots.

Just to illustrate where I'm coming from, one of my 8 characters has their highest combat job at 17 (and still waiting to run Sas ;p). Having played the game a bit now, I decided to get all the other combat jobs to 15 just to have a slew of cross class skills available. I happened to keep all the magey stuff I had from the first job, used up about 6 slots in each of the Armory Chest categories. The DPS/ Tank jobs had a lot of overlap early on, but still only used up another 5 slots per category.

The only real space issue I had was for weapons, because I would buy up the next upgrade in advance and I had the Lightning event weapons as well. And on a spur of the moment (to make some quick gil) I imported a bunch of HQ items from a more advanced character to this one to make a lvl 25 WVR & ALCH (really easy money, actually).

All that ate up about 20 slots in in the Weapons section, but I was tossing out useless weapons as I upgraded too. And once I got to the Lightning Weapons, my weapon load dropped a bit too and now I'm back to only about half that used up.

This idea of "need" is made up. If you have the choice to spend money on it, its a choice. And in this matter, its a choice about how much Stuff you want to hold on to. Even with the new Ventures, its about gathering more Stuff. You need to rethink what you're doing in this game if you're holding on to 450 slots worth of items.

tl;dr

Stop hording 450 inventory slots worth of stuff.
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