Subscription numbers released..Follow

Well, considering that this is FFXIV: ARR and not just FFXIV, hopefully a Free Trial is one of the many things they realized they made a mistake with the first time around.

FFXIV was plagued with problems and they blew it out the airlock long before it was ship-shape and they had to tow it back into the dock and repair it, fix it, and hopefully this time around, it will actually be ready to fly before they push it out this time.

Hopefully, Free Trial is one of the many bullet points of things they fixed or have intentions on fixing.

Even if not, these days I find Youtube to be a pretty good resource for seeing what a game is REALLY like, even for non-MMOs that don't have demos.

^^
Agree.

F2P usually means P2W and I freaking HATE that.

Warframe is a F2P/P2W game.

Warframe is a fun game in itself. However... when you spend nearly three weeks trying to acquire something in-game, it is quite lame when you see someone sporting that and they go "Oh, it ain't so bad. Just pay the $25 and you won't have to farm for it!"

*rolls eyes*

Now, everything in the game that is relevant is obtainable without Real Money Transactions, but yet.... it just sucks when you see people plunking down lots of money and they step into the game being "Uber Newbies" -- they have awesome gear, awesome tech.... but little to no skills, and no levelups thinking they're hot stuff and boy do they tend to treat you poorly. They like to show off (and get themselves killed in the process), they like to brag about the awesome stuff they have... blah blah.

I hate it.

I would not want to see that in a game like FFXIV or WoW.

How would you like it in WoW when someone goes "Oh, all you need to do is pay the $10 if you want a Sha-Touched Weapon/ToT Weapon/whatever"?

You can tell you're both new to the F2P model. Very very very few games are pay 2 win that I know about. Warframe? You're paying for a speed up process, the ONLY thing that takes time to build in the game is Frames (1 day for each part 1 day to put em all together) and if you buy it its still lvl 1 just like any other equip in the game. You cant buy power at all. You can speed up and get certain weapons faster then farming the mats but when I was playing a good 6 hours I could farm up the mats for 2-3 weapons in a night.

So you explaining them buying weapons then being noobs, well if they are stupid enough to walk into a high level stage, with lvl 1 equipment then yes they are stupid, but to even have access to that stage they would have needed to do ALL the stages up to that or had a High lvl friend beat a stage with them in party. Also welcome to any game with a community I meet stupid in wow all the time, Block them and move on. (Example I start the game day 1 spend 100 dollars on plat in Warframe, but 3 Frames + weapons, but no matter what I do Ill still have to do all the first stages just like everyone that didnt pay Ill just have more weapon options and nothing else.) I have a lvl 30 frame and 2 lvl 10 frames, I have paid a total of like 10 dollars. I have like 10-15 different weapons I farmed up myself. The only things I bought were Xp boosts/Affinity boosts, and my total playtime for Warframe on Raptr is 34 hours (add about 16 more due to beta)

The only reason FF11 had a community was because the dev team didnt interact with the community at all. So we had to band together to figure stuff out, and were forced to play together to level. If they force parties again in FF14 i know ALOT more people who wont play. I sure as hell dont have time to LFG for 6 hours a day anymore. Also FF11 was back in the days of Yore, WoW wasnt around the MMO market was still early in development, a lot of people were new to the idea of a MMO and terrible, they banded together to get better.

Also P2W is mainly in competitive games, Warframe isnt a PVP game its a PvE game. It's not like they sell a weapon that can only damage a mob and you pay cash for it and only that weapon works against the creature, thats Pay2Win. Paying 50 cents in Plat to speed up the completion of a weapon (takes 24 hours normally) is not pay2 win, its paying for the added convience of having what you want now instead of waiting.

(Sorry typed this up a few hours ago and had to leave due to an emergency just posting it now :s)

Edited, May 20th 2013 12:23am by BeanX

But Warframe isn't an MMO. I honestly can't name a single F2P MMO where they sell you competitive weapons. I say competitive, because SWTOR will sell you new item skins that come with mods, and you can only get the orange-yellow lightsaber crystal through them (and I don't know who cares, because who the hell wants an orange-yellow lightsaber blade?). It's a level 35 crystal, and the cap is now... 55 I think. It doesn't even approach competitive.

And I don't think the special armor sets you can buy through them even come with mods, meaning they're stat-less.

This is one of the most aggressively monetized F2P game I can think of, besides LOTRO, and it's not selling anything that gives you a competitive edge.

Well, that's not true - they limit your access to loot on F2P, in that you can only gain full loot rewards from your first three flashpoint runs a week, and buy a week-long that removes that reward if you want. But that's because their philosophy is that F2P is for casual players, who are primarily there for the story and the setting, where hardcore gamers will sub (because you can't run operations - raids - while f2p).

Is it my favorite system? Hell no. I'd MUCH rather some kind of expensive, permanent unlock for dungeons. But it's frickin' Star Wars. There's SO MUCH cosmetic stuff they can put in that shop to make money, it's absurd. New races, new armor skins (for the love of god, give consulars some love), exclusive blaster/lightsaber models, items for your ship (and add the infrastructure to make it customizable), etc.

[EDIT]

Huh, seems f2p can purchase an Operation pass now in SWTOR.

Edited, May 20th 2013 8:15am by idiggory

Are we not talking about F2P games here, and NOT games that are Paid Subscription?

You can't compare Illegal RMT in a Paid Subscription game to F2P/P2W. You just can't do it.



I've known a few small-time RMT players who have gotten banned for buying money in both games. SE/Blizz bans anybody they can confirm has engaged in it.

If you only make 1 purchase than it is a lot less likely you'll get caught doing it. If you get caught though, you'll get banned (temporary, probably, unless you did other stuff too), end of story. More/Larger Purchases = More chances of getting caught.

Edited, May 20th 2013 1:17pm by Lyrailis

Your missing the point "Illegal RMT" are a service, a multi-billion dollar a year service. Millions of gamers every year use this service because not everyone has time to farm. most F2P games offer this service without the "illegal botting". I mean I may have never used RMT, you may have never used RMT, but a lot more have then you would think.

I only brought up the point becuase you said


Blizzard and FF11 are already "allowing" it if these services were so "illegal" The RMT would be banned way faster then they can turn a profit. Companies like SE and Bliz realize there is a part of their playerbase that want these services and turn a blind eye for a short time to allow players to access these services. They may ban them sooner or later but they've already allowed the services to keep certain players happy with the game and the RMT to make enough money were they will rebuy the game (Which is another sale for them) and start the process over again.

If you really need to have a better look at what pay2win looks at. Play Blacklight Retribution, the guns you can buy are better then the guns you start off with. So someone that pays 100 is more powerful than someone who is a free player only. creating an imbalance.

Warframe you can buy weapons, but they arent more powerful, you still need to level them and grind out the mods to make them powerful, and since your not using them against other players there is no power imbalance caused by it. You are simply paying the convenience of not having to farm up the mats/blueprints.

Re-read my post I never endorse nor say its ok. I just point out while I dont agree with it and you dont, it's still a thing and a service. To fix a problem you need to admit it first. RMT wouldnt be around without the need for said service.

Some people have more money than time therefore a service that offers Gold for cash is better for them, than say someone like me who has more time than money. Is it right? No because the RMT use practices that negatively impact everyone.

Its akin to admitting you have a homeless problem, if you have one. Instead of just going about your business and ignoring it, never admitting its there.

Edit:My point being, If Blizzard wanted all the RMT activity to be gone, they could put in a "No tolerance" policy just like those Kid friendly MMOs that auto ban you for swearing. RMTing in games is allowed to go on because it keeps certain parts of the playerbase happy and sells more keys for Bliz.

Edited, May 20th 2013 2:20pm by BeanX

Okay, fine, to end this discussion about F2P vs P2W, I'll say this:

Maybe not all F2P games are P2W, maybe that has changed.

However, let's look at simple economics:

1). A game needs IRL MONEY to survive.
2). Players have to pay this IRL Money to the game company.
3). A F2P Game does not make this money through monthly subscriptions.
4). Something in-game needs to make players want to spend money.

Older games went the P2W way -- you paid money, you got special little perks and things that highly tempted you to open your wallet and plunk $$$ on the table.

Newer games might not be P2W, but instead they seem to be (at least in Warframe and from what I read in this thread, EVE), "Pay 2 Fun".

Basically if you don't want to spend ridiculous amounts of time grinding, you're going to have to pay. Sure, you can't buy a Battleship with $$$ and go out and have fun with it. But yet, who says you have to buy a Battleship with the Real Money? You could buy a Frigate instead, according to what was posted above.

The core idea remains the same: The developers want you to pay, and they advertise the game is "Free to Play" ... however... they add in long atrocious grinds to make you want to shell out the bucks because face it... farming the same world 15, 30 times just isn't fun. It doesn't matter if you can do it in 5 minutes or 30 minutes, you still have to do the same thing over and over again.

And not everybody is that dude on Youtube who can clear areas in Warframe in <5min. I'm willing to bet that very few who actually need crafting resources/blueprints can actually do that. Most can't.

That's why I don't like the idea of FFXIV being F2P -- if it were, it'd mean they'd most likely either be P2W (unlikely), or "P2F" as I called it above -- they'd likely add grinds that make you want to open your wallet just to get around it.

No thanks. Gimme a monthly sub that's reasonable, and make the grinds reasonable to match.

So, you tell me then....

If you don't Pay to Win...

And if you don't Pay to Avoid Grind.....

Then what the heck ARE you paying for, then?

Games don't survive without money... it takes money to develop, and money to run the servers. Though a game like Warframe is Peer-to-Peer (which is annoying in of itself in some ways, though lag-free solo even while torrenting is freaking awesome).

There's got to be SOMETHING that in those games that gamers are willing to shell out money for.

EDIT: There's aesthetics... costumes, colors, etc... but surely not enough gamers actually care enough about this to throw money at the game? *blinks* Surely that alone can't keep an MMO afloat?

Edited, May 21st 2013 12:45am by Lyrailis

PS Warframe also charges for more Weapon slots, so if you want to have lots of choice you need to get more slots. Maybe a shotty + fists works good for Rhino frame you just built but a Rifle + Sword works better for your Excalibur, they give you a decent amount of slots free (And even give you like 100 plat for free, which is enough to buy your first potatoes, or a like a 7 day xp boost) but if your already having fun playing the game why would spending like 4 dollars(i think its cheaper than this) to unlock more content for you to play bother you, and if you really dont want to spend money to pay the new stuff you dont have room for, you have the option of selling your old weapons/armors to make room.

They are selling convenience, not power

It's really not about creating grinds, it's about making things faster for people who want it to be faster.

You need remember the absolute base premise for a successful F2P game: people need to want to play it. You don't just get a free population of players because you went F2P, you need to be offering a FUN free to play experience. No game revolving around grinding is going to do well. If the base experience, without paying anything, isn't fun, they aren't going to have an audience, period. Because F2P's greatest strength is getting people in love with the game so that they use the microtransactions or, even better, subscribe. Every single F2P game I know of still has a subscription model on top, which essentially acts as a master unlock for as long as it is active.

Let's use TOR as an example. You are a new F2P player. You go to create your new character. As F2P, your only race option is human - everything else is a purchased unlock. But that's fine - humans are really the best racial option to be your first 50 (getting a human to level 50 gives +100 presence, a stat that buffs your companions, to all other characters on that server, making leveling much easier). You're on the first world and... your experience is pretty much identical to what it was as a subscriber's at launch.

Subscribers making a new character, on the other hand, can elect to choose ANY race, can get their sprint (movement bonus out of combat, and I think F2P get it later instead of at level 1).

But the actual content - the questing and such - is pretty much the same. F2P players do earn less experience for everything, but that just means they actually have to do the bonus parts of a quest, instead of skipping 25% of those. To be clear here, most quests in TOR have your main objective, and then 1 or more bonus objectives (which are often a series of objectives). Completing those bonus objectives nets you more credits, more experience, etc. But they're additional tasks, and more typical MMO fair.

Even if you aren't F2P, it's a good idea to complete those objectives, because they're one of the best ways to make money while leveling. All subscribing realistically does is give you the option to skip more of them, if you're actually just interested in racing through content.

Because the way the game is structured now, F2P is built around maximizing the leveling experience, where subscribing is meant more for people trying to access endgame content.

They didn't put in additional grinds, because additional grinds aren't fun. They need people to play the game to make money off them.

The way they're making money?

1. Account unlocks. Things like buying more storage space, buying new race options, buying the ability to use a speeder or access the sprint skill sooner (things they added to the sub model WHEN THEY WENT F2P, cosmetic options, etc.

2. Booster. Typical F2P fair--items that increase your experience or honor gains per hour. Targeted at both subscribers or F2P, though subscribers have a higher base threshold to begin with. Basically, if you know you're going to do an intensive 3 hours of leveling, you might as well use a booster to make it 25% more effective.

3. Cosmetic items. Things like new armor skins, lightsaber colors, vanity pets, speeder models, etc. They just added a new dye system, and new cosmetic option packs.

4. Content "unlocks." Right now, if you're F2P, you can only get full rewards from 3 flashpoints (dungeons) a week, and can't enter operations. Full rewards means you cam get the loot from the final boss, btw, nothing else is restricted. Buying a weekly pass removes that limit for 1 week. It'll let you raid for one week. Etc.

If you plan to do this every week, Subscribing is cheaper. If you only intend to do it occasionally, F2P is cheaper. And since you're only paying for the loot from the final boss, it doesn't make sense to even bother unless you're going for a specific item.

That is basically the core essence of every F2P game on the market.

The idea that they create additional grinds to keep players busy is absurd. It makes literally no sense. This isn't some kind of guaranteed market. F2P is them SELLING THE GAME TO NON-SUBSCRIBERS, in the hopes that they'll subscribe (best case scenario) or toss them some money for other things (worst case scenario).

And @Cobra, as for EQ, it went F2P because there just wasn't a good reason to keep it on a sub model anymore. It probably wasn't bringing in new players at all, and most of the subbers would likely keep their subs, rather than pay to unlock things they're used to having. It's win-win. They possibly get new players, who might give them more money. More likely, they gain back old players who wouldn't have paid for a sub anymore, anyway, who then unlock some options. Maybe they stay for a while, maybe they don't.

Either way, it's a net profit.

[EDIT]

Oh, and also, I somehow spazzed and rated Lyr down. If someone could toss him a green arrow, it would be appreciated.

Edited, May 21st 2013 8:29am by idiggory

SWTOR's F2P got better when they softened it up a bit. They kind of botched it at launch in a bunch of ways. The ease at which you can make money in that game took a lot of the sting out. Completely free to play is still a bit too much, but $5 (preferred status) plus a bit of MMO auction house knowledge and the restrictions aren't something that are going to be too annoying.

But yeah, TERA puts SWTOR to shame though with its F2P system. To the point I really saw no reason to subscribe; even at end-game (though they seem to be working on trying to give you a reason with the spellbind now). If TERA sticks with it and stays successful over the next few years it'll be a good example of how to do F2P right. Giving you an largely unlocked game for free is quite generous, and a cash shop full of cosmetic and convenience items is refreshing. Rather they make their money through selling swimsuits anyway, because you know there's not enough skin in that game already or anything.