EQ Never

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,534
601
I think the biggest problem I have with comments like these is that you are not considering the totality of the addressable gaming population. Most design decision are not pulled out of someone's ass but they are the result of constraints.
Last thoughts before I gotta go do some actual work.

1. You can't design for the entire addressable gaming population. People want different stuff and sometimes, many times the various wanted stuffs are incompatibile.
2. Content is hard to create, so anything that makes content easy to conquer should be viewed skeptically, whether or not the "addressable gaming population" is clamoring for it.
3. The Edsel was the result of extensive market research on the then "addresable automobiling population".
4. "people don't know what they want until you show it to them" - S. Jobs.
 

Mughal

Bronze Knight of the Realm
279
39
I still think that they are adding an insane amount of raid tiers because they intend to monetize coins (like the Mogu Rune of Fate) when they switch to F2P and maybe honor/conq boosters (like the xp booster that appeared in the latest PTR patch). You can't reliably run a game only on minipets and mounts and the Mogu Runes are the only raid consumable that cannot be farmed (i.e. it's capped to 3/week in the current tier) but you could burnt them over and over. Still limited to a roll per week in the West (maybe in China you can roll as many times as you want) so it would mean that it would be a requirement for all progression guilds. I'd probably sell them for $1 for 3 or 4 coins.
 

althuna_sl

shitlord
141
0
You can't reliably run a game only on minipets and mounts
Are you sure? You are probably right, but I hope not.

I feel sorry for... well, me, and people like me. Because we never wanted f2p in the first place. We said all along that we were happy with paying a subscription, its no big deal and as we argued a billion times before, its like the price of a night at the movies only it lasts as many hours as you want in an entire month. But f2p was forced upon us and if they now can't cope without making everything p2w, then they totally us down. And I knew it would happen, I knew it would end up costing me more than it did when I just bought the game and paid a subscription.

Vanguard has eaten a lot of my money. The problem for me is that i like making new characters, i have one of each class and I run them through the levels having fun, but the mounts and things are not sharable so you either go without completely, or you buy them on every character and spend a fortune. It's hard to keep track but I spent way more than I really wanted to on Vanguard. SOE probably think MWHAHAHA!! THAT WAS THE PLAN! but really I am more inclined to just backlash. If EQ Next ends up being pay 2 win, theeres a good chance i will find the willpower to just abstain completely so i dont get sucked in to spending my hard earned on virtual junk, again.
 

Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,918
6,929
GW2 isn't P2W and they are doing so well with their cash shop and the B2P model that they don't see a need for an expansion. They intend to release an expansion worth of content free and have already pushed out a ton of new content already. They release new content every month. P2W is not necessary to make money.

PS2 is also doing extremely well and they are not P2W, as are other games. Even WoW is going to introduce xp potions of some sort for micro transactions. Players are very savvy about this stuff, if even a hint of P2W creeps into the shop then they scream about it and go somewhere else. But if the devs are smart enough to keep the game really F2P then the players reward them by buying up all the stupid cosmetic stuff and xp boosters. It's a win win for everyone.
 

althuna_sl

shitlord
141
0
I really wish EQ Next would work like that. I think buy to play and then cosmetic stuff in the shop is as close to perfect as you can get.
 

Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,918
6,929
They'll probably use the Planetside 2 F2P model, with modifications for a fantasy "sandbox" mmo. I'm not too concerned about it. SoE has proven with PS2 and DCUO that they can make good games (and profits) using the F2P model as long as the game is is built for it. It's only their old sub games where their cash shop sucks (EQ1 and EQ2). Although, even those games aren't as bad as they use to be.
 

Heallun

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,100
1,073
They'll probably use the Planetside 2 F2P model, with modifications for a fantasy "sandbox" mmo. I'm not too concerned about it. SoE has proven with PS2 and DCUO that they can make good games (and profits) using the F2P model as long as the game is is built for it. It's only their old sub games where their cash shop sucks (EQ1 and EQ2). Although, even those games aren't as bad as they use to be.
I dunno. Flying in my Mossie day 1 I'm getting air-2-air'd, dual burster max'd and skyguarded. On like my first few trips out--day fucking one. Do you have any idea how helpless a mossie is without flares against a2a? That motherfucker paid money and beat me without a chance. I could eventually take my beatings or just stay on the ground for a while (also, the first few weeks, people who didn't pay for the sunderer mobile spawn were really letting their squad down <_<) but it just felt off to me. The rate of unlock progression without VIP status was ridiculously slow, but if you spent a buy to play amount on the game (~ 50 bucks) on a triple station cash weekend you could get most everything you needed going. I'd be playing PS2 still if it wasn't for the performance issues in crowded combat.
 

tad10

Elisha Dushku
5,534
601
All FTP models are terrible.

Anything you can use should be available and accessible only via in-game actions (drops, quest rewards, crafted loot or in-game events) - including cosmetics. I'm hoping for servers that are P2P only without even a cosmetic shop. Yes, I know - unlikely.
 

Caeden

Golden Baronet of the Realm
7,774
13,058
Unlikely is not a strong enough word though I agree. I'd rather most games take the gw2 model

Fuck, I hate that swtor didn't reward us dunces that bought the collectors edition with something like a gw2-esque option.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,318
2,424
I dunno. Flying in my Mossie day 1 I'm getting air-2-air'd, dual burster max'd and skyguarded. On like my first few trips out--day fucking one. Do you have any idea how helpless a mossie is without flares against a2a? That motherfucker paid money and beat me without a chance. I could eventually take my beatings or just stay on the ground for a while (also, the first few weeks, people who didn't pay for the sunderer mobile spawn were really letting their squad down <_<) but it just felt off to me. The rate of unlock progression without VIP status was ridiculously slow, but if you spent a buy to play amount on the game (~ 50 bucks) on a triple station cash weekend you could get most everything you needed going. I'd be playing PS2 still if it wasn't for the performance issues in crowded combat.
The air to air and ground to air shit was a mess because there was literally 0 viable options without buying an upgrade, which is why so many people spent money on them. At the same time anyone who spent money on air to ground rockets for ESF or the Dalton(or maybe it was the other one) for the other aircraft could farm xp super super easy even with the anti air, simply because there weren't enough people who spent money on them to actually be a threat in most situations. They had to nerf a lot of the air stuff and buff the antiair a lot for it to become actually viable. That's more of a balance issue imo and the lack of basic anti air option in the core game than F2P issues.

Sunderer took like 1hour to unlock, and almost everyone and their mother unlocked it because you could gain xp passively by deplying in a zerg area, I don't think I've ever felt it was an issue, if anything I had to C4 ally sunderers because they'd position them in fucking retarded spots to get the default rez and all the stupid zombie casuals would rez there and not be able to cap points(most often the sunderer under a biodome when the entrances were on the "feet" or outside the structure).

I do agree that however it was a very pay to win or at least pay to enjoy the game system, but at the same time it was free, no box. Have to factor that I feel, if you can enjoy the game by spending 20bucks on xp boosts or whatever the fuck early on, it's still a great deal for a game. Hell even 40$ is a great deal since new games are sold for 60. Granted I totally feel like if I play a F2P game, I need to spend as little as possible for whatever reason. So I'll play a F2P game I enjoy but make sure not to spend more than 20$ or try to not spend anything at all, which is a bit weird when I don't really hesitate to buy non F2P games at full price.
 

Kedwyn

Silver Squire
3,915
80
The hilarious thing is I know people that bitch about sub based games yet won't bat an eye to plunk down $50+ in nwn for some astral diamonds and quit playing no less than 2 weeks later. That and buy the 3 day early access to boot.
 

Phred_sl

shitlord
11
0
Neverwinter has player created dungeons and such, while its is a pretty cool concept for that game, it did nothing for immersion of the game world. It seemed to disconnect you from the story of the world.
And was completely ruined by people designing experience factories which pushed the legitimate attempts off the list. Yay another 250 ogres in a pit dungeon.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,318
2,424
The hilarious thing is I know people that bitch about sub based games yet won't bat an eye to plunk down $50+ in nwn for some astral diamonds and quit playing no less than 2 weeks later. That and buy the 3 day early access to boot.
Well the thing I don't like about subs personally is that you can't check out the games a few months later if you unsubbed without paying again. I wish all sub based games had an automatic feature where if you haven't played for say 3months, they give you 5days free every 3months so you can check the game out again. They sometimes do that stuff but generally it's like after a year and they're bleeding money so they're desperate but I feel it'd work a lot better if you could just check the game out every now and then for free. Other than that I don't mind paying a sub. I'd prefer not paying one obviously but not a big deal.

For NWN stuff it's what I pointed out about F2P no box games, popping 50$ on a game isn't a big deal and if you play for 2weeks for most games, that's a good investment. With that said, I spent nothing on NWN, I wanted to at one point(mostly buying a bag) but then I said fuck it I'm probably not gonna play that long and I quit playing like 3-5days later. I'm basically the worst type of customer for F2P games, cause I spend a lot less on a F2P game than on a box game.
 

Rezz

Mr. Poopybutthole
4,488
3,531
I am in the same boat. I will look at what I -can- accomplish without spending a dime, and then do my level best to achieve that as quickly as possible. Then I look at the next plateau that doesn't require me spending any money, and aim for that. One of the worst F2P players in history.
 

Jarnin_sl

shitlord
351
0
The hilarious thing is I know people that bitch about sub based games yet won't bat an eye to plunk down $50+ in nwn for some astral diamonds and quit playing no less than 2 weeks later. That and buy the 3 day early access to boot.
Those are the people that make F2P games thrive. People with large disposable incomes and short attention spans.
 

etchazz

Trakanon Raider
2,707
1,056
GW2 isn't P2W and they are doing so well with their cash shop and the B2P model that they don't see a need for an expansion. They intend to release an expansion worth of content free and have already pushed out a ton of new content already. They release new content every month. P2W is not necessary to make money.

PS2 is also doing extremely well and they are not P2W, as are other games. Even WoW is going to introduce xp potions of some sort for micro transactions. Players are very savvy about this stuff, if even a hint of P2W creeps into the shop then they scream about it and go somewhere else. But if the devs are smart enough to keep the game really F2P then the players reward them by buying up all the stupid cosmetic stuff and xp boosters. It's a win win for everyone.
explain to me please how XP boosters aren't pay to win? you're gaining an advantage over those who aren't buying XP boosters, correct?