F2P MMO Soap Box Rant

[Anteaus]

I don't have a problem with free to play mmos. While I prefer to not play them (for a variety of reasons), I have no problem with their existance since they are usually tapping a demographic that otherwise won't pay fees for an MMO or maybe play them as an alternate.

My problem is I have an irrational habit of resenting mmos that began as pay to play and then changed to f2p in order to help their bottom line. One of the latest offenders is LOTRO. I played that game from beta and ultimately played on and off since release. I'm also a wow player (big surprise lol), so when I didn't have time to play both I generally sided with wow.

In any event, when Turbine announced that LOTRO would be F2P, I initially didn't think much about it. Other games like EQ2 had cash shops for a while and went F2P but kept the servers seperate, so if I wanted to opt out of either I had that option. But then they announced it was all or nothing.

Obviously it was probably a good business decision for Turbine, but for me the game dynamic changed. It might be stupid idea to some people to pay a monthly fee for a game, but that fee also operated as a filter to keep every kid who didn't have access to their parents credit card from overrunning the game..and lets not even start with gold farming.

Anyways, I've since quit LOTRO for good, but now I feel a resentment toward it. Come to find out, I generally hold a harsh disfavor for any MMO that changes from P2P to F2P for purely business reasons. I realize its not fair to the developers. I guess for me it's within the same context where I will never buy a PC game released at a $60 price point. It just annoys the crap out of me. It's more annoying when those games sell a ton of copies lmao.

Does anyone feel the same way about these types of MMO transitions?

 

[sactoking]

I don't have a problem with free to play mmos. While I prefer to not play them (for a variety of reasons), I have no problem with their existance since they are usually tapping a demographic that otherwise won't pay fees for an MMO or maybe play them as an alternate.

My problem is I have an irrational habit of resenting mmos that began as pay to play and then changed to f2p in order to help their bottom line. One of the latest offenders is LOTRO. I played that game from beta and ultimately played on and off since release. I'm also a wow player (big surprise lol), so when I didn't have time to play both I generally sided with wow.

In any event, when Turbine announced that LOTRO would be F2P, I initially didn't think much about it. Other games like EQ2 had cash shops for a while and went F2P but kept the servers seperate, so if I wanted to opt out of either I had that option. But then they announced it was all or nothing.

Obviously it was probably a good business decision for Turbine, but for me the game dynamic changed. It might be stupid idea to some people to pay a monthly fee for a game, but that fee also operated as a filter to keep every kid who didn't have access to their parents credit card from overrunning the game..and lets not even start with gold farming.

Anyways, I've since quit LOTRO for good, but now I feel a resentment toward it. Come to find out, I generally hold a harsh disfavor for any MMO that changes from P2P to F2P for purely business reasons. I realize its not fair to the developers. I guess for me it's within the same context where I will never buy a PC game released at a $60 price point. It just annoys the crap out of me. It's more annoying when those games sell a ton of copies lmao.

Does anyone feel the same way about these types of MMO transitions?

No. Level past the LoneLands/North Downs and turn off OOC and you'll never even know the idiots are there; it's the exact same game it's always been.

 

[lupi]

Sounds like you are a whining idiot.

 

[Craig234]

I think people who 'will never pay $60 for a game' don't quite understand the market.

Part of it is, do you want big budget titles - or do you want games like $5 crap?

The people who do pay $60 subsidize the rest of the buyers and are important to the budgets for making those big games. You don't need to buy them, but if there weren't people who paid the high price, there wouldn't be the high-budget games, for the most part.

That's just how things are sold - they are sold at high price first to the early adopters who will pay, on down to the people who won't spend over $5 years later.

 

[lupi]

....

 

[Anteaus]

I think people who 'will never pay $60 for a game' don't quite understand the market.

Part of it is, do you want big budget titles - or do you want games like $5 crap?

The people who do pay $60 subsidize the rest of the buyers and are important to the budgets for making those big games. You don't need to buy them, but if there weren't people who paid the high price, there wouldn't be the high-budget games, for the most part.

That's just how things are sold - they are sold at high price first to the early adopters who will pay, on down to the people who won't spend over $5 years later.

Good point. I disagree about their not being high-budget games, because games with high production values are released all the time at the same $50 price point that has existed for many years, but then again i'm a capitalist so I agree with you on many levels.

I guess the real problem is that when a game sells for $60 and still manages to move units in large quantities, it tells developers that they should take that money and reinvest it in to those exact same types of games in order to reap similar benefits. It's naturally selection of the business kind haha. I'm just worried that in the end there will be more games like Call of Duty and less games like Civilization. Just my .02. If people are willing to pay $60 then I guess thats just the way it flies.

 

[MentalIlness]

What we really need is......

Age Of Empires 4
Age Of Mythology 2
Command & Conquer Generals 2 "Zero Hour was an expansion"

These are the types of games we need more of.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Wait.

So you are willing to pay $15 a month to play a game (in addition to buying the game itself, which usually costs $50).

But you are not willing to pay $60 instead of $50. An up-front cost increase of $10, less than one month in an MMO.

K.

 

[Anteaus]

Wait.

So you are willing to pay $15 a month to play a game (in addition to buying the game itself, which usually costs $50).

But you are not willing to pay $60 instead of $50. An up-front cost increase of $10, less than one month in an MMO.

K.

I pay $15 per month for server upkeep as well as supporting future content develop that happens independent from expansions. Even if you just buy the base game for $50 and only play for the first month, the value per hour is very high considering even in a new MMO its going to take many hours in game to see all or most of the content.

As for the latter, lets use the latest CoD as an example. I pay $60 for what amounts to about 6-8 hours of single player campaign. Thats roughly $7.5 to $10 per hour if you don't play multiplayer. I generally don'y play MP for these types of games, but I'll cede that there is much value for those that play it extensively. That's why I conceded earlier that people will ultimately judge for themselves if its worth the money, and obviously people have spoken loudly for it.

CoD MW1 came out at $50 and they still made a ton of money, so you can't argue that the extra $10 they tacked onto PC gamers was there to get the bankers from taking the company away. I understand $60 on consoles for licensing reasons...its well established that the initial increase from $50-$60 for consoles was due to pressure from MS and Sony, but on the PC it's pure profit.

When seen in context of licensing, console gamers are paying $60 for a $50 game with a $10 dollar licensing premium. PC gamers are paying $60 for a $50 game. Up front $60-$60 seems equal, but it's really not.

Sometimes it is about the principle. But I digress, it's an individual choice. I don't judge people for paying $60 for a PC game, I just disagree with it.

 

[Throckmorton]

LOTRO isn't even an MMO... it's all instanced.

 

[HarvardAce]

LOTRO isn't even an MMO... it's all instanced.

This isn't the first time this has come up. I'm not sure if you were the one who initially posted this in another thread, and I don't feel like trying to find the original to see if it was you, but calling LOTRO "all instanced" is patently false.

The only thing instanced in LOTRO are "dungeons," skirmishes, and the majority of the epic quest (which often take place in dungeons). General questing is not instanced. It's not really any different than any other MMO that uses instancing (e.g. WoW, EQ, etc.).

As another has said, yes, the "N00bs" running around in the low-level areas are very annoying, but if you turn off most of the "zone-wide" chat channels (or put them in a separate chat tab so you only have to see them when you want to), you won't really notice them. Once you level past that point the game is really no different, and on a lower-populated server the added population is nice for group content since you can actually find a group to do things other than the max-level stuff again.

 

[lupi]

Lotro is just about as instanced as wow to shoot that fail theory down short.

 

[Anteaus]

LOTRO isn't even an MMO... it's all instanced.

MMO. Massively Multiplayer Online. Instancing has no relevance on how a MMO is described.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

LOL @ the instanced comment. If you want instanced, try Age of Conan and THEN come back and tell us how "instanced" LotRO is.

 

[Anteaus]

LOL @ the instanced comment. If you want instanced, try Age of Conan and THEN come back and tell us how "instanced" LotRO is.

I've never played AoC. Wasn't it like totally single player for the first 10 levels or something?

 

[datalink7]

LOTRO isn't even an MMO... it's all instanced.

*Taps Sarcasm Meter*

 

[Throckmorton]

This isn't the first time this has come up. I'm not sure if you were the one who initially posted this in another thread, and I don't feel like trying to find the original to see if it was you, but calling LOTRO "all instanced" is patently false.

The only thing instanced in LOTRO are "dungeons," skirmishes, and the majority of the epic quest (which often take place in dungeons). General questing is not instanced. It's not really any different than any other MMO that uses instancing (e.g. WoW, EQ, etc.).

As another has said, yes, the "N00bs" running around in the low-level areas are very annoying, but if you turn off most of the "zone-wide" chat channels (or put them in a separate chat tab so you only have to see them when you want to), you won't really notice them. Once you level past that point the game is really no different, and on a lower-populated server the added population is nice for group content since you can actually find a group to do things other than the max-level stuff again.

I thought the general areas were instanced (like Star Trek Online)

 

[datalink7]

I thought the general areas were instanced (like Star Trek Online)

No.

 

[zokudu]

I think people confuse LotRO with D&D:O.

D&D:O has "hubs" that are not instanced so like cities and things but as soon as you venture out of these hubs you don't see any other players. LotRO is very similar to WoW in that certain player based dungeons are instanced but a large portion of the game takes place in an expansive world.

Though Turbine produced both games so there may be confusion that LotRO is the same style of game as D&D:O

 

[Zhaoan]

I don't play LOTRO (former WoW player), but I read this article on MMORPG.com that argues that converting to F2P was good for the game and players who previously subscribed before the conversion received the greatest benefit.

In any case, the conversion has doubled LOTRO's monthly income and that should be good for anyone who enjoys the game because it allows the game to continue to exist and develop new content. It must be tough for any MMO not named World of Warcraft to survive. By nature, MMOs are very time-consuming and most people don't have the time to justify paying for 2 subscriptions.

 

[ElFenix]

I thought the general areas were instanced (like Star Trek Online)

maybe you're confusing it with the layers that they added. busy regions get layered so that there should be more of mob x that every player needs to kill 10 of to advance the quest. there are other players in the layer that you're not necessarily grouped with.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Sounds like you are a whining idiot.

Bingo.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I've never played AoC. Wasn't it like totally single player for the first 10 levels or something?

You can do the first 20 levels in the Tortage area. It is not totally single player, but there are many instanced quests which make much of it effectively single player.

In its heydeys, most of the *regions* were also instanced. When x number of people entered a region, a new instance of the region was spawned.

Since you have played LotRO, I'll try to use its regions as an example of what AoC did. Imagine that you're in the Lone Lands at the Forsaken Inn. Now, you get on Vent and lo and behold, your pal is there at the Forsaken Inn too! Except you look around and can't see him -- you're on the same server, but he is nowhere to be found. Why? He is in an entirely different instance. AoC did give you a mechanism in-game so you could flip between the instances, but it was a major PITA.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I thought the general areas were instanced (like Star Trek Online)

No, they're not. You might be thinking about Age of Conan, which did have instanced general areas in its heydey. I don't think the subscriber numbers are high enough now for it to spawn new instances, however.

 

[SunnyD]

I don't have a problem with free to play mmos.

...

My problem is I have an irrational habit of resenting mmos that began as pay to play and then changed to f2p in order to help their bottom line.

So what you're saying is you're bi-polar?

I've been playing LOTRO since before F2P, and still playing it after, and I have not once seen any of these "idiots" you speak of. If "idiots" irritate you, you should not be playing inherently social games.