is it time for F2P players to pack the bags and leave?

[Bl4ckhunter]

<sarcasm>
so the DLC actually stands for [D]own[L]oad [C]osmetic and not [D]own[L]oad [C]ontent?
MY ENTIRE LIFE WAS AN LIE
</sarcasm>

there are many games that offer pure consmetic dlcs, the original joke about the horse armor dlc (it was a joke becouse it did absolutely nothing for 2,5$ and they still sold many of them) for oblivion is an example of this, there also dlcs that offer content just for d**king around like prototype 2, not all games are split in pieces to sell more.

 

[phoenix]

that's called early access, you can't call that dlc at that point (not that it's a bad thing)

I wanted to describe it as early access but then decided not to with early access having a not so good reputation.

 

[EvilKitten]

I still think that the best route would be to continue using fundraisers to fun expansions on the base game once it is released, given that we are already using that method to build the game in the first place. At least that way those who really can't afford the game can still play and those who can afford to pay can have a large enough population to play with.

The reason I hate the F2P model so much is that the game designers pretty much *have* to design the game purposely to delay or otherwise inconvenience the player in order to push them towards paying to overcome the artificial obstacles. It becomes less about skill and more about working a second job. I only just dropped playing Battle Pirates shortly before I found out about Ember because their F2P model got so bad that even 40 hours of seat time a week couldn't keep up with those who paid (sometimes thousands of dollars a month!).

 

[Alfonso]

On the release date the DLC is sold at normal price. A week later it goes on sale. Another week the price drops even lower and the week after that it is free for the rest?

week 1: 15$
week 2: 10$
week 3: 5$
week 4+: free

Making it free after 4 week is too short and asking too much. It will be depend on how much a mini-expansion will deliver but I think it should be waited until the next expansion.

 

[Bl4ckhunter]

Making it free after 4 week is too short and asking too much. It will be depend on how much a mini-expansion will deliver but I think it should be waited until the next expansion.

so long as they get one out every 4-6 months or so that'd be fine

The reason I hate the F2P model so much is that the game designers pretty much *have* to design the game purposely to delay or otherwise inconvenience the player in order to push them towards paying to overcome the artificial obstacles. It becomes less about skill and more about working a second job. I only just dropped playing Battle Pirates shortly before I found out about Ember because their F2P model got so bad that even 40 hours of seat time a week couldn't keep up with those who paid (sometimes thousands of dollars a month!).

i don't see how that's any worse than buying a game then being flat out blocked from content unless you pay again, at least f2p most of the time has the pretense of fairness when they shake you up for money, the latter can basically do whatever it wants becouse you've already paid so they can flat out tell you to cough up the money if you want to progress in the game.

 

[Alfonso]

Planetside(the first one) was P2P but it had promotional F2P month.
While subbed players could play it without any limitation of course, free-players could only go up to battle rank 7 and command rank 1(or 2..). I think by that time Battle rank cap was already increased from 20 to 25. Command rank cap was 5 and when you get to 4 and 5, you could call orbital strike down. So F2P players were capped about 1/3 of normal players in terms of level and had no access to game changer.

However, Planetside used horizontal progression so BR 7 wasn't really a big deal. The difference was only, whether you could do multi role or single role at a time. As far as I remember, BR 7 was just under the rank where you could use heavy assualt and anti-vehicle at the same time.
I thought that partial F2P model was good because it brought a good influx of new players and that made subbed players also pleased but SOE didn't continue that pay model.

 

[Krhys]

I only just dropped playing Battle Pirates shortly before I found out about Ember because their F2P model got so bad that even 40 hours of seat time a week couldn't keep up with those who paid (sometimes thousands of dollars a month!).

Sounds like Game Of War: Fire Age on iOS/Android - it's the ultimate P2W formula!!!

 

[Silv3r Shadow]

Also if you want to know what the game is like then watch a YouTube video of someone else when it's out, usually do that before deciding to buy anyway
Hopefully there will be a good market side for cosmetics. Not saying cosmetics should be $50 but have limited time/exclusive, that gets collector's like myself getting them, like my tiki mask.
Ps, Cape plz Grummz

 

[EvilKitten]

so long as they get one out every 4-6 months or so that'd be fine

i don't see how that's any worse than buying a game then being flat out blocked from content unless you pay again, at least f2p most of the time has the pretense of fairness when they shake you up for money, the latter can basically do whatever it wants becouse you've already paid so they can flat out tell you to cough up the money if you want to progress in the game.

I laughed so hard on reading this that my coworkers came over to make sure I was alright...The BP game I mentioned did whatever it want no matter what its playerbase said because the whales (which exist in any F2P game) were the only ones that mattered. In fact in any F2P game I have played in, sooner or later the game begins to cater to whales. As long as you pay 1000 a month you were a god in Battle Pirates, in fact they designed their game so well that by only selling speed ups they could gate content against non "coiners" so they could not even participate. That's the reason I left, because of the F2P model they designed that prevented F2P players from ever actually participating in the content. The content was just as gated as if it was DLC, simply badly hidden behind smoke and mirrors.

The very idea that time syncs are not a method of Pay to Win is a joke foisted on us by game companies that are desperate to make it seem like their content is open to all even as they milk the whales for everything they are worth. No, F2P games are simply the most evolved form of money grabbing designed for the gaming world to date. It offers illusions and nothing more.

 

[Bl4ckhunter]

snip

i wasn't defending f2p in any capacity, i was just saying that dlcs are just as bad, if i pay for a game i expect to purchase the whole game not to have bits hidden behind paywalls, that's just as bad as time sinks, i can get behind paying for an unfinished game nowadays, but selling an unifinished game and then selling the missing pieces separately? no just nope, that's just a scam.
by the way it's sink not sync

 

[EvilKitten]

i wasn't defending f2p in any capacity, i was just saying that dlcs are just as bad, if i pay for a game i expect to purchase the whole game not to have bits hidden behind paywalls, that's just as bad as time sinks, i can get behind paying for an unfinished game nowadays, but selling an unifinished game and then selling the missing pieces separately? no just nope, that's just a scam.
by the way it's sink not sync

Sorry, I have an intense burning hatred right now for the F2P model so might be lashing out a bit, not intending any sort of personal attack or anything.

EDIT: The difference between most F2P games and DLC is that with DLC you still get the full original game which in and of itself is fully playable. Most DLC these days are small addon's or tiny extra maps etc. F2P is a design concept where the game focuses on forcing you to pay money or work a second job after starting the game rather than selling you a fun product. You are not actually getting the full game, rather you are getting a demo and then forced to pay once you have invested time into their product.

 

[Bl4ckhunter]

EDIT: The difference between most F2P games and DLC is that with DLC you still get the full original game which in and of itself is fully playable. Most DLC these days are small addon's or tiny extra maps etc. F2P is a design concept where the game focuses on forcing you to pay money or work a second job after starting the game rather than selling you a fun product. You are not actually getting the full game, rather you are getting a demo and then forced to pay once you have invested time into their product.

extra maps aren't a problem even thought i really don't see how it would be made fit in an open world shooter, specially if they go with procedural maps, but we're talking about "features" as dlcs, grummz words not mine,and that's just not fair to early buyers since there's no absolutely way of knowing what features will be dlcs and what won't be nor how could be ever any hope of balance between players with extra features and players without.
What are features? thing like the ability to trade, to use vehicles and to craft, basically the core components of a game, games are balanced based on their features, you can't just have players with them and players without them without putting the latter in serious disadvantage or having the first complain becouse the feature is useless, round and around we go and we're back to the same model pre f2p evolve and star citzen have (or had in evolve's case), and say what you will about f2p in general but i've yet to see anything really worse than those two particular messes and guess what? that's the two most recent examples of features as dlcs, on the other hand a dlc like borderlands: claptastic voyage felt fully worth the money i paid for it and i didn't feel any pressure to buy it.

Bottom line is that i'd welcome with open arms story mode and campaign dlcs (specially since they won't be a thing at release apparently) but all features should be aviable to everyone who bought the game.

 

[RegalKain]

...I could be wrong, as this is just a giant assumption on my part but. When I see mini-expansion/expansion. I think along the lines of World of WArcraft and it's expansions, or Diablo 3 and than Reaper of Souls.

For the amount of content those things add, I don't mind paying a bit extra, I may have to wait a couple weeks to save up the money (bills are a bitch.) But I will grab it. There is a difference in DLC, and Expansion, sadly many companies don't do DLCs well. I am hoping these guys do.

Also if you're truly against all things "DLC" which is additional content, you're also saying that expansions are bad. WoW not only has a subscription, but also routine expansions that cost way to much. They are still running. D3 had it's base game for 60 bucks or whatever, and an expansion (Which I think was 40 or so.) I personally don't enjoy WoW in any way, but I do enjoy D3, and I can say for the 100 dollars I spent on it, I've sank literally thousands of hours into over the years.

 

[TheSilentSnap]

So it seems were getting some expansions in the game, I'm not exactly opposed to that. As long as the expansions are reasonable things, and normal things will work just fine. I would honestly prefer to have as few expansion pieces as possible, and know ahead of time what such expansions would be for. Free Steam weekends sounds like a great idea.

 

[Beemann]

so long as they get one out every 4-6 months or so that'd be fine

That assumes that a small and poorly funded team can produce 15 dollars worth of content consistently every 4-6 months. This also assumes that they aren't working deathmarch hours to get that done. Then after that they have to make sure enough people know about the xpac so people who have left can come back to play it, which means money spent on marketing.

I don't think it's a feasible plan overall. Nor do I see the issue with a more Guild Wars-style expandalone model. This isn't a game about vertical progression, so you're not being level locked or anything of the sort. At worst there's a planet or some zones you can't visit and some (theoretically) side grade weapons/vehicles you wont have access to. Some of those might even be tailored towards the new area itself, making it impact your "vanilla" experience even less. It really depends on how it's handled

 

[Vladplaya]

Yeah tough decisions will have to be made, but I don't think they will be able to pull off dlc and expansions for sales. That stuff is for full blown teams with investors backing up the work. Otherwise selling stuff that is not worth the money in a game that you already have to buy first, will only result in a backlash.
I think a good way for them to make money off the "expansions" would be to change for an early access, and then unlocking it for everyone maybe couple weeks later. This can work for pretty much anything, new areas, weapons, vehicles, quests. You pay for the privilege to try it early, but eventually it will be available for everyone, so they won't be spitting the community and people won't have much to bitch about.
The only issue I see with this would be actual profitability of something like that, I mean how many people will be willing to pay say 5 bucks to get to play a new zone earlier instead of waiting couple weeks? I don't know, I spend tons of money on games and I think I would just wait couple weeks haha.

 

[NitroMidgets]

If they get a good enough concept there is always the chance that Mark could take it to Steam Green Light.
Not sure how that would go over though. At least Steam would get it some easy advertising.

Honestly, I have seen so many F2P games that are just pure unrelenting shit that I don't really want to go down that road again for a while.

 

[DARKB1KE]

I took a look at the free to play games on Steam... but nothing really grabbed my attention.
Nothing out there is like firefall, i'm looking for something with quests and shooter gameplay but not pvp...

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

I took a look at the free to play games on Steam... but nothing really grabbed my attention.
Nothing out there is like firefall, i'm looking for something with quests and shooter gameplay but not pvp...

Skyforge. F2P
I know it's not like firefall but it does have classes and enemies with shooter gameplay.
It has quests and PvP can be safely ignored.
oh and the boss fights are fun when doing it by yourself or by a group.

It's weird though. Many of the missions/dungeons are instanced. There is open world zones but they are either unlocked randomly or they are character level based.

https://sf.my.com/us/about/classes
The game actually lets you try out all the classes in a training room once you get past a few tutorial missions/quests.
It's been long while since I last played skyforge so I don't know much about how it is currently.

 

[Beemann]

I took a look at the free to play games on Steam... but nothing really grabbed my attention.
Nothing out there is like firefall, i'm looking for something with quests and shooter gameplay but not pvp...

No PvP in total? Or no PvP necessary?
Warframe has quests based around a mission structure, Defiance is open world, has quests and a ton of guns, PSO2 works if you play Ranger or Force with free-aim mode, and is based around a quest+mission structure. 2/3 of those are on steam and the other requires a translation patch unless you know Japanese

Skyforge. F2P
I know it's not like firefall but it does have classes and enemies with shooter gameplay.

Skyforge has soft lock-on and MMORPG-styled gameplay. It's not a shooter at all.
I did enjoy it though, until I saw how much I needed to grind. Wildstar is more aim-oriented but still very much not a shooter even if you're playing a ranged class