frosticus-11

This is due in no small part to how it is presented from the top down. I think it was Arcana who made mention of the importance of the company essentially celebrating the change rather than just trying to slip it in.

It essentially requires a heap of fanfare and a relaunch of the product from a consumer point of view. Add a bunch of new content and make it an exciting thing. Just switching to f2p and only having that to talk about is asking to fail and have the internet deem you as being on life support.

As an example it was often cited as evidence that GR would not have been made if PS was bleeding as many subs and barely making money like a lot/some people kept saying (basically every quarterly statement). That is probably true. The same can be said if you (re)launch big when you go f2p. The game can't possibly be on its last legs if you just added a whole new world/faction/ or whatever.

That game was losing money hand over fist using a subscription model... does that mean subscription models don't work?

A more interesting examination (and I don't have the information on hand) would be looking at games that have done things like:
-Been successful subscription and then gone F2P only to fail
-Been successful subscription and then gone F2P and continued being successful
-Subscription failure to F2P failure
-Subscription failure to F2P success

Or
Visa versa where they started as F2P and switched to a sub based model.

Pointing at the example you just did doesn't help your case at all because my understanding is they were "less" of a failure using F2P than they were using subscription. At the end of the day failing is failing, but...

Those are fair points that I think I should be able to satisfactorily address.
1. I don't necessarily think crabs should be excluded from a 'dream team' configuration. Their forcemultiplication is great, their aoe damage is strong and when they need it their st damage is situationally astounding as well (though in actual game the spiders are much more fragile against huge spawns and multiple AV's than they are against a single pylon that usually isn't even attacking them).

2. The aoe jump buff from kin won't do anything for pets movement speed. For better or worse they don't jump to move (would be cool if they did) and I think they already have superjump if they fall off of something.

3. The pets are a very significant portion of a crabs damage and they are a 4 min duration summon. They aren't exceedingly difficult to perma, but overlapping their recharge so that you can resummon them early isn't really that common. Conversely, phantom army is a 1 min duration summon, so in terms of moving from spawn to spawn they are available to be resummoned far more often.

4. In the event PA is still active when you start running to the next group they will happily follow along and not get destroyed along the way by errant agro (though they may bring you some adds in such a situation) whereas the spiders will get pwn'd if you are speeding past mobs and you will end up playing most of a speed run sans spiders. They will get killed off, I'm confident that slainsteel is not suggesting that cold shields and other st buffs would be applied to the spider pets, because that's not realistic.

5. Ill/colds may actually surprise you with their individual damage output. I know when I was running mine in AE and taking down 3-4 AV's at the same time (yay I finally manage to no temp/insp BaB's, Posi, and States at the same time ) it would end up pretty much being just my individual damage on my target and I could still drop an AV in about 5 min.

If it were to come down to ill/cold vs crab for an optimized team (for whatever reason one might have) they both bring tremendous value. Cold is the better of the two forcemultipliers though and the better team protector and only one of those toons can take all the risk out of pretty much any encounter

The problem with pet heavy toons on speed runs is the pets move real slow. They are fine for knocking down the AV's fast (for the most part), but when you need to get from wiping a spawn at point A in seconds over to point B to do it again, things like ill/cold and crabs start to fall behind in their uber damage output.

That said, I'm half tempted to pick up the GR deal through steam for the free month and kit out my ill/cold to see where it is at with incarnate junk. Given its i18 time still beats most stuff with incarnates I think it could very well sit around 30 second pylon kills as well... which is hilarious I think.

Darn I was hoping for some more jargon that you don't actually understand how to use

Oh well, maybe your next post will be better?
You didn't answer any of the questions I asked you either, i'm honestly curious if you are perceiving this in an entirely different way than reality dictates.

It's an extremely difficult question to answer, one that i already stated i dont have the answer to earlier.

Aside from saying i would go hybrid, which is just another fork on the multi platform revenue model already employed. I dont have specifics of what aspects i'd make free and what i'd charge for. Those are details that would take months to work out at the very least. I'm certainly not a golden goose haha so i won't pressume that i can crap out a golden answer of how to implement f2p into CoX.

fwiw the only idea presented so far that i shot down as being too restrictive was segregating the f2p players onto their own server. Dividing players is not a likely path to success. Especially as I believe the suggestion was made out of contempt for the idea of f2p.

No one is suggesting they do that are they? That's not the message you are actually receiving from this thread is it?

We are mainly discussing them making the choice to go f2p (or hybrid) because they make the informed decision based on the expectation that it either increases their profitability or at the very least, extends it beyond what the current model would.

A last ditch effort to keep the lights on is an entirely different discussion.

This was probably meant to make more of an impact than it did. CoX is not large enough to have much impact on either of those elements. Certainly not across the industry like it seems you are implying.

Now if some (or one) of the heavy hitters in this industry started tweaking their revenue model it would create the kind of waves you are talking about.

CoX can essentially do w/e they want and the only lasting impact it will have on the mmo (let alone the entire gaming) industry is whether they are recorded as a decade long success, or a decade long success that tried new things.

But it sort of sounds like if cox had success with a new revenue model that one of the big game houses would come in and absorb (and bury?) them because they need to protect their price structure... If that is what you are saying it at least made me smile.

I operate at a little higher level than that heh, but some of the stuff being said in this thread certainly lends credence to the value of a quick business review...
i don't subscribe to any of those places. Do you have a monthly subscription to McDs? Do they even offer it? They are a lot closer to f2p than subscription in that they are pay for what you consume which is at the basic level what f2p tries to accomplish for games in a more dynamic way that simply charging by time played.

Phone companies are not a good example to shoot down f2p just fyi. They offer nearly complete customization in payment plans. They do anything but a "one size fits all" subscription model. In fact i'm confident that their tremendous success is due in part to their flexibility.

were the accepted practice in this industry. Times are changing. That much is very evident.
certainly. I don't expect CoX to be an early adopter unless they had a compelling reason to do so. Turbine's success or failure will be just that though - Turbine's. They will provide useful information, but won't serve as clear evidence to the expected success in the event this game went f2p.

Ok, working under the assumption that they are in a full F2P system as opposed to a hybrid one, if a rep presented the data that showed some typical player profiles and the cost was almost identical to what you pay now and you fit into one of those profiles - would such a clever consumer still see right through that and leave?

I can only assure you that the best companies are anything but complacent and satisfied with the status quo...

There would only be mom and pop stores if that were the case. National and global entities emerge because motivated people ask things like "what can we do to capture more of the market?"

That isn't to say there is anything wrong with running a smaller operation but your premise that business ONLY seeks new answers when they are failing is quite incorrect.

Smart businesses and smart business people don't turn away people that they can extract profit from. Especially if they have a highly customizable product.

the obvious answer is that if that is encountered on a large scale then that is a pretty clear indicator that you havent designed the F2P model correctly for your game. Basically the 'pay' elements are either not attractive enough or you are giving too much for free.
no they just need to present a compelling case that they expect certain desirable metrics to increase. Next to nothing in business is guaranteed including the majority of their revenue stream right now.
If F2P is being switched to by choice by the company then i highly doubt they'd choose to make less money so your "highly likely" remark holds no water. Besides there is no evidence that they would need to switch to stay afloat as the sub model can probably keep the lights on for a long time. So your assumptions are imo flawed.
If they failed to design and implement a good F2P model then it would fail. That isnt a novel concept and not really a noteworthy observation. The discussion is about the idea of a good system being designed. If on the other hand you believe that is an impossibility then we simply disagree. A lot harder environments have had profit extracted out of them.

Again i'm not saying it is a good or bad idea at this juncture. There are certainly real hurdles that would need to be overcome. My hope is that the sort of blind rejection and even fear mongering present in much of this thread, wouldn't be the primary motivator in stopping such an initiative.

1-4 make perfect sense to me. Heck you can buy extra character slots in this game if you want (and many do). The credits earned by being a sub also makes good sense to me, not really all that different than our vetran reward system when you really think about it - loyalty to a company is worth rewarding. As does locking out certain races/AT's. Guild access depending on how it was handled also makes sense.

5. Is retarded if true. But wouldn't be the first time we've seen a business take advantage of a customer...

6. Makes sense I imagine if you look at the entire circumstance. As of now it makes little sense to allow me to join a BAF team if I don't own Rogue. Not exactly the same, but just highlighting why such a system can actually be a good idea if you are going to gate content.

7. Meh, not ideal but probably an issue you'd never encounter outside of 2x xp weekends here.

8. Meh?

9. I don't see CoX following this model, I'm on a trial account happily posting away

Other than #5 (and #7 if you are frequently running servers over capacity) I don't see anything massively segregating about any of those things tbh. Nothing in the realm of making them play on a totally separate server like you suggested for this game would be...

But again, I'm not necessarily saying that idea is wrong. If the goal is to convert as many people as possible to subscribers that would be a powerful motivator. Probably not a very successful one, but powerful nonetheless.

Like I said, I don't think you are right or wrong, just noting what I viewed you were doing.

I haven't played many hybrid MMO's (I don't game much these days) but do they segregate their subscribers and F2P players to such a degree as you described for CoH?

At any rate (as far as I know) there isn't a huge list of successful hybrid payment games out there is there? That might suggest that there are better ways to do it, or at the very least ways to improve the norm?

Well actually it is misleading to call it the norm because it hasn't been established as a solid revenue model yet as I see it. I mean everyone that does it does it with a twist unlike the classic subscription model that is cut and dry in its execution*

One could make a pretty solid argument that the standard subscription model doesn't have the greatest track record either of producing profitable IP's. Launching MMO's is a bit like opening restaurants...

Yes and no. If you look to other industry examples (as I often like to do because I believe this industry isn't very well done from a business standpoint) you see lots of consumers actually prefer to have the guesswork taken out and happily pay for the full service even if they don't actually use it and could save more by being more actively involved with their experience.

On the other hand, you just said you feel 30 mins of log in time justifies the subscription cost, while I said upthread that the couple hrs I was logging in didn't for me. I have little doubt there are lots of people that feel both those views are valid...but as of right now only one of them is giving NCsoft any money...

The risk is certainly present of every one of their consumers becoming proactive in their account management and in essence reversing the flow of the "nickel and diming" by doing it right back to the company. I don't think that is any more likely than them setting up a system that charges us per power activation (like was suggested in jest earlier). Like so many people we just want to veg out for a bit after work and don't want to overthink the billing process to the extent you may be suggesting (or may not be).

You asked what should and shouldn't be payed for directly? I have no idea, honestly there is so much going on in this game that the possibilities are staggering of how you could conceivably construct the system.

All I can say is what would entice me to come back to this game as a F2P customer (cause it is very unlikely I will come back as a subscriber). And that is simply being treated like a faceless customer like I was all those years I subbed. Don't treat me any better or worse because if I'm opening up my wallet to you then it is under the presumption that you have set your rates accordingly to earn a reasonable profit off of me (and each customer) and that you value your customers.

*Of course there will be corner cases such as the F2P player that ONLY plays the free access content forever. That will happen, just as how there are currently players that pay their $15 and play 12hrs a day. At the end of the day neither of them are very good from a profitability standpoint and neither of them will be the typical customer.

I neither love nor hate it as your ideas (in my opinion) range from solid to terrible, but it is just my opinion so there is little value in hashing that out.

I will say that the overall theme you are portraying is that a F2P customer is a second class consumer to a subscription one and that you have heavily slanted your suggestions toward driving people to become subscribers.

Perhaps that is a goal worth pursuing? Perhaps not?

What if instead though one were to take the approach:
F2P are potential customers that we can in turn make a profit off of (just like our subscribers, albeit in a different manner) while expanding our player base and thus our revenues (and profitability) and popularity of our IP.

"The Word's most popular Super Hero MMO" would be more than just a technicality based on the competitions failure to perform, but rather a title actually earned...

IMO for such a model to work (here or in any hybrid environment) the attitude coming from the top needs to be not one of F2P are second class customers, but rather - customers. If the corporate culture passes that belief down through the systems then the player base will be laregly accepting of it.

Of course there will still be a fair number of people that wail and cry at any kind of change and probably even rage quit... oh well, people come and people go.

Exactly. I dont want to pre-plan and/or be locked into a whole month at a time. Yes I could just play 3 days out of that month and still get solid entertainment value but i wont feel like i am (and i didnt...hence no sub). When the mood strikes i'd love to be able to jump on and be billed appropriately in some manner for tye amount of game i consume.

I dislike feeling like i'm tied into something if i have the option to have no leash EVEN if it ends up costing me similar or more. I've yet to do a cell phone contract for example.

Edit: i view entertainment as a consumable item. The one size fits all subscription model is to me an outdated approach. Not saying it doesnt work, just that it isn't very appropriate if you think like i do