Don't go Free to Play(F2P), COH

CoX is doing reasonably well in a bad economy. I doubt they will go for a radical change for fear of fear of killing the golden (or at least silver) goose.

And with Booster Packs and subscriptions they are to a degree getting to have their cake and eat it too, with income from both.

I think there's a very good chance CoH may go free-to-play. I am ambivalent to the idea. I don't think it would make me drop my sub but I also don't think I'd be inclined to buy any of the inevitable extras that might be offered with a F2P model.

Yeah, paying a boxed expansion every for issues nope. But having a boxed expansion, say, every 18months - 2 years, with issues inbetween would be acceptable (and even welcomed if they were as good as GR)

Currently the model that Paragon have seems to be working fine: Monthly subs and a booster pack every few months seems to generate some healthy revenue for them, and the lowish sub fee, regular free issues and vet rewards keeps people subscribed. They'd have to be very very sure that changing that model would benefit the game.

As things stand, most players seem to subscribe for a good while, most buy most boosters (we'll ignore Party pack for the purpose of this argument) and most bought GR. It seems despite the doom-sayers that this old game has some life left in it and change for its own sake is rarely wise.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Interesting. Mentioning games that have died is also not allowed. <eyeroll>

So, let me try again:

There have been F2P games that have failed. So, the expectation that going F2P for CoH is a magical guarantee of more players and enough revenue to support the game is fallacious.

Dunno about F2P, but then I don't know very *much* about F2P. CoH is the only MMO I've played - free or not, I've not tried others.

It's very easy and convenient for me to just pony up the monthly fee every month (considering it is automatic and all). For not one, but two accounts. If I had to proactively purchase content/additions, I'm not sure if I would quite as automatically. Not to mention trying to keep track of what content I had on which account. It's bad enough that I can hardly remember what boosters I have on each now (though I would assume there would HAVE to be a better system than just listing everything as "Perk"). Might be worth noting too that what boosters I do have have largely been those included with various boxes (and one where I got really lucky with a free code).

I just hate the thought of forgetting to buy the new thing then finding out I forgot as I go to do it only to have the store down then as I go to buy it.

That is why I like how we have been doing it and would be very curious to how they would manage any change to a different way.

I was referring to the quality of the interaction with other players, not the quality of the game itself.

The game could remain pretty much the same, but if we got flooded with people whose sole goal in the game is to harass other players (which is much more likely in F2P games than in subscription based games) I'd probably start losing interest in it in a hurry.

The reason I'm still here is the community this game has, if the community changed for the worse I'm not sure if I'd continue playing. Based on what I've read on the forums, there are probably a significant number of people who feel the same about it.

Hey folks,

We here at Paragon Studios value and respect your desires to discuss this subject since it’s on the minds of many players. I want to remind you, however, that this discussion needs to occur within the context of the Message Forum Rules and Guidelines and that means no discussion of other games – as difficult as that might be.

A number of posters have tried to obey this rule by not mentioning the name of another game, but instead describing it in another way. Unfortunately, that still isn’t good enough. Discussing another game is not allowed, whether you use the name or not. Let me give some examples of what’s acceptable and what’s not:

“I like the way World of Hello Kitty Quest handles the Free to Play model, since I can spend a minimal amount and still get access to 99% of the games features.” – This mentions another game explicitly and is not allowed.

“I like the way the game with the cute Japanese anthropomorphic animals hunting down epic items with lots of raiding has implemented Free to Play gaming, since I can enjoy the game (albeit only as a frog or cat, and not many of the other even cuter options) but since I’m only a casual player I don’t have to worry about a monthly subscription fee” – Still not allowed. Even though this example doesn’t explicitly reference another game it still is discussing another game. It’s the discussion which is the problem.

“I dislike tiered payment models since it always seems there isn’t enough content geared towards the non subscribers, and that fails to accomplish the goal of attracting new players to a game I love” – Totally allowed. In this example our hypothetical poster is talking about what they like or dislike about a specific idea, not how it is or is not implemented in another game. Ideas are perfectly allowable by the Message Forum Rules and Guidelines and we ask that you frame this discussion in that regard.

Please use these examples as a guideline so that we don’t have to moderate your posts on the subject!

Thanks much!