CoX Quarter Earnings - Q1 2011

It's good that you restricted this to Elmo, as my brother's doctoral thesis was on this subject.

Hypothetically speaking, F2P could sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, if hypothetically speaking there existed more than one MMO on Earth, if there existed a planet called Earth. As we currently have 100% of all the MMO subscribers in the known universe, its difficult to project how F2P could affect our net playerbase size. However, I have seen calculations that suggest in certain Calabi-Yau contortions there exist vibrational manifolds in which the laws of physics would permit multiple MMOs existing simultaneously. In such manifolds I could conjecture the existence of an MMO which launched with a subscription model and later converted to a tiered model of VIP subscribers and ala carte subscriptionless players. When I extrapolate the binding energy of this manifold, solving for the rest mass of the electron involves a normalization factor whereby the developers of this game focus most of their attention on licensed fantasy role playing genres.

That's fascinating. What specifically about Elmo did your brother's thesis focus on?

Sometimes I think you're Stephen Hawking.

LOL, more than one MMO on Earth. Next you'll be talking about some sort of farcical trans-continental flying machine.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

False dichotomy. They can also sometimes flail.

I took the winky completely wrong it would seem...

I am now sad I was sad...

And industry standards

Whether the reaction of the 'Tickle Me' version was endearing or just creepy.

No problem. We be cool.

No.

Fonzy cool?

That what would be an F2P model that would work for you?

Sorry can't say Freitag's watching.

Actually, the tabletop-inspired product was released in early 2006, and went to their hybrid F2P model in late 2009. Three years is a respectable gap before changing business models. The other game by their creator was launched in early 2007 and went F2P in late 2010, so another 3 year gap.

A 7 year old game naturally has a more entrenched playerbase, but I think the effects would definitely be more relevant than the 3 year old game against a 1.5 year old game.


Personally, I'm of the opinion that if City were to lower the base monthly price slightly and increase their microtransaction offerings a bit, they'd see a lot more customers and more overall income.

If they were able to go a step further and subdivide some of the content/zone access to 'mission packs', and shift to a point system for grabbing mission packs, booster packs (or subsets thereof), I think it has the potential to expand their customer greatly even with the increased costs of having to maintain additional server capacity for the moochers.

But that's just from my perspective, having played three games that went from subscription to F2P of some flavor.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

Not sure where you're getting your pricing...

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

But isn't the same as "gating" content the some players are against with the F2P model?

That word is telling, not to mention entirely typical, of the division that sets in with many so-called F2P systems.

It's been my own experience in some games, and the experience of friends in others, that creating a culture of haves and have-nots (or pays and don't-pays) is bad for the community overall. Paying players grow quick to resent requests from F2Pers, which seem like unentitled demands. On the other hand, F2Pers, when not in a state of grievance, often slip into petty trolling and griefing - and that's nothing compared to the increased incidence of gold-farming and RMT spamming, counterintuitive as that may seem in an F2P system.

The real issue is why NCSoft's overall quarterly earnings demand changes in any of their games' payment structures. Compared to some *hem hem* the company is doing quite well as it is.

The gated approach works, and is often the only way to differentiate between those who pay a sub to get access to everything and those who use micro-transactions to gain access.

How do you make your long time players happy? By NOT granting free players access to everything and having them gain access the same way the monthly sub paying customers do, i.e. open the wallet.

Of course this does nothing for those who measure their self-worth and epeen size based on the pixel-stuff they have "earned" in said game, and somehow think they are diminished because someone can pay more cash for what they paid for in time.

Some have more time to earn and some have more cash. As long as someone doesn't impact your game play directly it doesn't matter what someone else has.

But the new heroes who have never heard of the Praetorians would see a damaged city and go WTF? Praetorians? What?

Think of the storyline!

"This is a stupid rule, which everyone should obey except when obeying it results in patently stupid conversation, in which case it should be skirted and flirted with, but no touching, because Big Brother is watching."

No, seriously, it's a ******* stupid rule. Are there any rules that get violated as much as this one? I'm betting not, and there's a damn good reason for that.

I think what would need to be established is what would be considered "gated" content. Certain levels? Powersets? I don't think that would be wise. Side-switching, PvP, Bases/Base Editing - perhaps that could all be considered "gated" content that if free players wanted they could microtransact (MTS) for, but is otherwise free to subscribing accounts.

But when you switch to F2P the focus shouldn't be solely on the "subscribers" - all those "free" accounts are potential future subscriptions but are also customers who will continually make repeated microtransactions. When a game is switching to F2P it's not just about the longterm subscribing players - you also have to make the new "free" generation happy - so much so that they will enjoy the game so much that they'll want to upgrade to a subscription to get whatever extra perks come with it.

To say a free account would have to MTS levels 20 - 30 on each toon, or access to Dark Astoria, or whatever other gated content - would they want to upgrade to a subscription because they want to or would they do it out of annoyance of having to MTS each time? Is the goal to annoy the players, or give them a game they can enjoy on any level of subscription?

To reiterate, an established MMO switching to F2P shouldn't have a free subscription level that punishes the players for not having a paying subscription based account, but offers them as much as near to the complete game as if they had been a - let's call it - "legacy" subscriber experience.

To quote:

“Also, recall that for any MTS [F2P] game to be successful, you need a vibrant community that is only taking advantage of the free services” -- David Chang

/end rant

I am currently dealing with the flu. Any typos, grammatical errors, crazy ideas/rants - they were all intended. I don't make mistakes. Ever.

I've seen F2P succeed in two situations:
1.) Pay2win Asian grindfests
2.) Big name IPs that didn't do so well coming out of the gate and needed a shot in the arm

Neither of which fits CoH. F2P evangelists, however, demand their free stuff and so off we go.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

What you're missing is that its not a one-way street. You'll also have subscribers who'll see that its not all bad on the gated side and drop their subs to play for free. Even if you strike a balance between the two, you're just treading water. And if your game is still profitable, what sense does it make to risk that profitability?

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights