Making CoX F2P: How would you do it?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-05-19 21:53 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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The only person I seen say anything close to that claim is you. No one else has said that every single player that starts a F2P account will be an obnoxious Dbag.|
Originally Posted by baron_inferno
Some yes, just like any other game. I'm not disputing this. The generalization I'm referring to is the assumption that a change to F2P will attact nothing but hordes of obnoxious douchebags. That's one heck of an assumption, bordering on schizophrenic paranoia.
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| Would that be a valid opinion? Especially one that is so heavily slanted towards one end of the extreme spectrum? |
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| Always assuming the worst because of one bad experience is an awfully pessimistic path to take in life. |
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| Unless of course, we are talking about flourescent light bulbs, halogen light bulbs, or LED light bulbs. This example you used is the perfect reason why such opinions or generalizations hold little water. What we presume to know as the "truth" at one point often becomes "less true" with the passage of time. MMOs and its community also evolve over time and from my own 11+ years of experience with MMOs/online gaming, obnoxious players are becoming the outcast, not the norm. |
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| Let me be clear on this. *If* CoH converts to F2P, we probably will attract more jerks to this game. However on the flip side of that, we will also attract far more solid players. |
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| I personally do not believe that the few bad elements will ruin the current CoH community because we've already had to deal with them from day one, like any other MMO. Again, this is *if* CoH goes F2P, a transition which I have absolutely no preference over. |
Getting banned means they will have thrown away the cost of the game as well as all the money they spent on booster packs and their monthly subscription.
F2P accounts don't have any consequences to discourage such behaviour. The community is forced to endure the bad eggs and hope they get tired and move on to another game.
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Let's recap (without naming names). |
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
The only person I seen say anything close to that claim is you. No one else has said that every single player that starts a F2P account will be an obnoxious Dbag.
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- It would also open the door to a lot more noobs, who can't be removed through petitioning.
- My problem is that I have no desire to see the game flooded with leeches... and in my experience, they make up a significant fraction of the people who keep asking for it.
- To prevent abuse and inflicting a massive influx of nitwits and exploit hounds on the paying playerbase there would have to be some kind of wall between the F2P players and "real" players.
- In a "free" game, it's often trivially easy for a player who's been muted or banned to simply create a new account and continue their misbehavior under a whole new name.
Just go ahead and tell me that these aren't assumptive comments directed at the F2P community at large. I found these just by spending 5 quick minutes scanning the posts within this thread. If I were to expand my search to the entire forum, I'm sure I can find many more similar comments directed at the WoW player base as well. Then there's....
as someone who has actively played some of those "subscription converted to freemium" MMORPG games, I find most of the hyperbole about "lol, newb" and "Beware the gold farmers!" and whatever that boils down to "anybody who doesn't pay a sub is an undesirable low-quality community member" to be inaccurate when it isn't outright offensive.
I guess I'm not the only one who has noticed that type of mentality.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Yes. Opinions are neither right or wrong. That's why they are called opinions and not facts.
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Definition of VALID
2a : well-grounded or justifiable : being at once relevant and meaningful <a valid theory>
2b : logically correct <a valid argument> <valid inference>
I will maintain that an opinion that is formulate after just one negative experience is not a valid one. It is neither well-grounded, justifiable or logically correct due to its extremely narrow scope and biased point of view. To summarize, people are entitled to their opinions which are neither right or wrong. However, due to the lack of proper justification and logic behind its formulation, I can choose to dismiss such opinions as invalid.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
And yet pessimists are the happiest people on earth becasue they are never disappointed when the worst happens and frequently surprised when things turn out to be better than they predicted.
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Also, if one were to apply that sort of pessimistic view on incoming F2P accounts in order to justify the imposition of an absurd amount of restrictions, it would be akin to assuming that everyone is a bad apple until proven otherwise. Sorry but I will never accept that kind of flawed "guilty until proven innocent" logic.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
That's exactly what we've been saying, and making suggestions to minimize their negative impact on the gaming community.
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That's an implementation detail. I mentioned ways to address this issue that are not incompatible with hybrid F2P models.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
The only reason we've been able to deal with them effectively so far is because there are consequenses in place that make acting like an obnoxious jerk unpleasant.
Getting banned means they will have thrown away the cost of the game as well as all the money they spent on booster packs and their monthly subscription. F2P accounts don't have any consequences to discourage such behaviour. The community is forced to endure the bad eggs and hope they get tired and move on to another game. |
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This one was mine, and I stand by it. Do you contest its accuracy?
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Originally Posted by baron_inferno
In a "free" game, it's often trivially easy for a player who's been muted or banned to simply create a new account and continue their misbehavior under a whole new name.
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A lot more does not in any way shape or form equal every single person like you claim they said.|
Originally Posted by baron_inferno
Let's recap (without naming names).
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| Just go ahead and tell me that these aren't assumptive comments directed at the F2P community at large. |
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| I found these just by spending 5 quick minutes scanning the posts within this thread. If I were to expand my search to the entire forum, I'm sure I can find many more similar comments directed at the WoW player base as well. |
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Then there's.... as someone who has actively played some of those "subscription converted to freemium" MMORPG games, I find most of the hyperbole about "lol, newb" and "Beware the gold farmers!" and whatever that boils down to "anybody who doesn't pay a sub is an undesirable low-quality community member" to be inaccurate when it isn't outright offensive. I guess I'm not the only one who has noticed that type of mentality. |
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I didn't ask whether the opinion is wrong or not. I asked whether it is valid. There is a big difference there. Per Websters: Definition of VALID 2a : well-grounded or justifiable : being at once relevant and meaningful <a valid theory> 2b : logically correct <a valid argument> <valid inference> I will maintain that an opinion that is formulate after just one negative experience is not a valid one. It is neither well-grounded, justifiable or logically correct due to its extremely narrow scope and biased point of view. To summarize, people are entitled to their opinions which are neither right or wrong. However, due to the lack of proper justification and logic behind its formulation, I can choose to dismiss such opinions as invalid. |
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| And pessimism often grows into full blown depression, sometimes causing people to off themselves. I suppose that's not a problem either. |
They don't have the solid world view that pessimists do and thus when the doody hits the fan they get hit full in the face while the pessimist steps out of the way while saying, "Yep, saw that coming."
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| Also, if one were to apply that sort of pessimistic view on incoming F2P accounts in order to justify the imposition of an absurd amount of restrictions, it would be akin to assuming that everyone is a bad apple until proven otherwise. Sorry but I will never accept that kind of flawed "guilty until proven innocent" logic. |
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| Why automatically assume that there will be a negative impact? This is precisely why I'm saying the potential for a negative impact caused by a few F2P bad apples is overstated and overblown. |
Why do you lock your the doors to your house and car when you leave them? Because while you know most people aren't thieves there are still plenty of them that will break in and take your stuff.
Why do you buy insurance? Because you are anticipating bad things will happen and you want to be prepared for them.
Why do we search people at airports? Because we know that if we didn't more terrorists would hijack planes and kill people.
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Yes you did, and I did the same in my detailed example of what I thought how a F2P/unlimited trial could work in this game. We just had different solutions. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's an implementation detail. I mentioned ways to address this issue that are not incompatible with hybrid F2P models.
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I think there's been some great suggestions in this thread so far
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Thats what 2 computers or 2 monitors are for.|
Originally Posted by VoodooGirl
Part of me wishes the forums were somehow integrated with the ingame UI.
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Limited power set access.
Veats extra,
various zones extra,
Trials extra,
almost all costumes extra
limited access to contacts all the way up to 50 with others extra
Possibly customizable colors and animations for powers extra
Oroborus extra
Pocket D extra
side switching and tip missions extra
praetoria extra
Incarnate abilities extra, possibly each set an extra cost.
purchasable temp powers to boost you
purchasable long term powers
bases extra
The list goes on. The game would have to be gutted and rebuilt from the ground to effectively make it F2P. This because every single subscription game that has converted had to rebuild the game from the ground up.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
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I'm not sure that I'd ever do free to play but I would like to see lifetime subscription offers and way more booster packs. For them to break even they would still need people to buy booster packs eventually.
Free to play is great for us but unless they get millions of players all buying booster packs each month or some sort of micro transaction they won't turn much of a profit and development on the game is eventually reduced and the game is shut down.
Friends don't let friends buy an ncsoft controlled project.
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Offering lifetime subs at this point would force the game to become F2P or at the very least primarily focused on microtransactions in order to prevent shutting down within a year. |
Originally Posted by Noyjitat
I'm not sure that I'd ever do free to play but I would like to see lifetime subscription offers and way more booster packs. For them to break even they would still need people to buy booster packs eventually.
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The strength of this games ability to stay profitable is it's retention of long term veteran customers and lifetime subs would generate an initial spike in profit and then the profits would crash because the income generated by those subscriptions would be forever gone.
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| Free to play is great for us but unless they get millions of players all buying booster packs each month or some sort of micro transaction they won't turn much of a profit and development on the game is eventually reduced and the game is shut down. |
An interesting thread. After playing recently and now some F2P MMOs with this one, it is an interesting think tank pie in the sky idea if this did happen to CoX.
While I think if it was implemented properly, meaning smooth transition, advertisement, and general enthusiasm from the Dev Crew et al, it would work wonderfully bringing in new people and possible renewed revenue. Or you could slid it in quickly snubbing your player-base which paid already and losing anything they had immediately, and trying to cover up your tracks several times, and side-stepping the transition, would demise the game and servers would shut down. Of course this is just two circumstances that could happen out of a million and one issues, or breaks that come with any type of launch.
Now for some anecdotal evidence on this. Me and my friends starting playing one of Turbine's more popular MMO. My I did not want to pay for much in that game (since I was paying for my account here), and decided how far can I go with paying a cent in the game. The couple decided to pay for three months worth of gametime, and see what they could get with the earned bonus points. Finally one just bought MT anytime he wanted new stuff.
Now in he end of the day we all left due to timing issues et al. Now I am joining them on another F2P from Sony that is about scourging the seas, to see how this is different. But from the money they did get from us in just a few months, and the more people that I brought in to pay, that did buy parts of the game; a F2P model can work if the value is there.
Also the only reason why I did stop cause I was at the point where I wanted to start putting in money for the game to see other parts of it so the draw worked, but failed too since I was wanting to test/try the game itself to see how it works.
I will try and put something together if CoX was to go F2P what would I do in the implementation.
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Based on the little numbers out there and various interviews I've read, it seems the incremental cost of supporting one player on an MMO is somewhat less than one dollar per month. Most of the costs of an MMO are the fixed costs of development and support and the not quite fixed but somewhat decoupled costs of infrastructure. You do not need millions of players buying booster packs for this to be profitable. Hundreds of players buying booster packs can support thousands of F2P players that don't buy things ala carte. The critical parameter is the ratio of paying to non-paying players, not the actual numbers. If they could get just tens of thousands of players signing up and buying things, even spending less than average subscribers, that would probably be a net positive gain in revenue. More is better, but this model doesn't require millions of players to turn a profit. Tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of players are plenty.
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Originally Posted by Noyjitat
Free to play is great for us but unless they get millions of players all buying booster packs each month or some sort of micro transaction they won't turn much of a profit and development on the game is eventually reduced and the game is shut down.
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Does that take into account the current salaries and benefits of the staff though, or would turning a profit under that model require a rejiggering of the studio's payscales and/or levels of staffing? Ahh...prolly not an aswerable question unless one was the CFO.
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You are absolutely right, but what this game would need are microtransactions that players are willing to spend money on over and over. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Based on the little numbers out there and various interviews I've read, it seems the incremental cost of supporting one player on an MMO is somewhat less than one dollar per month. Most of the costs of an MMO are the fixed costs of development and support and the not quite fixed but somewhat decoupled costs of infrastructure. You do not need millions of players buying booster packs for this to be profitable. Hundreds of players buying booster packs can support thousands of F2P players that don't buy things ala carte. The critical parameter is the ratio of paying to non-paying players, not the actual numbers. If they could get just tens of thousands of players signing up and buying things, even spending less than average subscribers, that would probably be a net positive gain in revenue. More is better, but this model doesn't require millions of players to turn a profit. Tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of players are plenty.
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The MT's we currently have won't support the game because they either aren't things we'd need on a regular basis, or they are account wide purchases that never need to be bought again on that account.
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The incremental costs relative to their average revenue of F2P players is the key metric, because the development costs associated with them separate from the other players is relatively low.
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Originally Posted by Furio
Does that take into account the current salaries and benefits of the staff though, or would turning a profit under that model require a rejiggering of the studio's payscales and/or levels of staffing? Ahh...prolly not an aswerable question unless one was the CFO.
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The WSJ has some comments about F2P today.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...p_mostpop_read
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CoDE is less about a subscription service investigating F2P, and more about an F2P service investigating subscription service. Retail gaming already has microtransactions in the form of DLC and online multiplayer is generally free to play already (mostly). But most don't have enhanced services that require a subscription to access which is what CoDE is all about. Its the reverse of an F2P MMO conversion in a different gaming space.
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Originally Posted by Residentx10
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My point in posting this is back to my argument that "business" wants a for profit model. F2P is a faith-based model.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
CoDE is less about a subscription service investigating F2P, and more about an F2P service investigating subscription service. Retail gaming already has microtransactions in the form of DLC and online multiplayer is generally free to play already (mostly). But most don't have enhanced services that require a subscription to access which is what CoDE is all about. Its the reverse of an F2P MMO conversion in a different gaming space.
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That would be valid if the retail market didn't already have an ala carte model in place in the form of DLC, and if CoDE didn't have a free to play option in its structure. According to the currently released information, CoDE will be free to access with a premium subscription option, and DLC will still exist for purchase ala carte but premium subscribers will be allowed to bundle the costs of DLC with their subscription.|
Originally Posted by Residentx10
My point in posting this is back to my argument that "business" wants a for profit model. F2P is a faith-based model.
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That is *exactly* the hybrid F2P model that most subscription MMOs have converted to recently, including Turbine.
If you read the article carefully, you'll see that they take it completely for granted that free access to multiplayer and ala carte pricing of DLC is a given: it already exists and is wildly successful. What is being discussed as being the huge gamble on the part of Activision is fee-based premium subscription services. In other words, CoD is already based on the F2P model (at least, for online services beyond the box purchase, just like Guild Wars). Nowhere does anyone within that article question the F2P model, because its already a proven quantity for CoD. The big question is on subscription services itself.
They are coming towards the hybrid model from the opposite direction: from F2P adding subscription, rather than subscription adding F2P. Far from supporting your contention that F2P is a "faith-based model" the CoD situation is one where F2P is *the* model, and subscriptions are the novelty leap of faith.
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Lot's of gaming news today. Let me review this some more. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That would be valid if the retail market didn't already have an ala carte model in place in the form of DLC, and if CoDE didn't have a free to play option in its structure. According to the currently released information, CoDE will be free to access with a premium subscription option, and DLC will still exist for purchase ala carte but premium subscribers will be allowed to bundle the costs of DLC with their subscription.
That is *exactly* the hybrid F2P model that most subscription MMOs have converted to recently, including Turbine. If you read the article carefully, you'll see that they take it completely for granted that free access to multiplayer and ala carte pricing of DLC is a given: it already exists and is wildly successful. What is being discussed as being the huge gamble on the part of Activision is fee-based premium subscription services. In other words, CoD is already based on the F2P model (at least, for online services beyond the box purchase, just like Guild Wars). Nowhere does anyone within that article question the F2P model, because its already a proven quantity for CoD. The big question is on subscription services itself. They are coming towards the hybrid model from the opposite direction: from F2P adding subscription, rather than subscription adding F2P. Far from supporting your contention that F2P is a "faith-based model" the CoD situation is one where F2P is *the* model, and subscriptions are the novelty leap of faith. |
Cryptic is going F2P now for sure, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...ic_Studios.php
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It doesn't say that specifically, but I'm sure the probability of STO not going F2P stands at negative eleventy percent. I'd say the odds of NWN launching F2P currently stand at 99.99% assuming it launches. The 0.01% is the chance that Earth is conquered by the Ferengi in the next year.
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Originally Posted by Residentx10
Cryptic is going F2P now for sure, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...ic_Studios.php
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I'm often surprised at the amount of hate leveled for F2P and micro-transactions in general. I get that in some ways these things have been done poorly, or companies seem to be nickle and dime-ing the players in some cases, but I don't think that either F2P or Micro transactions are entirely bad ideas, it comes down to implementation.
If CoH were to go F2P I'd think these would be the main points.
-Little to no change for your subscriber base: keep your subscription, keep what you have now, the changes for these people would be minimal.
-Let people who play for free play the basic game 1-50, do the basic content, limit incarnate and end game content (Trials, level 50 task forces etc), and some select other content, I-17 arcs, new Posi TF, etc. to subscribers only.
- Sell costume pieces individually instead of in packs.
- Keep the online store and other "pay for 'X' options" unobtrusive, don't have dollar signs and "pay here" logos everywhere. There should be like one button on the menu to access the store and see what's available and that should be it.
- Don't let people who are free to play onto the forums.
- Make people have a valid e-mail address, and only one free account per e-mail address to limit some of the "making 50 free accounts" problems some of these games have had.
Honestly, I think given the nature of super boosters and the like, this game is already flirting with an F2P model and certainly doing some micro transactions, seeing them take it a couple steps further isn't hard to imagine, and if they did it right they could do it without affecting their existing players too much, outside of having, potentially, a lot more people to play with.
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Good lord, not only is that the dreaded grasping hand of Bobby Kotick at work, but a completely different type of gaming mentality as well. The staunch capitalists at the Wall Street Journal don't bother discriminating between the FPS in that article and Activision Blizzard's flagship MMORPG, only noticing that the players of the latter pay a monthly fee, too. (Hint: MMORPGs take place in persistent worlds populated by individualized player-character avatars; FPSs are simulated firefights.)|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
They are coming towards the hybrid model from the opposite direction: from F2P adding subscription, rather than subscription adding F2P. Far from supporting your contention that F2P is a "faith-based model" the CoD situation is one where F2P is *the* model, and subscriptions are the novelty leap of faith.
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Incidentally, one of the many criticisms levelled at F2P is that it promotes the same uninvested style of gameplay as FPSs and RTSs, where players just log on to fight or mess around rather than participate in a virtual community. Yet such F2Pers often feel disproportionately entitled when it comes to their games and are often quite vocal about it. Or, as one commentator succinctly sums up another MMORPG's recent controversial decision to convert to a hybridized F2P model, "Customers who don't value your product enough to pay for it aren't the kind of customers you want".
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Originally Posted by Ice_Wall
- Don't let people who are free to play onto the forums.
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| - Make people have a valid e-mail address, and only one free account per e-mail address to limit some of the "making 50 free accounts" problems some of these games have had. |
Money isn't too hard to come by in CoH - in fact, it's quite easy - I don't see "inf" farming being an issue.
I make most of my money selling Invention Origin recipes to vendors :-P 24 IO recipes? Selling to a vendor 100K each? Do the math.
Let me be clear on this. *If* CoH converts to F2P, we probably will attract more jerks to this game. However on the flip side of that, we will also attract far more solid players. I personally do not believe that the few bad elements will ruin the current CoH community because we've already had to deal with them from day one, like any other MMO. Again, this is *if* CoH goes F2P, a transition which I have absolutely no preference over.