Making CoX F2P: How would you do it?

The economy in CoH is already Weimarian wreck*. Inf farmers would have a field day if Paragon opened the doors to F2Pers, precisely because it's so easy. Moreover, any F2P model that incorporated in-game currency transactions would have to be put on hold until the devs figure out how to address the current issues of inflation and market manipulation as well.


* Amazingly, this hasn't really affected how fun the game is.

From your point of a view it may be a "Weimarian" wreck, but I haven't seen any hard data or references stating it is

The market is fine - it's a free market. It's volatile. It fluctuates. It can't be predicated. The resources are infinite and are only limited by how many are being sold and how much is in demand. I used to have to pay 750k for every Luckcharm I wanted buy - now I see them hovering at 250k (last I checked.) That would be deflation.

The Devs don't need to do a single darn thing with the market. People should consider lowballing their bids since someone and waiting for someone to put an item for auction in that range. Patience is a virtue.

I've finally broke a billion inf on my toon by selling IO recipes to Quartermasters and landing a lucky uber rare purple - is the market broke? No. Will inf farmers somehow destroy the economy in game? Don't see how, since the most you can have in pocket (not counting GloMail) is 2 billion (if I recall correctly.)

They don't really need to right now, any more than they need to fix PVP. As I said, the game's still quite fun (and even an indifferent n00b marketeer like myself can regularly achieve a 99.95% profit margin on the right investment with a modicum of patience). But any proposals for an F2P model for CoH will have to include some plan for rebalancing the economy* and/or imposing the draconian limits on F2P accounts similar to those that other F2P-converted MMORPGs have had to adopt to hold back the hordes of gold farmers.

And that's just one of the numerous headaches that would arise in converting CoH to any kind of F2P system but that I haven't seen addressed in this starry-eyed thread.

* Taking into account the proliferation of "currencies" the game has experienced lately.

Amazing what the devs can do in thirty days when they really put their minds to it, and relax the workplace drug use restrictions.

Except that I'm sure they made mention in the announcement that this has been in the works for a year

(inserted the smiley as I assume you're being flippant)