Making CoX F2P: How would you do it?

CoH will never have power customization, either. The Devs said so many, many times.

That being said (tongue firmly in cheek), I don't favor going F2P if there isn't a clear advantage to doing so, for example drawing in new subscribers. Case in point: I subbed to another game in 2008. 18 months later, due to frustrations with the lack of soloability in main story content, I left. Less then a year ago, they switched to F2P. I started playing again, realized they'd rectified the majority of my issues with it, and I've been resubbed since late last year.

I have no qualms about playing (and subscribing to) a game that's "free". 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.

Free games have a use but they'll never be truly free, it's just another name....

Let me say it another way, conditioning of a group to a new monetized model.

Last I checked NCSOFT hosts everything in the US now. This part of the Internet is subject to the rules governing the United States of America.

Wasn't debating this. Nothing is free. *I* might not have paid for it, but someone did.

I didn't mean this as ominously as you took it. I only meant that it sounds like you're trying to say, "Don't make City of Heroes free-to-play," that is, pushing the agenda of trying to make it not happen, instead of answering the question that the OP posted of, "Assuming Paragon Studios makes City of Heroes free-to-play, how could they do it best?"

I want you to speak your opinions. You don't want City of Heroes to go to a free-to-play model and you don't think it will. Noted, and I'm not even disagreeing with you. That wasn't the question, though. What I think the OP was asking is why? What is it about the free-to-play model that you don't like? I know that other games have screwed up aspects of it. The question is, how could Paragon Studios hypothetically avoid those pitfalls and pull it off more successfully than they did?

When you mentioned that you are worried about how existing lag would be compounded with free accounts on the servers, that was informative. Those are the opinions that are interesting to read.

That is how I feel, Frosticus - that there is a large group of people who would jump at the chance to play the game for "free" but would be willing, from time to time, when it is possible for them, to MTS some features in an ala carte system (as it's been referred to here.)

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

Sorry but I hate seeing people say that even if it's only in jest.


That is not true. The devs never said CoH would never have power customization. What they actually said was that they would love to do power customization but we wouldn't get it for quite some time because of the huge amount of time and resources it would take to do it, so they shelved it until they could do it. And when they finally had a large enough staff to work on it we got it.

Okay Tony. I've been hammering this out and changing things and this is what I've come up with.

As much as I dislike the idea of this game going F2P I would go and set up an unlimited free trial for nonpaying players.


I would also set them up on seperate servers for a couple of reasons.
　
1. If the F2P players really like the game then switching over to a subscription is a carrot that gets them access to 15 more servers and a minimum of 180 additional character slots. That monthly fee equates to $1 dollar per server. What a bargain!
　
2. I would make at least one of the free servers an open world PvP for people that enjoy that type of game.
　
3. F2P players can transfer freely between the PvE and PvP servers.

　
I would allow paying players to transfer characters to and from the F2P servers freely if they have F2P friends they want to play with.


Now if a subber went F2P he'd be restricted to the free servers but he would be able to transfer his characters on the paying servers back and forth if he liked as a courtesy for once being a subber.


I wouldn't offer lifetime subs here because this game is supported by it's veteran players and we would all jump at the chance to get one. And while the LTS's would generate a nice spike in income it would be short lived. Once spent the game would be forced to rely on microtransactions to survive. Thats when the nickel and diming would start.


Most MT's would have to be temporary in nature so players would need to keep buying them, and of a type that while not necessary to play the game would still be things players would want to purchase to give their characters an edge. Far example:
　
Temp Powers
　
those base craftable Empowerment Buffs
　
Tier 2+ Inspirations
　
Remember the special IO Enhancements that came with the pre-order purchase of GR from Gamestop? Well make a duplicate set of all the IO's we currently have in the game and make a version of them that can be sold as MT's but are soul bound to the character they are purchased on. They can't be traded or pulled off of a build during a respec. That way they can't screw up the supply and demand on the market, but players willing to spend money on them can still IO out a character. The regular IO's will remain unchanged in how they are gotten and used.
　
The above would still be available as drops or mission rewards for patient players.
　
Some other MT's would be gated content. Maybe sell 2xp tokens for individual characters in increments of 2, 4, 6, and 8 hours real time.
　
F2P wouldn't be restricted by levels like current trials and they would have access to the basic game but they would have to pay to unlock the other two factions.
　
Epic Archetypes would have to be bought to unlock on Trial Accounts.
　
Now take a look at the missions and TF's that were added over the years in the free issues. Those would also be gated content F2Pers would have to pay to unlock. They could buy the individual Issues, and they could pick and choose which Issues they wanted.
　
Content being gated would not prevent them from joining and participating on another players team who had the content unlocked, they just couldn't get the missions/TF's themselves. This would work like Tip missions where you can participate in another players tip mission if you don't have GR but you can't get the missions yourself until you buy GR.
　
Certain trial account restrictions would still be enforced and new ones would be added.
　
No access to server wide global channels. Paying customers don't need to put up with jerk spam or RMTers advertising. They would however have unrestricted access to the regular server wide channels.
　
Trials would be restricted to say 50 million inf per character so they can afford to craft a few IO recipes that drop from normal play.
　
No access to the email feature to prevent RMT abuse.
　
No access to either the Mission Architect nor the Market. Those are more carrots to entice F2P to get a subscription, and as far as the markets concerned since they can buy special IO Enhancements they don't need the market.

Trials will have global access to the /help channel so they can benefit from subscribing players experience.

Feel free to hate it.

lol srs?

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.

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And yet that is how all the MMO's that have successfully converted to F2P have set up their games, and their F2P players aren't complaining that they feel like second class consumers.

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.

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...

Some go even further

1. By giving their monthly subbers and lifetme members free credit each month to spend on microtransactions.

2. By drastically reducing the number of characters F2P's can have before they must buy more slots. (I've seen as low as 2-3 slots for F2P while Monthlies get 10)

3. By making F2P pay to unlock races as well as what we would call Archetypes.

4. By making them buy the ability to form SG's/guilds

5. By refusing to give F2P players any customer support. Only Monthlies and Lifers get that feature.

6. Not letting anyone who hasn't paid for gated content join a team with someone that has.

7. Have a login queue where lifers and monthlies get priority to play the game and F2P must wait at the bottom of the pile for a space to open to play.

8. F2P players have an inactivity logout timer much less than paying/lifer players. (10 minutes for F2P vs 30 minutes for monthlies & an hour for lifers)

9. F2P players are only allowed restricted access to the forums. They can read but posting is limited.

Edit: forgot the banks

10. Wealth cap on F2P characters while paying customers are unlimited.

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.

This is a good point actually. A very good point.

What happens to the game if enough people decide that playing for free is a better deal than paying $15 a month to play a couple hours a week?

NCSoft has proven several times they are NOT shy about pulling the plug on games that aren't making them money. Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, Lineage all gone, or soon to be gone.

If enough people decide that they would rather play for free and nopt really buy any microtransaction stuff, suddenly you have a game that has the exact same population it did before, but is now actively LOSING money, because half of those people are playing for free now.

It's a more realistic scenario than some are giving it credit for. How many in this thread alone would cancel their subscription tomorrow if you could play for free without really losing that much? Probably better than half. That cross-section would probably extend more or less the same across the game.

So what would NCSoft do if their game retains the same population, and costs just as much to operate, and is suddenly bringing in less than half the profit it was with the subscription model?

There are 2 ways they can go with a free to play model.

1) Make the entire game free and not really take anything away from people. Result: People aren't spending money anymore, game goes dark because the profits dropped below what NCSoft finds acceptable.

2) Make the game free, but charge people small amounts for every little thing they do. Result: The game starts bleeding players like an arterial wound and the game goes dark because not enough people are even playing anymore to provide a profit level NCSoft finds acceptable.

If this game's profits drop below the threshold of what NCSoft will support and stays there for more than a couple months, they WILL pull the plug on it. They've done it at least 3 times now, and I don't think they'll hesitate to do it again. NCSoft does not CARE about your play experience, they care about their bottom line. Caring about our play experience is the individual dev teams' jobs. NCSoft just decides whether or not they will support a game.

The only way a free to play model is going to happen is if the devs can guarantee NCSoft that the game will continue to be profitable using that model. Looking at games that have failed after going free to play, that's going to be a real tough sell.

Is my outlook on this a little pessimistic? Yes, but it's also very realistic. If CoH goes free to play, I'll be anticipating the game being shut down within 18 months.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

The senarios you spin don't mention anything about new/returning players joining the player base as mentioned in other posts.

Eh, sometimes I'm too subtle. My intended points were:

1) Saying something will "never" happen to a given game is just so much smoke-blowing and wishful thinking. Regardless of anything we as the player base want, the company will do what it believes is best for the company. NOT the game, NOT the players.

2) As a general rule, the Devs here don't speak in absolutes. Player perceptions aside, they wisely tend to avoid committing to an absolute course of action by not using terms like "always" or "never", or providing exact dates for releases, or... the list is endless. Frankly, that way lies madness.

That's why I started off with the apology because it's a pet peeve of mine. And you are right the devs rarely speak in absolutes. It's just that Power Customization is the one people tend to incorrectly use as an example instead of Inherent Stamina which one dev did say something along the lines of he'd rather get rid of stamina altogether than make it inherent.