[GurrenLagann]

yet another mmo goes f2p.

will f2p consume everything?

[dirtyklingon]

quite honestly i don't think the f2p model is that great, but since devs refuse to do anything other than charge $15 OR go f2p/b2p instead of you know maybe lowering the sub price to something reasonable for what their product offers(like $10), it's just going to be the way it is.


wether it's tera or rift or w/e $15 is hefty to pay for that level of quality and depth of play, on an ongoing basis. where as for something like wow or eve it comes off as being a better value. and $10 would probably keep more people playing- then again it's debatable if any level of sub would keep that many people playing these games for what they offer. there's very little about any of them that appeal to a fair margin of people on a longer term basis.

where as imho games like swtor and tsw should've never had subs, and maybe should've never attempted to be mmo's. i think swtor would've been a great online only coop rpg if they had removed about 80% of hte nyerkty g bin side quests, and tsw while the leveling content as a whole is excelent, again it should've been the current model it is now from the beginning and billed as a online only coop rpg with some pvp modes, and focused on the b2p/paid dlc model from the beginning.

trying to force people ot pay a $15 sub for what those games offer(ed) only hurt them imho.

i think tsw's b2p model has a lot of promise, but i doubt it will catchon quickly, though tera's model seems to be rather similar to it minus the box price and paid DLC's. that being said TSW's content patches have been more frequent and higher quality than much of what 2012(and late 2011)'s mmo's have offered. the model tsw is doing is very similar to what non mmo gamers are already used to as is, and at a better value than what those games tend to offer to boot.

i think as far as the gw2 flavour of that model goes, there's a lot of backlash amongst non gw2 fanboy gamers towards both the chests and how the gem exchange model has been handled, as well as how they've progressively and aggressively altered the gameplay/grind rates to promote the purchase of gems. overall gw2's cash shop feels much the same as a PWE asian f2p cash shop, except in this case you have to drop 40-60$ to enter the game at all unlike other games that use very similar cash shops, and for the kinds of stuff that gamers love to drop money on, gw2's cash shop is just sparse as nyerk(ie cosmetics, skins, clothing, etc).


as fo rthe sub model- i think it still has some fight in it, or rather may return again hte in future in a big way, but it won't be at $15 a month, or/ and it may more closer resmble what we're seeing with games liek tsw and tera, tsw in particualr where there's a box cost and then a premium sub option with a bunch of perks and stipend of cash shop points.


as for tera itself, it's going to need a lot more than a model change ot keep it's head above water, same as swtor. they just don't offer much in terms of fun beyond some half baked gimmick novleties. for swtor it's the story which you can (albeit painfully) do for free, where as tera wastes allit's energy on the medicore for it's subgenre combat system while never fully deeveloping any of the great to standard on paper but in practive rather flat and dull activities the game offers.

[GurrenLagann]

i think f2p works for some games and doesnt work for others.

shooters kinda work, like team fortress.
action rts like league of legends and dota work too, but i think dota has a better model.
mmos is kinda hard because they need to make money but obviously so far costumes is not enough to make money so they always end up putting extra things that end up hurting the game.

even eve online which i always though was an mmo that stood up on its own without trying to become "more like wow" implemented a cash shop sort of. I guess from now on we can expect nothing less than a cash shop in games or some sort of "premium" on f2p games.

[dirtyklingon]

non mmo games are adding cash shops too. mass effect 3 has a cash shop, that includes the abusive lockbox mechanic a la pwe games like STO.


and ofc no matter how p2w these cash shops are, the game devs are always like "hurr durr it's not pay to win at all it's just convenience!" because they are utterly out of touch with what pay to win actuall ymeans in reality.


idk i really like the tsw model as it stands now

buy the box for $30
cash shop is 90% outfits without stats(since stats and looks are totally seperated), and 10% exp boosters basically, and account services.
future content packs are $5 a pop (which is a better value than similar level of content addons for non mmo games, which range from $10-20)
premium sub option at $15- included stipend of $5 worth of cash shop points, exp booster allocation per month, DLC released while subbed included in price.

they could actually strip out the boosters or the stipend and get better sales on it at $10 though.

but in general it brings it in line with what i thought the game should be at launch instead of branding it an mmo and trying to charge a required $15 a month- sell it not as an mmo but as a online only coop rpg with a cash shop, not totally unlike diablo 3.

that would also negate the vocal consumer preconception that for an mmo to be at all decent it MUST last a player years upon years of constant marathon play. i think d3 had that preconception only because of d2, but i think we all remember my thoughts on why d3 was judged unfairly compared to d2(not that i even like d3 either, i jsut don't see it as being much if any different in terms of what you do and the content involved than d2- i certainly never was bdazzled by d2's randomized maps being any thing different from d3's somewhat less randomized maps though, then again randomized maps were nothing new to me with d2 to begin with).

ofc with tsw it was facing an uphill battle with the negative if not toxic brand perception of funcom so...

with tera, i don't think alot of people realized who biran knox is, and certainly still see alot of people not caring fi he was doing the same with tera that he did with aion. which is another topic altogether(in terms of the stupid sales practices that only hurt longevity of products that depend on retaining and returning customers).


f2p for tera? i doubt it will do any better than aoc did with f2p. they'll have a big surge of players and reveneues for a little while, then it'll peter out as they fail to deliver content and activities at a decent rate, same as they were when they had a high number of paid sub players.

not much different than swtor really.

[Neeni]

I might actually try playing tera once my internet is back to normal. I played the beta but it seemed quite erm... Too korean to me - most boring quests evur created. I wonder how is the pvp later on. I guess i sucked at playing a warrior as well :/

[reflexion]

saw that comming, tera is like SWTOR; fun for a month

[Neb]

Tera is fun if you just want a few short months of fun. That's what I did then sold my account.

[Wolfen]

I resubbed on TERA meanwhile waiting for the F2P and I must admit that the game is still enjoynable, a bit too much gear based for a wannabe skill-based game, but since gearing thru BGs is really easy and fast it's not really that much of an issue (took me 3 days to gear up).

Sadly, Gameforge/Frogster are still running the European version, which of course, means big lag spikes/server freezes (it's like playing on a bad Lineage II private server), specially during the Nexus (where you're forced to log out since the server can't handle it, unless you want to play with at least 2/3 seconds delay on everything).

The F2P patch looks interesting (specially the 3v3 arenas), and they were talking about a faction vs faction vs faction system for the future.

[dirtyklingon]

[Neb]

Best part about that game. They don't even try hiding it.

[GurrenLagann]

i have a lvl20 something lancer from when the trial was around, the character prob still exists but i have no idea about the server.

and the game started to get very repetitive and boring at those lvls which is why i never ended up buying it.

so, what do you think about the game dk?

[Neb]

Level 20 is when you can start soloing the big dudes. That was fun for quite a while for me. Finding harder and harder guys to solo. Balrogs (Can't remember the in game name) and the Space ship dudes were tough.

[Nobody]

Yeah, I enjoyed the combat system in that game for quite a while across different characters. It was a very grindy game though.

[dirtyklingon]

i think the combat is for the most part meh. although i do like the macrosss tyle homing missle skill as an archer.


for me it's more about doing new content i haven't seen before with guildies. and maybe getting some world pvp in.

[Neb]

Why do you find it so meh?

Not to say it's amazing or anything, but it was the main grab to the game for me.

[dirtyklingon]

because action combat is neither new nor particularly exicting to me.



as well as i'm not particularly fond of the recent trend fo hybridazation of genres to the nth degree. wether it's rpg stuff in fps games, or fps/shooter stuff in rpg games.

it's ok for what it is, but generally speaking the whole ":true action combat!!!!!!!!!!111111" speel has had me rolling my eyes for a long time now.


anyone know a good spec builder web app?

[Nobody]

Does it have to be new or exciting to just feel fun? Their combat felt fun for me until I got up to level 30-something and it started to have lots and lots of repetition. I played mostly as Mystic and then did some Lancer, so it could be that some classes were just more fun than others to play.

Also, I was a big, fat cat named Lol when I originally played the game before it launched in the western market. That might have helped things.

[dirtyklingon]

it was repetitive for me in beta already. it was just funner last night because i was playing new content with a new friend.


the combat is meh as nyerk aside from those macross style missiles. i mean it's ok but it's not interesting or funner than anything else out there. the first time i played (back in eu beta) i found it so meh i logged out after a half hour as it was.

[Neb]

Different strokes I guess. I played Warrior and Zerker mostly, both were quite a lot of fun, in different ways.

This post has been edited by Neb: 06 February 2013 - 04:17 PM

[Device]