84 réponses à ce sujet

[Shallina]

Guild wars isn't a F2P.
F2P are for games not good enought to be P2P, and are mostly a scam.

[Seagloom]

Dorateen wrote...

Long live NWN2 and [b]Obsidian

Here, here!

I cannot say this news surprises me. Ever since Cryptic's collapse I knew this project would careen into a wall much like what can happen with a car when its driver suddenly croaks. My interest in Neverwinter waned several months ago when the limitations of its forge tools and character building options became apparent. (I mean c'mon... no bards? Feh! ) This update pushes it completely off my radar.

Going with a free to play model from the onset could work out, and I may even give it a go sometimes. It will not, however, be anything like the Neverwinter Nights games I know and love. Without what made those games special, I see no reason to glom unto this one. I rather get my online action from Guild Wars 2 or even DDO instead. The free to play options are varied and ever increasing, and this game lacks a hook to reel me in.

[Seagloom]

Shallina wrote...

Guild wars isn't a F2P.
F2P are for games not good enought to be P2P, and are mostly a scam.

That is not always true on both counts. Free to play models are the likely future of the MMO genre. Subscription based MMOs are becoming less and less viable for a variety of reasons. I would not be surprised if SWtOR is the last AAA MMO we see start with a subscription model.

Modifié par Seagloom, 08 octobre 2011 - 01:21 .

[Heather Cline]

Not a huge fan of MMO's myself and probably won't touch this game. However, what I can say is that the subscription based MMO games just aren't cutting it. In today's economy not many people if at all can afford a monthly subscription. Because of this problem, they are going the way of micro transactions. Micro transactions still makes the company money, but doesn't force a monthly fee onto those who cannot pay to play. Also it will draw the company bigger crowds and as such they will make money hands over fist.

[The Fred]

Shallina wrote...
Guild wars isn't a F2P.
F2P are for games not good enought to be P2P, and are mostly a scam.

1) I can go play Guild Wars now if I want without paying any money. I was given the game yonks ago and haven't payed them a bean since (or ever, since it was a present). That's sound pretty free to me.

Also, pay-to-play games are mostly a scam too. Admittedly "free-to-play" often means that yes, you *can* play it for free, but if you want to get a weapon which does more than 1 damage, you have to shell out. As Quixal was saying, though, GW is an example of a game where the microtransactions are for almost entirely cosmetic things (a few bonuses maybe, but they're very careful to keep PvP for example limited so you don't have to pay to win).

Pay-to-play means that you never actually own the game, really. You just keep renting the ability to play it.

[Shallina]

It's not free , I have bought the game and extensions for guildwars.

As for P2P MMO, those that are well made earns a lot of money and have a lot of player. To bad that you can count them on the fingers of one hand.

[MerinTB]

Neverwinter by Cryptic was one that I was eagerly anticipating. Until they were bought by that new company that does all the free-to-play (non-subscription is what I always took that to mean in MMO speak, but maybe I'm wrong)...
I loved City of Heroes, after all, even if I don't like MMO's overall.
And this wasn't supposed to be an MMO, after all.

Now that they were bought, however, and all these changes are being made (you cannot tell me it isn't the new company putting the hammer down on "this is the kind of games we make!") I have lost all interest in it.

To be clear - this isn't some fanyboyism over the BioWare and Obsidian NWN games. Not. At. All.

I was a fan of the ORIGINAL Neverwinter Nights. One of the first MMO's. Used SSI's Gold Box engine and ran on AOL. Before there was a BioWare. So this would have been more a return to those roots.

So, yes I'm disappointed and no longer interested in this game. But NOT because of BioWare or Obsidian NWN versions. Just because the new game model makes me think I might as well try DDO if I want this experience - and I don't.

[Seagloom]

Shallina wrote...

As for P2P MMO, those that are well made earns a lot of money and have a lot of player. To bad that you can count them on the fingers of one hand.

That is a key reason F2P has a good chance of becoming the dominant business model. When a single MMO giants and a handful of lesser known niche titles carved out most of the pie for themselves, little room for competition to succeed is left.

That said, I expect the quality of future F2P games to vary wildly. Some of them will invariably turn out poorly if buying items with real cash is the only way to keep your character relevant. If a player can buy items anyone can find in the game world, or has tons of cosmetic trinkets to buy, F2P is the more enticing approach.

A good F2P model would balance time versus expense. For example, someone who is a casual player could spend real money to keep up with her guild mates that have the free time to spend hours grinding. Either way the item is accessible. Only to price to attain it differs.

A well done F2P game allows a player to set their own investment level. They can put as much or little into the game as they want. Whereas a subscription model is neverending and neverchanging. No matter how many hours a person plays, their fee is the same. It does not matter if they are playing every day that month, or one hour per week. Speaking strictly for myself, that is not an enticing prospect.

Guild Wars has a good middle ground going. Pay for the game and access all its vital content freely. Pay for the expansions to access any content they offer. It is very similar to what F2P games do when they ask for fees to access select zones. The only difference is ArenaNet has an initial buy-in fee with the core game. At least that was true before later expansions were offered as standalone entry products.

I think F2P will take off as soon as consumers start shaking the idea that free does not necessarily mean crap, or that games abandoning the subscription approach are not necessarily failures. Considering how much money EA and popular Facebook games make off microtransactions, it is a resource waiting to be tapped. Not every developer can make the next World of Warcraft, and they know it.

[The Fred]

Shallina wrote...
It's not free , I have bought the game and extensions for guildwars.

Nothing is "free", but "free-to-play" means that you only pay for the purchase, not for a subscription. Yes you can split hairs over the terminology but there's a marked distinction between that and something like WoW.

EDIT:

Shallina wrote...
As for P2P MMO, those that are well made earns a lot of money and have a lot of player. To bad that you can count them on the fingers of one hand.

Why is that too bad? Earning money and having a lot of players doesn't make a game good. In theory, the P2P ones could have the money to do really cool things, because of the subscriptions. In reality, there is not always that strong a correlation between price and quality.

Modifié par The Fred, 08 octobre 2011 - 05:21 .

[MerinTB]

The Calculator wrote...

Seagloom wrote...

Shallina wrote...
Guild wars isn't a F2P.
F2P are for games not good enought to be P2P, and are mostly a scam.

That is not always true on both counts. Free to play models are the likely future of the MMO genre. Subscription based MMOs are becoming less and less viable for a variety of reasons. I would not be surprised if SWtOR is the last AAA MMO we see start with a subscription model.

I agree, I'll even go one further and say with in about a year SWTOR will also have a F2P model as well as the subscription.  

I'll even speculate one step further and say that they have probably been seriously consider F2P for at least the last year of development but are too far along with the older WoW model and feel they HAVE TO release as a subscription model to start if they are going to compete with WoW, or some reasoning along those lines.

[Seagloom]

BioWare is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

If they release SWtOR as F2P out the gate, a great many potential consumers would assume the game was crap. The "you get what you pay for" mentality is deeply ingrained into our culture whether it's applicable to a situation or not.

If they wait to switch to a F2P model down the line, the consensus will be the game was a financial flop and is shifting gears because it couldn't hack it under a subscription model. That several past MMOs did just that after hemorrhaging much of their player base wouldn't help appearances any.

SWtOR is "too big to fail" at this point. I don't know if anything short of supplanting WoW as preeminent MMO can steer it away from troubled waters. Not after all the intentional and unintentional hype.

[Banshe]

Wow. If anything this thread has brought a few new faces out of the woodwork. So as many of you seem less than likely to make the jump to NWO, please read this thread here in this forum to get better acquainted with NWN2:

http://social.biowar...2/index/5688433

[AngryFrozenWater]

A modern version of NwN would be great. Currently playing NwN2 and so far I love it, even if it is a bug fest. It definitely needed a little action in there, but if it smells like the action in DA2 then I am out. Subscription models aren't my thing either. I loved the GW model: You buy a campaign and play it whenever you want and how many times you want - either solo or with others and with several ways to play it. I won't buy anything that requires a monthly fee. So I guess this title is not for me.

[MerinTB]

Seagloom wrote...
SWtOR is "too big to fail" at this point.

I think that financially it'll be, at worst, barely profitable for EA / BioWare.

Public opinion, reviews, etc., however... I think it's reasonable to argue (at least I would argue it) that SWTOR is too big to succeed at this point.


EDIT -

I waited years for NWN (the BioWare one), eagerly anticipating it like Largo in MegaTokyo (Go for the beer, Boo!) only to try to force myself to like it for years before finally settling on not liking it at all... and not for the OC (which I actually thought was fine.)  For the rules and game mechanics and design philosophy - as a single-player experience.  I didn't enjoy my attempts at it multi-player, and I made several, but I'm not criticizing that part as it was clearly not for me.

NWN2, surprisingly, I did quite enjoy just recently (last game I played before what I'm currently playing, Dead Island.)  But I have to begrudgingly agree with AFW above... it is the worst bug-fest I've experienced as a PC gamer, and I'm playing it years after it's released and been patched like crazy.

Modifié par MerinTB, 08 octobre 2011 - 08:00 .

[kamal_]

You two should try community work. Most of those bugs have been resolved.

[The Fred]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...
A modern version of NwN would be great. Currently playing NwN2 and so far I love it, even if it is a bug fest.

NWN2 kind of is the modern NWN1. Unfortunately it never got the 1.69 update and lost a couple of things along the way, but gained far more. It's just a damn pain to run. Also, people complain about the bugs but I've encountered very few - certainly little that's gamebreaking or anything. If it's fully patched, it's not too bad (beyond the camera which can be fixed), and there are quite a lot of community-made modifications and fixes too.

[foil-]

Ya, the bugs seem to be very hardware/computer specific. I was hit by very few bugs on 3 different machines. Even at release. Most of the things that bug me are performance related.

But I agree with the above about NWN1. Just couldn't buy into henchmen. And I also found the official campaign fine. Not Baldur's Gate fine, but still.

[Shallina]

WoW showed that you can do technical complexe game without any major bug.

Check NWN2 vs WoW for exemple NWN2 is younger, but the technologie behind can't be compare, WoW for hundreds of reasons is years ahead.

Most of the P2P that were made after WoW were in the same case, even if the release was after they were completly behind for many many reasons.

No wonder they don't have plenty of player when it's obvious the poeple making these games didn't even check the leaders of the market to see where they need to be for the "quality" of the software if they want a chance.

 F2P it's not what you say Fred.

A F2P you download it and play it for free, but if you want to "really play" the game you need to invest a lot in a cash shop and you need to pay more than a P2P in the end.


Guild wars is a P2P, you can't play for free, you need to buy the game.

And don't dream F2P can't compete and will nevers compete with real P2P.

Modifié par Shallina, 08 octobre 2011 - 11:50 .

[Seagloom]

The Calculator wrote...

I just like to make a note and say I find it very intresting that SWTOR doesn't have a one year subsciption.

Good observation. Maybe they won't even last that long. I imagine even WoW will falter someday. They have been steadily losing subscribers awhile now, and have opened up some game content as part of an infinite free trial. It's clear even Blizzard is flirting with the idea to make up a loss in revenue.

[Shallina]

It's a 7 years old game, the fact that it' is still going this strong is really incredible

[MerinTB]

I am one to own up to my own ignorance...

I had a contextual concept of what "free to play" meant in regards to MMO's, but I was quite wrong.

Free to play does, in fact, specifically mean paying nothing to start playing... no initial purchase and no subscription fee.

I had thought it only meant no subscription fee for MMO's.

THAT'S what I meant when I referred to SWTOR going "free to play" at launch. They'd NEVER give the game away for free at launch, no way in heck.

Anywho, I stand corrected.

And I think there needs to be a term for MMO's that have no subscription fee but you still need to buy the initial game.

[Seagloom]

I use free to play to encompass both categories. If the term is a colloquialism I use it however I see fit. No one has chiseled F2P in stone to mean one thing always. Look at the RPG label and what a cluster**** *that* is, for example.

[MerinTB]

Seagloom wrote...
I use free to play to encompass both categories. If the term is a colloquialism I use it however I see fit. No one has chiseled F2P in stone to mean one thing always. Look at the RPG label and what a cluster**** *that* is, for example.

I would tend to agree with you, but here's what comes up in a Google search of "free to play", the first four items I see at least:

http://store.steampo...re/Free to Play - Steam categorizes them here as ones that cost nothing to download and play.  Their on-page definition: "Free-to-Play games are available to download for free and can be played without a subscription or a credit card. Your Steam wallet allows you to purchase items and content in-game to customize your gameplay."
http://freetoplay.org/ - a site dedicated to F2P MMO's and the like, and while vague-ish on defining the term (one could read it as meaning no subscription fee) all the games it links to (all the ones I clicked on at least) and such are absolutely free so...
http://en.wikipedia....ki/Free-to-play - I know, wikipedia is teh 3vil... but the definition and examples there are pretty clear-cut: "Free-to-play (F2P) refers to any video game that has the option of allowing its players to play without paying."
http://teamfortress.com/freetoplay/ - yep, absolutely free to download and play

So I seriously believed (and part of my mind is still rebelling at having "read the meaning wrong contextually all this time") it meant "no subscription" only, but unlike "true believers" I can change my mind when presented with some hard evidence.

Modifié par MerinTB, 09 octobre 2011 - 12:20 .