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Quarterly Producer Letter for Q2 2024 ×

'If' the game goes F2P, What happens?


KiaThas

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A bajillion people come to play this game and Bioware makes reee-donkulous amounts of money. The internet hounds will bark and whine "fail, fail, fail" but the truth is that freemium flat out makes more money than P2P unless you're WoW. It's still much too early to make such a drastic move though, freemium conversions need to be very carefully considered and planned. You need merely look at some of the games that have made that switch to see how it can be done (Turbine) and how it most definitely shouldn't be done (Sony).

 

Of course Sony as a whole is a fine example of how a great many things shouldn't be done.

 

I like the Sony part :)

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LOL

 

What a load of crap.

 

Why do you say it is a load of crap? Cause he is telling the 100% truth, you can buy everything that the store has without ever spending a dime. You gain Turbine points for playing the game, which in turn are used to buy things from the store. yes it would take grinding to do that, but it can be done.

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LOL

 

What a load of crap.

 

Your ignorant. Please don't open your mouth unless you really know something. I've done it myself. I initially paid the montly fee to be premium, then decided to try out this claim that you can play the entire game for free.

 

And you can.

 

there are some caveats though. It's an amazing system, but it still boils down to time vs. money. grinding out all the quests (even low level ones), unlocking all your virtues (more grinding), etc.

 

you get turbine points every time you finish a quest, unlock a virtue, complete a deed (tons of deed in the game...7-10 per zone), you get points. you use points to do various things, from unlocking new zones to buying crafting materials when you don't want to farm for them.

 

Thing is...if you simply go out and do everything in the game...you get points !! or you can buy points in the store. or you can pay 15$ a month and get open access to the game, and 500 points a month to spend on whatever.

 

there is absolutely nothing in LotRO that you can't get by just playing the entire game. There are even websites that map it out for you. It's not hard to find that information.

 

and on the note of F2P...its an old old superstition that only dying games go f2p (actually transaction based really, but like i said...you can stil get it all for free if you work hard enough.) LotRO actually went transaction based when they saw how profitiable it was with DDO...they had seen no drop in their customer base prior to that, it wasn't an emergency reaction (though it was for DDO). but even with DDO, it completely revitalized the game.

 

the secret behind PtP/MicTrans/whatever you want to call it isn't that it robs it's playerbase and makes them pay more...it's that it attracts more people...some who will play free, and some who will pay to play. So the average per player goes down, but the available player base increases exponentially, giving them a greater profit overall.

 

I was against PtP up until i saw LotRO's model. Now, I really don't like some of the "marketing changes" they made to the game...like adding bigger then necessary buttons to access the store. or having huge "hey, if you pay points you can unlock this quest!"icon above NPC's heads. But the system is hard to beat. I could care less if It goes PtP as long as I can still do the 15 a month option for full access (like LotRO did). It really is the best of both worlds.

 

But...if they stick with the monthly fee option I wouldn't argue either. Im paying 15 a month for this game because I enjoy it, and thats good enough for me

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LOL

 

What a load of crap.

 

http://lotro.mmorsel.com/2011/01/realizing-free-to-play-dream.html

 

Here's a dude who's unlocked all the LOTRO content and almost all the features and only spent $10.

 

That's pretty hardcore, and I wouldn't recommend doing that, but watching sales and spending wisely you can get everything out of LOTRO for $60 or so without having to grind. And no it's not "pay to win" as you can't buy top-end items or anything, it's mostly content or things like character slots.

 

It's still way more content for way less money. If you're subbed to SWTOR from release through March you've basically given BW/EA $100 to beta test their game.

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Why do you say it is a load of crap? Cause he is telling the 100% truth, you can buy everything that the store has without ever spending a dime. You gain Turbine points for playing the game, which in turn are used to buy things from the store. yes it would take grinding to do that, but it can be done.

 

You're going to essentially do the longest and worst grind of your life to get 800 TP for one expansion?

 

Then turn around and get 1400 TP or w.e Isengard costs nowadays again?

 

 

I played a Warden to 44 on the free content, but not really since I was a VIP for a month or two and I bought Mines of Moria Expansion.

 

From 1-44ish I earned maybe 200-300 TP from grinding Deeds and what not. While it is feasible to do it MAYBE and get all the content ( I won't presume to know the amount of TP earned through free content)

 

It is not possible to get all of LOTROs content for FREE unless you're a jobless, basement dwelling, life sucking mammas boy. (IF it is even possible)

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http://lotro.mmorsel.com/2011/01/realizing-free-to-play-dream.html

 

Here's a dude who's unlocked all the LOTRO content and almost all the features and only spent $10.

 

That's pretty hardcore, and I wouldn't recommend doing that, but watching sales and spending wisely you can get everything out of LOTRO for $60 or so without having to grind. And no it's not "pay to win" as you can't buy top-end items or anything, it's mostly content or things like character slots.

 

It's still way more content for way less money. If you're subbed to SWTOR from release through March you've basically given BW/EA $100 to beta test their game.

 

Thats a nice little article. Although it's even easier now, since some of the upper expansions (such as mirkwood) they have opened for f2p. But I did pretty much what he did...filled up my slots with characters, leveled every one up to 20 or so, used those points to unlock the next area, etc. if one of you characters outlevels the others, and runs out of zones to play, you camp them in an inn (too collect rested exp of course!) and level a few of the others until your points grow.

 

Team up with guildees to grind out the higher level deeds and gain the points from them. things like that.If SwTOR put together a similar model, I think that many people would be pleasantly suprised, and many people who quit the game would come back.

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I would play it.

 

I don't see how $15 a month for a single player game is justified.

 

Yeah, I think SWTOR would have been better as f2p anyway, releasing new chapters to the class stories or new planets as mini-expansions. More like xbox Live DLC. As is it's just not a game worth paying a subscription for, since it's not really an mmo. It's a single-player game with multiplayer support.

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That's interesting. . .I could of sworn I ran through EV with guildmates and 2 randoms last night. . .Maybe they were NPCs.

 

So, you stood around in a main lobby waiting for other people to group up for one specific instance to run through?

 

How is that any different than Diablo, or Phantasy Star Online, or Mass Effect 3's multiplayer? Aside from costing $15 a month (which the online RPGs I mentioned don't).

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So, you stood around in a main lobby waiting for other people to group up for one specific instance to run through?

 

How is that any different than Diablo, or Phantasy Star Online, or Mass Effect 3's multiplayer? Aside from costing $15 a month (which the online RPGs I mentioned don't).

 

How is that any different then Rift or WoW? Those MMOs are single player with multi-player aspects as well I suppose.

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Yeah, I think SWTOR would have been better as f2p anyway, releasing new chapters to the class stories or new planets as mini-expansions. More like xbox Live DLC. As is it's just not a game worth paying a subscription for, since it's not really an mmo. It's a single-player game with multiplayer support.

 

Thats a cool idea.

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How is that any different then Rift or WoW? Those MMOs are single player with multi-player aspects as well I suppose.

 

It's different because they have a tool which they click, and the system matches them into a group, while they wait.

 

Oh wait...

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Also, most of the microtransactions that Blizzard does are almost as expensive as a one month sub to the game, and the fact that you have to pay for server transfers and such are a good chunk of the money they're making from the game.

 

 

The guild I was in when I was playing WoW had 127 characters transfer to a different server. That was a cost (collectively) of $3175.00 and it is just 1 example. It happens all the time.

 

Name change costs money, you can pay to change faction (which is accomplished in less than 1/2 hour with all mounts and armor changing - it's amazing technology).

 

Their mount and pet store makes Fannie and Freddie drool.

 

That game is and has been a cash cow that never ever ends.

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Bioware should have never picked on this MMO because I am pretty sure it's going to fail HARD once GW2, D3 and MoP comes out. GW2 alone delivers more than this game can ever dream of delivering. Bioware's name will turn into **** because of this game's failure. They should have stayed with SP games.
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Bioware should have never picked on this MMO because I am pretty sure it's going to fail HARD once GW2, D3 and MoP comes out. GW2 alone delivers more than this game can ever dream of delivering. Bioware's name will turn into **** because of this game's failure. They should have stayed with SP games.

 

I am pretty sure you aren't sure about what you're talking about.

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