Pay to Win

[forthegz]

I don't understand why people give the F2P/Sub system SWTOR has such a hard time.

 

First of all, I except ANY rock solid MMO to be subscription based. The reason for that is triple A MMO's are EXTREMELY expensive to maintain and to create new content for, meaning you have an enormous amount of expense. So having a subscription allows a monthly cash injection to, obviously profit and also pay for all of that ****, thus making the game better.

 

As a customer, I have absolutely no problem paying a monthly subscription for an MMO that is of triple A status and frankly, fun and enjoyable.

 

Many people for some reason talk **** on SWTOR's F2P model. They apparently don't realize that they are complaining about something that is FREE TO PLAY. Meaning you contribute NOTHING to them and you get to play through an entire BIOWARE status RPG story, actually multiple stories and the other aspects you're allowed to use as FREE TO PLAY. So complaining about something that cost you literally nothing, is just absolutely ridiculous. If the free to play content is not enough for you to enjoy the game, than you should probably subscribe, however, if you're unemployed and $15 a month is too expensive for you, than you should probably look for a job instead of complaining about FREE to PLAY games on the internet.

[captpickles]

It is 50c a day.... get over it, get a job, donate blood, mow lawns, wash cars, work 2 days a month etc...

 

15$ is not hard to come buy...

 

you could also :

 

stop drinking soda, live longer and have more money

stop smoking

drink less alcohol

hit the drive through less

stop drinking overprice coffee

 

meh

[BadOrb]

Yet another person who doesn't know what pay2win is.

 

this ^ and what an original thread they have created. Mind boggles. I give up today really.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

[LordArtemis]

I have found, more often than not, that the model cited as an example of P2W for this game is usually invalid IMO because the subscription payment seems to fit the same description.

[Propane]

People paid $60 for the game when it first came out. Those became the first batch of premium players after the relaunch. Buying a month of subscription or $5.00 or credits gets someone on par with far less investment.

 

This ^

 

I doubt BioEAware cares about the customers that actually supported the game from the start.

[Propane]

The point of this is to show out outrageous the restrictions are for free to play players. Hell they can't even write on this forum and voice their opinions.

 

I doubt anyone made it to 50 without paying on the market to get rid of some of their restrictions or just paid for a subscription.

Hell, I bet they would make more money with a real f2p system instead of this glorified demo. Look how successful Riot was with league, you can go pro in that game without paying a penny. Look how good LOTRO is doing compared to swtor with their F2P - they get as much players in a day than SWTOR gets in a month. And that game is 6 years old.

 

I don't expect anyone to agree with me due to them having being forced to play this knowing that they are paying monthly.

 

No 50 cents a day isn't a lot of money, but not everyone is paying with their parents money.

 

This is straight from their restrictions page: "Cannot equip most purple items" - that is an example for pay to win for all of you who don't know what pay to win means.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Propane

[Propane]

Now excuse me while I go play better MMOs - where I am rewarded for supporting the game upon, unlike some games I know..Also with those free content update that I am allowed to enjoy without having to pay even more on top of a subscription on the cartel market.

 

Go ahead, close down the forum - this is the closest you will get of criticism because all F2P players are 100% ignored by this company.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Propane

[OddballEasyEight]

The point of this is to show out outrageous the restrictions are for free to play players. Hell they can't even write on this forum and voice their opinions.

 

I doubt anyone made it to 50 without paying on the market to get rid of some of their restrictions or just paid for a subscription.

Hell, I bet they would make more money with a real f2p system instead of this glorified demo. Look how successful Riot was with league, you can go pro in that game without paying a penny. Look how good LOTRO is doing compared to swtor with their F2P - they get as much players in a day than SWTOR gets in a month. And that game is 6 years old.

 

I don't expect anyone to agree with me due to them having being forced to play this knowing that they are paying monthly.

 

No 50 cents a day isn't a lot of money, but not everyone is paying with their parents money.

 

This is straight from their restrictions page: "Cannot equip most purple items" - that is an example for pay to win for all of you who don't know what pay to win means.

 

Actually, i know of two who made it to lvl 50 without buying anything on the CM (as in they are true F2P players and not preferred).

They are both from my guild.

I tink one of them is preferred now because he bought the expansion and subbed for a month to level up faster on makeb, but he is now back to preferred.

But none of them whine about it. Because they know that everything in the game that they can use and play is FREE.

They didnt pay a single penny for it.

Whining about not getting everything for free is a bit self entitled.

 

And dont give me the "not everyone is paying with their parents money" line. I work for a living, and i choose to spend my money on being subscribed to this game.

Why?

Because i want this game to survive. And it wont if everyone gets to play it 100% free and never pay for anything.

[Kingsbount]

Actually, i know of two who made it to lvl 50 without buying anything on the CM (as in they are true F2P players and not preferred).

They are both from my guild.

I tink one of them is preferred now because he bought the expansion and subbed for a month to level up faster on makeb, but he is now back to preferred.

But none of them whine about it. Because they know that everything in the game that they can use and play is FREE.

They didnt pay a single penny for it.

Whining about not getting everything for free is a bit self entitled.

 

And dont give me the "not everyone is paying with their parents money" line. I work for a living, and i choose to spend my money on being subscribed to this game.

Why?

Because i want this game to survive. And it wont if everyone gets to play it 100% free and never pay for anything.

 

Agree 100%

[Amaranth]

I doubt anyone made it to 50 without paying on the market to get rid of some of their restrictions or just paid for a subscription.

 

That's kind of the point, to get you to spend money. I'm always amused at people who think developers release F2P games out of sheer kindness. They do so to hook you enough that you end up spending money to remove some of those restrictions.

 

Hell, I bet they would make more money with a real f2p system instead of this glorified demo. Look how successful Riot was with league, you can go pro in that game without paying a penny. Look how good LOTRO is doing compared to swtor with their F2P - they get as much players in a day than SWTOR gets in a month. And that game is 6 years old.

 

I can't speak for League, but LOTRO has quite a few restrictions as well. Limited inventory (which is a pretty big problem in that game), limited trait slots, gold limit, fewer skirmishes, and no automatic access to zone quests outside the starter zones. Now granted you can earn Turbine points in game, which is a nice system and something Bioware could possibly consider. But even so, it's pretty hard to go all the way through that game without spending money. Which is, again, the point of these hybrid systems.

 

I don't expect anyone to agree with me due to them having being forced to play this knowing that they are paying monthly.

 

Not sure why you think anyone is being forced to do anything. If I no longer enjoy the game, I cancel my subscription and stop playing. Simple as that.

 

No 50 cents a day isn't a lot of money, but not everyone is paying with their parents money.

 

Oh please, this tired excuse again. I stopped using my parents money 18 years ago. $15 a month is less than 20% of my cable bill; it's pretty much insignificant for me.

[LordArtemis]

Other than perhaps the mail restrictions (I think free players should be able to mail among their legacy by paying for it) I think the restrictions are not that bad. The unlocks are expensive, yes, but free players in the market have been known to have deep pockets (an irony of the F2P market).

[Ayelinna]

A lot of people want this game to survive. This game went free to play in less than a year because many people felt this game wasn't worth a subscription fee, and also because this game was over hyped, it's nothing to do with "oh well the industry is changing and people prefer f2p" none of that nonsense.

 

There's one alternative to the CM in order to keep this game alive financially...and that's to make subscription worth something.

 

But the issue is that this is a casual game, and people expected a bit more than just a theme park, on rails game. I think that 1 person who buys cartel coins "casually" is worth about 5 subscribers. There's no doubt that Bioware has got a lot of money from the cartel market.

 

This is the only star wars MMO out there, they shut down SWG for this, (remember SWG lost so many subscribers because it tried to copy WoW and make it casual). Star wars is probably one of the worlds biggest franchises, and I personally feel that EA are exploiting it with this game.

 

Gone are the days of traditional MMOs.

[Spatology]

A lot of people want this game to survive. This game went free to play in less than a year because many people felt this game wasn't worth a subscription fee, and also because this game was over hyped, it's nothing to do with "oh well the industry is changing and people prefer f2p" none of that nonsense.

 

There's one alternative to the CM in order to keep this game alive financially...and that's to make subscription worth something.

 

But the issue is that this is a casual game, and people expected a bit more than just a theme park, on rails game. I think that 1 person who buys cartel coins "casually" is worth about 5 subscribers. There's no doubt that Bioware has got a lot of money from the cartel market.

 

This is the only star wars MMO out there, they shut down SWG for this, (remember SWG lost so many subscribers because it tried to copy WoW and make it casual). Star wars is probably one of the worlds biggest franchises, and I personally feel that EA are exploiting it with this game.

 

Gone are the days of traditional MMOs.

 

This is a gross exaggeration. The game went FTP so EA had something to show greedy investor/exec's.

 

Bio ware said it could maintain swtor with 250k subs. From what they've told us, they never dipped below 500k. Yet, here we are, FTP as they told us we would never go. Honestly, it was an excuse to churn out quick profit and sate greedy people at the expense of game quality.

 

It's no secret that gaming companies are pushing games towards the FTP model, since it nets more profit per pixel. This is not a consumer driven convention and its sad that companies think: " if we tell them FTP is the future. They will just accept it ".

 

Sad truth, we will, but the gamer is no better for it.

[Grayseven]

The point of this is to show out outrageous the restrictions are for free to play players. Hell they can't even write on this forum and voice their opinions.

 

I doubt anyone made it to 50 without paying on the market to get rid of some of their restrictions or just paid for a subscription.

Hell, I bet they would make more money with a real f2p system instead of this glorified demo. Look how successful Riot was with league, you can go pro in that game without paying a penny. Look how good LOTRO is doing compared to swtor with their F2P - they get as much players in a day than SWTOR gets in a month. And that game is 6 years old.

 

I don't expect anyone to agree with me due to them having being forced to play this knowing that they are paying monthly.

 

No 50 cents a day isn't a lot of money, but not everyone is paying with their parents money.

 

This is straight from their restrictions page: "Cannot equip most purple items" - that is an example for pay to win for all of you who don't know what pay to win means.

 

Again, you have no clue what pay to win is. You are falsely equating restrictions on players who get to play the game and pay absolutely NOTHING with those who pay a monthly subscription.

 

If subscribers had to pay extra money to get top tier gear in order to be competitive in end-game PvP or PvE...that is pay to win. That is the only definition of pay to win, regardless of what you seem to (erroneously) think.

 

Free to play has always had restrictions. They have restrictions because they get to play for FREE. If they pay the monthly sub or buy Cartel Coins to unlock the things they want to play, then those restrictions are removed...because they paid money. It isn't pay to win, it's called Pay to Play.

 

And to be quite honest, you have the option of buying unlocks off the GTN to remove the restrictions which means you get to play for free AND have restrictions removed.

 

Your arguments sound like nothing more than whining entitlement because you think you should have everything while paying nothing.

[branmakmuffin]

The point of this is to show out outrageous the restrictions are for free to play players. Hell they can't even write on this forum and voice their opinions.

The humanity!

 

[Andryah]

Now excuse me while I go play better MMOs - where I am rewarded for supporting the game upon, unlike some games I know..Also with those free content update that I am allowed to enjoy without having to pay even more on top of a subscription on the cartel market.

 

Go ahead, close down the forum - this is the closest you will get of criticism because all F2P players are 100% ignored by this company.

 

 

Free players do not support a game.. they leech off of it. Subscribers and shop users support a game. This is in fact true of all MMOs that let you play part for free, and charge for part (aka: Freemium).

Edited July 20, 2013 by Andryah

[Zunayson]

i believe that's what he's saying, yes.

 

then wow is pay to win because my trial character isnt as good as the others?

[Tachenko_Yuri]

Try a kixeye game or a bigpoint one. Then you'll be back here and wanting to hug every single one of the devs.

[Sayu]

 

Free players do not support a game.. they leech off of it. Subscribers and shop users support a game. This is in fact true of all MMOs that let you play part for free, and charge for part (aka: Freemium).

 

Sony Online Entertainment boss John Smedley has said all Planetside 2 players are equal in the developer’s eyes, because they’re “content for each other”.

 

....... Y-eah, okay. While different genre, It still does open the door for debate. If as a subscriber I get faster queues for FP/WZ due to more free to play players, is that such a bad thing? While I disagree swtor is pay to win, he is correct in saying free to play players are completely hindered by restrictions that no MMO should have. Subscribers should be rewarded more and get priority for everything. Free to play players shouldn't be handicapped by slower XP. Time is money, as a possible subscriber/current free to play player, are you really going to pay $15 just to gain access to the bare essentials you get in pretty much every MMO on the market? I don't care what your response to that is, you're not going to do that.

[OddballEasyEight]

Sony Online Entertainment boss John Smedley has said all Planetside 2 players are equal in the developer’s eyes, because they’re “content for each other”.

 

....... Y-eah, okay. While different genre, It still does open the door for debate. If as a subscriber I get faster queues for FP/WZ due to more free to play players, is that such a bad thing? While I disagree swtor is pay to win, he is correct in saying free to play players are completely hindered by restrictions that no MMO should have. Subscribers should be rewarded more and get priority for everything. Free to play players shouldn't be handicapped by slower XP. Time is money, as a possible subscriber/current free to play player, are you really going to pay $15 just to gain access to the bare essentials you get in pretty much every MMO on the market? I don't care what your response to that is, you're not going to do that.

 

Well thats a purely PvP type of game.

They NEED as many players as they can get.

But SWTOR doesnt need a massive ammount of players that are paying nothing towards the game development. True F2P players are contributing nothing to the game unfortunately. Sure, they bolster the FP ques a bit making it slightly easier to get into a group, but this game simply isnt dependant on people grouping to truly experience the game.

You can go through the entire game 8 times without grouping once... and then just leave, having contributed nothing to the games other players.

 

But in PS2, you will be contributing from the second you spawn in game the first time... you are basically cannon fodder. YOU are the mobs...

[OddballEasyEight]

A lot of people want this game to survive. This game went free to play in less than a year because many people felt this game wasn't worth a subscription fee, and also because this game was over hyped, it's nothing to do with "oh well the industry is changing and people prefer f2p" none of that nonsense.

 

There's one alternative to the CM in order to keep this game alive financially...and that's to make subscription worth something.

 

But the issue is that this is a casual game, and people expected a bit more than just a theme park, on rails game. I think that 1 person who buys cartel coins "casually" is worth about 5 subscribers. There's no doubt that Bioware has got a lot of money from the cartel market.

 

This is the only star wars MMO out there, they shut down SWG for this, (remember SWG lost so many subscribers because it tried to copy WoW and make it casual). Star wars is probably one of the worlds biggest franchises, and I personally feel that EA are exploiting it with this game.

 

Gone are the days of traditional MMOs.

 

Well that would require them to radically redesign the game which just wont happen. You dont design a game from the ground up as a themepark game and then after 2 years on the market just completely change it to the core to be a sandbox game.

Its just not financially viable since it would cost as much as making a new game (and take almost as long)

[Sayu]

Well thats a purely PvP type of game.

They NEED as many players as they can get.

But SWTOR doesnt need a massive ammount of players that are paying nothing towards the game development. True F2P players are contributing nothing to the game unfortunately. Sure, they bolster the FP ques a bit making it slightly easier to get into a group, but this game simply isnt dependant on people grouping to truly experience the game.

You can go through the entire game 8 times without grouping once... and then just leave, having contributed nothing to the games other players.

 

But in PS2, you will be contributing from the second you spawn in game the first time... you are basically cannon fodder. YOU are the mobs...

 

Still the same premise, If I want faster queues(with subscription) there will be more players in the pool to work with. I agree, but F2P players aren't leeches, they contribute in a big way.

[LordArtemis]

This is a gross exaggeration. The game went FTP so EA had something to show greedy investor/exec's.

 

Well, to be honest this is just as speculative as the post you responded to. Either reason is just as valid and possible.

 

Bio ware said it could maintain swtor with 250k subs. From what they've told us, they never dipped below 500k. Yet, here we are, FTP as they told us we would never go. Honestly, it was an excuse to churn out quick profit and sate greedy people at the expense of game quality.

 

I think game quality was rather poor before the launch of the Market/F2P, and has improved substantially since.

 

It's no secret that gaming companies are pushing games towards the FTP model, since it nets more profit per pixel. This is not a consumer driven convention and its sad that companies think: " if we tell them FTP is the future. They will just accept it ".

 

Sad truth, we will, but the gamer is no better for it.

 

I disagree that it is not a consumer driven convention. I think it is directly driven by consumer interest and patronage. Casuals seem to have a strong interest in store purchases.

 

That, in combination with what seems to be a traditional (or hardcore) player exodus from the MMO market for tougher more challenging FPS games has made it likely that the market it moving toward serving it's new target audience, and that audience is very F2P/market friendly.

[MSchuyler]

This is a gross exaggeration. The game went FTP so EA had something to show greedy investor/exec's.

 

As an investor I am taking my hard-earned money and investing it in EA in hopes that I might make more money than I do on a CD that offer 1/2 a percent interest. But I'll forego dividends and current income in hopes the stock price will rise. It might fall, in which case I will lose part or even all my investment. The point is that I RISK my money to invest in EA hoping they will make a profit and a part of that will pass to me, which I can then use for living expenses in an attempt to stay off the welfare rolls and support myself.

 

And what I see here is a bunch of clueless people who have no idea whatsoever about how to run a company or program a game who seem to feel they are instant experts on both and entitled to call the shots just because they subscribe for a measly $15 a month, the entitlement generation who want character transfers for free just because they say so.

 

Now who is the most greedy? The guy who risks his life savings in hopes a company will do well and make a profit? Or the guy who sucks everything they can out of a company claiming profit is a dirty word?

[Andryah]

Still the same premise, If I want faster queues(with subscription) there will be more players in the pool to work with. I agree, but F2P players aren't leeches, they contribute in a big way.

 

So.. you want cannon fodder. Got it.

 

Thing is.. freemium games do not provide "queue fillers" with parity capability to you the subscriber, UNLESS they are working the non-sub side of the access model and paying a-la-cart.

 

True free games do.. but then again.. that's an entirely different business model in the MMO genre... and not actually free.

 

1) Subscription Only

2) Freemium

3) Free

 

And NONE of them are FREE. They each have their own specific monetization models that they follow. And generally speaking.. it is the "Free" business model that injects the most problematic P2W components into the game play.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Andryah