Topic: free to play, but….

This topic has 28 voices, contains 40 replies, and was last updated by Brunodragon 98 days ago.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 41 total)

1 2 3 →

Author	Posts
Author	Posts
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3441
nyanbunneh Player	the game should be free to play, but with an ingame mall/item shop that costs costs real money, or premium that costs money with cool extras
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3442
recon03 Player	Heck no, if this game got an item mail, I would be gone, they game will be cheaper then those so called item mail games.. 120 bucks for a lifetime is darn cheap. 13 a month and no box is even cheaper.
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3443
ollu Player	Item shop would make even the last 2 players leave that they have right now.
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3444
catnips Player	lol sad but Id have to agree, and maybe its 3
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3445
FrankJ Player	agreed no item shop.. ruins the game, why buy my armor if you can buy it at the shop etc….
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3446
TheInternetMan Player	nyanbunneh said: the game should be free to play, but with an ingame mall/item shop that costs costs real money, or premium that costs money with cool extras Despite the small community of purists who say that’s a bad idea, the fact is Dawntide is game that survives on its players. Without players dawntide will fail, without a doubt. I don’t see how anyone can argue against that. (it is, at its core, a social building and conquest game where fun scales with the amount of people you have playing) Having an item mall with various bonuses, cosmetic benefits, etc. is a great way to get players to try the game, and players that care about the game to support it. Traditional subscription methods are only reserved for the cream of the crop MMOs, or MMOs that are failing, hard due to the same price model. We can choose to have dawntide completely fall flat on its face at $15/month, or have a game that generates a metric ton of profit for WAI, has regular development, and ensures Dawntide does not die. I know you guys announced the traditional P2P model, but you ARE shooting yourselves in the foot and you WILL find out that is the case in very short time. Evidence: Global Agenda, All Points Bulletin, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of The Rings Online, every F2P conversion in the history of MMORPGs. People will LEAP at the notion of an F2P cash shop sandbox MMO. They can join all their friends, build a great civilization, get hooked, support the game, and WAI and the players win. Cosmetic buildings are a HUGE market for a cash shop. Things like fences, wells, forges, gravestones, etc. People can buy “packs” for their settlement that unlock certain buildings and items. These items can be primarily cosmetic, like hats, decorative city flavor pieces (gallows, torches, etc.). You can choose a viable business model, or choose to be stuck in the past with the idea that a B quality game can pull off a subscription. Anyone who can see into the horizon can tell you cash shop + optional premium is the way to go for Dawntide. So, the ball is in your court WAI, will you choose the sensible option and reap the rewards?.. or will you be stuck in the past and have your game fail both financially and developmentally?
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3447
ollu Player	Right now the real problem is fixing the bugs like: combat items dissapearing crashes falling throught the world crafting / items trading /using banks/warehouse/crates monsters trees cave entrances resistances armor value combat skills skills And on topic. Tell me how many games are there that are actually free to play and not pay to win.
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3448
Talinine Player	@ollu: I can think of exactly one, and it’s not a sandbox MMO. League of Legends has done wonders with the F2P model without making it P2W. But they’re an abberation, to say the least.
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3449
aganauton Player	A micro-transaction/cash shop/P2W, however you want to call, pricing model would not work with DT based upon the current and proposed (road map document) version of the rules. And I’ll re-state what I interpret the rules to be are: Full Loot / Full Conquest. So, if you think it through, you’ll see only a very silly person would spend real cash on items, that could just be looted away by enterprising players that are just paying a monthly fee. I know I wouldn’t buy anything that a little patience and planning could get me for free. And, given a short period of time, the cash shop only items will have been looted enough times, that they would be freely available throughout the game. So why would anybody pay cash for them at an item shop? Pricing model failed. Same goes with buildings. A little planning and patience, and all of a sudden a faction that spent a bunch of money on ‘special buildings’ looses it all when their faction is taken by conquest. If the rules were changed so that purchased items were unlootable, and purchased buildings were un-conquerable, well then you defeat the original intent of the game don’t you? What you would end up with is a two tiered community of players, with one group (we’ll call them the P2P players) only fighting the other group (the F2P players). The F2P players will eventually get tired of either always losing (because the cash stop items are better than the crafted items) or even if they win, they don’t get any loot. F2P players just stop playing. And the P2P players will eventually get tired of fighting amongst themselves, because, yet again, what’s the point when you can’t loot and you can’t take over an opposing faction. Okay, so let’s modify the ‘rules’ a bit more. Only players that are P2P can loot other P2P players. Seems fair right? Or does it? Where do you draw the line? If I have a character that’s purchased 1 cash stop item, it is fair to loot 5 cash stop items off of another character? If my faction has one purchased building, does that mean we can take over a faction that has all the purchased buildings? And ad-nauseum. The micro-transaction pricing model appeals to players that, given the opportunity, would also use a Level / Gold Seller service, IMO. They (the players) don’t want to spend the time investment required to get to the ‘end game’, they would rather just spend money to achieve the same end. And I’m not saying the idea is bad, to each his/her own. If a person want’s to spend their ‘entertainment dollars’ in that matter, all the more power to them. What I am saying, is that a micro-transaction pricing model for THIS game with the CURRENT/PROPOSED rules just wouldn’t work, a full loot, full conquest, player driven sandbox game.
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3450
catnips Player	very well said
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3451
aganauton Player	Thanks Catnips
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3452
TheInternetMan Player	Making up a fictitious extreme pay to win cash shop concept that would never be implemented does not make the business plan incorrect.
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3453
Dullahan Player	Right. That was a straw dummy argument; the straw dummy being a fictitious fallacious implementation of a cash shop payment system. I just can’t see Dawntide surviving on subscription. I would love to be wrong, but TheInternetMan’s observations are based on what I’ve seen as well, and theres just no market for B rated MMOs, even if they have an A+ rated vision and goals. Do you really think you have more to offer than Warhammer, Mortal Online, or even Rift, all who are struggling on some level to maintain subscriptions? I can’t even count the number of free trial, free this free that emails I’ve gotten from Rift in the last 2 months… and I can tell you, even though Dawntide offers a different sandbox type of game, it simply doesn’t have the content to compete with a big name like Rift. Speaking of competition, has anyone looked at Arche Age thats coming out soon? It boasts pretty much everything that Dawntide does & more with sandbox world and open pvp. Its coming out this year, and did I mention its going to be F2P with item shops? There are ways to work a cash shop into any game that can’t thrive off subscriptions, without breaking the economy and the system that in place. Whether or not it would be profitable to keep WAI out of the red would be anyone’s guess, but I think the concept should be seriously considered. I am wholly against the pay to win concept, but there are lots of fluff items that would fit well into a sandbox world. The really competitive pvp, world conquest players wouldn’t flock to these shops, but plenty of players would invest in knickknacks given the opportunity, especially for player houses and cities. Charging for stuff like player customization beyond whats normally available, armor dyes and so forth is often very lucrative without any game breaking impact. I’m not going to name all the ways that I’ve seen this system work successfully, because they would all have to be weighed and carefully considered before going into development. That and I don’t do free consultations.
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3454
Eldaran Player	[quote=Dullahan]Right. That was a straw dummy argument; the straw dummy being a fictitious fallacious implementation of a cash shop payment system. I just can’t see Dawntide surviving on subscription. I would love to be wrong, but TheInternetMan’s observations are based on what I’ve seen as well, and theres just no market for B rated MMOs, even if they have an A+ rated vision and goals. Do you really think you have more to offer than Warhammer, Mortal Online, or even Rift, all who are struggling on some level to maintain subscriptions? I can’t even count the number of free trial, free this free that emails I’ve gotten from Rift in the last 2 months… and I can tell you, even though Dawntide offers a different sandbox type of game, it simply doesn’t have the content to compete with a big name like Rift. Speaking of competition, has anyone looked at Arche Age thats coming out soon? It boasts pretty much everything that Dawntide does & more with sandbox world and open pvp. Its coming out this year, and did I mention its going to be F2P with item shops? There are ways to work a cash shop into any game that can’t thrive off subscriptions, without breaking the economy and the system that in place. Whether or not it would be profitable to keep WAI out of the red would be anyone’s guess, but I think the concept should be seriously considered. I am wholly against the pay to win concept, but there are lots of fluff items that would fit well into a sandbox world. The really competitive pvp, world conquest players wouldn’t flock to these shops, but plenty of players would invest in knickknacks given the opportunity, especially for player houses and cities. Charging for stuff like player customization beyond whats normally available, armor dyes and so forth is often very lucrative without any game breaking impact. I’m not going to name all the ways that I’ve seen this system work successfully, because they would all have to be weighed and carefully considered before going into development. That and I don’t do free consultations.[/quote] Umm to my knowledge Archeage is only coming out in Korea anytime soon… Dawntide may not ever be a millions of subscriptions strong game but it definitely has the potential to grow into a niche MMO kind of like EVE. I for one really enjoy this game, the community, the crafting, and exploring the world. I hope to be playing Dawntide for quite a while. I hope the devs can pull of a good release and we can get a boat load of new players to help conquer the land. And I don’t see Dawntide being able to survive on anything BUT subscriptions. I doubt the smaller size of the playerbase right now would be able to support the devs via a cash shop. However, a bunch of people buying lifetime subs at release would help them exponentially.
August 8, 2011 at 9:57 pm #3455
demonbox Player	as a player: item shops r not always bad (even thou i don’t like’em at all), xpecially when limited to fashion fluff and used in themeparks, still sandbox + item shop = bad a sandbox is a sandbox if you can harvest/manufacture/trade everything, or almost everything, including fashion/not usefull stuff, allowing some players to get them via real cash will eventually “kill” the economy of the world. as a company: item shops r the “future” , a player usually spend more via shops than by subscriptions (being aware of it or not). at the same time a game can attract more casual players,that usually don’t like spend their time mining/manufacturing etc… Archage is not a sandbox is a wannabe mix of sandbox+themepark, stil have to see how succesfull it will be in EU/NA markets EVE is another story, go and ask some of the players that “built” the comunity what they think of 60$ monocles or the “promised” (and later on put on alt) fully functional fancy coloured ships of course all of this is just mny personal opinion ^_^ cya