If you mean F2P account option with premium micro upgrade or premium buy... Yeah, you'd be correct. Only Patrick Swayze was allowed to call me baby. The only thing to let go is that weird gothic metal. (Real deal: Pretty sure you missed the point like Bladerunner did.)
See, this is why I've been saying we shouldn't be calling Boyz F2P. One class on one faction does not make an F2P game. A game that tries to advertise itself as "F2P" while limiting free players that much would rightly be treated as a scam. Otherwise, by that definition Space Marine is "F2P" because you can download and play two levels of its singleplayer campaign for free, and EVE is "F2P" because you can play it for two weeks without a subscription. Boyz are basically a demo that is content-locked instead of time-locked. Smurfing with Boyz would be the same as smurfing a WoW trial account. Besides, you've got a bunch of character slots anyway. You can just smurf with those, why bother buying the game twice? Is this really about "alts" or "supporting the game", or do you just believe that $60 is too low a barrier to entry to keep the filthy peasants out?
I agree with the above post. Normally I would never post such a reply as this in a thread and normally I would never try to offend anyone, but really? If you got nothing positive to say and all you feel is anger, please refrain from posting it. I understand that your opinion is as valid as mine and everyone else and I mean no offense by stating this; but the thing is you've made your point, we've seen your point, we don't agree with your point, you don't agree with ours, let's just agree to disagree; But you are still entitled to your point. If you truly want to support the developers, you're more than welcome to pre-purchase a founders. And spend $15 a month at the cash shop, or even suggest they have a system in place where you can pay a subscription for cash shop money and boosts each month, like in Star Trek Online and other games like D&D Online. I hope that is the case, I am all for supporting developers. I also hope that you have genuine fear that the game won't be successful if it wasn't subscription based, in which case I propose you suggest the above suggestions and also I suggest that you go about supporting the game the way you wish to. If however unfortunately the situation isn't that case I have stated above; then please take a long hard look at yourself. Subscription or no subscription has never been a barrier to toxic players in games or immature players, trolls, gold farmers or other such ilk. What it has achieved instead is given another feather for elitists to puff up their ego caps with. Let the developers deal with toxic people and gold farmers; it's not our jobs to do that. I see little difference in the degrees of commitment to a game from a F2P to a Subscription based game. Also I see little difference in the overall attitudes and maturity levels of the community as well. I find that at end level F2P games tend to have less toxic players due to elitists being repelled by the lack of a subscription gate. I quit WoW because I got tired of the subscriptions, thing is I am not a rich person, I can't afford to pay a sub every month. Thing is over time that small $15 a month adds up and money is not something I can just throw to the wind, I have to manage my bills, pay my taxes and all this while looking for work and while doing a course. Thing is if WoW didn't have a subscription, I would of returned; reason I left? I wasn't happy with the direction Blizzard took raiding in Cata, the game has improved since then but still, I decided not to return because I don't want to pay a subscription. After 4 years of hell dealing with elitists in every raid guild I joined, I finally found a guild I was happy with, I left that community I was happy with because of my studies, I stayed off WoW because I realized that after forking out ~$700 in total on that game, it wasn't worth it. After that I decided to try out SWTOR; It was elitists who caused me to quit SWTOR and the lack of a population after it went F2P that kept me from returning, no other reason. Wasn't the bugs, wasn't the lack of world PvP content or any other reason, including buggy raid content. If elitists refuse to play this game because it is B2P, then good; we don't want you here.
This is pretty much where i'm at right now with EC. I felt that I put so much into Warhammer Age of Reckoning, waiting for the release, hitting the forums, doing my part. And look how that shit sank to the bottom. This is the only dork thing I do (table top, modeling, space marine, DOW 1&2, all of it secretly), I don't play any other MMO's. I don't guild with other people, I hit the bar (yeah I know how that sounds.) Its a thing that I have loved since I was a kid, and now as an adult I cant shake it (trust I have tried.) I just don't want to see something I value so much destroyed. If that means they need more money, then that means behavior gets more of my Washingtons and Jeffersons .
It is partially F2P, though. A version of a hybrid model. A trial account would be temporary like EVE (that game can actually be free with PLEX). From everything I've read, an Ork Boyz account can be played forever. The actual viability of staying and having fun as an F2P player won't be known until people start playing. They'll "be able to go everywhere and fight for Waaagh!" and that might be good enough for free players who don't enjoy paying out for games. Who knows. A lot of F2P titles are gated. No trading, limited trading, no global chat, less inventory/bank space, limited market use, no high level content, locked out of certain areas, only allowed to be a limited number of classes, can only level up to a certain point, etc. All of that, some if it, or whatever. You posted a type of statement that is prevalent in real life, and especially on the internet (not knocking you - just make a general point): Nobody said anything about keeping "filthy peasants" out. I never said F2Ps don't work and EC needs a sub. I specifically stated that both models work (actually three base models - sub, micro, hybrid). Ever sat there and told a friend, "would be nice to have a beer", but not actually go to get one because you don't really care? That's how I feel about sub v. F2P. Don't really care. So, a few people are taking what is actually said and putting their own take on what was meant. People do that because they hate being wrong even if there was nothing to be wrong about. In a perfect world, people would just see a statement for what it is and not what the reader wants it to mean. I was quite happy dragging the carrot through the dirt with a half-assed smirk. I didn't say the same thing over and over and over again in different ways on accident. I only had one very simple point. Gary finally understood and gave a simple reply. He just doesn't think having leech alts will be a big deal, and that's a totally valid opinion. Funny thing is... I don't think it's a big deal, either. But... "...it sure would be nice if a game company could pull cash from them". So, no. For me, it's not about "filthy peasants". It's not about legit alts. It was simply about what I said, which was a passive concern about F2P leech alts related to the casual thought of "it sure would be nice...".
As a side not, I have a problem with people haveing several account. Just an obession of me but that really spoil my fun.
How do you imagine 'pulling cash' from F2Whaagh players ? The whole idea behind it is to let people: 1. Try out part of the game (kinda demo version) to encourage them to finally buy it. 2. Attract large numbers of ork boy players to give both : the specific WH40k atmosphere + manage SM faction overpopulation issue. Making these potential players pay anything would be both, immoral and not logical. You can't expect anybody to pay money for just a little part of the game (F2Whaaagh ork boys) - that would simply be a scam. Making potential players pay for just a part of experience would definitely repel them from EC and nobody wants that - on contrary: we need those F2Whaaagh ork boys in large numbers and giving them a chance of having a glimpse of the actual EC experience without paying anything is a sound and reasonable strategy both from the business and Wh40k lore point of view. So pls explain to me how would you like to 'pull some cash' from them not to repel them from EC and not to cheat them at the same time (giving them incomplete game and making them pay for it)?
Yeah, the entire point of a demo is that you don't pay for it. That would be like making you pay to watch an ad. The company that placed the ad pays for it. If and only if the ad is successful at convincing you to buy their product does the company then get paid by you. It's not unusual for demos to be content locked instead of time locked. SWTOR (before it went "F2P") and, IIRC, WoW had trial systems where you could play indefinitely, up to a level cap. You can play the Space Marine demo as long as you like, as long as you don't mind only playing two levels. In EC's case, you can play their demo as long as you like, as long as you don't mind playing one class on one faction. The fact that EC is not putting a level cap on that one class is not enough, IMO, to push it out of "demo" territory. See how it sounds much more generous as a demo, while as an "F2P" only having one free class would be a farce? That kind of perception is important in marketing: the exact same offer can go from generous to ripoff depending on what context you frame it in. And if you're only making everyone except Boyz pay a subscription, then your argument is completely hollow just like the others you've thrown out and we've come full circle at guessing your real motivation. The way I see it, the entire idea behind microtransaction based models is that "$15 may be a lot less than $180, but it is better than $0". So you give the people with lots of money that they're willing to dump into the game a way to do so, but instead of trying to milk *everyone* for hundreds of dollars (and thus driving away the people who can't afford that), you set a very low barrier to entry so that you can still get just a little bit from everyone else. So thus you expand your revenue by expanding your customer base as much as possible, rather than trying to wring as much as possible from every individual customer. Since a digitally distributed videogame is something like 90% fixed costs (server maintenance, bandwidth which costs the same whether you use it or not, employee wages) and doesn't have to ship a physical product for every customer, this is a very strong approach for them. Additional players have a very small impact on cost (at least until you get so many you have to buy a new server), so even if you only get them to spend $10 or $15 that's almost pure profit. A free player who ultimately decides not to pay anything costs far less than what they would pay for most advertising spaces, and as long as they can keep him satisfied with the game he will likely advertise it more effectively than said ads themselves. A player who buys the game at the entry level and doesn't spend a dime past that has already generated revenue, which is more than what they would have gotten if he had seen a sub he couldn't afford and walked away, so they'll take what they can get. As for me, my job is not to help Behavior milk me for as much money as possible. My job is to look at their game and decide what it is worth to me. If I don't consider it worth the cost of playing, then I won't play it and thus they won't get a dime from me, just like EVE. If I do think it is worth it, then I will buy the game, they'll get their money, and they might even get a little extra if I *really* like what I get.
If there was a subscription, content would not be gated. Nobody would be cheated from anything. The trial would be the "demo". Hence, a trial. I realize exactly why games are F2P. You're missing the point with regard to what you quoted, just like you missed the other point previously. See my response to Rasczak below. You aren't saying anything most people don't already know when talking about trying to capture the widest breadth of revenue streams, why some games choose this type of model, etc. I'm in the business of capturing audiences and squeezing every stream (marketing and advertisement). It's not something lost on me. I even posted a link in this thread from someone actually in the gaming industry explaining a few things about what you're talking about (and I'm sure most in here didn't read it): Pathfinder Online’s Ryan Dancey Defends Elder Scrolls Online and Subscription "Turbine was the first Western developer to figure out that they could get both the stability of subscription revenues and tap into the rest of the potential monetization graph by doing both subscriptions and MTX." http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/8109/page/1 Nobody said anything about "making everyone except Boyz pay a subscription". You injected that take, which brings it back to what I said in my last post: I'm actually enjoying the thread for a particular reason. I said I prefer subs in order to make sure that F2P leech accounts (not normal F2P players) aren't a leaky faucet. A simple statement permeated with an I-don't-really-care-either-way stance. Then, people start saying that F2P is the best, subs don't work anymore, implied-type questioning about why I think EC needs a sub to be successful, and that I've actually given an argument that opposes those things with exception to F2P being the end all of godly success. But... F2P is not the best. It's one strategy of monetization. A good one, too. Just like subs are a good one. Just like hybrids are a good one. Subs still work. I never said EC needs a subscription model. So, the real question is... What is it you're trying to debate with me about?
