Problem with boosts in any capacity or anything which relates to the use of boosts which are purchasable with real world currency is akin to Pay to Win because it gives you an advantage over a player who isn't making cash shop purchases all the time. Now I don't know the current state of Guild Wars 2, I left the game 2 months after release for reasons which I feel are not relevant to this topic, but rest assured it wasn't because I didn't like the game. Early on the boost system in that game I, my viewpoint on it was from the stand point of "does it give you an advantage?" at the time my answer would be no. How XP worked in Guild Wars 2 and the leveling system worked was to restrict or enforce linear progression for players on a "Heroes Journey", they limited your experience to the zones they wanted you to see so even if you didn't do your personal story arc, you still were experiencing in some aspect a grand adventure. Ever since Everquest, the purpose of leveling in MMOs went from the previous system where it was a scaling system which existed to make your character a Veteran of campaigns, based off Pen and Paper RPGs, your character became more experienced and learned new things as they explored, they could do anything they wanted and go anywhere they wanted and the world around them was a mixed bag of difficulty. Experience allowed for an easier time with harder content. What Everquest and every "themepark" MMO did since then was use experience and levels as a means to lock you out of content till the developers wanted you to see it. The Content denial as well as the experience grinding to get it existed to get people to play for longer and this worked great in a PvE focused subscription game but still maintained the old system from previous games, it added a degree of accomplishment to the game, which made people not really notice the system at all. When you were powerful, you are powerful! You can go back and smash old content and feel godly, if you wanted to. It gauged your character's progression and power as a heroic figure. What Guild Wars 2 did, was strip away the last vestiges of the original intent of leveling, it reduced it to simply being "locked content". This is why people found the idea of XP boosts which are paid for to be P2W, you were paying to unlock content faster. I had the opinion at the time of follows, this kind of helped me to get over it. But I viewed it also as a "deceptive" pay to win. Other people can unlock the same content, but at a slower pace and not pay anything for it. Unfortunately, I was short sighted. The major problem with this system and why it is pay to win is because in a scaling game, often it is first come first served who get to end game first, they end up with more stuff than other players in game earlier on because of this and in turn if they always play, they always will. A paid for XP boost cheats the system. Ultimately it has next to no real impact on gameplay, more often it has an impact on the community instead. Much of the social circles and interaction between players is based on their current standing in the game. One more player to reach level cap before you, who played less than you and put less time into the game than you, gets into a dungeon with your guild and gets loot you think you deserve because you put more effort into the game can be the source of rage and drama. Sensible people would brush it off, but dedicated people and young people who have yet to socially mature can take serious offense to it. You can also look at it from the stand point of "skipping content", when other players level faster than you, it means that there are less players online at the time you are online to do content with. You really want to do that level 20 dungeon and you don't have a guild to do it with? Sorry you can't because everyone is already level 30 and not interested in doing that dungeon with you because they don't need it, all they want to do is get to end level so they can experience that non-existent end game content. The biggest fault in Guild Wars 2 was in fact there was no grind for PvE, you could get from level 1 to level 80 in 3 weeks with no boosts, with boosts... in 2 days... That and no end game raiding? Well that is why everyone who left WoW to play GW2 went back to WoW. When the content of the game is the 1 to 80 and the PvP alone? And in PvP you get scaled up to 80 from the word go? Shouldn't the leveling be more... grind? I was constantly ahead of level of all the content I did, I purposefully stayed in zones way below my current level because I enjoyed experiencing the content. Problem is, not everyone is like that... very few people are. Most people chase the golden egg, if the game isn't grindy when it is content driven, then people will skip content. Which means the few people who wanted to do that content, wanted to do that level 20 or level 30 dungeon have no body to play with and those who offer to play with them, often feel forced to. Again a source for drama. Now onto the other currency system which gets boosted by paying money for it, now this is something I do have a major problem with. The Karma system existed as a personal currency which was separate from the Gold/Gem economy, a system which rewarded you based on your time spent playing the game, how you contributed to helping other players and how you spent time doing quests. It role-played rewarded players for doing good deeds in the world of Guild Wars, be it a hypothetical fictional good deed in the case of PvE or a real one in the case of PvP. It was not supposed to be effected by other elements of the economy. People should get items in game related to Karma for time spent playing. Problem is, this wasn't so. You could purchase with Gems Karma boosts, which in turn could be purchased with gold or real money, which means, you're just exchanging one currency for another and thus it means players don't need to gain karma. Now one can look at this from the positive side and say "Well it's a one way currency and other players can just play the game and earn it, you're just wasting money." Well, that's not the point, the point is, it completely devalues the grind, the effort and time put into earning it. When people can just "instantly be rewarded" for spending less time doing something than someone else, it is cheating that other player of things they could get, they get twice as much things as the free to play player for the same time spent playing. Both systems are in essence a hidden "Premium" mode in Guild Wars 2 which is deceptively hidden. Ok, enough about GW2 now onto something else I have an issue with in a lot of F2P MMOs. METAL BAWKSES! That's right, "goodies crates" which contain random loot items which require a key which you must purchase from the cash shop. A lot of games have this system, most notoriously the Perfect World published games. In these boxes you get rare gear, XP boosts and other "goodies" as rewards for players who support the game. Thing is, there is a risk these can be hidden P2W items, why is this the case? If the system isn't implemented well... For example: Well even if said items are just drops anyone else can get in dungeons, they are salable items. So you are receiving items you can sell on the trade market in game to get more game currency than likely the currency you would of received for exchanging premium currency for game currency. This can be viewed as an extension of pay to win, not a very visible or noticeable, but one to be aware of. Another example is if said items you receive from them are not items which are normally available to free to play players. How can one make it so packages are rewards that are not P2W? Any item you get from the package is bound to the account of the player. That way if they get a random collectible, it means they wont feel ripped off if it wasn't an item they didn't need on their existing character, it instead is an item they can bank, then use on another character, it encourages players to create or make use of more classes. A double positive, for the players and the developers! Go the GW2 route (when I played it) and have keys cheap as chips. They are cheap to purchase on the Gem store and cost in gold to gem exchange so little, that you'd be paying the gold value for the contents of the box anyway. Also the keys are randomly dropped in dungeons, so it encourages players to do dungeon content together. Another positive way of doing it, not as positive but still positive. Nothing I dislike more than a bank full of useless cash shop key reward boxes. Just going to re-post this here: Penny Arcade on Collectible games, the unlock-able with keys crate system also falls into this category.
Sure, but next week. This week I have a crazy week. GWS is in Montreal and I heard through a encrypted dataslate that MAYBE, there will be 4 Craftworld visiting you guys this week!!!
You see boost helps out with gathering in game currency and which helps you buying certifications (i am giving Planetside 2 example again, please try to be patient with me,its the closest thing that resembles a MMOFPS but its just battlefield 3 with large maps but again bare with me). You see two types of in game currency exists in PS2. Sony Cash and certification boost helps you out with gathering faster certifications and getting faster infantry and vehicle resource points ,that hepls you out with getting guns and getting skills. (You can look them up on its wiki). Result is game broke. They changed games focus from bases to single kills. In turn changed game into farming with vehicles so there is no more MMOFPS. Its just a bastardized something..that i dont wanna explain and can't explain. They know they fucked up big time and they are triyng to save it but nope...its not gonna happen .
Examples of what not to do: Rift: At its peak it only reached a couple million subscriptions. (I think two was the number they reached) Their numbers began to decline as all MMO's competing with WoW did and they eventually adopted a F2P system with a cash-shop. Their cash-shop was pretty solid, albeit what some would consider P2W. They offered xp boosts, crafting boosts, and all sorts of boosts that were almost required once you hit a certain level. Around the mid-game, leveling ground to a halt. While leveling was still feasible, it was considerably slower than the previous levels. To remedy this you could pay for xp boosts. While not giving players an edge per se, people who paid were able to blow past the significant level grind that others who did not pay had to deal with. XP boosts exist because usually a time consuming grind/farm mechanic is introduced into the game to coerce you into spending money for the boost. Planetside 2: While the biggest marketing ploy of the game was "not P2W" it most definitely felt like it. I played prior to launch and several months afterwards, eventually joining a pretty heavy Outfit. Mere days after launch, people had most of the end-tier weapons, such as rocket pods, AT and AA rocket launchers, etc. This completely ruined the game for me and many others. The amount of time you are forced to sink into the game to achieve items regularly was staggering. Not only that, but most of the weapons were rather expensive, totaling around 7 bucks a weapon. The cash-shop most definitely gives players a competitive edge over others who otherwise haven't paid. What I think cash-shops should not do: Give people an advantage in progression. Someone who can only spend a few hours playing the game each day should not be on the same level of progression as someone who has spent vastly more. It defeats the purpose of progression. If I can pay money to skip ahead, then the other person who spent time on the game should feel cheated. The other player has put less effort and time into the game and received a better reward, simply because he paid. Offering services that put you ahead of people whether it be progression or martial skill, is the very definition of Pay-to-Win. That said, I do not wish to see an over encumbering farming/grinding mechanic. Warframe is a very good example of this. While the gameplay is incredibly fun, its bogged down by a pointlessly drawn out grinding mechanic, that can otherwise be circumvented by paying real cash. Again, this puts you ahead of others because you paid and he didn't. Example of what to do: Guild Wars 2 cash-shop is pretty solid, with its flaws of course. Certain items (like keys) you were forced to buy, because otherwise the drop rate for them was incredibly low, as well as there being XP boosts. I was able to reach max level in only a couple of days (I had some free time) without using any of the boosts. Other items, mostly cosmetic and toys, were relatively cheap. I loved Guild Wars 2 cash-shop. The cosmetic items available made me really go and funnel money into it. Cash-shops with an extensive cosmetic, animations, toys, and so on, are probably some of the better ones. Not only that, but they even had a system in place for you to convert in-game currency into cash-shop money. People want to be unique, and don't have a problem spending money to do so. (See the success of the F2P model) Creativity sells. As long as your cash-shop has unique and interesting items, people will buy them. What I think cash-shops should do: Be a dumping ground for your art department. Correct me if I'm wrong, but leading up to and post-launch your art team is mostly done with the game. Most of the work being done is in the hands of writers, programmers, and directors. Bug fixing, corrections, crossing T's and dotting I's, marketing, etc. (Again, if I'm wrong please correct me, as I would love to know.) Leading up to launch and post-launch, approach the art team with the cash-shop and ask them to fill it up with things people will want to spend a couple bucks on. People will want to buy skins, animations, toys, voice bits, executions, etc. to customize their character and feel unique. Sell services, like name changes, recustomizers, character resets, etc. That's my 0.02.
Planetside 2 is really the most recent P2W game I touched...Please don't do what they did... Selling weapons and stuff is a clear system of P2W, cosmetics are just fine, typical account services are also fine. When you start selling weapons and powers for money but attempt to say NUH UH ITS NOT P2W CUZ YOU CAN BUY THE WEAPON WITH INGAME RESOURCES(which is hard to o with starting weapons when everyone outclasses you even more so when the prices are hilarious.) you start to fray that line.
Thank you mate. Imagine you are a PS1 veteran and you saw that ? People need support groups to get over its crappiness.
OTHER! however it's already what they are doing. Free too play has become something specific. therefore--i prefer just free--as the orkz will be. no buying bonuses or anything--just free. the ork boyz are a trial of the game essentially--its like getting the free trial for space marine. its completley free (however it is much more open and has far more options)
Imho, cosmetic items only - reasonably priced, hopefully I would much rather have b2p + 5 USD per month subscription option and never bother about any xp boosts, stat boosts, req gain boosts etc.
i say buy it all in one go. then its much easier to get back into it. do NOT change this into a subscription based game.
of course i would be fine with this too. Its not 15 dollars and if it will keep the game looking as a good investment in the eyes of publisher, i would be glad. However there are going to be expansion packs and more...
