rpanons | It's just like my japanese yaois

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It's an MMO, of course it's pay to play.

They all are.

The trend nowadays is actually toward free-to-play with microtransactions. Subscription-based MMOs are more the exception rather than the rule.

I don't really see why the former is supposed to be better than the latter though.

I wasn't necessarily arguing that one was better than the other. The anon I was replying to said that all MMOs are pay-to-play, which isn't true anymore and hasn't been for a few years.

Even a lot of the old MMOs that started off with a subscription model have gone pay to play, or did before they died. Anarchy Online, Ragnarok Online, City of Heroes, those are ones that I can name right off the bat which have.

I think there's a sort of divide (if only mentally) between technically free to play MMOs (like Ragnarok), and big promoted titles like WOW or Final Fantasy XIV. ESO is pretty obviously trying to be the second; there's a kind of perception that going from the latter to the former is essentially giving up (like you said a lot of those games were in their death throws. RIP City of Heroes).

That's assuming that anon didn't interpret pay to play as "not free", which would be a true statement. Every mmo wants your money.

There is that stigma, yes. City of Heroes is a sad case, though. It was doing fine and could have lived on for years if it weren't under NCSoft's thumb. Paragon Studios was actually trying to buy themselves out of NCSoft ownership and almost had a deal signed when NCSoft's upper management abruptly decided to shut the studio down and kill the game off. There were stories on Gamasutra about it.

Also, generally I've seen "pay to play" as a synonym for the subscription model. However, there is one MMO I can think of that is completely free to play—Myst Online: Uru Live (http://mystonline.com/en/). No subscription, no microtransactions. They do take donations to help offset costs, but that's entirely voluntary and you don't miss out on anything by not paying.

Part of the reason Cyan Studios can afford to get away with this is that they've been adamant about making the game open-source (as they mention on the front page), but it's been a real case of doing it for the art, because Cyan's not doing so well financially (RAWA mentioned that he voluntarily took a pay cut to make sure the studio stayed afloat a few years ago).

I prefer subscription based for two big reasons:

1 - It minimizes bots and gold spammers. If you get banned, you have to pay to play again. Accounts aren't free.

2 - Free to play games often become pay to win games. Item malls will sell stuff that makes gameplay ridiculously easier to entice players to buy (obviously!), so people that are willing to shell out over and over have a huge advantage.

#2 is sad because it doesn't have to be that way. Some games with microtransactions defy pay-to-win, but then wind up succumbing to the lure of mo' money. I can't think of many games that aren't pay-to-win right now.

Extra Credits did a whole video on how to do microtransactions the right way (selling convenience instead of power, etc.). If only more game designers would listen to them.

link?

Here you go, anon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXA559KNopI

They're pretty fun to listen to on game design topics. Their videos on quest design for MMOs are other good ones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otAkP5VjIv8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur6GQp5mCYs

It's sad, but it seems to be inevitable. If free to play games sold cosmetic options and other shinies I would hate them less, but they don't.

I've also found that the in-game economies for free to play games blow out a lot faster than subscription model games. This is probably a combination of 1 and 2. Having access to cheap farmed gold means that lazy players will be tempted to buy it eventually, and with all that gold in the market prices soar. Also, players who are determined to stay "legal" will buy things from the cash shop and sell them in game to get their hands on some cash too, even if they are only cosmetic items.

tl;dr people fuss about the subscription model being classist and how free to play is all some people can afford, but the great majority of the time f2p games end up with in game "classes" of people who are paying and people who aren't anyway and everyone loses out.

1. Unless you're FFXIV. The sheer number of bots and gold spammers on some of the servers is ridiculous. Also relatively pointless given how easy it is to make money in-game.

That and they did recently have an extra add-on that people weren't too happy about. Extra retainers cost most RL money, it gets added onto your subscription every month.

Subscription models haven't stopped botters and gold spammers in other MMOs, either. City of Heroes, before it adopted the free-to-play model, had issues with inf sellers spamming in-game e-mail advertisements.

The international version of Ragnarok Online also had a lot of zeny spammers and bots even during its subscription days. The GMs tried a lot of tricks over the years to thin them out, but they'd always come flooding back.

There's no way to get rid of gold spammers and bots entirely, but having a subscription model DOES reduce them somewhat.

I prefer the pay-once model, personally. You have to buy the game (which is essentially buying your account), so being banned isn't a nothing deal, but once you've paid the up front cost, you're in permanently unless you fuck up hard enough to get permabanned.

Problem with that is that people won't accept paying much for a game up front, especially if there is no demo. On top of that servers require consistent amounts of money to keep running and games tend to lower in price as time goes on. That's why subscription or microtransactions tends to show up eventually or the game is shut down.

Games like this can squeak by with expansion packs and cosmetic only cash shops, but they're rare.

It's just like my japanese yaois

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