Do you think SE should have a free to play AND a subscription model for ARR?

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Yes they need some kind of free to play option. Even if its only until a certain level or something. Its pretty standard with every mmo these days. New players they are trying to attract aren't going to be the types to buy it and see if I like it or not.

If they don't have this it really won't do much better then 1.0.

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People are still willing to pay subscriptions, and companies make money off it, WoW is still, for reasons unknown to anyone, the biggest MMO in the world, SWTOR was going strong with subs, the reason people stopped playing wasn't because of the subs it was because it got boring after awhile (or so everyone I have spoken to has said) it's still going strong on subs, and that can be shown in how they can get away with an extremely harsh f2p model.

People still play with subs, companies just go to a "freemium" model to attract new players, if they enjoy the games I imagine a lot will subscribe just to experience more of the game, whether its gear or new areas. Subs still make money, the key is making a game that you can justify subs, like FFXI and WoW have done.

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Originally Posted by Ruisu

What is it with all of these terrible fucking threads advocating free to play, or cash shops?

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Some feel the subscription model is dying.

I don't buy into it because content provided and game quality are directly linked to whether the game is worth paying a monthly subscription for. If the game is good and can get people hooked in, sub works. If the game doesn't hook people in due to gameplay-disrupting bugs, lack of balance in PvP/PvE, little to no content past a certain point, and so on, then you go F2P to squeeze as much cash as you can out of the game before folding.

If you actually develop the game with care and enough content, you're fine. If you want to be cheap about things and rush the game out to door to meet a deadline, you get XIV 1.0 and TOR.

Well, free to play i a way to increase the community through a mix of players who subscribe and those who don't The thing to keep in mind is that the general idea is you create an addiction for those who play f2p to want to play more while at the same time providing those who subscribe with more fresh blood to play with then just those who are subscribed.

So say with just sub you have 2k on server. With both you have 5k per server, so with F2P you have all these extra players to play with making it easier to do events and make parties and sure those 3k aren't paying 10 dollars a month to play however because they are there and provide the other 2k players with people to play with then they will continue to pay 10 a month to play.

Of course with f2p you have to put restrictions on it, which would be the following:

-Can't Create a Free Company
-May join Free Company but only obtains 50% of the benefits from it
-Unable to own land but may visit houses but they can't been part owner of a house
-Players that go from sub to F2P are unable to interact with their house but they can still enter it
-Cooldowns on all content is increased 3x
-Death Penalty is doubled
-Anime recharges 4x slower
-Guild Leves recharge 1 every 4 days
-Can only hold up to 4 leves
-Can only have 4 active quest
-Can not use a retainer
-1 character, 1 server
-Can only level up 1 DOL(may get first 10 levels on all 3 but at that point player must choose to lock in one in order to continue leveling)
-Can only level up 1 DOH(may obtain first 10 levels but then must lock in which class they wish to proceed with)
-Unable to do bulk synths
-gathering fatigue happens 3 times faster
-Queue for cross-server grouping is set to lowest priority
-Unable to sell items unless they obtain a permit (basically buy with gill allowing for 5 items to be up for x amount of time)
-can only hold up to 1mil gil (but can increase this in game through NPC)


etc etc and with the above while it would allow those who want to play for free to play they would of course be limited by how much they could do and how much their inventory could hold. But basically it would encourage people to actually sub to play but at the same time at least give them a taste to entice them to want to play. perhaps there are some who don't mind these limitation and play on. Maybe they just enjoy leveling DOH/DOL and such and don't care about the other content and don't mind that they can't bulk synth or they hit fatigue quicker.

But ya, F2P all comes down to how they set it up compared to sub fee. If setup right then the system encourages people to want to pay a monthly fee to enjoy everything, but basically F2P can be considered a drug, you give them a dose and then from that point if they get hooked then of course they'll come back and pay to keep playing so that they can enjoy all the of what the game has to offer.

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Originally Posted by Airget

Of course with f2p you have to put restrictions on it, which would be the following:

-Can't Create a Free Company
-May join Free Company but only obtains 50% of the benefits from it
-Unable to own land but may visit houses but they can't been part owner of a house
-Players that go from sub to F2P are unable to interact with their house but they can still enter it
-Cooldowns on all content is increased 3x
-Death Penalty is doubled
-Anime recharges 4x slower
-Guild Leves recharge 1 every 4 days
-Can only hold up to 4 leves
-Can only have 4 active quest
-Can not use a retainer
-1 character, 1 server
-Can only level up 1 DOL(may get first 10 levels on all 3 but at that point player must choose to lock in one in order to continue leveling)
-Can only level up 1 DOH(may obtain first 10 levels but then must lock in which class they wish to proceed with)
-Unable to do bulk synths
-gathering fatigue happens 3 times faster
-Queue for cross-server grouping is set to lowest priority
-Unable to sell items unless they obtain a permit (basically buy with gill allowing for 5 items to be up for x amount of time)
-can only hold up to 1mil gil (but can increase this in game through NPC)


etc etc and with the above while it would allow those who want to play for free to play they would of course be limited by how much they could do and how much their inventory could hold. But basically it would encourage people to actually sub to play but at the same time at least give them a taste to entice them to want to play. perhaps there are some who don't mind these limitation and play on. Maybe they just enjoy leveling DOH/DOL and such and don't care about the other content and don't mind that they can't bulk synth or they hit fatigue quicker.

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That's not f2p... That's buy to win and if I must say an extremely harsh model.

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Originally Posted by Ruisu

What is it with all of these terrible fucking threads advocating free to play, or cash shops?

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Its the me too bandwagon. Mindless sheep posting about any off the wall idea that some other MMO has and why FFXIV should have it to.

Original idea - can I have it?

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Originally Posted by Delsus

That's not f2p... That's buy to win and if I must say an extremely harsh model.

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Weird part is that TOR's F2P model is like this. You get the class story with limited inventory, no access to epics, limits on currency and less exp gained. You can't even toggle display head on/off without having to pay cartel coins or subscribing. >.>;;;

Trials are cool - Blizzard does those as well. Have to make sure trial accounts cant trade however - otherwise RMT will go to town.

I prefer 100% only sub. based system. Each system has its pro's and con's and my favorite pro with the sub system is its very straight forward and clean ( each system has its place, but I dont care to make those types of systems my long term "go to game").

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Weird part is that TOR's F2P model is like this. You get the class story with limited inventory, no access to epics, limits on currency and less exp gained. You can't even toggle display head on/off without having to pay cartel coins or subscribing. >.>;;;

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It's why I don't like it, as I said earlier I'm getting behind on levels really fast just because of the nerfed exp for f2p I might die and have to return to medcenter and quickly run back to the mission area before repops, last night I must have had to return at least 10 times because of my level, and in that game just one level works wonders.

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Originally Posted by Delsus

It's why I don't like it, as I said earlier I'm getting behind on levels really fast just because of the nerfed exp for f2p I might die and have to return to medcenter and quickly run back to the mission area before repops, last night I must have had to return at least 10 times because of my level, and in that game just one level works wonders.

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Same here. As a consumer I look at it and am tempted to sub, which is the intent. I know what awaits later (I did most of the jedi knight story back when I was beta testing the game), which I think is what's keeping me from giving Bioware money at this point.

It's an underhanded way to get people to pay money for the game, but that's business for you. I just hope XIV never has to go through that.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Same here. As a consumer I look at it and am tempted to sub, which is the intent. I know what awaits later (I did most of the jedi knight story back when I was beta testing the game), which I think is what's keeping me from giving Bioware money at this point.

It's an underhanded way to get people to pay money for the game, but that's business for you. I just hope XIV never has to go through that.

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It does just show you that subs are the way to go, it seems these days f2p is just a way to get customers to try the game then sub, I would hate to know how much you would spend on exp boosts in the cartel market just to get enough levels to enjoy the story, you could easily spend £30 per week on them (they are 1hr boosts).