PSO2 Free to Play?

[SELENNA]

Maybe they'll have a system like Diablo III *barf*

[ShinMaruku]

F2p is not bad you guys just seen it handled horribly. The first pso was f2p you forget that. :P

[kyuuketsuki]

F2p is not bad you guys just seen it handled horribly. The first pso was f2p you forget that. :P

Err... yeah, that was the only one, and there was no Cash Shop or anything. And it was abandoned pretty quickly in favor of v2.

[ShinMaruku]

Err... yeah, that was the only one, and there was no Cash Shop or anything. And it was abandoned pretty quickly in favor of v2.

It was abandoned because Sega thought they could con people into paying for v2 for updates on a disc.

[Kent]

F2p is not bad you guys just seen it handled horribly. The first pso was f2p you forget that. :P

Only outside of Japan.

In Japan, PSOv1 on the Dreamcast had a subscription fee.

The reason people don't like the allegedly-free-to-play is not because we've just seen it done badly, but because the vast majority of games go on this slippery slope of monetization that generally lets people buy winningness, get extorted by ridiculously-expensive cosmetics or effectively just license temporary content on a per-item basis. Only very rarely do things actually work out well and in a way that neither makes the game into an unfriendly cash-extracting service, or unbalances the game in favor of people who pay.

Designing a game solely around monetization schemes can very, very easily lead to bad game design, and I'm certainly not the first person to say this - mainly because it holds true.

The only example that comes to mind of a game that stands out as having done free-to-play with microtransactions well is Dungeon Fighter Online - though it's not without its flaws. The main thing people buy are cosmetic items (which are the only way to change the look of your character aside from class advancement), which only confer very minor bonuses (things like +1% attack speed, or +1 to a class skill), but the bonuses are completely random.

That's one of the caveats of the system they have in place: There's a selection of cosmetic equipment available at a given time that gets cycled through regularly, and you get a randomly-chosen color variant of what's available, with a randomly-determined minor benefit on it... So you can never be sure what you're going to get out of it (i.e. gambling). However, the benefits people get from wearing them are, realistically, negligible at best, even if they luck out and get something they actually want. Most importantly though, no matter what they trick out their character with, they'll never beat out a players who's better at the game, and that's probably the best thing they've done with it.

But, you know, it exists and therefore is not perfect. It kinda screws over paying players in not getting what they want out of it (in that they might get the right style of pants, but in some god-awful color scheme) guaranteed, meaning that they could very possibly spend much more money trying to get something that looks the way they want, than they reasonably should. At the same time, there's the issue of conferred advantages to cosmetic equipment, which... Should really just be done away with, even if the individual pieces are negligible bonuses, if someone shells out a lot of money, they could potentially get a coherent set that gives a noticeable benefit to gameplay, which is invariably bad.

I think if PSO2 were to use a free-to-play model, I would hope the purchasable goods would only be modestly-priced costumes (that aren't already part of the game - perhaps added in with updates every few months or so) and actual batches of new content that expand on the game (like an "Episode II," a full-on expansion), unless they get added in periodically through version updates.

Of course, just releasing the game as a normal purchase, with no monthly fees, but regular expansion packs avoids... basically all conceivable problems with free-to-play systems for the players.

[RemiusTA]

inb4 massive argument defending F2P cash shop mechanics


Regardless of how people defend it, F2P games all go down the same slope and it's never going to change because the reason everyone hates the F2P model is the very same reason it works so well.

Of course, just releasing the game as a normal purchase, with no monthly fees, but regular expansion packs avoids... basically all conceivable problems with free-to-play systems for the players.

This i actually agree with.

It actually encourages the developers to CREATE SOMETHING WORTH PAYING FOR in order to get your money.

Unlike F2P, which basically encourages them to glue you to the pavement and poke you with a stick until you finally give in and buy the dissolving agent

[kyuuketsuki]

It was abandoned because Sega thought they could con people into paying for v2 for updates on a disc.

Yeah, people were totally conned into it.

And like was said, Japanese v1 had a subscription fee.

I dunno why people act like its totally unreasonable when a company charges them an ongoing fee to provide constant, ongoing support and additional content for an online game. Sure, they can also go the F2P w/ Cash Shop route, but that has gameplay consequences and, if handled improperly, very bad ones at that. I'll take the subscription plzkthx.

[Enforcer MKV]

inb4 massive argument defending F2P cash shop mechanics

*Thinks of League of Legends*

Anyway, I think the reason that most people dislike Free-to-play is simply because they usually go down the road of Pay-to-win, which is pretty much exploitation of the F2P concept. They're trying to work anyway in that'll make them more money, because that's all they care about. Now, while this is the general consensus, there are a few rays of hope for the F2P model, namely League of Legends and the upcoming Firefall. Hopefully, if these continue to be successful, then more developers could presumably switch to a sell restrictive model, and become successful.

The only major problem with the F2P model is the temptation to convert it to P2W. At least that's how I see it.

[sugarFO]

I'm all for F2P so long as I can buy my costume without freaking gambling for it. I want to just buy it straight away for a set price. The gambling feature popping up in all these F2P make the risk not worth the price in my opinion. Thank God FOmarl is stylish by default that I'd be satisfied either way. But if I have to pay so much cash every month to stay updated with armor and units and stuff it might as well be a P2P.

[moorebounce]

The best approach would either be free-to-play with microtransactions, which I find unlikely, or a Guild Wars model where access is free, but there are significant content updates that players must purchase.

I wouldn't have a problem with this