Because it aggravates the people who spend hundreds or hours farming for the perfect gear and see people who worked their asses off to pay bills be able to get as good or better gear for $$. That is essentially it. It is somehow more pure to spend hours and weeks in game farming for gear than to spend the same hours and days at work.
Op, the answer to your question deals directly with the style of play different gamers engage in.
NOTE: This is all things being equal and no exploiting, simply using time in game or store purchased items for the argument. Read before you knee jerk.
Take for instance the player that can put countless hours into playing online games and makes the statement, "I work for what I get"
Then we take the Gamer that has a life cant devote more than a few minute or few hours a month but it given the option to buy things of equal or slightly less value in a micro transaction store and thus stay on the same footing or close to it.
The words skill and leadership have no place in a game just to start the summary on even footing. In both cases time and time alone is the ONLY factor in causing arguments among players that play games in rote action MMO's. Some gamers do not want to see other people doing something different than they do. These people constantly check others to see if they are doing something that does not agree with their current mindset, because these gamers cant mind their own business.
The big argument? It is not "hardcore" or "casual", it is who can spend the most time verse who can spend the money regardless of the outcome with one side, usually the ones that cant spend money doing the complaining about those that do spend for convenience and taking that short cut to get on par with the people that cant spend or do not want to.
Then you have your gamers that cant spend the time or money that also worry about what everyone else has or how they got it.
In the end, the simple solution, as long as exploits are not being used, is for the looky loos to worry about themselves and not how green the other side of the fence is or how fast it got that way.
Human nature, jealousy and being nosy, Gamers need to stop and simply play the game. Don't try to support an argument about exploits either, this isn't what this response was about, and those angry folks know it. Grin.
There is no worse feeling in the world than the moment during an argument you realize you are wrong.
I'm going to ignore any previous posts and just answer the question, in case OP still reads it.
There's nothing "wrong" with "pay to win" same as there being nothing "wrong" with selling an apple for a million dollars.
The difference between subscription games and "free" games is that the "free" games are supposed to be more accessible to people.
From there, the publisher has choices for monetization. P2W is generally considered a poor choice (by players) because people really hate being "forced" into something (i.e. mounts only available for $ or best gear available for $ only).
A much better choice is allowing people to acquire all of these things through an auction/special exchange system which gives paying players options for acquiring in-game currency and non-paying players the option to get otherwise inaccessible items.
Now, most people don't have the reasoning capacity to tell one from the other, hence all the P2W threads on this forum.
P2W is not a design whereby designers make money for the game they made, it's a design where they allow the paying class to achieve a unreachable advantage over the unpaying class.
People seem to assume Free to play = Free to win and thus they complain about everything with a price tag. Most "free" to win games are really partial games ment to get you hooked with the free bits. PWE games are more Free to win than any other Pay to play game ive ever seen thanks to zen exchange and the auction-house running on AD.
In a lot of ways I think PWE is missing out of a lot of cash by not having subscription options, and more account based items/services. The fashion gear being an actual item rather than a costume slot people can spends a few 1000ad here and there to tinker with is probbibly costing them a small fortune I have over 10 costume slots on CO and STO, I have like every costume pack weather I need it or not cause I tend to have a gotta collect them all factor for account based things.
I believe the lack of subscription is more to do to it not being out of beta yet than it being not in the plans.
aeonbluessMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
I am officially redefining this endless debate. P2W is a myth, some players Pay 2 Play, and some are Free 2 Play. My guess is that a whole lot of players are somewhere in the middle. Everyone is a player and there are no Neverwinter Olympics.
Why does a game have to be all or nothing, one or the other? Neverwinter allows players to set their own standard. A player can chose to spend $0 and get all the same, gear, mounts, unlocks, etc that a paying player gets and that is F2P. That player has to work harder in game to get the same benefit and it takes a lot more time but doesn't have to spend any time at a real job paying for their hobby.
Another player has the option to work and then budget money for entertainment. This can be used to purchase zen store items, and astral diamonds which can be used for gear. The P2W player would not be able to buy gear on the AH without the F2P player grinding out the gear.
This is a symbiotic relationship. Both players get to have fun, both players feel rewarded, and the game designers get to pay their rent and justify this wonderful game that took people who WORK years to develop. Btw, you might want to consider their emotional investment as well as the financial.
Personally I don't buy a lot of gear on the AH, but I do buy zen market items and instead of buying lock box keys I will buy things like mounts and companions on the AH. I work as a customer service rep in the cell phone industry. To be totally honest, I would much rather play NW as a F2P player then talking to a bunch of trolls on the phone all day. You players that don't spend money on this game, are the ones that I envy.
I am officially redefining this endless debate. P2W is a myth, some players Pay 2 Play, and some are Free 2 Play. My guess is that a whole lot of players are somewhere in the middle. Everyone is a player and there are no Neverwinter Olympics.
Why does a game have to be all or nothing, one or the other? Neverwinter allows players to set their own standard. A player can chose to spend $0 and get all the same, gear, mounts, unlocks, etc that a paying player gets and that is F2P. That player has to work harder in game to get the same benefit and it takes a lot more time but doesn't have to spend any time at a real job paying for their hobby.
Another player has the option to work and then budget money for entertainment. This can be used to purchase zen store items, and astral diamonds which can be used for gear. The P2W player would not be able to buy gear on the AH without the F2P player grinding out the gear.
This is a symbiotic relationship. Both players get to have fun, both players feel rewarded, and the game designers get to pay their rent and justify this wonderful game that took people who WORK years to develop. Btw, you might want to consider their emotional investment as well as the financial.
Personally I don't buy a lot of gear on the AH, but I do buy zen market items and instead of buying lock box keys I will buy things like mounts and companions on the AH. I work as a customer service rep in the cell phone industry. To be totally honest, I would much rather play NW as a F2P player then talking to a bunch of trolls on the phone all day. You players that don't spend money on this game, are the ones that I envy.
Tip: don't use official when it isn't actually official.
Other than that, yes. Without P2W, the Zen/AD exchange would not work, meaning that F2P players would have NO way of getting Zen items.
I am officially redefining this endless debate. P2W is a myth, some players Pay 2 Play, and some are Free 2 Play. My guess is that a whole lot of players are somewhere in the middle. Everyone is a player and there are no Neverwinter Olympics.
This is false. "Pay to win" is a fairly well-defined structure, most people just attribute any kind of real money mechanic to it.
There are games out there that are "pay to win".
This is false. "Pay to win" is a fairly well-defined structure, most people just attribute any kind of real money mechanic to it.
There are games out there that are "pay to win".
Then please allow me to refraise my comment...
Unlike games that are Pay2Win, where players do not have the ability to gain all material and benefits unless they pay money, Neverwinters allows true F2P with the option to Pay2Play.
0
aeonbluessMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Because kids don't understand economics, because their parents buy them everything so they think things are free.
Dead on mate. I don't expect a thank you note because I am paying money to support the game that other people enjoy for "free". I don't expect them to understand that I am subsidising their "free" game for them.
Yeah because people who spend 10 hours a day gaming don't have an advantage. :P Money buys time, basically, and if you're willing to grind to save money, don't sue the guy who spends some cash to save time.
Quoted for hilarity and truth I almost spat coffee out of my nose.
Bori - Renegade Drow - 40 Trickster Rogue - Mindflayer Elocin - Renegade Drow - 39 Devoted Cleric of Selune - Mindflayer
Looking for some Dust of Forum Troll Disappearance? Sprinkle this on any troll to phase shift them out of your plane of existence.
Unlike games that are Pay2Win, where players do not have the ability to gain all material and benefits unless they pay money, Neverwinters allows true F2P with the option to Pay2Play.
Well there are 2 main types of pay2win.
1) There is p2w where you literally pay money for a clear advantage. Like free players have 100 hps and you have 100,000 hps, etc.
2) Then there is p2w where the top end gear can only really be gotten by paying, because it just takes way too long without paying. Like if you can pay for something and it takes a free player 6 years to get, you might as well not pretend that you will ever get the item, or whatever, without paying.
With this game most people are talking about 2, as far as I know. Probably something to do with how stupid long it would take to get max enchantments without paying. Mount speed not being capped in pvp probably does not help.
When you can pay to be on the same level as people that pay 24/7, or get ahead of them, it is not really considered pay2win by most, as long as free people can catch up within a reasonable amount of time.
The Wall Street Journal doesn't agree with your grossly inflated figures and in fact has their profits DOWN by 67% in the last quarter reported. "Perfect World posted a profit of CNY86.4 million ($13.9 million),"
Perhaps not that successful a business model after all?
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the meanings of the words "gross" and "net" in relation to profit, or you wouldn't have quoted an article that agrees with my figures and presented it as a rebuttal of them.
Net profit in an MMO company is only high if they're not developing new games. Gross profit tells you more about the success of their business model, if they're actively plowing most of their profits into new game development.
I wouldnt say their games are substandard, because the quality is certainly there. The visuals are pretty powerful, and gameplay wise, they make games from standard tab targeting to action combat mechanics. But their games are p2w. Im not sure how great that model is, but it certainly sucks for consumers.
My conclusion for these types of games is just to play them for fun. Fortunately, they dont force you to pvp, so the players you match the size of your epeen against can also help you out during instance runs. As opposed to getting 2 shotted by them during pvp. Worst case scenario is that you get passed up at a chance to join a party because of your f2p equips.
0
clockwerkninjaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
The free to play model is meant to work on the idea that if you bring more players into a game then it will create activity that will keep other people playing longer..With time invested into a thriving population they will be inclines to add personal touches to their toons and thus bring in cash for the company at a steady rate.
When you offer item that outright over power the paying player you break the trust of the non paying player and the population dies, thus having no others to lord their powerful cash shop loot over the paying customers head off to a more populated game to get their e-peen on..
P2w is a death knell for any f2p game, even if it seems counter intuitive .
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Quote Originally Posted by roents
It's an "open beta" that can't be wiped even in the midst of multiple economy destroying exploits. FUN
why is p2w bad? for me personally is because a game i enjoyed greatly slowly started become a ghost town within two years,and reason most people stated for leaving was price to be competitive in the end-game content.the people who are awful at video games and need spend real money keep up don't bother me,but empty servers do.the devs and publishers need find better balance,so the game population don't die out prematurely.
i would agree that the whales most likely do complain the most,because they have spent so much money,but have no one play the game with.
One way to beat the system is for players to restrict their own content such as battlefields, arenas, and instances. Where players can set pvp and pve events with restrictions as to what can and can not be used. Like naked arena and battlefields. But that would mess with PWE's business structure.
1) There is p2w where you literally pay money for a clear advantage. Like free players have 100 hps and you have 100,000 hps, etc.
2) Then there is p2w where the top end gear can only really be gotten by paying, because it just takes way too long without paying. Like if you can pay for something and it takes a free player 6 years to get, you might as well not pretend that you will ever get the item, or whatever, without paying.
With this game most people are talking about 2, as far as I know. Probably something to do with how stupid long it would take to get max enchantments without paying. Mount speed not being capped in pvp probably does not help.
When you can pay to be on the same level as people that pay 24/7, or get ahead of them, it is not really considered pay2win by most, as long as free people can catch up within a reasonable amount of time.
correctly, but still even option 2 is if only achievable through paying, while what I see is hard on proses, but not impossible, and like somebody already said in the post before, the term is on PvP content, this game is not PvP only so non-PvP player or all round player almost feel not much effect on this one
PS: most PvP game is P2W if isnt P2P already so not that surprising actually
I see the issue with P2W here, but I just don't like how people darmatize that "P" in P2W phrase. Obviously, in this game, you may pay money. Well, that happens in this world from time to time too. But would you concider paying 5$ to get from A to B quickly by car as a "win"? Seems like that "W" aspect is more difficult to understeand and definitely deserves some attention too. Because we could, I don't know, realise there are letters that fit better?
Pay 2 Win is bad because it is a failure of a business strategy.
It's akin to a department store charging a cover charge.
A free to play game lives or dies on the amount of free players that it attracts and retains. Free players are walking, talking advertisements, some convert to paying players and other bring in paying players but the simple fact is that the fewer free players you have the fewer paying players you will have. If you build a game that sets out to alienate the free players with either egregious pay 2 win tactics (of which there are a few here) or forced to pay tactics (which there are also a few) your population will be lower and in turn so will your revenue.
Honest to god, I'm not trolling. I'm really asking because it's not obvious to me that it is the awful thing many/most folks seem to think it is.
PWE is in business to make money. A profit motive is not an evil thing. Why shouldn't they offer items of value to people who are willing and able to buy them, even if those items give the players some advantage?
The only argument against it I can think of is that it would discourage folks that can't/aren't willing to buy items from playing. But those same folks are only a cost to PWE so from a business perspective that wouldn't really matter.
Or, I guess another way to put it: what's the argument for putting people who aren't paying PWE on the same footing as people who ARE paying PWE?
How I see it Pay to Win is not about selling items that give you an advantage in game, it is selling items that are indispensable to progress in the game i. e. if you don't buy them you are stuck, but on the other hand if you can play fairly well without buying them even if you are not at par with those that did buy them it is not Pay to Win
Free to play model was introduced some time ago and was treated as a "poorer brother" of the subscription model. That quickly changed, because the revenues from F2P are vastly superior to the revenues from subscriptions. There are two main factors here, one is that wealthy players can spend much more than a subscription and they're given reason to do it. The second one is simply frustration making poor players pay something from time to time just to get the little advantage they crave while struggling to get by.
For quite some time there was no "Pay to win" problem, simply because people had no idea how much revenue this model generates. It was treated as "necessary evil" by most. There was the whiny minority ofcourse. Now, since the revenues are widely known, beens have been spilled, people know, that it's not necessary to squeeze every last cent out of customers giving them unfair advantages, because "cosmetic only" models seem to work as well.
Neverwinter's model is very close to "cosmetic only" with sole exception of the mounts. They can and are widely used in PvP giving founders and paying customers advantage over anybody else, simply because they're faster and they start caping faster. The model itself seems to be allright, at least on lower levels, but the prices of some items and the chance to succesfully fuse enchantments make my skin crawl. This is clearly a brute force way to make people pay for the game and pay sums, that are unacceptable to most players. I can't imagine spending $150 to enchant a single item. I can't imagine spending $150 on any game. I never did and never will.
So the bad thing behind pay to win system is that first of all it's unnecessary and it means, that the publisher is simply greedy or the game sucks balls, so they need to squeeze a few bucks before it goes bust. Second of all it makes free players frustrated and forces them out of the game (especially if pay to win items are usable in PvP). Third of all every game is a competition of skill and commitment. Could you imagine someone buying the option to have 4 more players on the field in football? Would that make it even remotely fair?
Regards,
Kalantris
0
steppenkatMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Pay 2 Win is bad because it is a failure of a business strategy.
It's akin to a department store charging a cover charge.
A free to play game lives or dies on the amount of free players that it attracts and retains. Free players are walking, talking advertisements, some convert to paying players and other bring in paying players but the simple fact is that the fewer free players you have the fewer paying players you will have. If you build a game that sets out to alienate the free players with either egregious pay 2 win tactics (of which there are a few here) or forced to pay tactics (which there are also a few) your population will be lower and in turn so will your revenue.
Uh, no. FtP works because people end up paying, not because it has a large amount of freebies.
P2W is bad, yes. But that only applies in games that require you to pass through the cash-shop in order to advance through content. This doesn't happen in Neverwinter. Heck, I buy Zen often and one of my friends, who is a freebie, has better gear than me! He doesn't spend a dime - in fact, I often buy stuff for both of us - yet he's having a blast and he doesn't feel the need of using the cash-shop (though he's spending all his AD to open lockboxes so he can get the Jester Outfit).
FtP is the best model out there. After WoW, I have never played a subscription game and probably won't do it again. Because I know how these games work. They ask for a payment upfront, then a monthly fee. And because they ask you for a monthly fee, this means that they'll force you to grind for at least 2 months in order to actually enjoy most of the content. Also, it creates a weird sensation of "utility", like forcing you to keep playing the most you can or you'll feel like your money is wasted. It's like a cellphone contract: it incentives you to "overuse" it and call as much as you can or you'll feel like it's not an efficient service. I don't want to feel forced to play, and F2P games assume that I'll spend what I want, when I want and what satisfies me the most.
NW does a great job with this.
Some prices are very high, I won't deny that. But that simply translates into not buying some articles that though I'd like to have, I don't think they're a worthwhile purchase. If enough people think like me, the price for that particular service will drop and maybe then I'll purchase it.
Just face it, there's no P2W here. Amongst the "winner crowd" there are often more cheaters and exploiters than anything, since "winning" in an MMO equates to roflstomping and ego-stroking in PvP. Most players simply don't care about that. PvP here isn't competitive yet, so there's nothing to win.
The most close you can get to "win" is to beat all PvE content and get achievements... Yet I'm seeing that most people do this through exploiting and bugging the content. The same "anti-P2W" crowd. It's ironic because they think that they're entitled to set judgement on paying customers who actually support this game, while they cheat to beat it by playing the game as its not intended to.
Characters: - Titania Silverblade, the Iron Rose of Myth Drannor (Lvl 60 GWF, Destroyer) - Gwyneth, the Cowardly Cat Burglar Drowling (Lvl 60 TR, Saboteur) - Lady Rowanne Firehair, Heartwarder of Sune (Lvl 33 DC) - Satella, Sensate (LvL 44 CW, Renegade, Non-Active)
Free to play model was introduced some time ago and was treated as a "poorer brother" of the subscription model. That quickly changed, because the revenues from F2P are vastly superior to the revenues from subscriptions. There are two main factors here, one is that wealthy players can spend much more than a subscription and they're given reason to do it. The second one is simply frustration making poor players pay something from time to time just to get the little advantage they crave while struggling to get by.
For quite some time there was no "Pay to win" problem, simply because people had no idea how much revenue this model generates. It was treated as "necessary evil" by most. There was the whiny minority ofcourse. Now, since the revenues are widely known, beens have been spilled, people know, that it's not necessary to squeeze every last cent out of customers giving them unfair advantages, because "cosmetic only" models seem to work as well.
Neverwinter's model is very close to "cosmetic only" with sole exception of the mounts. They can and are widely used in PvP giving founders and paying customers advantage over anybody else, simply because they're faster and they start caping faster. The model itself seems to be allright, at least on lower levels, but the prices of some items and the chance to succesfully fuse enchantments make my skin crawl. This is clearly a brute force way to make people pay for the game and pay sums, that are unacceptable to most players. I can't imagine spending $150 to enchant a single item. I can't imagine spending $150 on any game. I never did and never will.
So the bad thing behind pay to win system is that first of all it's unnecessary and it means, that the publisher is simply greedy or the game sucks balls, so they need to squeeze a few bucks before it goes bust. Second of all it makes free players frustrated and forces them out of the game (especially if pay to win items are usable in PvP). Third of all every game is a competition of skill and commitment. Could you imagine someone buying the option to have 4 more players on the field in football? Would that make it even remotely fair?
Regards,
Kalantris
Regarding this, I think that this will change soon with the new mount training books. Yes, I totally admit that having fast mounts is an advantage in the PvP arenas. I hope they'll adress this soon. But again, PvP here is just a minigame right now, until Gauntlgrym is released.
You can buy enchantments and wards through the AH, considering you saved enough AD. People who're willing to spend 150$ in an enchantment would try to do it through any means. It's like saying the Cat costs about 27 bucks, but that amount can be sorted out by paying the AD! Mind this.
Characters: - Titania Silverblade, the Iron Rose of Myth Drannor (Lvl 60 GWF, Destroyer) - Gwyneth, the Cowardly Cat Burglar Drowling (Lvl 60 TR, Saboteur) - Lady Rowanne Firehair, Heartwarder of Sune (Lvl 33 DC) - Satella, Sensate (LvL 44 CW, Renegade, Non-Active)
nerdbaneMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 18Arc User
edited May 2013
People whine about this "p2w" HAMSTER as if the game has any real or important pve & pvp competition. That ONE guy wasted 450$ on enchants and killing you in pvp, for 10-15 mins at max boo! or he's beating you in deeps meters oh no! OK, store might be overpriced but you can still play the game and win the game with your crappy greens, because game is easy and people are bad.
Seriously "I want justice in my game" troop, why are you not occupying your capitals and demand equality because last time I checked real "P2W" is called real life... I'm not seeing anyone going "Oh no that guy has bought a ferrari and travels faster than me, he also gets more girls! I'm quitting this life HAMSTER, nice job God!" *suicide* . You guys are forgetting you're all sitting on your expensive computers, playing expensive games which you (or your parents) paid for them and you complain about other people who CAN afford to spend more than you. The word for that is not equality or fairness, it's jealousy.
Because Neverwinter has the potential to be a good game but Cryptic look at the money side instead. $200 for the Founder's pack? Not trying to bash the people who bought it, but your $200 could have been spent on something better than in this exploited game and the worst customer support I ever deal with.
There are plenty of online games out there which are insanely successful, without being pay to win.
DoTA. StarCraft. Call of Duty. Counterstrike. Team Fortress.
Note that none of these games are subscription games, and all of them require online servers which need to be maintained. Note, also, that many of these games enter the realm of being "eSport", meaning they are held to quite a high standard with regards to character/class/faction balance.
Free-to-play is not the same as pay-to-win, but we are going further and further in that direction with each new MMO release. It's entirely possible to come out with an online free-to-play game which does not even offer "pay for convenience," nevermind pay-to-win.
-Travail.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Regarding this, I think that this will change soon with the new mount training books. Yes, I totally admit that having fast mounts is an advantage in the PvP arenas. I hope they'll adress this soon. But again, PvP here is just a minigame right now, until Gauntlgrym is released.
You can buy enchantments and wards through the AH, considering you saved enough AD. People who're willing to spend 150$ in an enchantment would try to do it through any means. It's like saying the Cat costs about 27 bucks, but that amount can be sorted out by paying the AD! Mind this.
Yes, ofcourse, but the price of these items is regulated by... ZEN. It's a triage - AD, ZEN, items which can be obtained both in-game and through the ZEN store. Regardless of how much effort it takes to obtain the items they will always be worth as much as their AD/ZEN coversion value.
Imagine a companion named... let's say The Friendly Giraffe. This Giraffe is awesome, because you can climb on it's neck and exploit half of the dungeons . Everyone wants it. You can get it from a chest at the end in one of the dungeons, but there's only 0.1% chance of getting one. It costs only 800 ZEN in the Zen Store though. Such an item would cost millions of AD if the only way to obtain it was through dungeon runs, but since it costs 800 ZEN it's price is around 300.000AD more or less. That diminishes the time spent in-game to the point it's actually better to stay longer at work and earn a little more cash to invest in the game than to actually play the game.
That's why the answer "you can also get it in-game" is not always a real answer .
Comments
NOTE: This is all things being equal and no exploiting, simply using time in game or store purchased items for the argument. Read before you knee jerk.
Take for instance the player that can put countless hours into playing online games and makes the statement, "I work for what I get"
Then we take the Gamer that has a life cant devote more than a few minute or few hours a month but it given the option to buy things of equal or slightly less value in a micro transaction store and thus stay on the same footing or close to it.
The words skill and leadership have no place in a game just to start the summary on even footing. In both cases time and time alone is the ONLY factor in causing arguments among players that play games in rote action MMO's. Some gamers do not want to see other people doing something different than they do. These people constantly check others to see if they are doing something that does not agree with their current mindset, because these gamers cant mind their own business.
The big argument? It is not "hardcore" or "casual", it is who can spend the most time verse who can spend the money regardless of the outcome with one side, usually the ones that cant spend money doing the complaining about those that do spend for convenience and taking that short cut to get on par with the people that cant spend or do not want to.
Then you have your gamers that cant spend the time or money that also worry about what everyone else has or how they got it.
In the end, the simple solution, as long as exploits are not being used, is for the looky loos to worry about themselves and not how green the other side of the fence is or how fast it got that way.
Human nature, jealousy and being nosy, Gamers need to stop and simply play the game. Don't try to support an argument about exploits either, this isn't what this response was about, and those angry folks know it. Grin.
zen---->ad exchange
best in slot gear is BoE
ad
> BiS gear
you bought BiS gear with $$$
pay 2 win.
not to mention things like res tokens exist, which are also completely stupid in such a game.
any non HAMSTER "gamer" would agree that this is HAMSTER.
There's nothing "wrong" with "pay to win" same as there being nothing "wrong" with selling an apple for a million dollars.
The difference between subscription games and "free" games is that the "free" games are supposed to be more accessible to people.
From there, the publisher has choices for monetization. P2W is generally considered a poor choice (by players) because people really hate being "forced" into something (i.e. mounts only available for $ or best gear available for $ only).
A much better choice is allowing people to acquire all of these things through an auction/special exchange system which gives paying players options for acquiring in-game currency and non-paying players the option to get otherwise inaccessible items.
Now, most people don't have the reasoning capacity to tell one from the other, hence all the P2W threads on this forum.
P2W is not a design whereby designers make money for the game they made, it's a design where they allow the paying class to achieve a unreachable advantage over the unpaying class.
I believe the lack of subscription is more to do to it not being out of beta yet than it being not in the plans.
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
Why does a game have to be all or nothing, one or the other? Neverwinter allows players to set their own standard. A player can chose to spend $0 and get all the same, gear, mounts, unlocks, etc that a paying player gets and that is F2P. That player has to work harder in game to get the same benefit and it takes a lot more time but doesn't have to spend any time at a real job paying for their hobby.
Another player has the option to work and then budget money for entertainment. This can be used to purchase zen store items, and astral diamonds which can be used for gear. The P2W player would not be able to buy gear on the AH without the F2P player grinding out the gear.
This is a symbiotic relationship. Both players get to have fun, both players feel rewarded, and the game designers get to pay their rent and justify this wonderful game that took people who WORK years to develop. Btw, you might want to consider their emotional investment as well as the financial.
Personally I don't buy a lot of gear on the AH, but I do buy zen market items and instead of buying lock box keys I will buy things like mounts and companions on the AH. I work as a customer service rep in the cell phone industry. To be totally honest, I would much rather play NW as a F2P player then talking to a bunch of trolls on the phone all day. You players that don't spend money on this game, are the ones that I envy.
Other than that, yes. Without P2W, the Zen/AD exchange would not work, meaning that F2P players would have NO way of getting Zen items.
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
This is false. "Pay to win" is a fairly well-defined structure, most people just attribute any kind of real money mechanic to it.
There are games out there that are "pay to win".
People just like to look down on it because you can putt literally no effort and be geared for the top end stuff
Then please allow me to refraise my comment...
Unlike games that are Pay2Win, where players do not have the ability to gain all material and benefits unless they pay money, Neverwinters allows true F2P with the option to Pay2Play.
Unless they're spending money that was gifted, they had to work for it in some way.....
Dead on mate. I don't expect a thank you note because I am paying money to support the game that other people enjoy for "free". I don't expect them to understand that I am subsidising their "free" game for them.
Quoted for hilarity and truth
Elocin - Renegade Drow - 39 Devoted Cleric of Selune - Mindflayer
Looking for some Dust of Forum Troll Disappearance ? Sprinkle this on any troll to phase shift them out of your plane of existence.
Well there are 2 main types of pay2win.
1) There is p2w where you literally pay money for a clear advantage. Like free players have 100 hps and you have 100,000 hps, etc.
2) Then there is p2w where the top end gear can only really be gotten by paying, because it just takes way too long without paying. Like if you can pay for something and it takes a free player 6 years to get, you might as well not pretend that you will ever get the item, or whatever, without paying.
With this game most people are talking about 2, as far as I know. Probably something to do with how stupid long it would take to get max enchantments without paying. Mount speed not being capped in pvp probably does not help.
When you can pay to be on the same level as people that pay 24/7, or get ahead of them, it is not really considered pay2win by most, as long as free people can catch up within a reasonable amount of time.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the meanings of the words "gross" and "net" in relation to profit, or you wouldn't have quoted an article that agrees with my figures and presented it as a rebuttal of them.
Net profit in an MMO company is only high if they're not developing new games. Gross profit tells you more about the success of their business model, if they're actively plowing most of their profits into new game development.
My conclusion for these types of games is just to play them for fun. Fortunately, they dont force you to pvp, so the players you match the size of your epeen against can also help you out during instance runs. As opposed to getting 2 shotted by them during pvp. Worst case scenario is that you get passed up at a chance to join a party because of your f2p equips.
When you offer item that outright over power the paying player you break the trust of the non paying player and the population dies, thus having no others to lord their powerful cash shop loot over the paying customers head off to a more populated game to get their e-peen on..
P2w is a death knell for any f2p game, even if it seems counter intuitive .
Quote Originally Posted by roents
It's an "open beta" that can't be wiped even in the midst of multiple economy destroying exploits. FUN
i would agree that the whales most likely do complain the most,because they have spent so much money,but have no one play the game with.
correctly, but still even option 2 is if only achievable through paying, while what I see is hard on proses, but not impossible, and like somebody already said in the post before, the term is on PvP content, this game is not PvP only so non-PvP player or all round player almost feel not much effect on this one
PS: most PvP game is P2W if isnt P2P already so not that surprising actually
It's akin to a department store charging a cover charge.
A free to play game lives or dies on the amount of free players that it attracts and retains. Free players are walking, talking advertisements, some convert to paying players and other bring in paying players but the simple fact is that the fewer free players you have the fewer paying players you will have. If you build a game that sets out to alienate the free players with either egregious pay 2 win tactics (of which there are a few here) or forced to pay tactics (which there are also a few) your population will be lower and in turn so will your revenue.
How I see it Pay to Win is not about selling items that give you an advantage in game, it is selling items that are indispensable to progress in the game i. e. if you don't buy them you are stuck, but on the other hand if you can play fairly well without buying them even if you are not at par with those that did buy them it is not Pay to Win
For quite some time there was no "Pay to win" problem, simply because people had no idea how much revenue this model generates. It was treated as "necessary evil" by most. There was the whiny minority ofcourse. Now, since the revenues are widely known, beens have been spilled, people know, that it's not necessary to squeeze every last cent out of customers giving them unfair advantages, because "cosmetic only" models seem to work as well.
Neverwinter's model is very close to "cosmetic only" with sole exception of the mounts. They can and are widely used in PvP giving founders and paying customers advantage over anybody else, simply because they're faster and they start caping faster. The model itself seems to be allright, at least on lower levels, but the prices of some items and the chance to succesfully fuse enchantments make my skin crawl. This is clearly a brute force way to make people pay for the game and pay sums, that are unacceptable to most players. I can't imagine spending $150 to enchant a single item. I can't imagine spending $150 on any game. I never did and never will.
So the bad thing behind pay to win system is that first of all it's unnecessary and it means, that the publisher is simply greedy or the game sucks balls, so they need to squeeze a few bucks before it goes bust. Second of all it makes free players frustrated and forces them out of the game (especially if pay to win items are usable in PvP). Third of all every game is a competition of skill and commitment. Could you imagine someone buying the option to have 4 more players on the field in football? Would that make it even remotely fair?
Regards,
Kalantris
Uh, no. FtP works because people end up paying, not because it has a large amount of freebies.
P2W is bad, yes. But that only applies in games that require you to pass through the cash-shop in order to advance through content. This doesn't happen in Neverwinter. Heck, I buy Zen often and one of my friends, who is a freebie, has better gear than me! He doesn't spend a dime - in fact, I often buy stuff for both of us - yet he's having a blast and he doesn't feel the need of using the cash-shop (though he's spending all his AD to open lockboxes so he can get the Jester Outfit).
FtP is the best model out there. After WoW, I have never played a subscription game and probably won't do it again. Because I know how these games work. They ask for a payment upfront, then a monthly fee. And because they ask you for a monthly fee, this means that they'll force you to grind for at least 2 months in order to actually enjoy most of the content. Also, it creates a weird sensation of "utility", like forcing you to keep playing the most you can or you'll feel like your money is wasted. It's like a cellphone contract: it incentives you to "overuse" it and call as much as you can or you'll feel like it's not an efficient service. I don't want to feel forced to play, and F2P games assume that I'll spend what I want, when I want and what satisfies me the most.
NW does a great job with this.
Some prices are very high, I won't deny that. But that simply translates into not buying some articles that though I'd like to have, I don't think they're a worthwhile purchase. If enough people think like me, the price for that particular service will drop and maybe then I'll purchase it.
Just face it, there's no P2W here. Amongst the "winner crowd" there are often more cheaters and exploiters than anything, since "winning" in an MMO equates to roflstomping and ego-stroking in PvP. Most players simply don't care about that. PvP here isn't competitive yet, so there's nothing to win.
The most close you can get to "win" is to beat all PvE content and get achievements... Yet I'm seeing that most people do this through exploiting and bugging the content. The same "anti-P2W" crowd. It's ironic because they think that they're entitled to set judgement on paying customers who actually support this game, while they cheat to beat it by playing the game as its not intended to.
- Titania Silverblade, the Iron Rose of Myth Drannor (Lvl 60 GWF, Destroyer)
- Gwyneth, the Cowardly Cat Burglar Drowling (Lvl 60 TR, Saboteur)
- Lady Rowanne Firehair, Heartwarder of Sune (Lvl 33 DC)
- Satella, Sensate (LvL 44 CW, Renegade, Non-Active)
Check Steppenkat's Foundry Quest Reviews!
Regarding this, I think that this will change soon with the new mount training books. Yes, I totally admit that having fast mounts is an advantage in the PvP arenas. I hope they'll adress this soon. But again, PvP here is just a minigame right now, until Gauntlgrym is released.
You can buy enchantments and wards through the AH, considering you saved enough AD. People who're willing to spend 150$ in an enchantment would try to do it through any means. It's like saying the Cat costs about 27 bucks, but that amount can be sorted out by paying the AD! Mind this.
- Titania Silverblade, the Iron Rose of Myth Drannor (Lvl 60 GWF, Destroyer)
- Gwyneth, the Cowardly Cat Burglar Drowling (Lvl 60 TR, Saboteur)
- Lady Rowanne Firehair, Heartwarder of Sune (Lvl 33 DC)
- Satella, Sensate (LvL 44 CW, Renegade, Non-Active)
Check Steppenkat's Foundry Quest Reviews!
Seriously "I want justice in my game" troop, why are you not occupying your capitals and demand equality because last time I checked real "P2W" is called real life... I'm not seeing anyone going "Oh no that guy has bought a ferrari and travels faster than me, he also gets more girls! I'm quitting this life HAMSTER, nice job God!" *suicide* . You guys are forgetting you're all sitting on your expensive computers, playing expensive games which you (or your parents) paid for them and you complain about other people who CAN afford to spend more than you. The word for that is not equality or fairness, it's jealousy.
DoTA. StarCraft. Call of Duty. Counterstrike. Team Fortress.
Note that none of these games are subscription games, and all of them require online servers which need to be maintained. Note, also, that many of these games enter the realm of being "eSport", meaning they are held to quite a high standard with regards to character/class/faction balance.
Free-to-play is not the same as pay-to-win, but we are going further and further in that direction with each new MMO release. It's entirely possible to come out with an online free-to-play game which does not even offer "pay for convenience," nevermind pay-to-win.
-Travail.
Yes, ofcourse, but the price of these items is regulated by... ZEN. It's a triage - AD, ZEN, items which can be obtained both in-game and through the ZEN store. Regardless of how much effort it takes to obtain the items they will always be worth as much as their AD/ZEN coversion value.
Imagine a companion named... let's say The Friendly Giraffe. This Giraffe is awesome, because you can climb on it's neck and exploit half of the dungeons
That's why the answer "you can also get it in-game" is not always a real answer
Best regards,
Kalantris