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stonebarr
Member, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 6 Arc User
I've been playing the base game for maybe 7 weeks now, without paying a $USD to the company, and I've had a lot of fun. I'm not one that will pay cash for convenience. However, the quality of the game, plus the (apparent) quality of the FeyWild expansion have prompted me to put my money where my mouth is, and I pre-ordered the expansion.
PerfectWorld - you would have gotten money from me sooner if the zen prices were maybe 1/2 of current prices, but I really think Zen is overpriced at the moment. Give it some thought. You could have easily had more of my money long ago to pay for dev staff and host resources.
That said, I thought it worth contributing and paying the big bucks, in hopes that this will prompt future major upgrades and releases to the game. Yes, nothing is perfect and there will be complainers and nit-pickers about small details but overall the game is well done and well worth it. I like that is free to play, and I like the idea that in some small way I'm supporting gamers who can't afford to pay much
@stonebarr
PerfectWorld - you would have gotten money from me sooner if the zen prices were maybe 1/2 of current prices, but I really think Zen is overpriced at the moment. Give it some thought. You could have easily had more of my money long ago to pay for dev staff and host resources.
That said, I thought it worth contributing and paying the big bucks, in hopes that this will prompt future major upgrades and releases to the game. Yes, nothing is perfect and there will be complainers and nit-pickers about small details but overall the game is well done and well worth it. I like that is free to play, and I like the idea that in some small way I'm supporting gamers who can't afford to pay much
@stonebarr
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You would be surprised how many people think you need to buy the feywild pack to play the expansion then realize its just a unicorn and a funny looking reskinned elf.;)
PinkSugar, lvl 60 CW.
Baby Cakes, lvl 60 GWF.
*******, lvl 60 TR.
Premium Juicebox, lvl 60 CW.
Pink Exxxtacy, Ranger
There is NO pvp in Neverwinter.
Also, the Feywild pack isn't free exactly, given most of it needs piles of AD to access.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Like my friend, Justin.
Whilst the Zen that non payers use has to be bought by someone, at least with AD it can all be earned in game without anyone having had to buy anything.
Yeah, that's why I said 'isn't free exactly.' When you are talking about 300k AD to access Feywild content, the 'you don't HAVE to spend cash' gets very... legalistic.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
One group is given. The "payers" these people will fork over the cash to buy Zen.\
The other group (which is JUST as important) are the "free players" (or some would call freeloaders) the thing is that, a lot of items in NW require AD. AD is currently a "time" commodity. the exceptions are bonuses AD from packs and boxes. A single character can only earn so much REFINED AD per day from playing. This AD is then either being used to buy stuff on AD vendor, AH OR Zen/AD store. The last one is important. It is purely player driven. Have you seen how much Zen is out there? (you can see how much Zen is being sold at X AD price and go down the list)
Zen are not injected by NW. These are player base,but purely "payer" group can't survive without the "free players" who pay by TIME into the system.
In a good "perfect world" balance (yes, pun intended) it benefit everyone
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.
That's nice, in theory. However, without paying players there would be no game available for some to play for free. So, ultimately, those that play entirely for free aren't really as important when it comes to keeping the game running.
not necessary, without the free players, then the pay players WON'T play the game. At least not in F2P style. Why? AD is too high for a lot of item. It would have to be pure Zen Store, but then people would be more "frugal" in their spending.
The AH market is mainly from BoE stuff and crafting mats. How did those get there? generally Free players are generating the item via runs and put them on the market. They are doing that cause they want to get Zen to buy stuff too.
Now there are people who have MONEY and TIME and just buy stuff for themselves, but generally F2P is a symbiotic relationship of pay and free. One can't exist without the other in F2P environment.
Also like the OP, in F2P environment (which prove to be more profitable than Subs) a free player can covert to Pay and vice versa and STILL enjoy the game.
In Sub (pure pay environment), you either pay or don't play.
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.
Personally, I am glad you signed on just to post some positive. Anytime there is an expansion or change, all the little kiddies come out whining about it screaming 'I quit' (really do wish they would). We need some balance and I love to hear from people who love the game and are mature enough to understand that change happens and doesn't break your willingness to support an awesome game. I have even seen threads about people threatening to go to a lawyer (this is just ridiculous and I want to be there when the lawyer laughs in their face).
Anywho. . .I can't help but agree about the zen pricing. A penny per zen sounds reasonable. . .but equals out to paying 5 usd for a character slot, 20 - 30 for a mount or companion. IMO that is simply ludicrous. Consider that if you bought the game itself, off the shelf it would cost between 40-50 usd. So you are almost paying retail for the game all over just to get a small add. Not cool. That said. . .I have spent a few hundred on this game and have no regrets ;p
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If it were an expansion I think PWE/Cryptic would be using that term instead of update; an expansion is a big draw.
if it were actually account wide, I would have no problems paying upto 25 bucks for a companion or mount. being account wide, i can always use them and at that price its almost like a collection to build. Which is an idea. Hears another idea, when you play Magic the Gathering online, you pay real money for virtual cards. At first this seams like a waste, but you can trade cards back and forth and gain tickets (mtgo trading currency) which can be turned into cash! you can find a way to cash out on cards you have bought and sometimes make a profit because of collectible value. You can even get an entire set of cards and cash out to get that entire set of cards IRL.
What if certain mounts, fashions, companions, and other items were collectible? what if there were a way to cash out some of the zen? The structure is already happening between AD and Zen so adjust the model a bit. Make some things collectible, even make statuettes of in game characters and such that you can cash out on. When it's all digital, it is in the aether and intangible. Making something at least feel a bit more tangible with help ease the worry of spending real money on it. I would love to get a collectors set of some of the items in game. Just a thought though.
Zen store mounts are already account wide.
PinkSugar, lvl 60 CW.
Baby Cakes, lvl 60 GWF.
*******, lvl 60 TR.
Premium Juicebox, lvl 60 CW.
Pink Exxxtacy, Ranger
There is NO pvp in Neverwinter.
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Yes, necessarily. If no one is paying money into the game there is absolutely no reason for the game to be offered. Enough has to be paid in by paying customers to make the game profitable for it to continue, and not just that, but the game will be eventually be expected to generate a sufficient level of profit.
Players that are totally f2p do not generate revenue, never mind profit.
Paying players are the ones that provide incentive for this game to continue be offered.
You do not have to pay to play the new content. You can earn AD and gold, and the other things you need, simply by playing the game. If you want to finish the new content faster than you can generate the in game currencies then you can pay to speed up the process, but that is totally optional. So, the game is still f2p, with optional purchased convenience.
With all due respect, it is true you can make the same in game and convert and such, but honestly the in game AD income is almost negligible and will become more so once DD chest are BoP. The model is obviously built to sway towards the convenience of buying zen over earn and convert. Especially since the Zen store item prices are pretty out there. Like I said, I have spent my fair share and more with no complaints, I am only bringing my views into light.
There is a balance though - without the F2P then the paying players will have to play longer to obtain anything which is exactly why a lot of them are putting cash in so that they don't have too. Also if everyone is a pay customer then the whole "elite" aspect of having these "exclusives" becomes pointless when everyone else around you has the exact same things. Without the non-cash players the game deteriorates slower but just as assuredly.
Yeah, played through it a couple of times now - the AD costs are high but with the massive amount of borewall requirements for progression, AD is probably going to be the least problematic part of progressing through the expansion - the requirement for 9 tokens or 100+ feywild sparks for some of the tasks is much more arduous for non-cash players (cash players can use the trade mechanism to obtain sparks/crescents). The mechanisms being employed to deter the whole Locust swarm to the end destroy a lot of the fun of playing through it when you are forced to repeat the same tasks ad-nauseum every day to progress, after a few days the expansion isn't fun it's just mindless repetition that you need to do for weeks (note - weeks, even cash players will hit up against the wall of requiring X many charms to progress the campaign).
Ad prices fluctuate a lot and you can make a lot of AD by selling to trade-skillers and rpers not to mention the $$ you can make from people after an AD stipend...which will be coming up.
Ive been a customer from very start I like the fluff but then again i'm a girl.
Paying players would still be able to play with the absence of non-playing players, though things may take longer as you say. Non-paying players would not be able to play with the absence of paying players.
That's the bottom line. Paying players are required to keep the game running. Non-paying ones are not.
However, one could easily argue that non-paying players enhance the experience of paying players, through means you have brought up in your posts. There is a difference, though, between enhancing the game experience and being essential to it.
You need to spend none. You can spend as much as you wish.
oh goodie, another "leechers" vs "P2W" argument - what everyone wants to read.
My post had nothing to do with disparaging f2p players, or with P2W.
In any case, if people don't want to read my post they are free to pass on by. That's one of the wonders of forums.
When you say essential for the experience, I can't help but think that f2players are just as important as the p2players. I do agree that it is essential that the company takes some form of income to remain open, however the draw is not what you buy its the players. If you removed all the players that spend nothing, then you don't have enough players left that are paying that will keep the experience alive. Without the experience of the large player base including the f2players there would be no way to draw in enough new players that may indeed want to pay. It's actually pretty symbiotic when done well.
knightfalz mentioned nothing about the combat or play style differences between free and pay. Another cool thing about forums is that you usually delve up some decent conversation. That's hard to do when people don't take the time to read, and then start throwing useless comments in that contribute zero.
Agreed with Kightfalz and xabersedge - I feel people have made a good contribution to this thread in analyzing the macro-economics of the current MMO space. I don't think anyone meant to be derisive. Quite the contrary, there was well-balanced discussion. Its the free-market system writ large, with all the benefits and problems that go with it. Marx and Engels would be rolling in their wight-barrow if they could see it. And, while I am thinking of it, they'd probably find great pleasure in the cash-spewing hate monster that is the dreaded MIMIC, and surely find the beast to be some kind of symbol for the revolution.
If only we could in some way lash the in-game economy to the real-world free market we could probably make some money on predicting the market! All that money-making brain power going to waste on a false economy
And for those that commented - YES - I know exactly what I was paying for when I paid for the new content (expansion / pack / whatever). I know I could have gotten it all for free if I put in the time for it. But when I look at my spending, I ask myself "how many hours will I enjoy and play this game" (or play with this toy, or whatever) and then try to place a per-hour cost on it. When I look at the time I have already spent, then $60 is money well spent already on a per-hour basis. I'm paying maybe $.25USD an hour at most, and by my thinkin, thats cheap entertainment. Plus, it will give a few benefits such as a bit of AD (oh boy, I can get just enough crafting to gear to have an extremely remote chance of making a tier-3 shirt!), a hopefully less squishy companion (curse you level 20 man at arms! your incessant flexing makes you a bloody target!)