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Why Do They Call It Free To Play?
rikev
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
This is one for the entire industry.
Surely the idea is you play for free but as you use the game, you pay money? Top-up with extras and so on.
On my old phone this is called Pay As You Go not Free to Call.
Surely the idea is you play for free but as you use the game, you pay money? Top-up with extras and so on.
On my old phone this is called Pay As You Go not Free to Call.
Hi, my name is Nigel. I'm your group's healer.
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On a phone you cannot make calls for free or do anything on the network for free and so you have to pay to do anything at all. They are not the same at all or even similar.
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
these games are free to play. you dont have to pay a penny. there may be pay restrictions along the way but you can still play the bulk of the game (and in sto's case all of the game) for free.
why? In theory you can get anything there is by playing the game...it only takes a lot of time.
there are no real limitations in sense of missions only available to paying users or anything.
for the most part all free ships are competitive in endgame and PVP.
and the most important point: you can earn the currency used to buy ships etc while playing.
compared to a phone, this would mean: you phone for free, but with less quality than the paying user...but while you do phone you load up your account with points to upgrade to a better quality. The more you phone for free, the more features you unlock.
ofcourse those ships and other features are highly overprized, but considering that you can earn the currency to buy it while playing makes those prices understandable.
I certainly would prefer, smaller prices, but less possibilities to earn the currency ingame.
Because it gets more people in than "Get very basic access for free and end up spending a lot more than $15 a month if you actually want anything in the game that has any real use".
I don't! I use the dilithium exchange. :P
The items in the c-store are primarily nothing more then pretty little do-dads. Most of the players do not need any of them. You buy items because you want them not because you need them to play. Using a $25.00 regent over a free sovereign means I finish an stf run 10 seconds faster? For those who do not pvp there is not enough mechanical difference between ships to warrant buying them, so you are buying them for pleasure, not necessity.
Rather then the cellphone example a better example might be a automobile. Your uncle might give you an old car when you turn 16. It was free and it runs fine. That does not mean you might not put money into bondo and paint to make it look nicer. You might put in a new stereo and new rims. You might even throw in some seat and steeringwheel covers too. Maybe you have put a few hundreds dollars into that old car, but none of that changed how the car operated. It simply changed how you feel about it. That is free to play: it works fine as it is but you might want the do-dads to change how you feel about it.
I think the Op was trying to point out that you need the Internet to play so its really not free to play looking at it from that perspective which is the same as a phone because you need to be connected to make the phone calls in the first place.
No, they're saying that even if you play the game for free, you still have to pay real money in the C-store.
Which isn't true because 1)nothing in the C-store is completely necessary to play the game and 2)you don't have to pay a dime because there are the offers and the dilithium exchange through which to earn zen.
Times up. STo was a subscription based games at the start. And converted over to the Free To Play model. So the phrase means you don't need recurring subscription in order to access the game and play it, nothing more. Generally you have a plain, no frills, economy version of the game. If you want more? Well, that'll cost ya.
Can you read?
After the Op this person compared the Op's comment s too,
I simply responded to that by saying, You need the internet to play to begin with I'm not talking about having to pay for c-store stuff.
I'm aware of what other people have said I'm not saying they are wrong all I'm doing is responding to "Dirlettia" post comparing what the op posted compared to a mobile phone plan which is true you do need to be connected to make the phone calls as you do need to be connected to the Internet to play any game whether it has additional online costs or not is irrelevant.
To put it another way, "Why are games advertised Free to play when it costs money to connect to the internet?"
If your not connected to the internet you can't play this game and if you want to take it a step further you could say, "if you don't own or have access to a computer you can't play this game". last I checked computers are not free.
Can you? The OP says absolutely nothing about having to pay for internet. It says you have to pay to fill up on "extras", the stuff from the C-store. You said the OP mentioned having to pay for internet. All I said is that they didn't say that.
Get off my back. :rolleyes:
Free is free in this case as you can play the game without paying anything at all ever.
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
Star Trek, You to can be max level in a 3-5 days...
But those just don't have the same appeal...:P
Obviously, calling it Free to Play is "the hook" to get you to play in the first place.
KBF CO
We are the Dead
join date Aug 2008
thats level 50 for one character and after this you will have to start paying in order to get further, but you are very restricted for everything else a subber can get access too, such as grouping up for raids on the side to help your experience counter and get you better kit.
each game that goes f2p needs to have a source of income, sometimes if means limiting some game play to do it, then its their way, you have to learn to adapt around it. even playing the game costs you time and the more dilithium you mine to convert is also another way of paying towards the costs of STO. in real life nothing is free either, neither is a plan for pay as you go on a phone but your life is free as you can do as you like, to choose your actions.
the free to play is a good model, as you can play this game as far as like and the best bit is you do not actually have to put any money into it, just some time and effort. so it is free.
You can play every mission in the entire game for free. You dont need anything from the C-store to do that. If you dont think the entertainment you get from playing the game is "worth your time", then it simply isnt the game for you. But that has nothing to do with the subject of F2P.
My billing history agrees with you. :rolleyes:
So it technically isn`t free to play!
But by buying nothing on the Zen or Dilithium stores, I can play for FREE!!
26th Fleet
Task Force Avalon - CO USS Intrepid
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Taking into account matt`s argument. You have to pay for the food you need to eat and the house to keep it in. And even the work you need to do to ensure you can keep the house, to buy food, to keep playing on the game.
So in retrospects it is and isn`t a F2P!
26th Fleet
Task Force Avalon - CO USS Intrepid
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
By that logic nothing is free since it costs money just to survive.
HA! In fact, even dying costs money, what with funerals etc. Geez, the universe is nothing but a blatant cash grab. I tell you, it's a slap in the face!
/tongue in cheek
The notion of competing with others, it's all in a persons' mind, you can succumb to it (invest money), work through it (invest time) or quit the game entirely. The choice is always yours and to actually PLAY the game, you don't need to BUY anything from the C-Store. Nothing is free, unless you can create something out of nothing, and since you'll have to spend something during that creation process, you're already using something to create something else, hence you're merely converting not creating. Everybody got that?
The poster formerly known as LordOfPit, and his blog.
* Dec 2007 (CO)
* Oct 2008 (STO)
You can play the game for free. Cryptic is more honest in their definition of "free to play" than just about anybody in the industry, and in STO even more so than in CO; you can play all the way to and through endgame without having to spend a nickel.
Some other free games charge you for access to storyline quests, basic consumables, or other things you can't realistically do without and be said to be playing the entire game. STO doesn't do that.
If you're wanting a GW-style "pay once, and never again", you'd have to also accept "no content will ever be added again". GW charges full price for expansions, and they don't even really expand the game; they just start you over again in a new game that looks exactly like the old one, and could be played completely independently of it.
If you pay, you can get better items, better ships, better features, better rewards. This a business, and because this you have to choice to pay to get better things ingame or accept the fact you have a clear limit to play for free.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Like STO, D&D online is a free 2 play game. The main difference between the two is what they do offer in terms of what you can actually play for free. There's certain areas that are accessable to subcribers, but f2p players can purchase access to those areas, similarly to how we can purchase a ship in the c-store. The beauty of STO is that both gold and silver players have access to storyline in the game without having to spend anything.
Another advantage that I know this game has compared to D&D online is that players don't have to pay for anything at all, thanks in part to dilithium and the dilithium exchange. All the player simply has to do is gather up the dilithium and spend it later in store for character slots, bank slots, a new race to play and so on. D&DO on the other has a special "reward" for clearing a milestone on a character, which is in the form of favor. It is a similar practice to gaining dilithium, but it's harder to actually earn it.
I still prefer STO's method of doing things. My hope is that they'll continue to add more ways of collecting dilithium.