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Ignacius · **05-14-2014, 08:43 AM**

(05-14-2014, 01:50 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: MMO "nomads" are the second single most significant reason why free-to-play/pay-to-win titles are completely dominating the market.

If people stuck to one MMO for years like they used to, these wouldn't exist and subscription games would be a lot more common.

(The other most significant reason why F2P is taking over is WoW, because most of the people who prefer subscription games are playing it, or playing XIV).

Is F2P dominating the market? Â Last I heard, even after hemorrhaging players due to lack of content, WoW still had about 7-8 million active accounts and is still the largest MMORPG on the planet. Â Subscription MMORPGs have to keep it real, since you can judge sub numbers but F2P MMOs don't usually keep records of how many accounts are regularly active (mostly because it doesn't matter to them, they already made their money on the game sale and only need to keep track of RM transactions. Â Is there a F2P game with an active population like that?

I'll say this, it's not just any Tom, Dick, and Harry developer that can make a successful subscription MMORPG. Â You have to continue to develop the game at a high level to make the sub money worth it. Â Most companies just don't have that kind of ability.

synaesthetic · **05-14-2014, 11:23 PM**

How many subscription games are left? WoW, FFXIV, FFXI and EVE.

How many F2P games are there? THOUSANDS.

How is that not "dominance?"

Ignacius · **05-15-2014, 09:25 AM**

(05-14-2014, 11:23 PM)synaesthetic Wrote: How many subscription games are left? WoW, FFXIV, FFXI and EVE.

How many F2P games are there? THOUSANDS.

How is that not "dominance?"

I'd ask how that is "dominance"? Â If there are thousands of F2P games and none of them are anywhere near being the quality cash cows of WoW, XIV, EVE, and so on, then are they really dominating? Â It just seems like there are less subscription-based MMORPGs because it's a really hard model to keep up. Â People might buy a bunch of F2P games (if they even need to) play them for a month, and then stop. Â Those games don't even have a reliable metric for showing active players and accounts.

As far as the numbers I've seen, the full sales populations of most games don't even scrape the 500,000 dollar bottom of EVE's subscriptions, and EVE is a comparatively small subscription MMORPG compared to FFXIV (1.8 million) and everyone pales in comparison to WoW (last I heard, their lowest subs in almost a decade at 7.8 million). Â There are just a few F2P games with more sales than some of those subscription games, but how many people are actively playing them?

I'd say that, with as many F2P games as there are, it's because their development cycle favors quantity over quality. Â They don't guide or dominate the discussion because their model for making money is either based on straight-up sales (so they release a ton of expansions and make you pay for development directly) or based on microtransactions (the dreaded P2W). Â Taken as a small and exclusive group, EVE, WoW, and Final Fantasy are very different games.

Actually, beta testing Wildstar, I'm suddenly struck by how different Wildstar and XIV are from WoW. Â Maybe it's just become a catch phrase so people call everything a WoW-clone, but the only things they really have in common are that they are MMORPGs and have elements like getting quests, an action bar, a health pool, factions, things of that nature. Â EVE Online has all of those things; nobody would call EVE a WoW clone, but the only things it doesn't have in common with those games is a WASD control scheme, which predates even MMORPGs.

Other than that, the four major subscription games have wildly different settings, focuses, paces, combat styles, loot, focus, development, graphics. Â I guess, having read about how these games are WoW-clones, I kind of took it for granted. Â They are really wildly different. Â Now, there are games out there that are clones of these titles and they certainly ripped ideas off of other, less successful games (WoW is ironic as everyone thinks the industry is cloning WoW, when WoW seems to just as often absorb all the good ideas bouncing around in the MMORPG stratosphere), but really those four games are wildly different except matters of genre. Â Really, deviations from those genre staples haven't necessarily been good ideas.

It just hit me how different the games are, with WoW's almost instantaneous statistical approach, Wildstar's almost chaotic melee of elements, XIV's careful and ponderous play, and EVE's ambiguity and long-range planning, the subscription games are, for their part, very different from each other. Â I think, of all subscription games that are in the pipeline and have come before, Wildstar will probably have the best chance to carve out a spot in the sun because it does kind of carve out a niche that people weren't paying for monthly already.

That's probably why the previous generation of subscription MMORPGs that preceded XIV and Wildstar but came after WoW and EVE went F2P. Â They were trying to re-make WoW too closely and trying to replicate that success too minutely, especially when a subscription model favors the original developer. Â I think the new generation of subscription games, XIV, Wildstar, et al., are doing their best not to just take WoW and improve on it, but to differentiate themselves in tone, mechanics, and structure.

It makes me a little more hopeful. Â I should say I may be biting on Wildstar too soon, but playing the beta, I'm really impressed by the game. Â A LOT more impressed than I thought I'd be.

Ildur · **05-15-2014, 11:14 AM**

Quote:I'd ask how that is "dominance"? If there are thousands of F2P games and none of them are anywhere near being the quality cash cows of WoW, XIV, EVE, and so on, then are they really dominating?

Well, if you had four big dinosaurs and thousands and thousands of tiny rodents in your planet, which one would you determine as the 'dominant' species?

I guess that, because we are talking about what is essentially a service, we can understand dominance in two ways: quantity of consumers, and raw quantity of offers.
I'm not sure all the subscription games together would ammount to anything as the majority of MMO players. They certainly have a lot, though, but it's hard to determine that thanks to F2P games being kind of volatile in the matter.
What we certainly have is a 'dominance' by F2P in the offer side of things, however.

Zyrusticae · **05-15-2014, 01:04 PM**

Damn, it's crazy how blatantly Azera cribs from Tera's art style. I mean, they're not even trying to hide any of it, it's literally China-tier copying.

That being said, after watching a few more videos it's pretty obvious that it's an "original" product, using a different engine and their own assets (particularly the animation work, which is faster and more over-the-top than anything I've seen in Tera). Funny that Tera's become something of a template though, even despite the fact that it's not a huge success (in Korea or elsewhere).

In other news, Tree of Savior (gotta love dat Engrish) put up an official English dev blog entry, though it's just as poorly translated as the title: http://blog.treeofsavior.com/en/?p=21
[Image: i1836905243.jpg]

Gods, that artwork. Soooo many Ragnarok Online vibes from this.

Naunet · **05-15-2014, 01:27 PM**

(05-15-2014, 01:04 PM)Zyrusticae Wrote: (particularly the animation work, which is faster and more over-the-top than anything I've seen in Tera)

Actually, the majority of the animations were ripped wholesale from TERA class attacks (I recognized most of them immediately), just with some shiny graphics slapped on top. The only exception is the gun class, and... that actually has animations ripped from Aion. Lololol.

Ignacius · **05-15-2014, 04:40 PM**

(05-15-2014, 11:14 AM)Ildur Wrote:
Quote:I'd ask how that is "dominance"? Â If there are thousands of F2P games and none of them are anywhere near being the quality cash cows of WoW, XIV, EVE, and so on, then are they really dominating?

Well, if you had four big dinosaurs and thousands and thousands of tiny rodents in your planet, which one would you determine as the 'dominant' species?

I guess that, because we are talking about what is essentially a service, we can understand dominance in two ways: quantity of consumers, and raw quantity of offers.
I'm not sure all the subscription games together would ammount to anything as the majority of MMO players. They certainly have a lot, though, but it's hard to determine that thanks to F2P games being kind of volatile in the matter.
What we certainly have is a 'dominance' by F2P in the offer side of things, however.

To whit, on planet Earth, for every human on the planet, there are a million ants. Â I defeated their dominance in our office with a bi-annual chemical spray.

Naunet · **05-15-2014, 04:47 PM**

(05-15-2014, 04:40 PM)Ignacius Wrote: To whit, on planet Earth, for every human on the planet, there are a million ants. Â I defeated their dominance in our office with a bi-annual chemical spray.

And yet you will never be able to eliminate even a tiny fraction of all ants. You're powerless before their combined might.

Ignacius · **05-15-2014, 05:36 PM**

(05-15-2014, 04:47 PM)Naunet Wrote:
(05-15-2014, 04:40 PM)Ignacius Wrote: To whit, on planet Earth, for every human on the planet, there are a million ants. Â I defeated their dominance in our office with a bi-annual chemical spray.

And yet you will never be able to eliminate even a tiny fraction of all ants. You're powerless before their combined might.

Ants don't dominate the planet, though, they just annoy us by feeding on the scraps of food we drop.

I just think that free-to-play sounds like a better concept than it actually is logically. Â Games are made specifically so that companies can make money and to operate an MMORPG does take some upkeep per player. Â So they have to go where the money is. Â Subscription games, as a business model, are rewarded by keeping people playing the game and paying for it month to month. Â Free to play tends to focus on selling stuff to us.

What aggravates me is that subscription games are ALSO doing microtransaction stuff now. Â That's one of the things that REALLY pisses me off about Blizzard. Â I pay a subscription to a game company so that I get content they develop continually and at a high level, ostensibly. Â Instead, they like to advertise content that we should buy as a microtransaction. Â It doesn't matter if that stuff is optional, just pets and mounts. Â I'm like, "I PAID YOU TO DEVELOP THAT! Â DON'T MAKE ME PAY FOR THAT!"

CCP, for its part, at least doesn't make you pay for the expansions they develop the way Blizz does in addition to their subscription... but that's because they're doing that "I'll buy game time for real money and sell it on an auction house so I can P2W." Â Carbine already pissed me off by saying they're copying that model, no matter how much less important money is in that game.

I mean... it's a subscription game! Â That was the point behind paying a subscription, so that I don't have to deal with F2P and P2W bullshit and instead I get a steady stream of development.

I think every developer should pick which they're doing. Â Are you making people pay for the game without a sub so you just throw a slew of expansions at us, making people pay for other crap so that people with money can chew on fourteen year olds who don't have the money for a sub, or make us pay a sub. Â Don't mix and match.

Naunet · **05-15-2014, 06:11 PM**

(05-15-2014, 05:36 PM)Ignacius Wrote: Ants don't dominate the planet, though, they just annoy us by feeding on the scraps of food we drop.

Ants influence the planet in more ways than you're clearly aware. They are architects of entire ecosystems, upon which many humans depend.

It's all a matter of perspective.

[edit] Oh god, I'm extolling the virtues of my greatest nemesis... the world is surely ending. Also, I think I lost the point of the argument at some point and now I'm just trying to counter a human-centric perspective. xD I don't think comparing F2P mmos to insects is a very good comparison anyway, as insects are absolutely vital to functioning ecosystems and do us a great deal of good. F2P mmos... while they may be important, they've overrun the market so much that they're more like cancer.

TheLastCandle · **05-15-2014, 07:15 PM**

(05-15-2014, 01:04 PM)Zyrusticae Wrote: Damn, it's crazy how blatantly Azera cribs from Tera's art style. I mean, they're not even trying to hide any of it, it's literally China-tier copying.

That being said, after watching a few more videos it's pretty obvious that it's an "original" product, using a different engine and their own assets (particularly the animation work, which is faster and more over-the-top than anything I've seen in Tera). Funny that Tera's become something of a template though, even despite the fact that it's not a huge success (in Korea or elsewhere).

In other news, Tree of Savior (gotta love dat Engrish) put up an official English dev blog entry, though it's just as poorly translated as the title: http://blog.treeofsavior.com/en/?p=21

Gods, that artwork. Soooo many Ragnarok Online vibes from this.

I loved RO's spritework even if I freakin' hated the game itself. That's pretty awesome. Playing MUDs in the 90's I always hoped graphical online games would look something like that one day. Chrono Trigger-like sprites in an online multiplayer world.

Flickering Ember · **05-15-2014, 08:02 PM**

Where is this conversation going? Are ya'll basically saying FTP is the better route?
Maybe it is a personal preference but...

I am going to straight up say that I loathe FTP with every fiber of my being. I can guarantee you that I would have a lot less interest in this game if I could just buy the cavalry drake instead of doing dailies for it. If I am a casual pve-er who plays the game mostly to get vanity items then I am not really playing the game when I am playing FTP games. I guess I just don't understand why other gamers prefer FTP. I find the experience to stress me out. I prefer the peace of mind knowing that I don't have advertisements shoved in my face while trying to enjoy the game, that there is meaningful content being created, and I am not inconvenienced if I am not unloading 100 dollars per character on the cash shop.Â

The day the subscription model dies is the day I'm quitting MMOs.

synaesthetic · **05-15-2014, 08:26 PM**

What I mean by "F2P dominance" isn't that they're making the most money or have the most customers, but that there are almost no optionsÂ if you want to avoid F2P games.

I like XIV okayish. It's not bad. It's fine. It's not terrible. I mostly play because of my FC; if it weren't for them I would have quit a while ago. I don't care for WoW because I don't like the player character options or the art style, and it has a cash shop now. I don't care for EVE because zzzzz. I don't care for FFXI because it's a trainwreck, having the worst parts of both EQ1 era games and modern MMOs. I don't care for ESO because roflroflroflroflroflWHAT. I don't care for Wildstar because I don't really care for the art style and the combat is just a slightly better version of GW2's without the circle strafing.

So right now, I don't really like any of the P2P options. I don't have any other options. There just aren't any if I want to play something different, so I'm settlingÂ for XIV. I don't love it, but what are my other options? Games I dislike far more and games that are F2P.

I don't like F2P games. The only one that I consider even halfway decent is RIFT, and I don't really like RIFT's art style and the combat system is just as dull as XIV's (though at least there's more stuff to do). I'd probably happily trade XIV for RIFT if my whole group followed me there, but other than that the main differentiating factor is that the people I like playing with are in XIV and my character is super cute, and I can't make a character in RIFT that really resonates with me (though my RIFT!Aeriyn does come close... ish).

So what am I left with choice-wise? A massive mess of F2P games. I don't like F2P; I don't want a game nagging me to buy stuff. I want to pay for my use of the game resources and that's it. I don't want to see ads for "sales on bullshit in the cash shop" every time I log in. I don't want to see other players running around with shit I can't get unless I spend real-life money. I don't want to deal with the possibility that PvE endgame progression is solely dependent on how many times I swipe a credit card. I don't want to deal with trolls, botters, futa elins, hackers and griefers. P2P MMO communities are bad enough; F2P communities are typically a cesspit.

So what are my options? Play a game I don't really like from the list of P2P Endangered Species, or don't play MMOs at all. If it weren't for the social aspect that I don't get in my actual life due to being poor, I'd probably choose the latter...

Ignacius · **05-15-2014, 11:29 PM**

(05-15-2014, 06:11 PM)Naunet Wrote:
(05-15-2014, 05:36 PM)Ignacius Wrote: Ants don't dominate the planet, though, they just annoy us by feeding on the scraps of food we drop.

Ants influence the planet in more ways than you're clearly aware. They are architects of entire ecosystems, upon which many humans depend.

It's all a matter of perspective.

[edit] Oh god, I'm extolling the virtues of my greatest nemesis... the world is surely ending. Also, I think I lost the point of the argument at some point and now I'm just trying to counter a human-centric perspective. xD I don't think comparing F2P mmos to insects is a very good comparison anyway, as insects are absolutely vital to functioning ecosystems and do us a great deal of good. F2P mmos... while they may be important, they've overrun the market so much that they're more like cancer.

XD Â Ants function essentially as insectoid garbage men, literally. Â That's sort of their great purpose in life. Â I don't think we can safely say they dominate society until we open up an anthill and find out they opened a Chipotle. Â Without Chipotle, you simply can't be considered a civilization.

Naunet · **05-15-2014, 11:42 PM**

Not society. The world. Earth is much greater than human social interactions. :p

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