I can't afford to play F2P. These game designs are created by a team of human anolyst who know exactly how to drag coins out of my pocketbook with the Cash Shops. I'm worse than my wife walking past a shoe store window

I'm pretty proud that I purchased the standard edition and will do everything in my power not to upgrade or by a horse (which actually svck anyhow) through the limited cash store upon release

But I WILL gladly pay the sub fee to keep development going!

Normaly the cash shop is just vanity items, same as zenimax is doing right now with the horse.

Great link, makes total sense.

There have been quite a few subscription games and I don't recall a single one with this much flak about it. Think the F2P warped the new generation of players.

-Mongoose

Perhaps nobody has gone over the reasons for a subscription model with you. I can see you're concerned about the monthy fee, so I'll try to shed some light on it for you.

The main reason a company will decide to take this approach is to first recuperate some of the initial cost of the games development. In a perfect world, this wouldn't be the case, but there are benefactors who want their returns and so their hands are tied, so to speak; this game costs a lot to make and the sooner they can make some of that money back, the better.

The second reason is to provide a steady income, in order to pay their customer support teams and cover their server maintenance costs. All massively multiplayer online roleplaying games need to cover these costs, but I'll come back to that in a moment.

The last reason, and for me at least this is the most important, is to provide their players with constant updates, expansions and content. The more money they have at their disposal, the more developers they can keep on the books; thus providing us with more regular content patches.

Now I know what you're thinking; "..but there are loads of games out there that don't charge a monthy fee!" which is true. These are known as Free-to-Play models or F2P. The problem, and I do consider this a problem, with Free-to-Play models is that they still have to recuperate their costs; so what do they do? They find another method; enter Cash Shops and gated content. What are these? They're basically methods where content will be intentionally stripped from the game and hidden behind a pay gate; want some extra bag space? Pay for it. Want to go to that new area? Pay for it. Want to have the best weapons? Pay for them.

Not only that, but F2P games aren't updated on a regular basis; they're actually dying, slowly. It's very rare that a game ever recovers once it has gone Free-to-Play. It's usually deemed as a negative. If you truely love the Elder Scrolls Online, you'll pay the fee and pray others do the same. Help them provide us with the content we want, and don't expect them to give us things for free.

No this topic again! we don't want no free to play garbage, 15 bucks a month is a small price to pay to keep the trash out.

I am just tired on this "Lets beat the dead Pi?ata" because it is just [censored].

I absolutely despise the F2P model, just a way to nickle and dime everyone to death.
If this game is fun for me and I am enjoying it, I will pay the fee happily, should the day come when I stop enjoying it, I will cancel my sub.
These threads need to stop, now.

I am absolutely baffled that you knew enough to pre-order, but did not know about a monthly fee.

What they meant to say is that "F2P" MMOs are the vampires of the MMO world. Once a beautiful living, breathing thing of wonder and enchantment. Struck down usually because of poor developer and marketing choices.
But instead of being left for dead they arise once more, ready to svck the blood directly out of its customers.
Where once we had something beautiful it's been replaced by something stronger, bigger, faster and more monstrous, for a price of course. A creature spawned of pure darkness and most unholy.



They tend to have some vanity items. The last 4 I've played did have a lot of vanity things and my god they were always the best looking most bad ass skins in game.
But none of the last 4 F2P games I've played only offered vanity items, they offered bonus exp items, crafting items to improve you gear, special mounts or combat pets that were almost undefeatable.
I don't want that here not in a game where PvP is so important. It will create a two tier system those with their ￡3,000 dragon orbs and those with none. (Go play PWI and you'll see what I mean) the players spending the most decimate, those who can't afford to spend lots of cash lose.

From a personal stand point I use to spend around ￡50 a week on them. Yes I felt powerful and yes I could compete in PvP but eventually it ruined the games, ruined my bank account and when the games servers close their doors you're left not only with nothing but a huge hole in your bank balance! I'll stick to ￡8.99 a month thanks!

Its funny cause to be even some what successful in a F2P model, you pay a heck of a lot more than $15 a month lol.

-Mongoose

F2p and p2w don't go hand in hand though, take a look at path of exiles for the best, and the made f2p bf series or dungeon keeper.

F2p can work it's just how shady does the dev want to get with it.


Thou not f2p iv played gw2 over 300 hrs never spent cash other than the box price.

He wants BUY to PLAY not FREE to PLAY. Learn the difference before you call someone garbage.

He was talking about buy to play, not free to play.

I have said it before, and I will say it again for this OP. There is no such thing as Free to Play. Every single one you HAVE to pay something if you want to be viable in the game. What Bethesda stands for (thank you!) is pay us a regular small amount for entertainment and we will

1) Police the cheaters/exploiters (F2P is rampant with em)

2) provide true content frequently (f2p - Woo Woo new event! - Wait doesnt this event look like last months with different mobs?)

3) Help you if you have an issue... (F2P - Thank you for your submission, unfortunately, we can not assist you with this matter. Please do not respond to this automated response mail.)

I spent the last year on Neverwinter Online, with my budget meant to be 15 a month (yes old school subscriber). With impulse buys I had to have, i am certain my outlay for the year was over 30 a month. Turns out its been a waste, since they never fixed issues known since beta, and the new content they bring out compounds issues/repeats itself.

I have faith Zenimax will invest my 15 a month wisely.

Once again people, he was talking about BUY TO PLAY. He bought the game.

B2P and F2P are two different things. If you are gonna call these threads free to play then you might as well say Diablo 3 is free to play and the 15 million sold does not matter.

Your fault for spending over your limit? How is that a F2P games issue lol

If you can't afford the sub, then you need to get your priorities straight and focus on your real life, instead of gaming. I'm so thankful that this game has a subscription; honestly... I'd pay $5 more.

I don't care what he wants to be honest. Only b2p model mmo i know of was gw2, and i paid 60 bucks for it but maybe spent 10 hours playtime because it was horrid.

They are different, but they're one in the same. They both have no viable means of sustaining their maintenance and future update costs; so they both have to find other ways to make their money; namely cash shops and content gating.

F2P mmos are there to make money, they are not really free. When a F2P mmo reaches a point where there are way more freeloaders than buyers, it closes.

They say they are planning 4-6 week content updates of significant size.
With no sub fee, or any other form of revenue this won't happen, certainly not the quality they are going for, MMOs are expensive to maintain and grow. Buy to play doesn't do all that well to be honest.

Couldn't have said it better...

You whimsically throw that flippant comment out with little to no regard for the person that stated his opinion?

Perhaps he's a person that is not used to playing MMOs? You know- the ES only crowd Zenimax is courting? If he's a casual gamer that doesn't play MMOs and is an Elder Scrolls fan (a IP for which I've ONLY ever had to buy the base game and the occasional expansion) and maybe he didn't read the fine print about the subscription plan (you should totally crucify him for that! /sarcasm) and perhaps when- all of the sudden he's being asked to pay $15 a month and thought that was a bit odd and thinks that sub fees will push away like minded gamers like him that aren't used to these models...

give the guy a break. cut him some slack. stop being a dike.

That so? City of heroes was making money when ncsoft closed them down. War hammer wasn't making crap and only recently shutdown.

So money isn't the only factor