VIP system : What do you think ?
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@Logain and the others
I bet Prometheus will inform here before kickstarter start, just let him work to get a really good start.
And i bet he was thinking about all we posted here and at the other thread about.
Lets see, what result he will presenting us.
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@logain said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
@kralith said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
(...)And all this things will get discussed, when Prometheus has the time to clear up, as he mentioned, they are busy with preparing the kickstarter, they have dates to fullfill(...)
Most certainly, which is part of the reason I decided to make a short post with some quick points instead of a long post. That said, as you mentioned, the Kickstarter is coming rather close (5 workdays left) and the VIP service is going to be a main deciding factor in how much I'm going to pledge (since I am aiming at an early bird tier, I have to act on the first hours of the Kickstarter, because if early bird tiers are available to the end of the Kickstarter, it likely enough failed). Hence I provided a few points I hope Prometheus is going to include in his response, else time is going to be too short to ask for clarification before I have to decide.
good thing kickstarter allows us to upgrade tiers and remove backing.
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@jetah said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
i'm not saying it isn't wanted, but i'm saying many sub only games have had to stop it or close down. they opted for the free or hybrid option instead. that tells me even though people were willing to pay they didn't actually do it for a prolonged period.
I will say again that the transition did not happen because the model is/was not viable. The model is viable and numerous successful games have proven that. There are more successful games that have/had sub than f2p or b2p. There is literally only one good, non-p2w, f2p game, PoE. As for b2p, the one that comes on top of my mind, probably not the only one, is GW2. The transition happened because EA and similar publishers and developers are greedy. Heavy monetized f2p games will generate more revenue than sub2play games, and on top of that, they don't even need to be good. They can be a pile of turds, that only a handful of whales likes, and the game can stay afloat.
i don't consider a cosmetic cash shop milking customers.
Neither do I, this is why I am excepting it. That was apparent when I was talking about "heavy monetized f2p games", and I was not talking about the purely cosmetic cash shop, because right afterwards I included it as acceptable for Fractured. Specifically, Fractured should be buy2play, with buy2play expansions and the cosmetic cash shop may or may not be there, I don't care..
they may want it but they clearly will leave it just as quickly as the polls, post, questionnaires and comments fade away.
I see no evidence on that, assuming a good game. Sure, SWTOR subs left it en masse, cause SWTOR was a mess and had no content. But blaming the payment model and not the lack of content would be a mistake in that case.
SWTOR proved the game being good wasn't enough
SWTOR wasn't and isn't good.
At launch it had only one raid/operation and one warzone/instanced pvp map!!
The devs were out of touch. They expected that people would be re-rolling in order to play the other classes/stories. SWTOR is as much of a WoW clone as possible and the devs expected that the players would just re-roll a character! That was stupid.
Let alone a number of things, ranging from lacking basic functionalities that every theme-park MMO must have (e.g. group finder, AH etc) that SWTOR lacked. I can understand an "old school", sandbox/open world game to lack those (e.g. Pantheon and Camelot Unchained will follow that paradigm), but when you are making a WoW clone theme-park, you need to have those. And then comes the terrible, terrible engine!
As someone who has played SWTOR for ~3+ years, I can only laugh at SWTOR being good.
And then, EA/Bioware instead of fighting for the game, they decided to go f2p/hybrid. With 2.0 (the Dread expansion) the game was getting better and better, but they also had revert to f2p/hybrid which created a paradox, which I have mentioned before. They were making money from the cash shop and not the content. Eventually, this lead them at releasing new content rarely, all the while every month they would release new cosmetic items!! Which is logical, because new gameplay content was/is not generating revenue, all the while new cosmetic content is generating revenue.
So, yeah, if your game is a pile of turds, sub2play is not the way to go.
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@jetah said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
(...)good thing kickstarter allows us to upgrade tiers and remove backing.
Only if the tier you're looking for is still available. Since I am aiming for an early bird tier, that is unlikely and hence I'd feel the need to go in low and stay in low unless convinced that VIP wouldn't be pay to gain an advantage right from the beginning.
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the sub model was viable 15 years ago. now it isn't. if a sub game survived then it'll continue but WoW is now setup as a hybrid with a way to play the game to get a sub which helps their number. imagine if that didn't exist.
I say sub model isn't viable now because 1 game in the past 5 years has debuted and maintained it. there were at least 10 that failed.
@Logain EB isn't much of a difference unless you're aiming at the Knight tier.
recruit 5
founder 10
patron 10
knight 50
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no vip, it makes game pay to win
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It's reasonable. The game needs some way to make money and while the VIP would give paying players an advantage, it dos not seem to be pay to win like many other games.
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@jetah said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
the sub model was viable 15 years ago. now it isn't. if a sub game survived then it'll continue but WoW is now setup as a hybrid with a way to play the game to get a sub which helps their number. imagine if that didn't exist.
I say sub model isn't viable now because 1 game in the past 5 years has debuted and maintained it. there were at least 10 that failed.
You are saying the same thing over and over again, ignoring any and all related arguments I made.
Why the sub model isn't viable now? What changed? Sure you have the argument "in the past 5 years only one game..." but you are not explaining as to why there was a change.
All the while, you completely ignore what I have explained, in detail. The change did not happen because the sub model was failing. The change happened because dev companies and publishers wanted to monetize more their product(s) and you can't do that at a sub game.
At a sub game everyone is equal. You pay the sub? For as long as you pay, you can play as much as you want and you have access to 100% of the game.
At any other business model, there is some sort of inequality. Even if that is a purely cosmetic cash shop. A purely cosmetic cash shop is based on the idea that as long as you play without buying cosmetic items, you won't look cool. And that holds true to games that have a sub + cosmetic cash shop (e.g. Ashes of Creation). At AoC (if it ever launches, which I find extremely doubtful), if you want to "look cool", you will have to buy products from the cash shop.
Sure, we ignore this segregation, cause some of us don't want to "look cool" and it doesn't affect gameplay, and as such it is not p2w.
And now come the f2p games that are segregating in more ways, including ways that affect gameplay (aka p2w games).
So, you just keep repeating the same thing;
Name two games with a sub model in the past 5 years
I will give you a similar challenge. Name two (2) f2p games that are good (played by lots of players, cult status, good reviews etc etc) and are not pay2win. You can't. There is only one at best! Path of Exiles.
And unlike you, I am not limiting you in any way (see "past 5 years, or 10"). Cause you know damn well, that before the surge of f2p games, sub2play games were good and they are still fondly remembered, which explains their resurgence (Dual Universe, Ashes of Creation, Camelot Unchained, Pantheon, Saga of Lucimia). And sub2play did not kill those (old) games. Those games just had their time and instead of being replaced by newer sub2play games, they were replaced by f2p crap. And speaking of "their time", they were being played for far far far far more time/years than current f2p crap-games.
And yes, games like SWTOR jumped into the f2p crap-wagon, partly because they were crap and needed the f2p model in order to stay afloat, or because their devs/publishers wanted to milk their customers or both.
Now repeat for Nth time that "there is only one game with sub in the past 5 years", as if this means anything else than;
"In the past 5-10 years, devs and publishers have created f2p and hybrid models in order to heavily monetize their games and milk their customers."
And to stay on topic, I never suggested Fractured to be sub2play, something which brings a question. Why so much hate for sub2play games, from you? OK, we got it, you don't like them. Don't play them! You will have almost nothing new to play in the upcoming years, but, OK that is your right.
In context, and on topic, why so much hate? I would have understood such opposition if I was suggesting Fractured to have the sub2play model, but not now. I am suggesting for Fractured to have the pure buy2play model.
- Initial box price = 30-60 dollars
- Expansions (biyearly) = 30 dollars
- Optional and purely cosmetic cash shop. And yes, this "purely" excludes most (if not all) quality of life items, such as NPC carpenters and these nonsense. The only acceptable QoL items are things like additional character slots, server transfers and customizing things like your guild symbol or something. Name changing should not be included, cause it will be possible to be abused. Additional bags, inventory slots and the like, should also not be included. The game will have a player driven economy, and those items will affect that part of the gameplay.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Anything more will segregate players in ways that will create gameplay inequalities, aka p2w.
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@kralith said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
Thats true, it can work very well with a generel sub.
But @Phaethonas it is not true, that PoE has no player driven economy.
There is all about the player buying and selling: http://poe.trade/I am not very familiar with PoE, so....
A "player driven economy" at an MMO means that most items (if not all), and certainly the most powerful items, are crafted by players. It does not mean "trading between players". Almost every game has "trading between players".
So, does PoE have a player driven economy? Does the best gear come from crafters or from NPCs?
Cause if PoE does have a player driven economy, the "stash tabs" are bordeline p2w. If PoE does not have player driven economy (as I think that it doesn't), then those cash shop items are just Quality of Life items, that do not affect gameplay.
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@phaethonas said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
Why the sub model isn't viable now? What changed? Sure you have the argument "in the past 5 years only one game..." but you are not explaining as to why there was a change.
People seen that they can get good games without sub. That's what changed.
I will give you a similar challenge. Name two (2) f2p games that are good (played by lots of players, cult status, good reviews etc etc) and are not pay2win. You can't. There is only one at best! Path of Exiles.
Warframe
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@tulukaruk said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
@phaethonas said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
Why the sub model isn't viable now? What changed? Sure you have the argument "in the past 5 years only one game..." but you are not explaining as to why there was a change.
People seen that they can get good games without sub. That's what changed.
Actually that is a logical fallacy.
How can the players have seen that they can get "good games without a sub" if there were no games without a sub (whatsoever) to begin with?
It is one thing to ask;
"Why do people support the f2p model"
In which case your answer would make sense and it is quite another to ask
"What changed? What made the first developers pursue non sub2play models?"
In which case, you answer makes no sense, unless time travel is involved, for the question asked.
Additionally, my answer, that the developers/publishers want/ed to milk their customers, still stands
That said, you saying that "people have seen that they can get good games without a sub" is ironic and hilarious. People are rejecting the f2p model, as seen by numerous polls, posts, threads, comments, articles and so on. Also, as seen by the fact that almost all new games in development will have either a sub2play model or buy2play model, with most of them being pure sub2play.
- Camelot Unchained; Sub2play through and through
- Dual Universe; mandatory sub, with the inclusion of a sub token, which in context of the player driven economy the game has, it will be a p2w mechanic.
- Pantheon; Sub2play through and through
- Ashes of Creation; Sub2play with a cosmetic cash shop
- Sage of Lucimia; Sub2play through and through (?)
additionally
- New World; I doubt Amazon will go f2p, what do you think?
- Star Citizen; pure buy2play model? (similar to what I am suggesting for Fractured?)
I will give you a similar challenge. Name two (2) f2p games that are good (played by lots of players, cult status, good reviews etc etc) and are not pay2win. You can't. There is only one at best! Path of Exiles.
Warframe
Hilarious!
I just went to the Warframe forums and I am seeing the same shit I am seeing when everyone else wants to defend pay2win games.
- "There is no win"
- "It is pay2[x]" (e.g. pay2rush -lol-)
So yeah, I haven't played Warframe, but judging from the rhetoric of the Warframe players, I'd say with almost certainty that the game is pay2win.
Additionally the "name one/two/three" games from the past "0/5/10/15" years is basically arbitrary and unimportant. What matters is that the f2p model has failed to deliver games like the ones played in the past and still being adored. Don't stick at semantics.
Lastly, I doubt that either of these two games (PoE and Warframe) will make it close at being as popular as the top 10 currently played games, let alone games of the golden age of the MMOs.
So, "good games without sub"? lol fucking lol
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@tylere said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
It's reasonable. The game needs some way to make money and while the VIP would give paying players an advantage, it dos not seem to be pay to win like many other games.
lol
pay2advantage = pay2win.
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@phaethonas said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
@tylere said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
It's reasonable. The game needs some way to make money and while the VIP would give paying players an advantage, it dos not seem to be pay to win like many other games.
lol
pay2advantage = pay2win.
In Fractured a new player could beat a veteran player because there are no power gaps in Fractured, usually caused by higher gear or higher lvl.
So pay2advantage, in this particular case a timesaver, isn't pay2win in Fractured. Sure a VIP member gets more options ingame quicker then a non VIP member. Good for him, but that doesn't make him a winner. How much time he spent in this game and his personal gaming skills make him a winner.
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@benseine said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
@phaethonas said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
@tylere said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
It's reasonable. The game needs some way to make money and while the VIP would give paying players an advantage, it dos not seem to be pay to win like many other games.
lol
pay2advantage = pay2win.
In Fractured a new player could beat a veteran player because there are no power gaps in Fractured, usually caused by higher gear or higher lvl.
So pay2advantage, in this particular case a timesaver, isn't pay2win in Fractured. Sure a VIP member gets more options ingame quicker then a non VIP member. Good for him, but that doesn't make him a winner. How much time he spent in this game and his personal gaming skills make him a winner.
- How many times must be addressed that "pay2win" does not require a 1vs1? There are more "win" conditions than winning a 1vs1. There are guild/alliances wars that can be won. If you are a crafter, being able to craft earlier and in greater quantities "Endgame_Gear" is a "win condition" and so on. This is exactly why, all these nonsense, "pay2advantage", "pay2rush" etc are just ways fan-bois are trying in order to cover a very simple fact; their favorite game is p2w.
- All that, are said in general. Let's add something specific shall we?
At Fractured you will gain "increased Knowledge Point gains" with the VIP. Now, how will this work? Normally, upon learning something (e.g. you kill a boar and now you know that boars exist) will grant you a knowledge point (or more). Let's keep things simple and say that 1 animal will give you 1 KP. I am not a VIP member, which means that every 10 animals I will get 1x10=10 KPs. You are a VIP member and as such you will have "increased Knowledge Point gains." Let's assume that this means a 10% increase. This would mean that you would get 1.1 KPs per animal, so you would get 1.1x10=11 KPs, for the exact same pack of animals like me, that took you exactly the same time etc etc.
Now, where can you use your KPs? According to the spotlight about the knowledge system, you can use KPs in two ways. You can either exchange them for Talent points (with the talent tree caping at 50) or use them for learning abilities. Let's exclude the talent tree because it caps, let's just focus at the abilities.
In order to learn an ability you first need to unlock it (a process unrelated with the KPs) and then you have to actually learn it. Then you can use the KPs (and magical/fighting tomes) in order to learn the ability. Assuming that each ability requires 1 KP, then you will be able to learn 11 abilities instead of 10 that I can learn! As such, you will have more abilities than me.
You may say that you won't be able to have active more than 8 abilities at the time, which would be correct, but wouldn't matter. That is because abilities will have levels (level one "Slash", level two "Slash", etc), in which case you will be able to have level 11 "Slash", when I will have level 10 "Slash"!
Granted this is an example, and as such things may not work exactly like that, but you see where this is going, don't you? Even if the devs don't want the VIP system to be used in such a way (which I sincerely doubt at this point), players will find ways to exploit the system and make it pay2win, quite easily.
tl;dr The fact that KPs are linked with abilities will make the VIP very much p2w, even with the most narrow definition of p2w.
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Why the sub model isn't viable now? What changed? Sure you have the argument "in the past 5 years only one game..." but you are not explaining as to why there was a change.
actually i did have a guess and already posted it maybe you glanced over it. those that were paying for the sub, at the time, were late teens to early twenty year olds. they are now in their upper thirties and forties. There was an outcry by the public that claimed 'they didn't want to pay every month for a game' because they were use to buying NES, Genesis, Dreamcast games with a one off purchase. Asian games started to cross the oceans which brought in a new model, free to play. little did the players know they had hard p2w walls that couldn't be overcome by play time. western developers and publishers looked into those games and saw the income potential and decided to try a version of that. I'm wanting to say LoL was one of the first western/eu developed f2p games, whose success overturned the 'subscription' model.
I believe the sub model came out because developers wanted an income after the initial purchase of the game. IE consoles were 1 off game purchases at the time. publishers wanted constant income and rental model was used.
warframe isn't p2w even if it looks like. 1 there's no pvp. 2 there's a cap with level. 3 there are non-prime weapons that perform better than prime weapons. the prime frames look better. if you played warframe for a few months you'd see how it isn't p2w. I read about it during their KS and ignored it because 'p2w' but played it after it went f2p (they were a sub, btw) and realized it wasn't.
they made 58m in 2016 which isn't bad for a sub game turned f2p. they arent doing too bad for population either. it's a pretty niche game and games aren't really a popularity contest.
if you really want to toss around sizes then LoL would top any game that's existed. most played and highest income. it alone boost about 32m accounts, 4.2m daily players, 1.3m concurrent players. And that was back in 2011, it increased through 2014 then had estimates since then. WoW was the most popular back in the Wrath era and blizzard said 15m accounts existed then.
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@phaethonas all nonsence!
I didn't mentioned 1vs1. I made a simpke example that could just as well be about multiple ppl or crafters.
And the game is about exploring to discover/learn stuff to place in those learning slots. So if I got VIP but I spent all my time ingame just killing other players I gain 0 knowledge.
VIP doesn't make you explore and discover faster either. Only if someone with VIP discovers multiple things he'll learn them faster because he can slot more of them in the learning slots at once.
If two ppl have 0 filled learning slots, one has VIP and the other doesn't have VIP, and they discover something at the same time, get the tombe and place it in a learning slot, they get the new ability at the same time.
So it is play to win!
And VIP has nothing to do with finding exploits in games. Plz...
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@phaethonas said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
@kralith said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
Thats true, it can work very well with a generel sub.
But @Phaethonas it is not true, that PoE has no player driven economy.
There is all about the player buying and selling: http://poe.trade/I am not very familiar with PoE, so....
A "player driven economy" at an MMO means that most items (if not all), and certainly the most powerful items, are crafted by players. It does not mean "trading between players". Almost every game has "trading between players".
So, does PoE have a player driven economy? Does the best gear come from crafters or from NPCs?
Cause if PoE does have a player driven economy, the "stash tabs" are bordeline p2w. If PoE does not have player driven economy (as I think that it doesn't), then those cash shop items are just Quality of Life items, that do not affect gameplay.
You can find in PoE much things ingame, the drops of items are more or less useful, depending on the build you play. And for the reason you can find very good rolls, but you still can roll (craft) every item to get the best possible values. Also are some rare crafted items way better than legendary ones, because of the combinations of values. So litterally all endgame items are somehow crafted. And with more inventory you indeed have a better chance to collect en masse to craft and be lucky of a very good roll, so you can make much more currency than with the starter inventory.
Also the currency is not gold or silver, its crafting material and used to get Mapmods, so it is a consumable currency.
And in reason of all this i call it a player driven economy.
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It doesn't matter what exactly IS or ISN'T P2W.
What matters is what most people PERCEIVE as P2W.
Game needs a player population. The larger the population the better for game, because if the game is "alive" and has a healthy player pool, it will attract even more players like that. Players that will not spend cash in cash shop, but also those that will.
The best way for a game to attract a healthy player pool is to not implement something that would be "perceived" as P2W (regardless if it really IS or ISN'T P2W). It's better to go moderately, and focus on cosmetics. Make those cosmetics UNIQUE so no one else but VIP players can get them (not even for cash as single transfers) and you give the VIP a reason to have.
Also add some veteran status to people that have VIP for longer periods of time, and reward people that have VIP for long time by some unique housing options and stuff like that.
I would avoid "time savers" as much as possible personally, because this is usually double edged sword, and many will perceive it as P2W (again perception is crucial here).
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Very good said @Gothix
I can agree this in every part!
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@jetah said in VIP system : What do you think ?:
warframe isn't p2w even if it looks like.
Warframe is technically p2w. Buy buttloads of platinum and trade it for top tier mods/rivens/arcanes and bypass nearly every single time gate. But the thing with Warframe is that "winning" doesn't mean anything. What makes Warframe fun is its gameplay; grinding through missions is the game. Buying your way through everything is like cheating in a single player game; it's fun for 10 mins but you've ruined the experience for yourself.
Warframe is actually better when you're not paying for everything, which is why I asked in the pledge thread if there will be a way to turn off VIP boosts; I want the full Fractured experience, "grind" and all.
