IS FTP Twinking To Good To Be True?
- Thread starter Healzilla
- Start date
http://www.twinkinfo.com/f2p-twinking/29886-lol-what-i-dont-even.html has quite a few opinions on that.
I personally don't give it much thought, and I would simply move on.
I personally don't give it much thought, and I would simply move on.
'New Player Experience'
People on free accounts give the game sufficient numbers at low levels, that new players can access dungeons and battlegrounds, without the longer wait you get trying to do them at mid levels. I think Blizzard would be idiots to give that up, and risk losing a lot of potential new subscribers, who'd otherwise just see the game as a lot of waiting to do things.
People on free accounts give the game sufficient numbers at low levels, that new players can access dungeons and battlegrounds, without the longer wait you get trying to do them at mid levels. I think Blizzard would be idiots to give that up, and risk losing a lot of potential new subscribers, who'd otherwise just see the game as a lot of waiting to do things.
I think it isn't too good to be true... and I think blizz will come out with more optional BS for sale to try to get money out of us.
in that case, they can always give us a time limit. F2P accounts are very generous and it's impressive how much we can access considering we're populating their realms while the P2P accounts are keeping the servers afloat.
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its just the way the market is going. if they were to do anything (imo), it'd be to put an hours-played cap on us.
the real issue is whether there's a significant portion of the f2p's that would pay if there wasn't a f2p option. for me personally i'm a no (changed my mind recently). i'd probably switch to a different f2p game....but by letting us play it keeps WoW in our conversations (with other gaming geeks anyway) and helps them market.
i just hope we can do pet battles.
the real issue is whether there's a significant portion of the f2p's that would pay if there wasn't a f2p option. for me personally i'm a no (changed my mind recently). i'd probably switch to a different f2p game....but by letting us play it keeps WoW in our conversations (with other gaming geeks anyway) and helps them market.
i just hope we can do pet battles.
This is really a good point that I doubt that Blizz will consider. We provide valuable help to new players in dungeons just by running randoms for gear.
Bob
...maybe they should just allow tanks to play free.
Although I am sure there is some truth to this, let's not exaggerate the effect of the F2P population on areas that P2P players level past in 3-4 days, nor the concern that Blizz might have for any such effect.
The best protection for the F2P community is that many of us (not me) also have P2P accounts. Therefore Blizz may be willing to allow F2P to continue in its current state because they don't know how many P2P accounts would be upset.
I personally think the F2P program will be suspended when MoP is released.
I doubt they will scale back the free to play model. I've seen the banners and ad campaign all over the internet and on TV, there's no way they would back down on such a large and costly ad campaign. They advertised 'World of Warcraft: Now Free to Play!' The difference between free-to-play and a trial is a time limit. They won't put a time limit on it, and they've lost so many millions of customers that their servers are probably looking quite roomy at this point.
i also don't believe the current F2P program will be removed. imo, with or during MOP i predict they may expand it to a higher level limit.
awhile back when they were asked about the F2P program, reasoning, falling subs....they more or less said they are looking at everything, even the freemium (one time pay) type systems used by other games as they matured.
btw....blizzard's stock holders board call is coming up here in Feb 9th i believe to report results of last quarter, they have lost subs each of the previous 3 quarters last year. free to play was implemented after the 2nd loss period and prior to the loss results of the third. holders were offered a optimistic forecast based on quarter containing holidays , etc. but if new subs aren't overly impressive and subs canceled overall negate the effect the stock will drop even with MOP on the horizon.
i believe based on current actions things may not be good subscription wise, they are now gonna do a open press release to industry gaming news reporters, also believe there is a push/rush to get MOP live faster now
awhile back when they were asked about the F2P program, reasoning, falling subs....they more or less said they are looking at everything, even the freemium (one time pay) type systems used by other games as they matured.
btw....blizzard's stock holders board call is coming up here in Feb 9th i believe to report results of last quarter, they have lost subs each of the previous 3 quarters last year. free to play was implemented after the 2nd loss period and prior to the loss results of the third. holders were offered a optimistic forecast based on quarter containing holidays , etc. but if new subs aren't overly impressive and subs canceled overall negate the effect the stock will drop even with MOP on the horizon.
i believe based on current actions things may not be good subscription wise, they are now gonna do a open press release to industry gaming news reporters, also believe there is a push/rush to get MOP live faster now
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RIFT just also announced a Endless Level 20-Cap trial:
'RIFT Lite' announced, makes first 20 levels free to all [Updated] | Massively
I think this gives WoW F2P a very good chance of being around for good, especially if their "competition" are offering people F2P Trial options as well (Not that RIFT ever held a candle to WoW)... Warhammer Online went F2P I think in Nov 2009, and I've heard the P2P portion of the game is pretty much close to dead. There is still some F2P PVP going on in WAR but nothing compared to WoW.
Keep your fingers crossed! And we all know Blizzard is in it for the long haul - WoW is their money-makin' baby, the support for this game is going to run for a long time.
'RIFT Lite' announced, makes first 20 levels free to all [Updated] | Massively
I think this gives WoW F2P a very good chance of being around for good, especially if their "competition" are offering people F2P Trial options as well (Not that RIFT ever held a candle to WoW)... Warhammer Online went F2P I think in Nov 2009, and I've heard the P2P portion of the game is pretty much close to dead. There is still some F2P PVP going on in WAR but nothing compared to WoW.
Keep your fingers crossed! And we all know Blizzard is in it for the long haul - WoW is their money-makin' baby, the support for this game is going to run for a long time.
Not to start a pointless WoW vs. Rift thread, but I will point out that there are some people (i.e. me) who thought the original, more challenging, version of Rift was superior to the current fluff that WoW has become.
But then they watered it down, so its positives over WoW no longer outweighed its negatives.
IMO.
Although if people have a P2P account then Blizz could claim that they should just created a level 20 (xp locked) on that account. Unless one happens to be at the character cap of 50 and can't bring themselves to delete 1. Although my reasoning is that I wanted the "full" experience of a trial account and I didn't want to be tempted to "partake" of the dark side (e.i. auction house, loads of gold, etc, etc). Sadly I don't think the people at Blizz would understand the method to my madness though.
If you make your 20 on your main's paid account, you lose the ability to boost your own F2P character. Sure, you might be able to buy them a load of gear and save them having to farm mats, but at the same time you can't boost them in dungeons, have your main on follow to give something like a water-walking buff, or even fly them around if you have the RaF mount.
Of course Bliz would much rather you get 2 paid accounts if you want to do this, but then they're just too damn greedy.
Of course Bliz would much rather you get 2 paid accounts if you want to do this, but then they're just too damn greedy.
This just seems to be the common MMORPG theme. Game gets released, new and challenging, lots of initial subscribers, only small % make it to endgame due to complexity or challenge, subscription rate falls off, redesign to appeal to masses. WoW could get away with it because they were and are the largest MMORPG so as much as people complain, they stick around and new player fill the gaps. The draw of a MMORPG is the "Massive Multiplayer" part.
Bob
Fair point.
Though we are a niche within a niche really. From a business standpoint the Trial account program is a vehicle for new subs, so as long as the new sub rate is at an acceptable level then they won't touch it. F2P twinks are effectively hidden within that, unless someone takes the time to run a report on their servers to see how many characters are active on Trial accounts for longer than x days, going into dungeons y times per week, yadda yadda yadda. As you could imagine, most bosses wouldn't approve the request to design that report just to find out some of the players that you are letting play for free are... well playing for free. There are bigger fish to fry in the revenue stream dept I would assume.
The big concern I have though is that if they do keep the Trial account model going in an effort to compete with other F2P games, they may look to try to squeeze a few dimes out of it. I'd probably be ok with a $5 per month for a capped at 20 account, though without trading or AH or mail, it might not be worth it. The scary though is real money for IG items racket option. It's bad enough having the mailbox hero 24s roll in with no idea how to PvP backpeddling to victory.
Though the real money for IG items option may be cheaper than a subscription if you are only running 2-3 chars.
Speculation is fun
