If WoW went totally F2P...

[Franciska]

Never understood why Blizz cant bring up different servers with old content, lets say vanilla only 1-1.12 server, tbc only, wotlk only, cata. The same subscription rules, a few millions of people would probably return, at least for a few months and it takes no effort from Blizz. The only idea I think of is that they dont want to "break" these few millions over different game conditions, which leads to different supports and many people not appreciating new work (for latest addon).

Why waste server space when you´ve got private servers for that? Anyway, people eventually get bored with the old crap what WoW was and return to MoP. I don't see any benefit for bringing back old servers.

Also, no effort you say?

>needing to datamine old class and rain changes.
Yeah i don't think so.

 

[Chykcha]

Why waste server space when you´ve got private servers for that? Anyway, people eventually get bored with the old crap what WoW was and return to MoP. I don't see any benefit for bringing back old servers.

Also, no effort you say?

>needing to datamine old class and rain changes.
Yeah i don't think so.

Private servers dont have all the abilities/talents/pathways/etc. working is intended, if you ever played one, even a decent one, you should know it.
>Why waste server space
I do not think that servers are that of a problem with their money, even if so, those "old crap" servers subscription can be a little higher, lets say +25%.
>Yeah i don't think so
And I do think so, why would your opinion be righter than mine?
>I don't see any benefit for bringing back old servers.
The benefit is for nostalgic people, or people who have missed content, but still want to conquer it, these people are now not 16y old boys, they can pay even double the subscription for those moments.

 

[willix]

A few days ago we were kicking around the idea in chat, what if WoW went F2P for the battle chest (currently only 5 bucks).

I can't stop thinking about how f*ing epic it would be to do ICC again. I personally loved that expansion, the look and feel of an ice raid and some really sick bosses and lore. Saurfang dying at the Wrathgate and being rezzed as the Deathbringer. The Sindragoa fight, trying to clear stacks and her yelling PERISH! One of my personal favorites.

I started playing around with a BiS Fire Mage at 80 and came up with this chardev 10 - Mist of Pandaria - BETA
Not even counting cata drops, just MoP scaling and ICC gear. It looks sick.

So many other MMOs are going F2P and when Googleing around I found this: Is 'World of Warcraft' Exploring A Free To Play Future? - Forbes
In no means proof, but I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't at least considering it to stay current.

Expect a new expansion to be announced in the next few months. Lets keep our fingers crossed for some F2P changes.


Just to open it up to everyone, if it was totally F2P what bracket would you play in? What's the most competitive and balanced? What raids would you be particularly excited about?

I don't think Wow will ever go totally free to play so long as there is a healthy subscriber base (1 million players or more). The reason why I say that is because unlike other game companies out there, ALL of Wow's content is 'premium.' There isn't a tiered aspect to Wow content design where you have basic stuff to give away for free, then premium stuff you charge money for. Even the Blizzard item shop, you have items that are just unique versions of things you can already get in the game (with exception of the helms and XP bonus elixir).

Wow, from the ground up, is built around the idea of paying in advance for unlimited progression potential via purchasing content + a subscription.

The 'F2P' model of Wow is not a good comparison to the standard F2P model most other games go for, because it was a modification of something that existed already (trial account), and not really something created specifically to be 'free to play.' So the idea that as time goes on, they would add more content to the 'F2P' game mode like they do with the battle chest is not really representative of general Blizzard design. The overall goal of the F2P model was to solve the problem of having an abundance of trial accounts that ran out of time and just sit there taking up space. Now they are something that a player can potentially play forever, justifying the accounts existence on Blizzards servers.

At the end of the day, Blizzard still wants you to purchase the full game and it's content so that you can continue progressing your character, even if it's just the battle chest. If they expanded the F2P access of F2P accounts, that would ruin the premise of having F2P accounts in the first place.

 

[Faerondil]

If they expanded the F2P access of F2P accounts, that would ruin the premise of having F2P accounts in the first place.

I agree with everything you said but this. There is so much content from 21-85 that never gets touched now. Some of it seen by such a small percentage of the player base at the time it was current.

I'd love it if Blizzard expanded the trial f2p model to be based on expansions. Leave it as is for free trial, charge a one time fee to unlock the rest of vanilla, then a similar fee for each non-current expansion. Also have small fees to unlock other trial restrictions.

The vast majority of the paying subscriber player base is focused solely on current content or getting toons there as fast as possible. Why not let others smell the roses that few stop for now?

 

[willix]

I agree with everything you said but this. There is so much content from 21-85 that never gets touched now. Some of it seen by such a small percentage of the player base at the time it was current.

Yes, there is a lot of content, but the amount of content doesn't really have anything to do with why F2Ps exist. Back when trial accounts were implemented, the level cap was 20. You were given 10 days to try the game out, and if you made it to level 20, you had to buy the game to keep playing past that 10 days. The only thing which has changed about free trials is they removed the 10 day restriction and called it a 'starter account.'

Meanwhile, they've added BC and Wotlk to the battle chest and will probably add Cata to it as well once the next expansion comes out.

I'd love it if Blizzard expanded the trial f2p model to be based on expansions. Leave it as is for free trial, charge a one time fee to unlock the rest of vanilla, then a similar fee for each non-current expansion. Also have small fees to unlock other trial restrictions.

Most of Blizzard's revenue comes from the sub fee. Box sales are only a small portion of them. Giving you more ways to avoid paying for content is not a priority, considering nothing about the trial account has changed other than removing the 10 day limit. You get as much time as you want to access the first 20 levels of the game within the restrictions put into place. If you want more than that, you have to pay for it. Blizzard sees the starter account as a 'free sample,' where you get just enough to want more, then you come buy the full game.

I really don't see that changing anytime soon. I also don't see why they would give you a bigger free sample.

The vast majority of the paying subscriber player base is focused solely on current content or getting toons there as fast as possible. Why not let others smell the roses that few stop for now?

I don't disagree that it would be nice, but you have to understand they aren't going to give you more content without making you pay for it. Sure, they'll give it to you at a discount by merging an expansion with the battle chest, but they aren't going to give it to you for free. If you want more content.

Like I said previously, the only way the game would go F2P is if their subs dropped low enough to where they would have to dramatically alter their business model to retain profits.

When that happens, they'll probably just make Wow Buy to Play and remove the sub fee, but also stop development on the game.

 

[Faerondil]

I also don't see why they would give you a bigger free sample.

I don't disagree that it would be nice, but you have to understand they aren't going to give you more content without making you pay for it. Sure, they'll give it to you at a discount by merging an expansion with the battle chest, but they aren't going to give it to you for free. If you want more content..

First, let me clarify, I am a subscriber and will remain so as long as that is an option that gives me access to all of the content in the game.

Secondly, I had stated the same opinion about the one million subs earlier in this thread. I really can't see blizzard going full f2p as long as they have that sort of consistent profit.

And lastly, I never said give it for free. What I was talking about was no sub for earlier expansions through a one time digital store purchase to unlock that level of content. I think that would make fiscal sense. Make a little money off stuff that is 'dead'. Of course they would need to look at their numbers of subscribers that have Pre-mop (or whatever current expac) capped accounts to judge profitability.

 

[willix]

First, let me clarify, I am a subscriber and will remain so as long as that is an option that gives me access to all of the content in the game.

Secondly, I had stated the same opinion about the one million subs earlier in this thread. I really can't see blizzard going full f2p as long as they have that sort of consistent profit.

And lastly, I never said give it for free. What I was talking about was no sub for earlier expansions through a one time digital store purchase to unlock that level of content. I think that would make fiscal sense. Make a little money off stuff that is 'dead'. Of course they would need to look at their numbers of subscribers that have Pre-mop (or whatever current expac) capped accounts to judge profitability.

It might make fiscal sense to players, get more for less money, but I'm not sure it makes sense for Blizzard. They've said numerous times they are happy with the current subscription model, and while they might merge expansions with the battle chest as new ones come out, part of the charm to buying the game itself is that free month you get when you buy the Battle chest for $20. The other part of it is the fact that you get older expansions with it.

They market their game this way so that a player looks at the battle chest as a good deal they are willing to open their pocket book for.

I'm not sure Blizzard would lose out on a lot of money if you didn't have to pay a sub for the battle chest, but it would definitely make a lot of players reconsider paying a sub at all if the only thing they are paying one for is the last two expansions. A change like that might be the straw that causes the Wow camel to drop below 1 million subs. A change like that would cause a lot of players to start valuing older content (since it's 'free') and put Blizzard into a position where they have to start considering going F2P altogether.

All of this aside, I'm not unhappy about paying $15 a month for this game, it's much less expensive than any other form of entertainment, drug/alcohol habits included. I agree with your basic premise about it being nice if we didn't have to pay for older content, but at the same time, that's how Blizzard gets people to buy the game and start paying for it. Our sub fees go towards ongoing game development, including new expansions and fixes for old content.

I'm not happy enough with the state of low level pvp/class design where I would expect Blizzard to stop development so they could go F2P for Wow.

 

[LennywBT]

seems like a lot of time and effort wasted in this thread.


blizz cant afford to go 100% f2p.

Right. They got a hundrets of moderator's , THey need to pay their moderators with the money that other people spend ,If no1 spends money alot of moderators will leave and the game wouldnt have any new patch , witch means players get boored and they leavethe game . Everyone is free to hack and he might be undetectable cuase there are not alot of mods . [MENTION=18568]Hashbrowns[/MENTION] Think About when u open a thread ^ !

 

[Junoo]

Right. They got a hundrets of moderator's , THey need to pay their moderators with the money that other people spend ,If no1 spends money alot of moderators will leave and the game wouldnt have any new patch , witch means players get boored and they leavethe game . Everyone is free to hack and he might be undetectable cuase there are not alot of mods . Hashbrowns Think About when u open a thread ^ !

what the fuck did i just read...

dat ask for a mod to deleted said posts, i agree it was off topic and to make the mods job easier he should report the posts. and you went off on a rant on how mods dont get paid for this?

little off topic imo.

 

[vicaut]

I can't stop thinking about how f*ing epic it would be to do ICC again.

You can do this already as f2p! Just get invited and don't enter ICC as the first group member. You can also make ToC and RS.

 

[Hashbrowns]

Right. They got a hundrets of moderator's , THey need to pay their moderators with the money that other people spend ,If no1 spends money alot of moderators will leave and the game wouldnt have any new patch , witch means players get boored and they leavethe game . Everyone is free to hack and he might be undetectable cuase there are not alot of mods . [MENTION=18568]Hashbrowns[/MENTION] Think About when u open a thread ^ !

I don't think anyone is suggesting WoW starts pumping out new content completely free of charge. If you read the article you would know they are exploring a way to pay for server upkeep through an in-game store.

This is from yesterday, I'll just leave it here. And this.

With the changes to Titan and the rollout of the Blizzard in-game store I wouldn't be surprised if Asia goes totally F2P next expansion. We won't be long after. Blizzcon is Nov 8, stay tuned lol

 

[LennywBT]

I don't think anyone is suggesting WoW starts pumping out new content completely free of charge. If you read the article you would know they are exploring a way to pay for server upkeep through an in-game store.

This is from yesterday, I'll just leave it here. And this.

With the changes to Titan and the rollout of the Blizzard in-game store I wouldn't be surprised if Asia goes totally F2P next expansion. We won't be long after. Blizzcon is Nov 8, stay tuned lol

Well , You're right . I didnt saw World Of WarCraft Free To Play: Blizzard Testing WoW Microtransactions For Potential F2P Rollout - International Digital Times !

 

[Srs]

Keep linking and clicking, if we get this high enough up on Google we can make this a realty!

My prediction: wow goes F2P, with the exception being that you pay for new content when it's released. For instance, if it happened today, you'd get cata free, but you'd have to pay for MoP content. Keep in mind, however, that Blizzard has been shortening the time in between patches, I think they are doing this so they can bring in a pay as-you-go-model for payment. You'll buy content from the store as it's released, and it will be in smaller doses and more often.

 

[ilovewowtrial]

omg dat will be sik