Goblin Squad Member
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Just so you know, PFO is going to be sub only during the entirety of EE. Once it gets to Open Enrollment (or shortly before to test it) is when they will add the PLEX option. If you are only going to use your free sub time, you may want to wait until closer to release before starting play.
Last I remember seeing, early enrollment was was not going to be but a few months before open enrollment. Maybe 6 months or less?
I don't think Ryan has said anything about when PLEX will launch. But again, if my group is still playing, I don't mind paying. I am just tired of paying then the game dropping....
Just so you know, PFO is going to be sub only during the entirety of EE. Once it gets to Open Enrollment (or shortly before to test it) is when they will add the PLEX option. If you are only going to use your free sub time, you may want to wait until closer to release before starting play.
Are you saying they will no longer have subs once they add their version of the Plex? I was under the impression they would have both a sub, and a f2p option?
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Goblin Squad Member
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From How Long Will Early Enrollment (EE) Last Before Open Enrollment?:
Our current plan is that we'll begin Early Enrollment in Q3 of 2014, and Open Enrollment in Q1 of 2016.
From Kickstarter Community Thread: Subscriptions & Microtransactions:
During Early Enrollment we'll only have the subscription system available. It will take time to develop and test the components that we'll eventually have available for people to purchase using microtransactions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just so you know, PFO is going to be sub only during the entirety of EE. Once it gets to Open Enrollment (or shortly before to test it) is when they will add the PLEX option. If you are only going to use your free sub time, you may want to wait until closer to release before starting play.Last I remember seeing, early enrollment was was not going to be but a few months before open enrollment. Maybe 6 months or less?
I don't think Ryan has said anything about when PLEX will launch. But again, if my group is still playing, I don't mind paying. I am just tired of paying then the game dropping....
From How Long Will Early Enrollment (EE) Last Before Open Enrollment?
Our current plan is that we'll begin Early Enrollment in Q3 of 2014, and Open Enrollment in Q1 of 2016.
And from Kickstarter Community Thread: Subscriptions & Microtransactions
During Early Enrollment, you'll have to have an active subscription to access the game, but that will change after Release. After Release we'll have a lot of different options available for you to pay to play the game in increments less than a one-month subscription.
So Early Enrollment will be approx 18 months, and it will be sub only during that time.
Edit: Ninja'ed by Nihimon
@Valandur, he's saying it's only going to allow subscriptions during Early Enrollment. He's not saying it's going to allow subscriptions only during Early Enrollment.
Ah k. I thought he was saying that the option to sub would end when they launched their Plex system. Just clearing that up :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Valandur, he's saying it's only going to allow subscriptions during Early Enrollment. He's not saying it's going to allow subscriptions only during Early Enrollment.Ah k. I thought he was saying that the option to sub would end when they launched their Plex system. Just clearing that up :)
No, I never meant to imply that Subs would stop at the end of EE, sorry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Kakafika, I know what they said was planned, It just seemed with his posts that Ryan or GW was reconsidering their plans. No biggy, sorry for the confusion. And your right, the PLEX system allows people who cannot play 24/7 more options for their ISK. The only thing it doesnt address is the people who work full time with a family and cannot play crazy hours but cannot afford to buy PLEX to sell.
Its just a some benefit while others dont thing. Everyone cant have it lol. The way the world works.
@Tony, Maybe it was because I called you a he and your a she... but with your posting it seems your obsessing with me as opposed to the others that happen to agree with me. In the start I was just trying to answer your questions regarding the Eve model, and what PFO was intending to take from it.
We can agree to disagree.
Regardless; from what I have read of the blogs the game will be subscription based with F2P only being the PLEX model and then microtransactions for either nonsense vanity stuff or special dungeons.
All subject to change of course.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I pretty much hate the F2P model as well. Whether it's good or not for the industry or successfull....I'm not at all convinced it's good for gamers. There are a number of downsides to the model that I see.
1) Thinner margins and reduced service per account. This is one thing one often notices in F2P games. They may have very large user populations but it is OFTEN the case that thier increase in revenue does NOT keep pace proportanately with thier increase in user base. That means thinner margins which usualy translates into less resouces devoted per account in order to stay proffitable. Some things don't scale on a per user basis, but for the things that do (like customer service) watch out.
2) In the F2P model, revenue is not based on the number of accounts retained, nor even the number of accounts converted to customers but on how much can be squeezed out of each individual customer. This often results in a temptation among the Developers to turn the game into a "Pay-2-Win" model in order to maximize thier revenue from each individual account. You also often see them tempted to play the same sort of unhealthy psychological games that casino's do to keep players at the table (thus increasing revenue). Even Developers who don't go in with intentions of doing so....are going to be under constant temptation and pressure to do so.....and it takes alot of self-discipline, which many don't have, not to cross that line and cross it badly.
3) The F2P model often creates a fracture among the player community between those who are spending big and those who aren't.
4) The F2P model....or more specificaly the RMT....has a VERY good chance of taking away from the sort of immersion, escapism and fun that people are playing these games for in the first place....and rather turn it into a shopping/advertising experience...or an experience where the user constantly has to worry about how much money they are spending in order to play at the level they enjoy. This is precisely the reason why such things as "All Inclusive" or "Fixed Price" vacations exist....because in many areas of entertainment people don't want to be distracted from thier enjoyment of the experience by constant financial considerations, they simply want to pay thier price of admission and then not be bothered with such things DURING thier entertainment.
That said, there are certainly less egregious examples of F2P games on all above points and hopefully PFO will be one....but all of the above are constant pitfalls of the model itsel and even a game that starts out avoiding them can easly slip into them, and badly. YMMV.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Xeen Ah ok. Yeah, we're all still working off of that information from 2 months ago. While they left some of the details out for further consideration, I can't imagine they would change what they've already told us in the kickstarter.
Its just a some benefit while others dont thing. Everyone cant have it lol. The way the world works.
Right. It benefits some people and doesn't hurt anybody; there isn't any reason it shouldn't be available.
It actually has an indirect, positive effect on Player C in that Player C doesn't have to deal with as many gold farmer characters running around not engaging with the community and taking content from legitimate players... not to mention the constant chat channel spamming and hacking attempts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Your right about that. There was a decrease in farming characters in Eve when they introduced PLEX.
Over all, Im fine with PLEX. It never sat completely right, but its not all bad.
It will work out. I like what they have planned now all together. I definately have a positive outlook on the game atm.
My (short) list of terrible things to do with a cash shop:
You should note that GW (Ryan) is very well aware of the history of the industry and genre. Vanguard is an infamous failure. I'd doubt Ryan is unaware of the "why" and "how" of this fact.
Things I think are good in a cash shop:
1. Character Slots, including the first.
Do you think players should be given unlimited character slots? How about the storage requirements of that much data? And how many characters does a player realistically need / use?
2. Enabling XP Gain (but never changing the rate, or the total required). Brilliant, IMO.
I'm still very much suspicious that this very thing is what disqualifies PFO to be labeled a "free to play" game...
3. Class & Race options.
Better be damn sure that all the classes and races are perfectly balanced. Otherwise, it's a form of "pay to win".
4. Character appearance options, including Gear and Mount appearance options. I'd like to see these as skins that can be applied to existing Gear and Mounts, rather than separate items. In essence, an Appearance tab with a slot for a Mount, with the actual Mount slot providing the Mount's stats.
Like EQ2, you mean? Cosmetics are undoubtedly very important to MMO players, especially the RPG-heavy crowd that PFO is oriented towards, and even more especially for a sandbox.
I can only hope that the "free art" isn't deliberately designed to be ugly... Fat chance.
5. Convenience Items. I'm very torn about things like "Rez Gems" that let characters cast a Resurrect spell without a Scroll and without knowing the spell. At a minimum, convenience items should never be better at doing something than a character would be.
You're talking about the various stuff in DDO? Remember that a character which can resurrect you is able to do so for free... If a dead player wants to pay instead of getting a free Rez, what's the harm? Healers in RPGs have so far been a rather complicating category. They command a supreme monopoly on an absolutely essential team role, and yet, so far, their gameplay has been horribly unrewarding and boring. Whack-a-mole is not worth paying to play, and neither is "whack the red bars".
It remains to be seen what PFO's take on this game design and balance issue will be, and how that will be affected by the cash shop.
Definitely not financial, just ethical...
Waukeen bless you. Paying a subscription makes me uncomfortable because I'm too po' to afford another "O" and "R", but is usually the more frugal route to enjoying MMOs. I enjoy supporting my hobby as I can, though. What else is money for if not to enjoy doing what you like? And GW's employees need to eat. $15/month is dirt cheap entertainment anyway. Compare that to the expense of a single dinner for two, if you're the type who likes to go out with friends or that special someone.
It's such a shame I've played the hound out of DDO. I still sometimes get the hankering to play it, but PUGs are like pulling teeth. No one ever wants to play for the sake of learning and experiencing, they just rush through the dungeon doing the bare minimum (and often with disastrous consequences if they're inexperienced players).
I only hate the F2P model and cash shops(or any form of additional purchasing) because I am their favorite kind of customer. I always sink way to much money into those games. Thus I love games that charge a $15 subscription and sell nothing else(aside from character renames/server transfers). I don't think I have ever played a F2P/cash-shop title without putting in more than $15/mo.
Sounds like the problem is a lack of self control rather than the business model of your favorite passtime.
There are two types of 'pay to win'.
1. You can only play to level XX, without paying a subscription
2. There are more powerful items in the cash-shop than you can get in the game.There are plenty of 1's, but not many 2's.
For good reason. Example #1 is more like having a demo lady handing you teriyaki chicken on a toothpick with the restaurant right behind her in the food court. If the game pits low-level characters against high level ones, that's a feature/flaw in the game's design, not in the business model.
The thing that sucks about subscription games is when the servers die, and you don't have anyone to interact with, going F2P brings in people to interact with.
Sandboxes are notably less-prone to collapse. EVE and Second Life, for example.
IMO everything should be available to every player and no item in the cash-shop should be more powerful than anything obtainable through regular gameplay. The non-paying players supply of 'top tier' items should not be dependent on the paying players. One way is to make every item sellable in-game, but you would end up with 10 $5 items that all go for different prices, then the market gets flooded with the $5 item that sells the best. I think PFO should let players sell skymetal in-game, but for reasons I can't understand, Ryan doesn't want to do this.
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Ryan doesn't want to do what, exactly? And also... why shouldn't players who are paying to keep the lights on be rewarded for their sacrifice?
I know I'm not the only person that has passed up purchasing something I wanted because It would cast me in a negative light to some people I play with.
Sounds like you need to play with mature people, those who are more likely to be grateful that your spending habits are allowing them to play the game at all.
Oh, I'm pretty confident that there is enough people like that today. The "problem" with the subscription based payment model really isn't a lack of potential players.
I'm thinking you're underestimating the expense of MMO development.
There's a lotta folks whose living is to analyze market demographics. Are you such a person?
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Nihimon wrote: 3. Class & Race options.
Better be damn sure that all the classes and races are perfectly balanced. Otherwise, it's a form of "pay to win".
Can you explain what you mean by this?
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Goblin Squad Member
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2. Enabling XP Gain (but never changing the rate, or the total required). Brilliant, IMO.I'm still very much suspicious that this very thing is what disqualifies PFO to be labeled a "free to play" game...
3. Class & Race options.Better be damn sure that all the classes and races are perfectly balanced. Otherwise, it's a form of "pay to win".
2) To my mind, it'll be free-to-play because, once we get to Open Enrollment, one can buy training-time with PFO-PLEX instead of cash
3) I'm not sure that if halflings, for example, are over-powered in a cash shop, an excessive proportion of Ryan's targeted audience would pay to play them just for their over-poweredness. I might be overly optimistic, but that is my opinion of the community we're building here on the boards
2) To my mind, it'll be free-to-play because, once we get to Open Enrollment, one can buy training-time with PFO-PLEX instead of cash
Since you have to pay to get training time no matter what, then such a game could not be called "free to play", it would be "free to win" at the very least. Is it really such a turn off to call the game "pay to play"?
3) I'm not sure that if halflings, for example, are over-powered in a cash shop, an excessive proportion of Ryan's targeted audience would pay to play them just for their over-poweredness. I might be overly optimistic, but that is my opinion of the community we're building here on the boards
How long do you suppose the community of PFO would avoid toxicity if paid options were clearly more powerful than everything else? Powergamers gonna powergame.
The spectrum of player type is not even one-dimensional, but there are very very players who care absolutely nothing for the game's mechanics and engage with the game (ironically, through its mechanics...) in a strictly rolelplaying manner. It's far from clear that PFO will even allow you to avoid mechanics.
Can you explain what you mean by this?Nihimon wrote: 3. Class & Race options.
Better be damn sure that all the classes and races are perfectly balanced. Otherwise, it's a form of "pay to win".
In other words, if you can buy the more powerful races or classes. For example, the Warforged in DDO used to have a great many immunities and perks that "fleshie" races didn't. They could stay underwater forever, immunity to poison/disease, the spell Charm Person, they had good Fortification against sneak attacks and critical hits, etc. At a certain point in the game, you'll start being checked for minimum HP, too, so their Constitution bonus was a plus. Of course they're penalized pretty steeply in other areas such as the way their armor works and positive-energy healing being cut by half... But what if Warforged were strictly better in every way than the races which are available for free? What about the Favored Soul class?
There was (and still is!) intense dispute about whether the Favored Soul counts as "pay to win" in DDO since they really did marginalize the Cleric class rather dramatically when they were released.
If there are "better options" which are only available to paying players, whether it's races, classes, equipment, what's the difference?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Classes dont exist. Its a skill based system, so kind of a moot discussion there.
Paying for races would be kinda lame, unless it was an ultra powerful race in which case everyone would have it.
The real reason to go with a subscription only system is that everyone would be on the same playing field.
PLEX system is fine if your only really paying for game time. Not a chunk of skill points. If you can pay for extra skill points over what you will earn through time... it will become pay to win. There will be characters running around with more SP then could be gained normally... Hope thats avoided.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If you can pay for extra skill points over what you will earn through time... it will become pay to win. There will be characters running around with more SP then could be gained normally... Hope thats avoided.
That possibility is, and has always been, off of the table. What is on the table is "You must pay (or cause somebody else to choose to pay) for the period of time during which you will accrue skill points/XP."
Subscribers will get all of the time included in their subscription. People who do not have a subscription will have other options to not be completely excluded.
Classes dont exist. Its a skill based system, so kind of a moot discussion there.
It's perhaps misused to simply refer to the mechanic by which characters gain power and differentiate. Can just substitute "one skill or group of skills" in the space that you can describe this with one word.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...I dont want the trash that floods F2P games...
Having money is not the measure of human character. Age is not the measure of human character. Not even intelligence is the measure of human character.
Humanity is the measure of human character, and humanity encompasses rather more than plutocratic conceit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Xeen: There was a good thread on F2P, if you are interested in some further reading "State of F2P in MMORPGs"
I think the core of training time = value in game = tie-in with virtual economy, seems a great basis to align pricing with progress, that eve and pfo are both using. My curiosity is with quality of online communities and how pricing may influence as one input into that, so some measures on new a/c's before they have value in them is of interest with PFO. If GW have a great community that then becomes worth paying for above the actual good game (design), I believe.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Aunt Tony you are comparing apples to oranges with DDO Warforged (or any other game that has purchased races) to anything in PfO. Nothing anyone from GW or Paizo has posted has EVER indicated anyone will have any races purchased via micro-transaction. You also can't buy training time for a character who is already receiving training time - that is reserved for non-subscription players. Any time a subscriber account buys extra training time it remains unused unless they player cancels his/her subscription, uses it for an alt who is not already receiving training exp, or sells it for in-game coins to a player who doesn't wish to pay real money to play. Absolutely no pay to win. You are hung up on how OTHER MMO's do things, but not how PfO will be run.
May I suggest you read the posts and blogs before posting? Fewer people will see you as a troll if you do so, as taking the time to research your own questions, thus there answers, will help you add something positive rather than appearing to constantly ask questions that have been answered and look like they are being asked just to annoy other forum users. Some of your posts are quite well reasoned, so I see you have the potential to add value to these forums. I hate to see someone labeled a troll when they could simply research a bit and and not have the perception altered by not doing so. You seem like a passionate, intelligent person, but attacking F2P aspects that DON'T exist in PfO undermines those facts.
Xeen, As Imbicatus points out classes do exist - you just have to train the skills first and receive the proper badges first in order to level in a class. Also, under the plan outlined by GW, the typical F2P player will not be attracted to PfO. It has been stated time and again, this is a niche market game, and given that you must either subscribe, buy training time card themselves, or pay another player in-game coins for training time (PLEX as EvE calls it), or you can't train at all, who would stick around in a game where they are stuck at a starter level forever if they choose not to buy training time? Griefers will be dealt with severely as many posts and blogs have indicated, so even those looking to mess with people won't last long, not that a starter PC will be much of a bother to most players as those player will be training.
F2P as it exists in other MMO's is not what Ryan has described the F2P micro-transactions in PfO will be like. So basing assumptions on what has come before for a game designed to turn things on their ear is silly. Ryan has made it clear PfO will avoid the pit falls of other MMO's, including those who have F2P aspects and real world money shops.
As the song says, don't worry, be happy :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well for my own part, I wouldn't be surprised if PFO did, in fact, have additional races available in the MTX for purchase. I'd be just a little bit surprised if they offered archetypes there, too. The trend towards selling modular upgrades to games instead of large expansion-packs seems to be backed by the success of that model.
It has even benefited me at times when I have been low on cash, or couldn't care less about some particular aspect of development in a game... though some development teams seem to try to charge a higher total price for everything I would expect in a single expansion (Civilization V is by far the worst I have experienced). I think the model works best when the 'total price' might be the same or similar, but they extract more revenue from the player base by getting more total transactions. Also, by releasing smaller bits of content on a faster schedule, they keep a larger playerbase engaged with their game, waiting to buy more content.
Before, when an expansion came out that I wasn't impressed with, I would stop playing the game. Now, I pay the $10 for the half of the expansion that I want, and continue playing and paying.
I do agree that Aunt Tony's style of straw man arguments and personal attacks is tiresome, and I don't blame Xeen & others for feeling exasperated. She has definitely proven not to be a troll, however, and the lack of knowledge can be remedied with effort on both sides of the conversation.
I know it's frustrating, but I tried to give up my frustration during the 2nd kickstarter when I admitted to myself that some information is very difficult to find (searching the forum, searching dev posts, etc don't always work well). The easy stuff is reading through the blogs, but a lot of times stuff in there was modified by comments in the threads dealing with each blog, which oftentimes have hundreds of posts. It's a good start, though.
Aunt Tony you are comparing apples to oranges with DDO Warforged (or any other game that has purchased races) to anything in PfO. Nothing anyone from GW or Paizo has posted has EVER indicated anyone will have any races purchased via micro-transaction. You also can't buy training time for a character who is already receiving training time - that is reserved for non-subscription players. Any time a subscriber account buys extra training time it remains unused unless they player cancels his/her subscription, uses it for an alt who is not already receiving training exp, or sells it for in-game coins to a player who doesn't wish to pay real money to play. Absolutely no pay to win. You are hung up on how OTHER MMO's do things, but not how PfO will be run.
May I suggest you read the posts and blogs before posting? Fewer people will see you as a troll if you do so, as taking the time to research your own questions, thus there answers, will help you add something positive rather than appearing to constantly ask questions that have been answered and look like they are being asked just to annoy other forum users. Some of your posts are quite well reasoned, so I see you have the potential to add value to these forums. I hate to see someone labeled a troll when they could simply research a bit and and not have the perception altered by not doing so. You seem like a passionate, intelligent person, but attacking F2P aspects that DON'T exist in PfO undermines those facts.
I think something I've said must have gotten past you somehow.
That is, one's posture is useful as bait sometimes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...I dont want the trash that floods F2P games...Having money is not the measure of human character. Age is not the measure of human character. Not even intelligence is the measure of human character.
Humanity is the measure of human character, and humanity encompasses rather more than plutocratic conceit.
I am talking about a specific group... Not really the people without money.
Im talking about the people who would ruin the game with free accounts just for the laughs. Which we WILL get in a F2P game. (Dont consider the PLEX system F2P)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Xeen: There was a good thread on F2P, if you are interested in some further reading "State of F2P in MMORPGs"
I think the core of training time = value in game = tie-in with virtual economy, seems a great basis to align pricing with progress, that eve and pfo are both using. My curiosity is with quality of online communities and how pricing may influence as one input into that, so some measures on new a/c's before they have value in them is of interest with PFO. If GW have a great community that then becomes worth paying for above the actual good game (design), I believe.
I dont mind what Eve did and PFO plans to copy. I dont really consider it F2P. Its a good thing to follow. Ill check out th article tonight at work while I wait for a robot to crash or somthing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I dont mind what Eve did and PFO plans to copy. I dont really consider it F2P. Its a good thing to follow. Ill check out th article tonight at work while I wait for a robot to crash or somthing.@Xeen: There was a good thread on F2P, if you are interested in some further reading "State of F2P in MMORPGs"
I think the core of training time = value in game = tie-in with virtual economy, seems a great basis to align pricing with progress, that eve and pfo are both using. My curiosity is with quality of online communities and how pricing may influence as one input into that, so some measures on new a/c's before they have value in them is of interest with PFO. If GW have a great community that then becomes worth paying for above the actual good game (design), I believe.
I'm sure GW like to use the Pricing Model = Hybrid (definition) than P2P/F2P split. In fact moving away from "F2P" but it can be played "freely while not paying" as well as moving from "beta" to "delta" seem useful distinctions to stick with, maybe?
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Goblin Squad Member
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My understanding is the PFO will be free to play you just won't be doing any skill training while you are ftp. If you subscribe you start getting xp while you are still playing for free but with skill training occurring. If you save up some gold to buy a PLEX from another adventurer who bought it with real money from GW then you get some skill training while you are free to play without you spending real world money while someone else spent money.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This discussion seems to be moving along the same lines as the thread created during the kickstarter by Ryan, Kickstarter Community Thread: Subscriptions & Microtransactions. Link posted for your convenience.
In that thread, Ryan made a post regarding some concerns of the 'slippery slope' of Free-2-Play/microtransactions --> Pay-2-Win. Linked for your convenience.
In his next post, he says this, which I think pertains to the current topic more closely, so I'll quote it:
@Hroderich Gottfrei - our thoughts on "playing for free" are evolving. There will be some form of free play, that's a requirement in today's market where people want to try an MMO before they put in any money.How long you can play without paying anything is something we're thinking about. We don't want a game full of folks who trained for 6 months, got reasonably competent, and are now playing without producing any revenue.
It seems clear that there won't be F2P in the strictest sense of the term, that rather it will be more like EvE's Plex system (where every account is paid for) with a trial period.
I'm somewhat surprised Ryan didn't post something along these lines in this thread, since there certainly seems to be some confusion about PFO being somehow more 'free to play' than EvE is, which doesn't seem to be the general gist of the above quote. It does seem that he left it open that people may be able to play without having active training time for short periods, though, and he did say that it is something they are still thinking about. Perhaps their ideas have changed a bit over the past few months, or they are still hashing out more of the details, or it's just too early to tell.
Reposted this from the first page for your convenience, Soldack. This is the latest (and only) information we have on this topic, to my knowledge. Check out the linked thread for more details and the discussion that prompted them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, could be another one of the marketing 'crowdforging' terms we need, again? :)
For eg:
P2P can equal: (Box$) + X-SubTime$ -> Play
F2P can equal: Play -> TimeGrind + MTX$ (better versions remove the grind and ensure MTX =/= P2W)
Hybrid perhaps: Try + MTX -> Play + Coin <- X-SubTime ?
/doodle
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Aou - there will be things you may wish to buy in the cash store even as a subscriber. The reason is simple: Some people will pay us more than the cost of a monthly subscription if we let them. So we're going to let them.
Over the longer term we expect to do a lot of content ourselves and potentially with partners that you'll pay to play. But it will all be optional "adventure module" style content; self-contained highly scripted PvE content. (Just to stop the rumor before it starts: Yes, there will be lots of PvE "adventure" content provided outside the cash store, and cash-store adventure content is a long, long, long way off.)
Our commitment to the subscribers is that nothing people buy in the cash store will make their characters meaningfully better in the game than the value subscribers automatically get.
A subscription will buy you a month (or a multiple of months depending on how you buy it) of training time. You'll be able to split that time across as many characters as you wish(*), but they train in series, not in parallel. To enable more than one character on an account to train in parallel you'll have to pay extra - either in the form of additional subscription time, or via training time purchased in the cash store.
RyanD
(*)We may discover some system limit that makes having infinite characters on an single account prohibitive, but I can't imagine that the limit would be meaningful except to people who just want to push the limit of the system to see where it breaks.
Here is what Kakafika linked. Pretty much answers it completely.
I like this game plan. We can just keep it called subscription based gaming. Either way you have to have an active sub, whether its paid by you with $$, or paid in $$ by someone else and you give them gold.
You are still required to have a subscription.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You are still required to have a subscription.
A subscription will buy you a month (or a multiple of months depending on how you buy it) of training time.
Xeen, I think it is clear you can play PFO as much as you want free, you just have to pay to get some skill training. Once you like your character where it is, you can stop subscribing and keep playing...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Xeen, I think it is clear you can play PFO as much as you want free, you just have to pay to get some skill training. Once you like your character where it is, you can stop subscribing and keep playing...
Actually, this is what Ryan was talking about "evolving".
From Kickstarter Community Thread: Subscriptions & Microtransactions:
@Hroderich Gottfrei - our thoughts on "playing for free" are evolving. There will be some form of free play, that's a requirement in today's market where people want to try an MMO before they put in any money.
How long you can play without paying anything is something we're thinking about. We don't want a game full of folks who trained for 6 months, got reasonably competent, and are now playing without producing any revenue.
I wouldn't be surprised if they end up requiring some kind of subscription or PLEX (wish we knew the real name!) active in order to log a character in.
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Bet if we started calling them Goblin Balls they would give us a name fairly quick <wg>
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ellipses are OP and must be nerfed.
'Ellipses' is plural. 'Ellipsis' is a grammatical state of conversational suspense. So a single Ellips must be a single Goblin ball (a period), and it is in your court.
I wonder might there be a minigame called 'Goblin Ball'?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't be surprised if they end up requiring some kind of subscription or PLEX (wish we knew the real name!) active in order to log a character in.
If they do that, the game is not free-to-play.
Free-to-try is not free-to-play.
Ryan was super clear that free-to-play is the future of MMOs and they are not going to require a subscription.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't really have much of a problem with PFO's base model of "pay for training time"...since no character can advance at more then X rate no matter how much the player pays. It essentialy becomes a varient of play for pay-time...except you can get away with not paying or paying less if you don't care much about advancing.
My main concern is based around Ryan's comment of "...and we'll have a shop where you can buy other stuff too." (paraphrasing).
Depending upon what that "stuff" is and how it's implimented within the game mechanics it could be anything from "no big deal" to a complete and egregious game breaker for me. No offense to Ryan or anyone at GW but I've seen the Dev's of virtualy every F2P games, including the ones that were blatantly and egregiously "Pay-2-Win" say the exact sort of things..."Trust us we know how to do F2P right", "We'll never do Pay-2-Win", "We'll never sell pure power", "We'll never feature anything you can't earn in game.", etc.....and then turn around and do precisely that. So this is something, AFAIC, to watch very closely in implimentation both at start and going forward because it has the potential to become a deal breaker really quick.
I honestly wish they wouldn't do a cash shop at all, but it's clear that's not going to happen. I completely understand GW's legitimate intrest in making a proffit...that's why I WANT to pay them a sub-fee. However, when a game becomes more about BUYING then PLAYING, then it ceases to be a GAME...that's a deal breaker for me and I have no problem walking away from the game or hobby in general if that's the direction it's going, because it ceases to be FUN any more.....and I'll just go back to board games, PBEM, VTT and non-commercial MUDS where people still remember what GAMES are about. YMMV.
Bet if we started calling them Goblin Balls they would give us a name fairly quick <wg>+1 for
Wait, this isn't already what they're doing? Honestly, sometimes I just don't know what Ryan's deal is...