Goblin Squad Member
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Here's that article:
Protect your user's login details, please!
Another interesting one:
How to Hurt the Hackers: The Scoop on Internet Cheating and How You Can Combat It
Just about all of this goes over my head, but I can follow the logic/reasoning :)
// The other thing mentioned, seems that players should have alerts on their credit cards as a case of "living with these breaches" by now. As well as how well the PR of the targeted companies smoothes things over on the flip side.
But back to the topic, if there's a good community, perhaps that just might have a sort of halo effect on some potential game cheats even if the criminals still persist with fraud and financial motives. I think this is one POTENTIAL problem for F2P (in general), the purchase perception: "If it's free then I don't feel the need to value it, until/unless I've emotionally/financially become invested"?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Without a doubt the thing I worry most about is compromised clients and the ability to extract information from them that can be manipulated outside the client software to the benefit of the user.
I'm pretty sure we can be diligent at keeping our encryption techniques strong - that's mostly a matter of gatekeeping certain functions in code and doing routine, random samples of the databases to look for mistakes.
But something like the example from the link of analyzing all the tiny changes in the cost of various resources and then using that to map out the actions being taken by other players is exactly the kind of thing that worries me. It's so hard to imagine all the potential compromises and what could be done with them - the classic failure is to assume that such information is either too hard to get or too esoteric to be meaningful.
Inevitably we will have those kinds of compromises and all we can do is try to find them quickly and patch them quickly. We will have to rely on a lot of eyes on the game to report stuff that appears to be cheating but we'll always know that the best cheats don't get caught - they take a tiny fraction of an edge that's almost undetectable and leverage it into a significant advantage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have to concur with the idea that pay to play communities > free to play communities.
Anyone who played LotRO before and after it went F2P, especially on my home server of Landroval, should be able to verify this.
Pay to play communities attract people who are invested in the game and community. Free to play communities attract people who are looking for something new and cheap. The maturity of the community goes down about as fast as the price to play it.
Even a 5$ a month policy would be preferable to F2P. If this game has a free trial but is pay to play and somebodies friends won't play because of that... we are probably better off without them. This game isn't being developed for free and I personally don't want a ton of kid's leeching off our community that actually cares about this game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm going to have to disagree on F2P and P2P. There is always going to be jerks, even in P2P.
It's about $60 or so a year for Xbox Live, and from what I've heard, the community is EXTREMELY immature. Call of Duty and/or Battlefield cost quite a bit of money, and the communities are terrible on there.
Fact of the matter is, I don't think F2P or P2P will make a difference in the community. At least from what I've read, there at least will be ways to deal with said brats in PFO, from knowing who's a man of their word to a jerk that doesn't ever hold up their part of the bargain. Done right, trying to randomly kill people does sound like it will be difficult.
I'm all for F2P (mostly because I cannot afford P2P, or at the very least: monthly payments.), and honestly, I don't really think there is a lot of people that know about PFO besides those that already play Pathfinder as a tabletop game, and then also the Paizo forums, which for the most part, are pretty mature compared to a lot of other social websites.
I try doing the same thing here, for the most part, I would get decent comments... On the other hand, it's Reddit, it's one of the dark alleyways of the internet.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm going to have to disagree on F2P and P2P. There is always going to be jerks, even in P2P.
It's about $60 or so a year for Xbox Live, and from what I've heard, the community is EXTREMELY immature. Call of Duty and/or Battlefield cost quite a bit of money, and the communities are terrible on there.
Sure there are jerks and mature players in F2P and P2P. There also homeless people in both 1st world countries and 3rd world countries.
Just because P2P games have jerks, and F2P games have mature players, does not meant the F2P communities are just as mature as P2P communities. Before LOTRO went F2P jerks were a rare occurrence. Now they are far more common. People associated with Lord of the Rings and a server with a strong roleplay association tend to be mature to but that still happened.
Call of Duty and/or Battlefield are in a league of their own. First off 60$ a year is nothing. Second off FPS's tend to be the most hateful kid packed games available on the market. Their community is an entirely different class than MMOs. They make Darkfall look like a retirement home.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All that aside, I don't think there's much publicity of Pathfinder Online so far. A large number of people have heard of Battlefield or Call of Duty. Can't say the same for PFO, it's not like it's been talked about on Kotaku, Gamespot, or some other AAA game website. Those that have heard about it are mostly from Paizo's website, and as I mentioned before, are pretty mature.
Besides that, in my opinion, I don't really think this is a big priority yet. There's only going to be a select few (4500) people at the initial beta test, odds are, they are going to be from Paizo's forums. I think it's a long ways until we start worrying about immature players, and even so, if Paizo's forums got anything to show, they have excellent moderators or whatever we call them.
(And yes, I do say Paizo's great a lot. They really do have one of the better communities, if not one of the best, around the internet.)
I think the nature of PFO will discourage the jerks from being around for bvery long..when they find they can't spam stuff over and over and actually have to work to advance
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I disagree with the assertion that a pay wall excludes "undesirable" players disproportionately. It does result in higher 'churn', if F2P players joining and quitting can be described as such, which means that converting one player to a different playing style has much less effect.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the nature of PFO will discourage the jerks from being around for bvery long..when they find they can't spam stuff over and over and actually have to work to advance
If that were the case there would be less jerks in Darkfall. Games with hard to master combat systems are unfortunately more popular with teenage twitch monsters than an older and generally more mature gaming crowd. A downside I am willing to accept for a great combat system.
There are a lot of factors working for and against the maturity of a game's community. A few of the primary ones are:
1. Content- Is the game packed full of pop-culture references or revolve around a subject meant to appeal to younger audiences, or is it a real immersive world meant to cater to a more serious and generally older crowd?
2. PVP- How great of a capacity to be a jerk does the game give you? Can you randomly kill anyone anywhere for any reason? Can you kill anyone at all?
3. Investment- As what put earlier, do you have skin in the game? Does this game constitute a real investment for you of your time/money/effort, or if you get banned are you just going to immediately re-roll a new account? This is an important one because if the subject of the game is serious, you may get kids who decide that is nerdy, and it is great fun to harass the people trying to enjoy a serious and mature game. If they have to pay for the game again each time they get banned... not so much. These kids specialize at masking their IP's and pulling a new e-mail out of their butts too, and I'm not talking about hackers even so much as trolls.
I think PFO has 1 strongly in it's favor but 2 is strongly against it. That is why I am so concerned about this games maturity level. GW is offering us a lot of freedom and I love that. I am one of the people arguing most strongly in favor of as few PVP-restrictions as possible. But it does come with a strong downside, and measures should be taken to mitigate that downside as much as possible.
Personally I think this is one more thing Ryan should take from EVE. 2 week free trial. Initial cost to buy the game and 15$ a month after that. No cost for expansions. A PLEX (Trading months of subscription for in-game currency) and AUR(Cosmetic micro-transations) style system is fine. But make EVERYONE put skin in the game.
What is the point of keeping around a bunch of players that aren't even advancing in skill level? It makes no sense to me.
There are a lot of factors working for and against the maturity of a game's community. A few of the primary ones are:
1. Content- Is the game packed full of pop-culture references or revolve around a subject meant to appeal to younger audiences, or is it a real immersive world meant to cater to a more serious and generally older crowd?
2. PVP- How great of a capacity to be a jerk does the game give you? Can you randomly kill anyone anywhere for any reason? Can you kill anyone at all?
3. Investment- As what put earlier, do you have skin in the game? Does this game constitute a real investment for you of your time/money/effort, or if you get banned are you just going to immediately re-roll a new account? This is an important one because if the subject of the game is serious, you may get kids who decide that is nerdy, and it is great fun to harass the people trying to enjoy a serious and mature game. If they have to pay for the game again each time they get banned... not so much. These kids specialize at masking their IP's and pulling a new e-mail out of their butts too, and I'm not talking about hackers even so much as trolls.
Let's look at WoW through this lens:
1. You could argue it's directed at a younger crowd, but that would get you no end of counterargument on their forums from all the adults who play. Without knowing their actual demographics, I don't personally believe this would be a fair assessment.
2. WoW doesn't give you much leeway to be a jerk in terms of mechanics. You can kill players in specific areas, on specific servers, or if they're flagged for pvp. You can't even talk to the opposing faction.
3. WoW is definitely P2P.
WoW appears to meet all your criteria. Yet I think we all know the community's reputation, which got particularly nasty at the beginning of Cataclysm (ie: when they made the game harder). So I don't think it's that simple.
I think the following will effect a mature community far more than a price tag:
1. Single server. You will never meet people whom you have zero chance of ever seeing again.
2. Reputation. Giving players a mechanic for labeling jerks as jerks will result in player accountability.
3. Meaningful player interaction. Needing other players will enforce a certain level of maturity. If you're mean, you probably won't get much out of the game simply because most activities will require help.
If people want to be jerks in PFO they will have to surround themselves with like-minded people. Which could happen, potentially magnifying the problem. However, those types of groups bring their own solution: they self-destruct.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. Content- Is the game packed full of pop-culture references or revolve around a subject meant to appeal to younger audiences, or is it a real immersive world meant to cater to a more serious and generally older crowd?
I was specifically thinking of WoW when I wrote one. It may be debatable whether or not Warcraft and it's lore is a serious subject matter not catered around children. I would argue that it is far more childish than subject matters like Lord of the Rings, and Pathfinder and that it's visual style, gameplay... and really everything about it is clearly meant to be VERY kid friendly, even if not kid exclusive. What is entirely non-debateable is the game is filled with immersion breakers and pop-culture references. I could go drag up screenshots of Lincoln's Mastersword and Opera Windfury if you really wanted to argue that point, but it's a position I can't see any sane individual taking, so I won't bother.
On the subject of PVP in WoW... PVP servers offer as much opportunity to grief as any sandbox, and are perhaps the MOST ideal for snot-nosed brats because it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to beat someone who is high level enough at a low level.
I prettymuch think the only part about WoW NOT catered to a snot-nosed immature community is the sub fees and expansion costs.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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What makes WoW more kid-friendly than LOTRO? Is it only the art style? Isn't that literally the most superficial thing to base an opinion on?
If so, what about Call of Subtitles: The Sequel appeals to the same group, since that genre trends towards attempting to be photorealistic?
Well, you have to pay to train, unlike other F2P MMOs...that will probably make it on par with a pay to play game.
this is something that the more I think about, the more it troubles me
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, you have to pay to train, unlike other F2P MMOs...that will probably make it on par with a pay to play game.this is something that the more I think about, the more it troubles me
It's the reverse for me, it grows on me this idea. Did you see this video which sketches some of the main reasons for this approach?:
PaizCon GoblinWorks Summary Pathfinder Presentation
The whole vid is worth watching, but not sure how familiar you are with it, the skill training time allows, I think:
1. XP to not be wasted necessarily, evens out somewhat the logging in time to play to enjoy vs to level up?!
2. Ramps up the gradualism of leveling (a good thing)
3. So you can not pay for skill training perhaps if you make cash in game so this feeds the economy/reduces the gold farming incentive (ties into eve in some ways how they do things)
4. Is it flexibible for the player, this option?
etc.
Personally I think this is one more thing Ryan should take from EVE. 2 week free trial. Initial cost to buy the game and 15$ a month after that. No cost for expansions. A PLEX (Trading months of subscription for in-game currency) and AUR(Cosmetic micro-transations) style system is fine. But make EVERYONE put skin in the game.
What is the point of keeping around a bunch of players that aren't even advancing in skill level? It makes no sense to me.
The community on these forums is certainly something I am impressed with, is worth saying. There is that side to these games: That a complex game puts customers off, but atst, makes the playerbase a better community? Seems to be something in that.
I'm also curious for players that don't advance skill level. Is that to allow for players that wish to socialize/happy with what skills allow them to do in the game? Good question...
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Goblin Squad Member
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What makes WoW more kid-friendly than LOTRO? Is it only the art style?Chuck Norris Commercials.
And other stuff...
If so, what about Call of Subtitles: The Sequel appeals to the same group, since that genre trends towards attempting to be photorealistic?
Guns, blood, violence, and other things that their parents don't like.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The real disadvantage that F2P games have in regards the community is the ability to make is the ability to make an endless series of new accounts in order for griefers to work thier nastiness.
With a P2P game people can make new accounts as well, but doing so comes at some real world financial penalties to the individual. You have to invest some $ in order to establish a new account to play....and if you loose that account due to a ban, you've lost the $ you invested in it.
Under the F2P model (or really any model with a Free Trial). They usualy try to compensate for that by limiting the actions a new account can take and hopefully therefore the degree to which they can negatively effect other players until that account has invested a certain amount of play time into the character. In essence, they are substiting time invested by the player for $ invested as a disincentive to act maliciously with that account. It's not a bad compromise except in cases where players have an inordinate amount of time to invest in throw-away accounts. Really not much you can do about that. PFO has an advantage over most F2P models (and even P2P models) in that it's going to be invite only for the initial ramp up period. That means that loosing access to the account is a big deal, as you'll have to wait for an invite to create another one. So I expect the initial release of PFO will actualy have alot less problems with malicious players then most other MMO's (regardless of payment model). When they eventualy throw open the floodgates and remove the invite-only restriction, I expect GW will have to figure out some mechanisms to limit the ammount of harm newly created accounts can accomplish. I'm sure Ryan and his staff are well aware of that dynamic already.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There are methods to identify players who have more than one account (either serially or simultaneously). It might be as simple as the client reporting a hash of the processor ID of the computer it's running on: Combined with other cues, that would be at least 99.99% effective and limit false positives to people who share a computer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are methods to identify players who have more than one account (either serially or simultaneously). It might be as simple as the client reporting a hash of the processor ID of the computer it's running on: Combined with other cues, that would be at least 99.99% effective and limit false positives to people who share a computer.
Yeah, there is stuff you can do like that assuming the person is playing on thier own hardware. Once you get to certain parts of the world (e.g. Asia) it's more common for people to be renting time on someone elses hardware to play. You even occasionaly see that in the U.S. with some Game/Comic stores in some cities, though it's not nearly as common.
Of course, in that case you're relying on information gathered by the client to base your decison on. That suffers from the same sort of issues that alot of other security issues do... once the client gets compromised, you can't trust any info it's providing you.
Chief Technical Officer
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So if free players can't train and thus advance then it's a pay-to-win system? The more you pay the more of an advantage you have? I'm honestly asking, I want to be sure I understand what is being said.
Pay-to-win implies that if you're willing to drop a pile of cash to quickly build the baddest-assed badass character of them all, you can do that.
You can't do that. You can't even come close.
But it *is* true that people who pay have an advantage over people who don't pay, in that they'll be able to advance their characters, which will open up new options and make them better at doing stuff. As Ryan has said, "We're operating a business, not a charity."
On the other hand, there would be little point in even *allowing* free play if playing for free weren't fun. Plus, even people who *don't* pay will have the ability to contribute to the economy, and potentially generate rewards that will allow them to train—they'll just have to work for it.
What makes WoW more kid-friendly than LOTRO? Is it only the art style?Chuck Norris Commercials.
And other stuff...If so, what about Call of Subtitles: The Sequel appeals to the same group, since that genre trends towards attempting to be photorealistic?Guns, blood, violence, and other things that their parents don't like.
You can pick the cheese out of any game and say it's immature, childish, contributes to cult worship, etc., provided you dislike the game enough.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Even though I REALLY dislike the F2P model. I'm ok with the concept presented for PFO presented thus far. As long as you pay a set amount to have your character constantly training during the month you are on the same footing as everyone else (or that's how I'v interpretated it so far).
The guy that's willing to pay $50 more then you isn't advancing thier character any faster nor are they gaining other competitive advantages in PvP then anyone else who's at the games "speed limit" for skill advancement. Also, as I understand it, in order to convert that skill training into palpable mechanical advantages you need to do stuff in game to unlock merit badges.
What would cause me to drop PFO in a heartbeat would be if I started seeing things like Potions of Giant Strength, Extra Healing or Invisability in the store. Things that provide a direct in game advantage are a big no no, in my book, Even if they can also be earned in game.
LOTRO started out with a pretty reasonable Store but it gradualy devolved into direct pay for advantage stuff, including now store only exclusives that can't even be obtained in game. Even though it's PVE and arguably the content is easy enough that you don't even need the store stuff to beat most of it, it left a really bad taste in my mouth as a player. So much so, that I ended up walking away from the game. Hopefully GW won't fall prey to the same trap.
It'd also be really nice if GW included some sort of psuedo-subscription package for PFO where you automaticaly just pay for full training each month and whatever other account services would typicaly be considered standard for a subscription. I'm one of those "all inclusive vacation" kinda guys. When I'm doing something for fun (this includes playing games) I don't want to be brought out of it to do micro-transactions, make real world purchasing decisions or deal with real world financial considerations. I just want to pay my set "entrance fee" up front, forget about the real world for awhile and enjoy whatever is availble within the environment to enjoy, without being constantly reminded/bombarded with prompts to purchase something. Hopefully PFO will offer a payment option that supports those prefernces.
P.S. Also please be circumspect about how you present the store in the UI, if at all. That's another area where LOTRO started out ok and really went downhill. Before I finaly quit, even as a VIP (thier version of "subscriber") UI was absolutely littered with loud, obnoxiously garish in game advertisements for thier store virtualy everywhere you went and everything you did. It got so bad, I fealt more like I was running around inside a shoping mall rather then Middle Earth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You can pick the cheese out of any game and say it's immature, childish, contributes to cult worship, etc., provided you dislike the game enough.
Really? Because I haven't noticed it anywhere so prevalent as WoW. I mean sure there are cheesy things in LoTRO but usually it is based on the antics of the races in that world, most specifically hobbits. Sure there are quest about delivering pies but there is nothing as ridiculous as Murloc Marines and Pimp Hats. Usually these kinds of things are centered around holiday events too. Like EVE is a very serious and immersive game 99.99% of the time but I remember the snowball launchers they gave us on Christmas. LotRO actually does a great job tying their holiday events into Middle Earth's lore.
I would in-fact challenge you to find anything half as ridiculous/immersion breaking as the stuff WoW has, holiday events excluded, in:
LotRO
EVE
Wurm
If it is so easy.
I know you can find it in Runescape, but Runescape is hardly known for a mature community.
I'm on the side of F2P I always will be. Most people with the cash to play WoW or other monthly fee games come off as elitish to me, and If I pay 60 bucks or more for a game, plus the eventual expansions, it is just wrong to charge a monthly fee. It's just a big iron bar between the haves and haves not. Again I champion DDO, as I've found it to be pretty mature in terms of people and it's great fun, even though the difficulty curve is a bit too high. (IMHO)
My basic philosophy boils down to two points:
- With two equal characters, one character shouldn't be able to win just because his player has a fatter wallet
- If one player puts 40 hours a week into playing and training his character, and one player puts in 4 hours and $100 a week, the guy who has put in the 40 hours a week should be the superior character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not really commenting on Pathfinder Online in specific, but I can tell you by far the overwhelming momentum in the MMO space is for games to allow players to spend money to be mechanically better than those who do not.
You don't have to like it, but you should get used to it. It will be the new normal.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I'm not really commenting on Pathfinder Online in specific, but I can tell you by far the overwhelming momentum in the MMO space is for games to allow players to spend money to be mechanically better than those who do not.
You don't have to like it, but you should get used to it. It will be the new normal.
As long as there isn't the option to spend more money to be mechanically better than those who spend the baseline amount. Being able to buy an arbitrary amount of power is what drives me away from most Facebook games, even though they are basically single-player and I don't need to spend anything to play.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not really commenting on Pathfinder Online in specific, but I can tell you by far the overwhelming momentum in the MMO space is for games to allow players to spend money to be mechanically better than those who do not.
You don't have to like it, but you should get used to it. It will be the new normal.
I've noticed that trend to, but not in the same light you have. I noticed failing P2P games go F2P.
Basically, F2P w/ non-cosmetic micro-transactions is where the games that couldn't cut it as P2P go to die.
Anyway, if that is really the direction gaming is headed I may just give it up. One of my major reasons for playing games is that it's one of the cheapest forms of entertainment. If it ceases to be that, I could reinvest that money into camping/hiking, paintball/lazertag, art, snowmachining/4-wheeling... something real. Why the hell would I invest hundreds of dollars in pixels when I can get out and experience the world for that kind of money? I'm not THAT lazy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not really commenting on Pathfinder Online in specific, but I can tell you by far the overwhelming momentum in the MMO space is for games to allow players to spend money to be mechanically better than those who do not.
You don't have to like it, but you should get used to it. It will be the new normal.
I personally have no problem with, one who pays 15 a month, is dramatically more powerful than one who pays 0, but after that 15, that is the peek.
I do however have to say I have a huge issue with, one who pays 15 a month is much more powerful than one who pays nothing, but the one who pays 15 is going to get crushed by the one who pays 30, which will lose to the one who pays 45, who will be slaughtered by the one who pays 100. Eventually that hits a point where the whole game is rendered moot, and it quickly stops being fun once you make the connection that all of your planning, strategy, skill etc... is rendered moot by someone who just spends a bit more. I agree that is the direction most f2p MMO's are going, and I think it would be devastating if PFO went. Just like you shouldn't attempt to out themepark WoW, you also shouldn't out pay 2 win, farmville.
From the majority of yoru comments and the specific disclaimer you already gave that that comment doesn't necessarily apply to PFO, I am strongly hoping you aren't directly thinking on those lines.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not really commenting on Pathfinder Online in specific, but I can tell you by far the overwhelming momentum in the MMO space is for games to allow players to spend money to be mechanically better than those who do not.
You don't have to like it, but you should get used to it. It will be the new normal.
If this is any way shape or form Pathfinder is going, you just lost me as a supporter. As a $100.00 Kickstarter contributor I will not support any game that is a P2W model. I have no issue with paying for fluff items or maybe a head start on training what have you but this is where I draw the line as a consumer and say no. I understand you said " not really commenting on Pathfinder Online in speciifc" but I have been around long enough to read between the lines.
Please clarify if this going to be a P2W game or not. I expect to pay $12-$15 a month for all the bells the whistles..not $15.00 a month + micro transactions. (If micro transactions are for fluff items, don't care)
I have high hopes for this game & I'm been following this very closely but to hear those words is not the direction I want this game to follow.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I personally have no problem with, one who pays 15 a month, is dramatically more powerful than one who pays 0, but after that 15, that is the peek.
I do however have to say I have a huge issue with, one who pays 15 a month is much more powerful than one who pays nothing, but the one who pays 15 is going to get crushed by the one who pays 30, which will lose to the one who pays 45, who will be slaughtered by the one who pays 100. Eventually that hits a point where the whole game is rendered moot, and it quickly stops being fun once you make the connection that all of your planning, strategy, skill etc... is rendered moot by someone who just spends a bit more.
Agreed. I would go a step further and say I don't have a problem if people who don't pay 15$ aren't able to play the game. 15$ w/free expansions is a good fee to cover server costs, moderator costs, and ongoing development fees while still allowing the developer to make a profit.
I also think Micro-transactions are a great way to gate certain content that should be rare in the game world while making further profit, like my earlier suggestion of making abnormal character heights only purchasable via MTs. PLEX is the absolute limit of what I am willing to begrudgingly accept.
At the point gaming becomes equivalent or even slightly lower in cost to a real world hobby just to be competitive... I'm out.
I'm not really commenting on Pathfinder Online in specific, but I can tell you by far the overwhelming momentum in the MMO space is for games to allow players to spend money to be mechanically better than those who do not.
You don't have to like it, but you should get used to it. It will be the new normal.
How much better?
WoW's new black market auction house will have randomly spawning mid-range gear for extravagent gold prices. They're really pushing the line, but not going over it. No one could conceiveably gear up in that way. Too much gold, too much luck involved.
So you must be talking even worse than that, like actually buying gear and weapons for cash from the game store?
I don't think people will get used to it. People simply won't play those games. It will shatter the mmo market. Of course, there would be opportunity for a non-sucky game to pick up the pieces.
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Goblin Squad Member
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P2W does get my antennae twitching aggressively, it must be said! But everything I've so far heard about PfO *clicks* of great designs, so I'm not too concerned the devs are about to go all zynga!
It's tricky I suppose tying the revenue streams with time played = greater advancement in the game + skill of the player vs advancement. A square peg to a round hole?
I think the best form of advancement is increasing your interactivity with the game ie options available to take. So if F2P + skill training does just that = happy. LoL does this with F2P but if your random selection you find a char you really like, you can purchase it for all your games. :) Albeit recent chars I've heard have some balance issues!
Also the mobile mmo Order & Chaos, some of the team at gameloft were soliciting "guaranteed drops" for a price to some of the players!. So if PfO has random drops, that can be bought or skill training that can be speed x2 or something I begin to be more cautious with those incentives of convenience, as the slippery slope towards P2W is then within reach, isn't it?
I think it's also worth noting at this point that a lot of folks seem to think the Real Money Auction House of Diablo 3 (not to mention the fact that the developers have outright said they've changed the design of the game to emphasize the auction house) is a big part of why D3 isn't pulling in the numbers or replayability that its predecessors did.
You can have it both ways.
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Newest content premium service. Access to the newest content. Tech support. Premium world.
Licensed player run server (server owner pays $25-$35 a month).
Server runs on donations usually. Access to new content shortly after premium gets it. Tech support. Server owner built world. Access to development tools. The ability to make custom items as well.
Free server owner run servers.
Half the world, half the content. No tech support. No extra items. Half a year behind the development of the premium servers. still can rely on donations.
Edit:
Their should also be a way for the community to add custom content to the game. If the content is that good, it could be added to the premium servers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You can have it both ways.
Premium Goblinworks server $5-$10 a month:
Newest content premium service. Access to the newest content. Tech support. Premium world.Licensed player run server (server owner pays $25-$35 a month).
Server runs on donations usually. Access to new content shortly after premium gets it. Tech support. Server owner built world. Access to development tools. The ability to make custom items as well.Free server owner run servers.
Half the world, half the content. No tech support. No extra items. Half a year behind the development of the premium servers. still can rely on donations.Edit:
Their should also be a way for the community to add custom content to the game. If the content is that good, it could be added to the premium servers.
This model would = 1/4th the content on the "premium" servers (compared to the single shard method they intend to release the game in), and 1/100th of the content on the "licensed player" servers. The players are the best content, that is a large part of why GW does not intend to split into multiple servers unless critically necessary.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As long as there isn't the option to spend more money to be mechanically better than those who spend the baseline amount. Being able to buy an arbitrary amount of power is what drives me away from most Facebook games, even though they are basically single-player and I don't need to spend anything to play.
THIS EXACTLY.
I'm ok with someone saying "If you want to play baseball in our League, then you gotta pay the entrance fee".
I'm not ok with someone saying "Every $5 gets you an extra Run."
If a game does that, I'm walking, because at that point it ceases to be a game. If that means I never play an MMO again, I'm fine with that, because at that point it ceases to be fun....and there are lots of things you can do for fun that don't require microtransactions.
Honestly, this is why I vastly prefer the sub model. It takes away alot of the temptation for Developers to make your game experience more about buying then it is about playing.