Could Free to Play Turn into Pay To Win?

Great Topic.

I quote LOTRO "We are not gonna put game advantages in the LOTRO Store"... couple weeks later.. reversal... Pay to win. LAME... massive exodus of LOTRO.

Check this youtube vid about future of SWTOR: http://youtu.be/aL5TuULR1aI

We are not gonna add "Play to win" (i think he means "Pay to win" or "Buy to win"). Lets see if they keep to it or EPIC fail like LOTRO did.

If I see "Buy buy buy" every 2 seconds like they did in LOTRO or "Instead of earning the rewards, just buy them! I'm sure all the players who spent hours earning them won't mind" = Massive exodus.

Here's hoping they don't fall into the "Pay to win" trap.

- Kismet
Leader, Ring of Destiny
http://swtor.kismetbp.com
2002-2012 - 10 years of Teamwork & fun together.

Yeah, it's one thing to have a cash shop and allow people to visit it. It's another thing to advertise it every 5 seconds while they're trying to play the game.

And: Hey it's that Kismet guy I just watched a video about since one of your members posted a link to your site earlier

It doesn't matter what BW puts in the cartel stores, it will all be marked as "P2W"

It will likely consist of adaptive gear, vanity pets, possibly a few mounts, colour crystals, and probably some legacy weapons.

It already is pay to win they said they are going to sell stat gear in the cash shop.

Oh and before you say its only low lvl gear that makes no difference its still pay to win.

That's an extreme and binary view IMO.

Actually, that is "discretionary pay-2-play". You don't have to access it, and all it will do is make leveling a bit more convenient in the quality of life category (which is consistent with the theme of their monetizing of the free side of the dual access model with quality of life content).

And before you claim that PvPers will win with it, any reasonable person knows that the PvPers are going to farm Flashpoints and the GTN for much better gear to support their PvP. So that arguement is a non-starter.

What exactly do you pay-2-win? Answer: Nothing.

What do you lose by not doing this? Answer: Nothing.

What are you forced to do by this? Answer: Nothing.

Unlikely.

Anything that grants an advantage is P2W.

If you don't P2W too you are at a disadvantage.

You are forced to do it too, because you are at a disadvantage.




When they added the P2W stat pet in Warhammer Online I was pretty angry, but it was in and there was nothing I could do.

Within days 99% of the higher renown players had them, within weeks 99% of players had them. EA made an absolute fortune off them.

After about 3 months I gave in an bought one too, I was sick of thinking in all those fights I lost by 1-10% that if I'd had the P2W pet too I'd have won those fights.


Not long after that I quit WAR.

It's an advantage to subscribe instead of play free also. Is that P2W too?

As for Warhammer, poor attempt at guilt by association IMO. It's central theme is PvP. SWTORs central theme is PvE. Different games, different player motivators, different mechanics.

What advantage?

No, it's exactly the same thing. Same thing, same player motivators, same mechanics.

MMOs that go F2P always start out by saying they will only sell Convenience, Not Advantage in their stores. Over time though, they slowly drift away from the convenience aspect and more into the gray area of advantage. They do this because that is what players will pay for. In large part, players will not pay huge amounts of cash for convenience. However, they will spend top dollar for advantage and anything that will give them an edge in gameplay.

So Free 2 Play, itself, is a slippery slope that always seems to devolve into Pay to Win. Not necessarily because the game publisher is greedy (which EA certainly is), but because advantage is what players want and will pay for.