F2P Discussion and Buying Value

[ParisTeta]

So first, this is not good vs bad debate. For me, overall it is good. I want to discuss something else.


Let me get direct to thinking:
When i like this game, i should support it, i support it with money. Check.
I go to the store, look what is aviable, right now we have: Weapon Unlocks, Skins and Booster.

Weapons...can be unlocked via ingame, and i may even don`t want another gun, because the standart model is fine anyway (side grade). So nothing on the long run and definitly nothing for bulk buy (more later with the skins).

Boosters, yes handy i guess, main source of income, but after a time i have every major thing, and the rest ist just getting it complete.

Skins, well really skins are fun, but do i really want pay 4 dollar (price pulled out of a dead TR) for a zebra skin (example).

A full price game is around 60 bugs right? So for 15 Skins i would pay the full price of a new game. 1 Dollar skin? Well 60 to reach full price.

All that sounds like a bad bargain to me, weapons maybe, but when there a few selected, i use the ingame resource, Boosters, may come in handy, depending on the level speed, and skins? I can`t really say how i should do that, yes skins look cool but it is such a bad bargain.

Some people will say, well on less coffee this week for my new skin, but coffee has an effect, the skin not so much, and in the long run, i want to buy often, i only worsen my situation. I buyed 120 Skins for 120 $ ? Kewl you bought Mass Effect 6 and Diablo 4 for that, two whole games.

So how can the shop be used to really sell value?

One Idee is animation, they are hard and costly to make, but just emotes is plain stupid (hello STO), how about getting in the seats/and out of vehicle animation, which would cost 10-15$ something like that. Behind that there is a real working effort, i could honour with money, but a skin which is made in what? 15 Minutes by the expierenced artist.

What is your Idea?


P.S.: I really consider leaving some money when i don`t like the monthly subscription, if i enjoy that game so much, but i don`t wanna feel robbed.

[zomg]

You could look at the skin-thing from the opposite perspective as well. If the game was subscription based like the old one, you would still be paying even if you had unlocked all the skins you wanted.

And even if it wasn't subscription based, you would still be paying 60 bucks anyway, and you wouldn't be getting any extras necessarily (ie. if the game had say 15 skins less than it has now - hypothetically speaking of course).

So in that way, I don't think it's that much of a value for money thing (you're buying for items that don't even exist, and ones you don't really even own - how is that value?), but more a thing of paying because you are having fun, or paying because you want to support the devs.

Team Fortress 2 is the only F2P game I've ever paid for. I have spent maybe 50 eur in the Valve store buying junk like keys (for the unfamiliar, to open in game "secret crates" which contain random items) or a hat. This was of course over the span of several months so monthly it doesn't add up to that much.

I always considered it more like a random "I'll just buy this for fun" thing - like I'd go to the store and buy a bag of chips just to enjoy them whilst watching a movie. Or, like going to the go kart track to drive a few laps.

[Turdicus]

The devs have already said that it would take a very long time to get all of the certs in the game, even while using boosters. And that is without them adding new content to the game, which they regularly will, for many years. Aside from boosters there are the skins and weapons, various utility items, implants, armor and vehicle decorations and modifications, and probably other stuff that arent confirmed yet like extra loadout save slots.

Thats a lot of stuff, and if it will take years to complete everything in the game (potentially) then I don't think you need to worry about having a shortage of things to buy. The f2p model is actually incredibly successful so far.

[Bags]

I think buying optional skins with money and getting the game for free is already incredible value for the consumer (us). Though if you don't think so and if there's anyone else who thinks it's a rip off, then maybe their marketing hasn't done a well enough job of communicating said value to you as the consumer. Then again, we have no idea about the cash shop prices at the moment so there's no reason to expect said communication to have happened already.

There's plenty of things of value they can sell; server transfer, name changes, faction transfers, additional character slots, character recustomization, additional loadouts, custom outfit logos that have to be approved, outfit name changes, in addition to cosmetics and side grades.

They could also offer many different ways to purchase/own the content through the store. For example, a sidegrade B to gun A could cost $3 to have forever, $1 for a month, or $0.50 to try it out for a week before deciding you want to drop an additional $3 to have the gun unlocked forever.

All of this is in addition to the optional subscription model they may have in place, and we have no idea what will be unlocked with that.

I guess what I'm saying is wait and see what the prices are before you complain about lack of value in SOE's offerings.

[Xyntech]

This really depends on what their pricing and subscription models turn out to be, and how many things there are to purchase.

If they have a ton of skins available, but give subscribers the option to have a free rental of up to 2 or 3 skins each month, a subscriber could either keep rotating a few skins to use for free, keep getting a free rental on the same skins every month, or purchase one of the skins permanently from the cash shop if they didn't want to keep renting the same ones, or if they wanted to have more than 3 skins at a time.

Also, there will be a ton of unlocks. Sure you can unlock the core stuff, but I think there will also be a lot of interest in unlocking some of the deeper stuff as well, which will take a lot more time. Maybe you wont try to unlock every deep thing in classes or areas that you don't play much, but if they are planning for it to take a year to unlock everything for one class in normal play, that's probably going to still take several months even when boosted, so I think boosting players will probably take at least a year or more to unlock everything they want.

Having a person buying boosts or subscribing for a year straight will be a good amount of revenue, and if that player gets bored with the game or stops buying as many boosts at that point, there may be new or returning players that will pick up the slack. Also, there will be new content, so they may have new stuff that they want to purchase or boost towards by then.

I really hope they find a good sweet spot. Where purchasing skins and guns and boosts and shit isn't overpriced, but still nets them a ton of money. I think that having steam sale type stuff will really help the game, where they are still making an income, but sometimes it's through volume not high pricing.

[Sledgecrushr]

I really hope there are hundreds of great skins for sale in the cash shop. This is going to be the greatest game ever.

[JimmyOmaha]

Hope our marketing team is just as savvy and dedicated as the development team!

I know I'll be taking advantage of boosts/camos if there is no subscription model. Otherwise I'm sure I'll settle on a look I prefer and not buy anymore cosmetics, until new stuff comes out that it. :]

One thing I'd love to see is the option to buy a complete PS/PS2 soundtrack; also choosing what one plays during game-play would be nice.

[Trafalgar]

I bought TF2 (in The Orange Box). Haven't ever bought anything from its store. Don't really play it anymore. Too many items. I used to have a complete set of all weapons, in vintage quality (when the only weapons that existed were the ones that became vintage).

But as they kept adding more and more weapons, which you had to either pay money for or grind forever and a day to get via drops, and I rarely played it because it was only semi-fun, I just lost interest and stopped playing entirely.

That said, their item store is VERY profitable. I have no idea how much of that is hats, how much is weapons, and how much is crate keys. I wonder if there are statistics anywhere?

[Novacane]

I'm kind of confused. You want to give more money to play the same game? It's not like the core game play would change if the game had a subscription. I can't speak for anyone else but I pay for gameplay, not how many hats I have.
A normal MMO subscription is $180 a year + $60 for the box and usually $40 - $60 for expansions. With the in-game store, you are basically given the option of paying as much or as little as you want.
If you don't think the game or the items are worth buying, no one is forcing you to do so. It's not like they are doing it because it is a small upstart company struggling for subs, SOE is a well established, mature company with as solid of a business model as an online game producer could have. I'm sure their marketing people ran over many scenarios that led to their conclusion to make it F2P with micro-transactions.

[Dagron]

Some people will say, well on less coffee this week for my new skin, but coffee has an effect, the skin not so much, and in the long run, i want to buy often, i only worsen my situation. I buyed 120 Skins for 120 $ ? Kewl you bought Mass Effect 6 and Diablo 4 for that, two whole games.

You want to compare prices with other games? Alright let's compare your guess of $120 with the right category of game.
Think of how much people pay over the first year for a subscription MMO. They usually buy the game for let's say $60 and pay $15 a month. That's exactly double the ammount you guessed was right there.
It's like they bought 5 skins that cost $3 every month in a game they had to pay for to get in the first place. That seems like the kind of thing only the most "throws caution to the wind" type of consumer would do in this business model. I'm willing to bet most people will get a little carried away and buy lets say 1 or 2 skins a month, tops (obviously they'll buy a lot at first and then slow down gradually).

^Edit: doh, didn't really read Novacane's post... that was basically the same thing he said. :P


So how can the shop be used to really sell value?

One Idee is animation, they are hard and costly to make, but just emotes is plain stupid (hello STO), how about getting in the seats/and out of vehicle animation, which would cost 10-15$ something like that. Behind that there is a real working effort, i could honour with money, but a skin which is made in what? 15 Minutes by the expierenced artist.

Real working effort? As opposed to the rest of the whole game (it's core gameplay!) that you're getting for free? Yeah, that took no effort or money at all...

You don't seem to realize that when you pay for a skin, you're actually paying for the whole game! Think of it this way, when you "buy" a skin or whatever, you're actually donating to the creators of a game that was given to you, and for your support they award you with a little in game perk.

[JimmyOmaha]

I'm kind of confused. You want to give more money to play the same game? It's not like the core game play would change if the game had a subscription. I can't speak for anyone else but I pay for gameplay, not how many hats I have.
A normal MMO subscription is $180 a year + $60 for the box and usually $40 - $60 for expansions. With the in-game store, you are basically given the option of paying as much or as little as you want.
If you don't think the game or the items are worth buying, no one is forcing you to do so. It's not like they are doing it because it is a small upstart company struggling for subs, SOE is a well established, mature company with as solid of a business model as an online game producer could have. I'm sure their marketing people ran over many scenarios that led to their conclusion to make it F2P with micro-transactions.

More so for me, being lazy. :D XP/resource boosts would just recur; instead of me having to repurchase them weekly.

Ultimately I'm a fan of the F2P model and devs, in general, are becoming better at not blatantly selling power. So in summation I'll be playing and my time/money will be distributed accordingly.

[Sabot]

Another thing is, we haven't seen even a fraction of all the skins, for example... and you might actually like many of them. Or they might be useful to game play (I don't really count a useful camo pattern as selling power unless it actually makes you a chameleon).

[indirect]

Want to pay to support, but don't like anything in the cash shop? Sub for a month or two then unsub.

[Vashyo]

I think I saw Daily/Weekly-sale events in the store in the PS2 E3 Stream #3. So I suppose if u can wait u will get stuff cheaper, if u're after more value. I personally will only buy if I get good value myself, I just can't be arsed to pay 4€ for 10kb texture.

Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xcmHYuUbn0&feature=player_detailpage#t=620s

[Dagron]

I think I saw Daily/Weekly-sale events in the store in the PS2 E3 Stream #3. So I suppose if u can wait u will get stuff cheaper, if u're after more value.

Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xcmHYuUbn0&feature=player_detailpage#t=620s

Nice. I hadn't noticed that, ty.


I just can't be arsed to pay 4€ for 10kb texture.

After all i said i feel it should be pointed out that despite my desire to support the game, i agree prices on little things shouldn't be more than symbolic values, otherwise most people wouldn't buy them.

Let's hope the people in charge of that will have enough sense to not make any mistakes.

[VanstK]

I see a cash shop like this: Is it something that directly increases your combat ability? If so, it should be earnable through playing the bloody game, with the option of buying it for real money. Is it a purely cosmetic/vanity upgrade? Cash-only's fine, it won't affect how fast you kill dudes.

I'd gladly pay to put zebra camo, a hood ornament like this one (http://www.rmauctions.com/images/cars/AM10/AM10_r251_01.jpg), and a horn like this on a Lightning. That'd add plenty of value to my gaming experience, lemme tell you. :D C'mon, you can just imagine it now, can't you?

[Stew]

So first, this is not good vs bad debate. For me, overall it is good. I want to discuss something else.



What is your Idea?


P.S.: I really consider leaving some money when i don`t like the monthly subscription, if i enjoy that game so much, but i don`t wanna feel robbed.

iam not for boosters thats much i think Booster should have to be limited like 1 boost of 24 hours per weeks or something

this will prevent big Money to make their way on top to easily

I dont want to pay for boosters i want cosmetics and cool stuff like golden pistol etc.. Clan outfit symbole integration thats sort of thing !

booster are lame if they can be abuse so i hope they will put a limitation on those for each accont !

[Otleaz]

If you look at league of legends they have a pretty satisfying system in place. They release a 6300ip champion every two weeks, and a competitive player could easily earn 10000ip in that time. This leaves competitive players with little reason to get boosters, which keeps everybody happy.

In other words, if you see competitive players using boosters, SOMETHING IS WRONG. Someone who plays the game for 4-6 hours a day should have no problem buying the vehicles and weapons they want, otherwise you are selling power.

[Daffan]

A full price game is around 60 bugs right?


Which bugs again?

[Popper]

One group of items that could go well with a F2P game like PS2 is convenience items, like setup slots. The ability to store different gear, weapon and vehicle loadouts so you can reduce the downtime between combat deployments.

The ability to carry more ammo, grenades, etc.

You thinking about possible income in a F2P game is too limited.

[Dagron]

One group of items that could go well with a F2P game like PS2 is convenience items, like setup slots. The ability to store different gear, weapon and vehicle loadouts so you can reduce the downtime between combat deployments.

I agree 100% with this part.


But this:
The ability to carry more ammo, grenades, etc.

... would be more than convenience, it would allow people to spam bullets and grenades much more, effectively making them more deadly. So, no to that imo.

[Hmr85]

I will be doing the sub if there ends up being one. Also I'll be buying up the camos. I fully intend to do my part to support this game. As time goes on they will release new content into the store. Any additional armor designs will be something I know myself I'll get along with any old ps1 skins that have been updated.

As others mentioned above just rotate in and out of a sub a month here or a month there that way you are still contributing to the game.

[ParisTeta]

Some Arguments are "for other games you would pay x amount in subscription"
The "game is free, so you buy the game with the skins"
and the service arguments "Buy Chartrans, name change etc."

And then many people try to defend P2P, which is not the problem, it is good that way, what i`m asking is, how to spend money, so it is not a rip off.

PS2 has no subscription (needed not optional), other games do, if PS2 had one, would ich change my min? Yes totally different circumstance, that is not really compareable. I buy something new in my hobby categorie --> sub categorie Games.

The Game is free, i`ll "own" it already, publisher hopes to finance it through p2p especially skins, but i don`t owe them any, it is a completly new choice if i should spend money in their shop. Imaging, public transport for free, and you like traveling so much, you want to buy a Scooter in there Shop, which they offer, just it cost as much as a car would, do you feel obligated, because you use public transport for free, to buy the scooter for the price of car?

The "Buy boosters, it`s take a long time to cert all" You won`t cert all, you`ll cert first the important things, which will be around a Vehiclke and fav Soldierclass. For me, it will be Scythe and LA. After that, the Cert are somewhat meaningless because they hardly effect me, so getting all Certs isn`t that important.

When i decide, i want to spend money on their shop, i want to get value! And not feeling ripped off. I don`t want buy (to much) strength (boosters are somewhat strength) on the shop, look at m example, vehicle in/out animations.

[Sifer2]

Want to pay to support, but don't like anything in the cash shop? Sub for a month or two then unsub.


The thing that scares me is F2P are not really judged like that by their creators. They are judged much like subscription games based on how much revenue they generate per month. SOE may look at how you spent 60 dollars on stuff at launch but have spent nothing since then, and see that as a failure. Meaning they will add more stuff to buy. It's why I don't like this business model personally. Because you are never sure where you stand as a customer. How much content you will be entitled to from month to month.

There was a video by a guy that worked on Battlefield Heroes that really went into this sort of thing in great detail if you have the time to watch. About how 20% of the games population love cosmetic items and the other 80% could care less. And how about 18% WANT to be able to buy power over other players. And most sadly of all how introducting advantage giving items does not actually result in everyone boycotting the game. They just ***** about it but buy the items an keep playing. The problem with gamers to day in a nutshell pretty much.


Here is that video for anyone interested. Fascinating, and scary when you consider how it very well could apply to PS2 one day if revenue per month gets low:

http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/paying-to-win

[ParisTeta]

Interesting Video, but also very bleak one for a consumer base.

[kaffis]

Discussing specifics for cash shop value is really hard at this point -- we don't how the items will be setup.

Sure, you can buy zebra camo. But is that zebra camo for one class only? Gun camo(s) sold separately? Or is it access to the texture for everything you're allowed to slap it on?

Because the price points that will sell well are vastly different between the two possibilities.

Now, to talk about it in broader generalities... SOE has two target markets that it's catering to and must design its monetization around:
MMO players and FPS players. Sure, there's some overlap between the actual genres, but I'm just using these as labels for people who consider a subscription for a game an acceptable (ongoing) expense to play, and people who are not comfortable with that, and will reject that expense in favor of a box purchase with free online play.

SOE knows this -- one of the big reasons Planetside 1's user-base dropped off as quickly (in the MMO world, especially at the time) as it did is that they underestimated the significance of that divide, and the two sets of players (players comfortable with a subscription and FPS fans) hadn't blurred as much as they'd anticipated.

That line's a lot more blurry now -- in fact, today it's probably more of a spectrum of "acceptable monthly cost" for different gamers, with big clumps around the "$0", "$60 initial, $0 ongoing", and "$15/month + an initial purchase" points of the spectrum.

A F2P with cash shop has the potential to provide satisfying options for all 3 of those major groupings, which represent pirates and ad-supported gamers, traditional box gamers, and MMO gamers, respectively. The first group will simply play the game with no purchases from the shop, marveling at how he's getting such an awesome game for free, and doing it legitimately, even! The second group will find an awesome FPS, and maybe (or maybe not) settle into a preferred playstyle, and trick out just that playstyle with customization (cosmetic or early unlocks) that he likes, up to his arbitrary budget for a game. The third group will indulge themselves with changing looks, trying out various weapons and attachments, and buying boosters based on a monthly budget.

The trick, then, is finding the price point that works best for all three of these spending patterns. (Or, more likely, the latter two)

Valve's experience in this matter suggests they've had a lot of experience with price points in the $1-5 range. That jives pretty well with my expectations. I'd actually argue that the price you sell something for is more important than the perceived value per dollar. $1 is an impulse buy. $10 isn't. Price something at a dollar, and people will buy ten of them with far less thought than they'd put into one $10 bundle of ten items.

[Synapse]

Sound packs!

Sell taunts, sell heckling soundpacks, record devs responses to various actions you make in the game and sell it.

:T-Ray voicepack: I'm gonna keep asking till I get it!
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=42720

Also new announcer voices!

[Sifer2]

Interesting Video, but also very bleak one for a consumer base.


Yeah I agree. Thing is I want to disagree with that guy, and say the reason people didn't quit playing the game after it went pay 2 win was because they had played it for a while, and were already addicted. But then that doesn't make me feel any better since that could easily apply to most of us that will play PS2. I mean if we have playing PS2 for over a year, and we have our outfits were loyal to, and really play the game regularly. Can we honestly say were just going to quit playing it if SOE did the same thing an started adding payed weapons that do 20% more damage than standard? Because in the end if other stuff in the shop are not selling that's what they will do.

My hope is that they have thought it out better though. I think they will make the booster packs very desirable an while that is still sort of paying for power it at least doesn't break game balance.

[Otleaz]

Can we honestly say were just going to quit playing it if SOE did the same thing an started adding payed weapons that do 20% more damage than standard?

Abso-fucking-lutely

The game would be off my hard drive before you could even fucking blink.

[PhoenixDog]

Think about it...How committed and dedicated a community as the Planetside community is...Do you really think SoE would fuck with us?

Hell, Radar mentioned this about us asking for a beta date
You guys are an extremely passionate community. We don't want to make a promise we aren't able to keep because a) we don't think it's the right way to treat your community and b) because I'm scared of what some of you might do.
You think if they're that terrified about missing beta...They'll give pay-for-power?

[Dagron]

Can we honestly say were just going to quit playing it if SOE did the same thing an started adding payed weapons that do 20% more damage than standard?
Abso-fucking-lutely

The game would be off my hard drive before you could even fucking blink.

Same here.


Because in the end if other stuff in the shop are not selling that's what they will do.

There are two reasons i can think of why the stuff in the shop wouldn't be selling: either they overpriced everything or people felt they shouldn't spend 50¢ in a texture because "textures don't take any effort". One is the company's fault, the other is the customer's.

- If they overpriced it, i'd feel the company was taking advantage of our will to support them and i'd leave, excessive greed shouldn't be encouraged.
- If i'm one of the customers who spent money on the shop because their prices were fair, i'd feel betrayed by the community and would also leave, a rotten community deserves empty servers (i'm sure they wouldn't really get empty, and i'd still rather not play with them, but i'm just being a little dramatic).


Edit: apparently in the video posted earlier, what forced those guys to sell power in the end was the sencond reason, people were too cheap to support the game by buying stuff that didn't give them an advantage. I guess most people have that self centered feeling of "yeah they gave me the game for free, but i wouldn't buy that 10kb texture just because it's awesome, it only took 15 min of effort!", so we end up having to buy double barreled ninja-raptor-rocket launchers just to get by (i did see the end of the video when they say the power difference was barely significant, i'm just being dramatic again).

[ParisTeta]

I just don`t want, that this game needs to sell power to survive, that is the reason why i´m search for value to buy in the shop, as a customer and not feel robbed. I just fear, that the same thing happend
to battlefield heroes can happen here (i didn`t know of this example till the video, but it really fits to the problem, thx for sharing!), and i don`t want that, i`ll stop playing if i feel the difference is to big. And before anyone say the BF Heroes said too, i still don`t own Mass Effect 3 because of the DLC debacle and i love Mass Effect.

I want this game to play, i want this game to succeed, but i want to get treated fairley and not feel ripped, sold for dump, or the only money they make out of me is because i use bad thinking (the 1-5 $ skins). That is the reason i invite you all to this discussion, i hope together we get attention, and help to build something, long lasting, because the Planetside Community is not perfect, but we are passionated and together we can make this great game greater.

[Nemises]

I just want the cool blue reflex sight...if it's less than 1£ I'll buy it without thinking about it (the itunes effect)...if it's around 5£ , that's too much for a cosmetic for me..

if they go the 99c/69p route, I'll probably end up buying everything I think "looks cool" on my weapons / armor ..
if it's at the $5/£2.99 level, I'd probably buy nothing and just stick with the stock.

As with the OP, I'm happy to support the concept of the game financially, but will need to feel like I'm getting value to do it (contradictory, considering I'd probably pay a £30 "box" price if it wasn't F2P)
..but this is the new world man

[Dougnifico]

When it comes to sights, get as stupid and goofy as you want SOE. No one else can see it so its not immersion breaking. You can have like 50 different patterns for probably 5 different sights, in 15 colors. Charge $0.99 - $0.59 and you can make good money from just that. Sell them in packages that come out to like $0.25 a piece. Even $100 for every fancy sight in game. (Please note, I keep saying sight because idk how to spell "reticule" and Google Chrome isn't helping. Dictionary too much work.)

[Dagron]

if it's less than 1£ I'll buy it without thinking about it (the itunes effect)

(...)

if they go the 99c/69p route, I'll probably end up buying everything I think "looks cool" on my weapons / armor

^This. Though of course if some particularly badass things were a little more expensive i might buy them without thinking too.


When it comes to sights, get as stupid and goofy as you want SOE. No one else can see it so its not immersion breaking. You can have like 50 different patterns for probably 5 different sights, in 15 colors. Charge $0.99 - $0.59 and you can make good money from just that. Sell them in packages that come out to like $0.25 a piece. Even $100 for every fancy sight in game. (Please note, I keep saying sight because idk how to spell "reticule" and Google Chrome isn't helping. Dictionary too much work.)

Just say "scope" then. :D

I think you have a point though.

[Vydofnir]

Let's not forget that many people wouldn't play the game at all if it wasn't F2P. I for one purchase about two games a year, never buy DLC, and dry heave at the very thought of paying a subscription fee. It's not that there aren't many fantastic games out there that I would love to play, it's just that I work extremely hard to be broke, I can't eat games, and $60 is more than my monthly grocery budget.

Not only do I want to play PS2, I want PS2 to succeed. I want the development team to be rewarded for the effort they put into what is sure to be a truly amazing game. I'm willing to pay money here and there for things that I find aesthetically pleasing or even mildly amusing. Hell, I would gladly pay $5 bucks for Matt Higby to leave me a friendly 15 second voice-mail, even if it meant not eating for a day. If I come up with a few of bucks every month to spend on virtual doodads, they could easily make $60 bucks over the course of a year that they wouldn't have made otherwise.

I did not play PS1, but I'm moved by the fact that people have been playing for almost a decade, and I could see myself doing the same with PS2. If I play for five years, buying things here and there, they could easily make $300 or so when I likely wouldn't have been able to buy it at $60 (or even considered buying it if I had to pay a subscription fee). I'm no economist, but making a few hundred dollars instead of no dollars seems like a pretty effective business model to me.

[xnorb]

Think about it...How committed and dedicated a community as the Planetside community is...Do you really think SoE would fuck with us?

EA/DICE fucked the BF community hard.

Although i don't think a F2P game would make SoE to do that, but in general i
wouldn't trust big companies anymore that they really care about their core
community if they see a chance to make more money with casuals who only
play this game for a short period of time.
PS2 being PC-exclusive is already the first step to keep my faith up.


I'm playing an F2P MMORPG and i've also already invested money, because
i felt it was worth it (enjoying me now since 4.5 years ...)
If the game is good and the stuff you can buy is worth it - it will sell.
In the beginning i can imagine some guys paying over 100€ for boosters.