Would you RATHER they charge for the game (one time fee)?

[Azovyr]

I'm fully aware why this game must be free and why F2P is right for the game but I voted pay because 1) it works as a bit of a filter against undesirable elements and 2) from what I've seen the game is of superior quality than many full price titles and is well worth the money.

[WarbirdTD]

I think we should stop trying to reinvent the wheel on a forum for a game that hasn't even come out yet, and therefore shows no signs of hacking... If the development team thinks they have a secure game, who the hell are we to disagree without evidence otherwise?

[i see you naked]

Originally Posted by WarbirdTD

I think we should stop trying to reinvent the wheel on a forum for a game that hasn't even come out yet, and therefore shows no signs of hacking... If the development team thinks they have a secure game, who the hell are we to disagree without evidence otherwise?

obv this game will be never secure against hacking scum
like every other game on this planet

[WarbirdTD]

Also, after the SWG debacle, I have heard MANY people swear that they would never buy another SOE product.. This is the perfect opportunity for SOE to make it right again. It is also a HUGE selling point for anyone who is skeptical about the genre. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to get friends interested in a game when there is no entry barrier.

[Crator]

I voted no, but was interested in how DCUO is doing since it went F2P:

DCUO Forums search "Hacking"

DCUO Google search "Hacking Issues?"

[basti]

Originally Posted by i see you naked

well I personally going to pay 50€ i think it that way:

ive waited so long for the PS sequel because PS was the biggest and best fucking game i ever played in my life, since they went the F2P route im still gonna pay 50€ for some station cash just because to support them and paying for this great game.

Most, if not all of us would do the same.

But this is not just about us, this is also about those who are not here yet. What slowly killed PS1 was the lack of new players. Yes, the game was ahead of its time and a lot of people didnt know about it, and today its different, but thats not all. Back in the day, games were different. The concept of F2P was pretty much nonexistant, and those who did it released crap, utter crap. These days, there are tons of F2P titles out there, and while you can keep the pre F2P wave crowd happy with a good P2P MMO, you may not be able to support the rather new concept of a MMOFPS as a P2P (even one time purchase). Look at Any other FPS out there that got a box price, what happens when a new title gets released? A lot of people just head out, buy the new game, and leave the old one. And people who didnt play the old one yet just hear about fancy new game and ignore the old one alltogether. IF you have your game completly F2P, they will try out the old one because it doesnt cost them a dime. And if they like the game, they stay.

[WarbirdTD]

Originally Posted by i see you naked

obv this game will be never secure against hacking scum
like every other game on this planet

BAM, customer service department.

[Sabin]

Originally Posted by Raymac

That argument just doesn't work. I've come across plenty of hackers in "one time fee" games. Call of Duty is a perfect example.

One of the best defenses against the inevitablity of hackers are people enforcing it. You may not remember, but the early days of Planetside had a very strong CSR presence. In fact, there was almost no swearing in any of the public chat channels because you would get a warning from a CSR. They did a great job. After awhile, the CSR's faded away, and Planetside became much more wild west, but the concept was already shown to work.

I think the best thing for the game is keeping the entry level at $0 and having active CSR's monitoring the game. I'm hoping it's not a choice of one or the other.

I disagree. You've come across hackers in a "one time fee" game which has hundreds of servers from them to choose from. Get banned from one, go on to the next, etc. Even in people made unofficial PS2 servers, they would get no where the amount of players to make it work.

CSR rep can only get you so far when there's thousands of people playing. They need an army of them. And if you get banned - so what? Make a new account. No one wants that to happen when their money is on the line.

I'd like to see SOE get people to buy the game the old fashioned way. Amazing game, great reviews, good marketing. Maybe a referral system. I have convinced at least 4 friend of mine to purchase the game (when I thought there'd be an initial purchase price.)

I truly believe a monthly subscription is what held PS1 back. I tried to get friends to play, but they didn't want to pay monthly for a game. Eventually, that is when I stopped playing. I had the "why am I paying monthly to play a game" affect.

Just my 2cents. I appreciate that you guys are willing to comment. I seriously thought I'd have alot more people on my side. :-)

[SergeantNubins]

Needs an option for "dont mind either way".

[Sabin]

Originally Posted by RadarX

This is some very interesting feedback and we appreciate it. We have absolutely no intention of charging for the game, but concerns regarding hacking and free accounts are of course being considered.

Glad you find it interesting. I was surprised at the results!

Edit:
Actually, they are pretty close. I guess the people who disagree with me are just more vocal.

Originally Posted by SergeantNubins

Needs an option for "dont mind either way".

I was considering that -- but I thought it was two sides of the spectrum, and people would have an opinion one way or the other. But yea, now I regret not putting it.

[Notturno]

I'm not going to sit here and rattle off credentials, I'll just post some of my experiences with the issue.

There is generally a single, major reason why you see more prevalent hacking in the free to play market. That reason is you have zero barriers to entry for a new account. This means that since the game is free to play, there is no value associated with an account other than the time spent at registration. This is obviously not true once you participate in microtransactions, but for the sake of this discussion we will assume cheaters are not stupid enough to purchase anything on their account.

When you create a pay to play game, you have the obvious drawback of not having as much mass appeal due to the upfront cost of the game. This acts as a deterrent for cheaters and undesirable behavior, but it also limits your customer base. On the flip side, you end up with a community that has slightly higher behavioral standards; each account has a cash value associated with it, so violating the game's rules can result in a suspension or banishment. When you have to spend money to make a new account, therein lies a big component to curbing cheaters; you now have a barrier to entry.

There is one significant issue I have seen with this method as well, particularly in the original pay to play version of All Points Bulletin. Due to the wide availability of proxies and stolen credit cards, many cheaters were not above stealing credit cards to purchase the game. The developers of the game, Realtime Worlds, ended up incurring severely high charge back fees and inflated sales numbers, which ultimately harms their business. By creating a free to play game, you are essentially eliminating this problem by creating a non-necessary market. You have less instances of stolen credit card purchases, since the market is only full of optional purchases, not a necessity to play.

The short of is that going pay to play isn't the best way to combat cheating. While it certainly helps curtail the issue for the cheaters not willing to commit a class B or C felony (in the United States, at least), it does not eliminate all of the problems. You cannot eliminate cheaters through a business model change. While it would help in some regards, it isn't a foolproof solution.

The best methods for stopping cheaters is going to be through careful monitoring and protection, which SOE is obviously aware of. The usage of PunkBuster isn't the worst option in the world, as the only reason they are using it is for executable protection. PunkBuster was already built to help detect any programs modifying or farming data from another client, so it saves SOE time by not having to write that program from scratch. If they include this, an easy to use reporting feature, and an active customer service team to help identify cheaters, they will likely be fine.

I have written in the past about how cheating works, so I just want to say that there likely will never be a complete cessation of cheating. It's only a matter of how well you control and police it. I am confident that the SOE team is acutely aware of how damaging a perception of hacker infestation is, and will go above and beyond to not allow that to happen.

[HeatLegend]

I want to pay to pay for it- a one time fee. I don't know enough about hacking so I have no idea how this would stop it. But it'll keep away the bad players- the kind you don't want to play with, not the ones that are bad at playing, they just need practice.

[KTNApollo]

One time fees can't support MMOs. /thread

[Sabin]

Originally Posted by Notturno

I'm not going to sit here and rattle off credentials, I'll just post some of my experiences with the issue.

There is generally a single, major reason why you see more prevalent hacking in the free to play market. That reason is you have zero barriers to entry for a new account. This means that since the game is free to play, there is no value associated with an account other than the time spent at registration. This is obviously not true once you participate in microtransactions, but for the sake of this discussion we will assume cheaters are not stupid enough to purchase anything on their account.

When you create a pay to play game, you have the obvious drawback of not having as much mass appeal due to the upfront cost of the game. This acts as a deterrent for cheaters and undesirable behavior, but it also limits your customer base. On the flip side, you end up with a community that has slightly higher behavioral standards; each account has a cash value associated with it, so violating the game's rules can result in a suspension or banishment. When you have to spend money to make a new account, therein lies a big component to curbing cheaters; you now have a barrier to entry.

There is one significant issue I have seen with this method as well, particularly in the original pay to play version of All Points Bulletin. Due to the wide availability of proxies and stolen credit cards, many cheaters were not above stealing credit cards to purchase the game. The developers of the game, Realtime Worlds, ended up incurring severely high charge back fees and inflated sales numbers, which ultimately harms their business. By creating a free to play game, you are essentially eliminating this problem by creating a non-necessary market. You have less instances of stolen credit card purchases, since the market is only full of optional purchases, not a necessity to play.

The short of is that going pay to play isn't the best way to combat cheating. While it certainly helps curtail the issue for the cheaters not willing to commit a class B or C felony (in the United States, at least), it does not eliminate all of the problems. You cannot eliminate cheaters through a business model change. While it would help in some regards, it isn't a foolproof solution.

The best methods for stopping cheaters is going to be through careful monitoring and protection, which SOE is obviously aware of. The usage of PunkBuster isn't the worst option in the world, as the only reason they are using it is for executable protection. PunkBuster was already built to help detect any programs modifying or farming data from another client, so it saves SOE time by not having to write that program from scratch. If they include this, an easy to use reporting feature, and an active customer service team to help identify cheaters, they will likely be fine.

I have written in the past about how cheating works, so I just want to say that there likely will never be a complete cessation of cheating. It's only a matter of how well you control and police it. I am confident that the SOE team is acutely aware of how damaging a perception of hacker infestation is, and will go above and beyond to not allow that to happen.

Very well written. I never meant for it to be full-proof, but a good part of the puzzle.

In the game you mentioned - were hackers stealing credit=cards for the sole purpose of playing the game, or were they making money somehow in-game?

Also, as you said, they're out committing felonies, stealing credit cards. That can happen with any game company, or any company in general. I'm sure that's expected to an extent. People may want to steal credit-card numbers to purchase in-game items with the f2p format as well - then you have the same issue.

I agree that the community has to be an intricate part of the process, but I just do not feel that many people will be willing to put up with that for very long if the hackers can just keep coming back with no problem. And even if they are willing, it's has a likely possibility to hurt the game severely.

[NewSith]

The answer is "yes", but I'm not voting. If PS2 can be an awesome game with f2p model, we shall see...