Potential For Selling Pay To Win

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by maradine

Paying to advance 50% faster is not paying to win. If people want to trade ducats for time, let 'em.

Thats different, because that was a subscription, see, and clearly naming it something else makes it perfectly acceptable.



Point. They've never said you won't have advantages from paying. They've said there won't be anything you can buy that is unavailable in game. No super gun or super ammo or super tank in the cash store. Every vehicle, class, item, cert, etc, can be gotten by all players, regardless of whether they've paid or not. Paying helps you get them faster.

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by maradine

Excellent - we all agree!

Originally Posted by CuddlyChud

If that's your definition of power, than PS1 was a huge offender when it came to giving veterans too much power relative to newbies.

The difference is I put in several years to get where I did. I did not pay real world cash to achieve it beyond the sub cost, something which everyone paid and made it moot.

[Ieyasu]

Originally Posted by p0intman

That faster advancement will turn into being more diverse than others earlier than they otherwise would be, being able to do more sooner is an advantage especially in a shooter. In essence, I can do things before you can because I have paid real world cash to make it happen.

Theyre not making Planetside 2 as a charity drive. Its purpose for SOE is to turn a profit. There is nothing someone can pay to do that a non paying player could not they just have access to opening it up sooner or at quicker rate. if that is unacceptable for you Im sure the PS2 Team is ok with you being upset.

[SpcFarlen]

I have many friends that never payed in LoL. I never did either. It just meant you had to put more time in the game to max out.

Paying to win is to have a model where you are left with no choice but to pay to get unlocks. For instance, look at tribes, some of the weapons cost 100k to get. Well thats only 100 games. In a week you have that item easily. Sure you can fork over 10 bucks and get it now, but by no means are you winning because a level 1 can still kill you.

Boosters arent pay to win if the mechanics arent there to make a level 30 (random level) more powerful than a level 1. Until you can prove that the max rank has such a clear advantage over a low ranked character, there is no problem.

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by Ieyasu

Theyre not making Planetside 2 as a charity drive. Its purpose for SOE is to turn a profit. There is nothing someone can pay to do that a non paying player could they just have access to opening it up sooner or at quicker rate. if that is unacceptable for you Im sure the PS2 Team is ok with you being upset.

It doesn't change that it is contrary to what has been previously said. We apparently define paying to win differently.

[Virulence]

Originally Posted by p0intman

It doesn't change that it is contrary to what has been previously said. We apparently define paying to win differently.

"Paying to win" in the F2P market is defined as, "Selling in-game items exclusively for real currency that are directly, statistically more powerful than anything that can be unlocked by only playing the game."

Convenience is not included in that.

[CuddlyChud]

Originally Posted by p0intman

The difference is I put in several years to get where I did. I did not pay real world cash to achieve it beyond the sub cost, something which everyone paid and made it moot.

So its ok for people to spend time to get a boost in power, but not money? And if that's ok because everyone had to pay the sub cost, than you could argue that everyone could just buy the booster. No doubt it would be cheaper than 15$ a month.

[NEWSKIS]

Truthfully its no different than being at a disadvantage from starting PS2 two months after release. You also have that disadvantage even without boosts. Should everyone that starts playing day 1 not be able to progress until the last new player joins? Every game has that whether its items or just knowing how to play the game. Also should you have some sort of penalty if you have more time to play than someone else?

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by p0intman

It doesn't change that it is contrary to what has been previously said. We apparently define paying to win differently.

You define it strangely. Every single F2P game out there has boosters. They've explicitely said they won't be selling wtfpwn weapons. That is how the devs are defining power. Its also how everyone, except you, defines 'selling power'.

Bottom line, you're the weird one. This is quite normal, expected, and apparently a surprise only to you. Also, we've known they would do this, officially, for months.

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by NEWSKIS

Truthfully its no different than being at a disadvantage from starting PS2 two months after release. You also have that disadvantage even without boosts. Should everyone that starts playing day 1 not be able to progress until the last new player joins? Every game has that whether its items or just knowing how to play the game. Also should you have some sort of penalty if you have more time to play than someone else?

tbh, if you have more time than I do, fuck it you deserve it. Real world cash though shouldn't be a factor at all. And holy shit, Newskis, long time no see.

Originally Posted by CuddlyChud

So its ok for people to spend time to get a boost in power, but not money? And if that's ok because everyone had to pay the sub cost, than you could argue that everyone could just buy the booster. No doubt it would be cheaper than 15$ a month.

Like I said above: If you've got more time and game knowledge than I do, fuck it, you deserve it.

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

You define it strangely. Every single F2P game out there has boosters. They've explicitely said they won't be selling wtfpwn weapons. That is how the devs are defining power. Its also how everyone, except you, defines 'selling power'.

Bottom line, you're the weird one. This is quite normal, expected, and apparently a surprise only to you. Also, we've known they would do this, officially, for months.

An advantage is anything in which I have a direct edge over others in such that it changes if I were to win an engagement or not.

This includes faster advancement, because you can unlock things sooner than others who do not pay. Like I said, convenience would be a faster respawn time, or a faster pace at which things I spawn (vehicles, etc) materialise.

[Winfernal]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

You define it strangely. Every single F2P game out there has boosters. They've explicitely said they won't be selling wtfpwn weapons. That is how the devs are defining power. Its also how everyone, except you, defines 'selling power'.

Bottom line, you're the weird one. This is quite normal, expected, and apparently a surprise only to you. Also, we've known they would do this, officially, for months.

Also. Ranking up in this game gives you "options/trade-offs" instead of more power. Atleast in the weaponry. There is no uber-weapon at the top-rank, for example.

So what if someone decides to pay for boosters? I will still be able to kill them if i'm a better player. I just can't see the "pay-to-win" factor here? As the advantage is... minor, if not non-existant.

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by Winfernal

Also. Ranking up in this game gives you "options/trade-offs" instead of more power. Atleast in the weaponry. There is no uber-weapon at the top-rank, for example.

So what if someone decides to pay for boosters? I will still be able to kill them if i'm a better player. I just can't see the "pay-to-win" factor here? As the advantage is... minor, if not non-existant.

Means I can achieve a 20 percent power difference, as they've put it, faster than you. Meaning, I have an advantage even if only for a time, over those who don't pay for it.

Originally Posted by elfailo

With an XP boost you still have to play to get the actual XP. The bigger problems can arise when they decide to start selling weapon packs and things like that. Tribes Ascend has already shown this. SOE is not Hi-Rez, but this is what they're essentially doing:

Their game is F2P, but you can spend money to boost XP gain or unlock loadouts and weapons instantly. You can unlock with XP, and with 'station cash'. It becomes interesting when they add new content. So far, every content package they released has included deliberately overpowered weapons. The Plasma Gun was initially so humongously overpowered (it was essentially a 3-shot kill weapon with high ROF which was given to a class that uses it as a secondary, next to an SMG - weapons that were already overpowered by themselves - and which anyone who's even a little good at Tribes will barely miss with) that you can only conclude that they're trying to cash in on impulse-buyers. They did nerf it eventually, but because it was so good, a lot of players decided to buy it right away. They also set up the pricings so that you will always be stuck with a significant remainder of in-game gold after buying anything, so it's pretty clear they're trying to rip people off.

That is not a label you want to have when you claim that you're doing F2P-that-aren't-P2W games. You have very little room for error, because unlike with games where you only pay for the box, the revenue doesn't mostly come from the first 2 months of sales. It's spread out over the game's entire lifetime, so if you screw it up in the beginning and people lose trust, they're going to stop buying, meaning you might not even break even with the development and marketing cost.

Unfortunately I now also expect SOE to be going in the same direction eventually. I want to believe F2P works with no strings attached, but I have yet to see it work in a way that is superior to a subscription or box (for customers, not studio's and publishers).

And that there is why I take such an extreme stance, because it'll eventually come down to, 'lol i have more money than you, have fun with your respawn timer'. I have no room for this and not a single thing is different to me about boosters.

Think I'm wrong? Read this.

[Fanglord]

Originally Posted by p0intman

The only real way to win in PS1 was to not log in.



Convenience imo would be a slightly faster respawn time. An advantage is anything in which I have a direct edge over others in such that it changes if I were to win an engagement or not.

You do realise that a faster respawn time would be an unfair advantage, compared to the convenience of levelling up faster. Leveling up faster is only a convenience as it does not lock out upgrades to those who don't level as fast, therefore everyone has the potential to have the same items at some point.

[Stardouser]

Even if there are advantages for dollars, so what? If the game has to be a mandatory subscription, it can't exist, and we are stuck with other crap games. If they only sell cosmetic stuff, it can't exist, and we are stuck with other crap games.

Besides, think of it this way: Free 2 play is really a bad choice of words by the gaming companies. It should be called no money down 2 play. Standard price for a game is $60 per year(ie, CoD or BF's annual rat race), so, you should be willing to pay that much per year throughout PS2's 5 year plan.

So, while someone who pays $60 for stuff might get a big headstart on someone who pays $0, the advantages someone who pays $120 MIGHT be a lot less, comparatively, than the guy who paid $60 per year. So, if you're expecting to pay zero, you are the content and not the customer anyway.

[QuantumMechanic]

There aren't going to be any weapons that can exclusively be purchased in the item shop for real world money.

You *can* purchase weapons there with station cash, but the same weapons can also be purchased via in-game generated resources (currency) (Auraxium as I recall). The station cash option just saves you time.

You can purchase exp boosting consumables for station cash (not sure if you can with Auraxium as well or not), but again it's saving you time.

It's not like I can buy a sniper rifle for $10 USD that has the longest range in the game, so I can hit targets that can't hit me back.