association with free to play

[shortbushero]

guys the discussion is not pay to win, the discussion is that some people can't drop money every month and will get left behind every time new content comes out (if the grinding vs payment is unbalanced)

[Vetto]

Hopefully SOE has watched what Valve done with TF2 when it comes to F2P, While the initial changes of TF2 left a lot of people bitter I must admit, it the best F2P model I Have seen, Were most the time you are buying cosmetic items, and any item that a weapon is obtainable threw in game means and not to much extra work.

It boiled down if you wanted to be one of the first with it, or wait a few days and craft it.

And in the end no weapon was better per say.. just some effect were less desirable on cretin classes, but you could still kill some one with any gun just as easily.

[Envenom]

Originally Posted by shortbushero

when most people see free to play they automatically associate it with games like tribes ascend. tribes ascend is not pay to win but some will argue that it is, with the amount of time that is needed to unlock something. so this message goes out to devs, please don't make it a huge grind, like SWG 2003 jedi grind, to unlock something and make it fair. this would probably be more relevent during beta etc.. but i'm just voicing my concern.

EDIT: PS 1 vet here. i've been following ps2 since the beginning of it's announcement, i'm not new to this lol i know how everything is gonna work i'm just asking devs to not force the store on us as the only way of development

While I see and acknowledge your point, I feel no sympathy for people who want a free ride. SOE has worked their ass off for this game. You need to be fair to them too.

Nothing in life is free. While the EXP system should be 'balanced' to some degree, don't even think for a second that without dropping a cent you will cake walk through the game. It should be a grind. These guys need to eat too!

Buck up!

[IMMentat]

The overall impression towards F2P games has been improving for a while.

The problem so far is that few of the companies marketing F2P has hit on the time versus money #sweet spot# that most players are looking for (while still being profitable for the service provider).
Battlefield Heroes was an example of a game that gave a lot to free players but then had the developers go back on previous promises (causing media uproar) because they "gave too much of the game away for free".

Riot games - League of Legends, is one of the best current examples of a solid F2P unlock system (lots of inexpensive characters, individual prices drop over time and weekly "free to use" champion rotations), Riot charging £2-10 for a champion alternative appearance (anything from a re-colour to a model, voice and animation overhaul) is also an example of a #they really expect me to pay that?# cash shop.
To their credit Riot do not sell ANY performance boosters for cash.

[Envenom]

Originally Posted by IMMentat

The problem so far is that few of the companies marketing F2P has hit on the time versus money #sweet spot# that most players are looking for (while still being profitable for the service provider).

Well spoken. This is spot on.

[meiam]

Originally Posted by IMMentat

The overall impression towards F2P games has been improving for a while.

The problem so far is that few of the companies marketing F2P has hit on the time versus money #sweet spot# that most players are looking for (while still being profitable for the service provider).
Battlefield Heroes was an example of a game that gave a lot to free players but then had the developers go back on previous promises (causing media uproar) because they "gave too much of the game away for free".

Riot games - League of Legends, is one of the best current examples of a solid F2P unlock system (lots of inexpensive characters, individual prices drop over time and weekly "free to use" champion rotations), Riot charging £2-10 for a champion alternative appearance (anything from a re-colour to a model, voice and animation overhaul) is also an example of a #they really expect me to pay that?# cash shop.
To their credit Riot do not sell ANY performance boosters for cash.

The rune in lol are performance booster for cash. I wouldn't be surprised if rune are were a good chunck of cash come from in LoL

Also lol work on a different system than PS2, you can't have new class every month in PS2

[IMMentat]

Originally Posted by meiam

The rune in lol are performance booster for cash. I wouldn't be surprised if rune are were a good chunck of cash come from in LoL

LoL Runes (small stat increases, damage, defence, health/mana regen, etc) are only purchasable via tokens earned by playing the game. You can however buy rune pages that provide somewhere to attach the runes you have earned (no different from tribes ascend charging for alternate lodeout slots).

Originally Posted by meiam

Also lol work on a different system than PS2, you can't have new class every month in PS2

You are thinking too literally, you could have a new gun/device or decal every month.
The basic premise of free to test items on a rotation is sound.

[ThermalReaper]

Funnily enough for the first few days during E3 a lot of the tribes forums were spammed by people flaming and praising planetside 2 vs tribes ascend.

[bullet]

Originally Posted by ThermalReaper

Funnily enough for the first few days during E3 a lot of the tribes forums were spammed by people flaming and praising planetside 2 vs tribes ascend.

I wouldn't even put these 2 in the same boat. One is a twitch shooter and the other is a vehicle/infantry based warfare game. I'd like to say PS2 is tactical too, but there is always going to be a zerg around.

[PsychoXR-20]

Originally Posted by shortbushero

tribes ascend is not pay to win but some will argue that it is, with the amount of time that is needed to unlock something.

While I am enjoying the game, I was just thinking this last night. If you opt to not pay anything you get around 1,000 XP per game, some weapons take 100,0000 XP to unlock, which is pretty ridiculous.

While I understand that Tribes (and probably PlanetSide) want to incentivise you to sped real money, I think Tribes went a little too far.

[NEWSKIS]

While I don't particularly like the idea of an extremely long grind, however I also don't want to have unlocked everything within a month of playing. BF3 was like that for me. It was too easy to get points and the gameplay itself wasnt enough to keep me playing, so after a month and a half I stopped playing.

Overall I'd rather have a really long grind than unlock everything in less than a month.

[Crator]

They've already stated the in-game progression system will be like the EVE Online progression system. With being able to progress even while offline. Pretty sure that is going to dictate how the rate at which you can get unlocks.

Are the unlocks and side- grades the same thing?

[IMMentat]

Originally Posted by Crator

They've already stated the in-game progression system will be like the EVE Online progression system. With being able to progress even while offline. Pretty sure that is going to dictate how the rate at which you can get unlocks.

Are the unlocks and side- grades the same thing?

From the Neurotoxin info thread and a few other bits of info around.

In terms of unlocks each individual weapon will get its own upgrade path, to make it more effective.

Weapons themselves will be usable as soon as you unlock them with in-game tokens (Auraxium?) or Money (Stationcash).

Stuff like scopes, supressors etc that go onto the weapons I am less sure about, not remember seeing any info on if they are bought or certified, but my guess is on a mix of both.

[meiam]

Well if the grind is too long what will happen is people will just stop playing rather than paying, they'll go "well I'm not spending 100$ just to be effective, or grinding for 100 hour where I'll just get farmed by wallet warrior"

Then you're left with very small player base, for a game whose main feature is 1000s of player fighting at once that's bad. I guess if you can buy everything for the price of a game then it'd be fine, but you get to the point where if you brought everything but the server population is constantly low, you'll just get bored and feel like you wasted money. It's a balancing act, one which tribes messed up I think.

Having a free gun rotation would be pretty damn fun I think, get player to try new gun once in awhile, that's one of the stuff I liked about lol, some hero I'd never play but I found out I liked them.

I am a bit worried about gaining cert outside game, that might cause the price of stuff to be insanely high with the justification that you're always gaining cert point.

I still think tribes was pretty pay to win, the basic class all need at the very least 50 000 exp to be competitive, that's like a good 100 game for a new player, and as soon as you get out of the newb league and into the real player league, it's incredibly rough since you don't have the good perk/armor upgrade/weapon upgrade and all that, plus once you spend all that you're lock into that one class with all the other being barebone, if you get in a match and a bunch of people are already filling you're role, you have to switch to something much less effective. Hopefully there really won't be straight upgrade in PS2.

[james]

Its really hard to balance an incentive to buy vs still being f2p. I think tribes does a great job it gives you 3 classes that can hold there own, and you can enjoy the game. I didn't feel like i was at a disadvantage before i payed money. Yes the XP of the weapons may be pushing it but if it wasn't high why would anyone spend money.
I do think you have to realize well it is p4f, there still need to be incentives to pay. And in almost every game besides maybe tf2 you need to pony up money if you want to pay with the elites. But then with tf2 until the nerfed it you had to have the tommy gun to be a good heavy.
As long as it doesn't feel like i have to pay money to keep competing, i'm fine with it. It should be i want to spend money not i'm forced to.