F2P, P2P, Micropay... (Page 3 of 3)

Yet, I bet you have already played a game where no lifers have edge over others.

There is not much difference between those two.

No one is stealing money from you.

The initial idea of paying for faster EP gain was great. Many F2P games are built that way, with real money spent, they allow you to achieve in-game things, just faster.

If the game becomes P2W is rather a matter of game design not a payment model, imo.

wot?? yeah make in wow option: pay us x$ and ur new char will have max lvl in no time pfff
i thing most ppl here are tryinto avoid this...
the idea of lvling or making ur char better is simply destroyed that way, cause what's the point of making new char with little EP, because every new char will be maxed anyway at the very begining (via bought whole bunch of EP), ergo there is no point of having ep (exept for those who refuse to pay) ,just give new char with all skills maxed and make it like product = pay us a$ and have x EP char or b$ and have y EP char and so on, or pay nothing and suck...
In games like wow making char maxed takes limited time (and it's relatively short) here ur char is growing and evolving all the time (having char with all lvl 10 is almost impossible to achieve)
Srlsy what's the point??

First off, there is no leveling here. Purpose of EP in Perpetuum is not to 'progress' through the game but to differentiate players from each other. Different players, different EP, different capabilities.

Second, I said paying for faster EP gain, not buying EP. That is 2 different things. Difference between 'premium member' and freebie would be EP gain rate.

I like how I write a well summarized argument against this topic... and all posts afterward completely ignore it because they don't care to read it.

Give it a read, you might appreciate it.

But yeah, micro transactions are a horrible idea.

i vote for P2P , i wont play it as F2P as most F2P games gets total BS pretty soon by my experience

Also on the P2P wagon, as someone who also spent an "obscene" amount of money on Galaxy Online in order to be a top player. I know first hand that pay-to-win games have a short life span, and bleed players of as much money as they can. And they really do "require" you do so in order to make any difference.

But I'm getting off-topic... Simply put, Pay-to-play, not Pay-to-win.

I am against F2P idea. It's really bad system here. Many of you guys have good arguments why it's bad.

While F2P is in charge there are some guys that play for free, rest of guys have to pay for those guys. Most F2P players would be in fact weekend warriors that play up to 10h a month. Maybe it's not so big number but it makes developer have better servers etc. And those guys will never pay for the game. I think devs goal should be to get long term players that play for years. And what gives exhances like EP boost ? Those guys that play for years will stop paying after 2 years, some of them earlier, cause they have enough EP on their account. So this way I could make 1 race pretty good, it would take me about 9 months to do so, then I will stop paying. Is this the way we would like to see this game ? I don't. Other stuff, ok, long term players will pay for it anyway cause it's worth it.

I know this kind of game is hermetic, not many ppl would like to join in, play and pay for it. But in opinion F2P would kill that game. I prefer long term trial, at least month, when you can do something in that time, then you decide what to do next, pay or quit.

Summary: Bet on long term players, maniacs that wish to play this game, they will make you more money. In F2P+P2P, long term players will pay for F2P players, better servers (cause of F2P players existence), and F2P players won't do much difference to the game. This game is too complicated and multi-dimensional to do something like this.

Microtransactions done right can easily supplement and enhance a P2P model provided the cash shop is full of non-gameplay influencing items.

The City of franchise did a good job with this, giving players the option of little cosmetic DLC packs that didn't give a gameplay advantage. That's really the important point. microtransaction stuff should in no way influence gameplay or economics.

Some microtrans items I could see working for Perpetuum that don't alter gameplay or create a "deep pockets" gameplay advantage:

Custom corp logo: PNG of size X, rather than using the ingame editor.

Bot paint jobs: Ideally, I'd say *extra* bot paint jobs, as that seems like a system that everyone should have at least some access to if its included.

Corp ads: Rent ad space in the NPC terminals, displayed as part of the wallpaper interface, includes your corp logo and whatever text. These ads loop constantly through all purchased ads. Single fee gives your corp the right to keep an ad or change it in one single terminal until the corp ends (gives something else for that PR manager position to be in charge of as well)

Also, bangin' subwoofers and 22 inch gold rims

Last edited by Urban (2010-08-23 20:34:57)

About ads my first though was product placement. Too pity there would be too small amount of players watching those adverts but it might be some kind of money income.

Waiting to see COCA COLA logo on some mountain near terminal .

Well, sorry i may have missed some post, even if i tried (really hard ...) to read everything ...
But cant we think GuildWars business model could also be good option?

Another option: Unlock bots tiers availability with micropayment.
Add some "one-time transactions" for some account "bonus" like:
Mechs color schemes
Mechs customization (some different looking parts ... head/legs/arms ...)
Char renaming
Some kind of respec: stats reallocation, limited amount of EP reallocation

One sure thing, devs must be sure watever they choose, it wont fit witheverybody. And i have no problem with p2p option, just Perp doesnt deserve 15$ a month ...