Pay to play or free to fail?

[Synchrotron]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

Damn, my first message didnt appear... too bad, i'm too lazy to type it all again =/

[...]Blizzard will lose absolutely nothing by implementing p2p, they can only profit more and thus create quality content.

You are wrong, many players choose to buy games like D2 (intead of downloading a pirate copy) just because of the free online content, wich is great in D2.
If the game has montly fees MANY people will simply get a pirate copy to play in single player.

 

[GardensAngel]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

We don't need patches every week. We don't need zillions additional content. We don't need holyday events.

I wouldnt mind if you were saying that about any other game, like if this was TitanQuest, WoW or some other mediocore game. But the thing is: I liked D2 so much, like one of the absolutely top games ever, just not another one in the pile of games. It is SO good that it deserved to better supported.

I think many players would disagree to your point of view, when they look at todays state of D2 and think of how good it could have become with premium service + all the time/money they have wasted on lesser quality games in same category.

I understand why and respect the POV that the next Diablo should be free to play, it's great for just casual play: get in and chat a bit and hunt some levels and items. No worries about it being an unnecessary money drainer, just free, relaxed casual on and off when you feel like it. D2 still got quite a few patches along the way + an expansion, and still runs this day.

If it wasnt D2 we were talking about and just a mediocore game, I would say the same.

 

[SlechtWeerBeer]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

"It's not bad" should not be interpreted as you do. In this case, it merely means that I assume it to be good as I haven't heard anything bad about it, while I haven't played it myself so I can't know.
Yet seen the fact that the people that have told me that it's a great game, are people I thrust, There so no reason to assume that it will be bad.

Thus, I say it's not bad.

I play GW (Almost 4800 hours now, over 42 months), and I have little bad to say about server stability, hacks, dupes and whatever you can think of. There have been duping scandals (no more than 4 for what I remember), but they have all been dealt with. One was rather messy, and they decided to rollback everyone a day or something close to that, the other included banning, and searching out dupe items, destroying them without a trace.
I've only heard of 2 hacks; one crashed the instance (every area in GW, bar outposts and towns are instanced), which took ANet a while to stop; a day or 3. The other was fixed in approx the same time span, and was used to go to an otherwise not easily accesible boss (Mallyx).

New technology makes even non-p2p services a lot cleaner.

Besides, I bet Blizz has plenty income from WoW to support a great BNet service (saying D III is p2p is actually "wrong", since you'll pay for access to BNet, not D III).

 

[Doctor Salvador]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

I wouldnt mind if you were saying that about any other game, like if this was TitanQuest, WoW or some other mediocore game. But the thing is: I liked D2 so much, like one of the absolutely top games ever, just not another one in the pile of games. It is SO good that it deserved to better supported.

I think many players would disagree to your point of view, when they look at todays state of D2 and think of how good it could have become with premium service + all the time/money they have wasted on lesser quality games in same category.

I think D2 would have died a long time ago if it was pay to play. Every time I start playing D2 again, it's 'cause I'm bored and want something to do. I get on D2, mess around a bit, and then I'm hooked. If it was pay to play, I wouldn't delve into it so casually, hence, I probably would have stopped playing a long time ago. How many people do you think would pay to play for such an 'ancient' game?

As for D3, I'd probably just play single player if online was pay to play. I've never really felt like paying a monthly fee was worth it, even for Diablo.

 

[jhtvman]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

The only reason I even play D2 on battle.net is because it allows me to mule and gives me access to some ladder-only items.

If D3 is pay to play, I'm out.

 

[GoldenBird]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

If D3 is pay to play, I'm out.

Agreed. If they make pay to play I'm gonna go over there and slap each one of them.

 

[Telzen]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

I've said it in the past, but I'd be willing to pay $5 a month. Assuming they use the money for quicker patches/fixes and gms to activly combat dupes and bots.

 

[raveharu]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

Pay to play or free to fail?

Free to fail? :scratchchin:


This topic has been discussed like a million times.
I'm sure Jay has already explained that D3 will most probably be F2P.

But I wouldn't mind if they require players to pay for extra services like allowing extra character slots and such, but not towards the MMOish direction whereby only those who use cash will gain the upperhand(eg. exclusive cash only equipments,double experience and the likes) in the game. Hell I don't want to see those things.

For now we don't even know if one D3 cd-key will only limit to one BNET account per realm or will go infinite like D2.

Time will tell, and so the choice is Blizzard and Blizzard's alone.
Pointless to create such threads as it will hardly make a difference.

I've said it in the past, but I'd be willing to pay $5 a month. Assuming they use the money for quicker patches/fixes and gms to activly combat dupes and bots.

D3 is not an MMO, Blizzard won't release new patches lest to fix bugs.
The main content is already in the game, it's not like your usual MMO whereby bits and pieces of the game will be released monthly.

 

[bonertron]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

I'm just interested how many players would like to pay to play and thus have quality online gameplay.

Worst topic of the week... Your deduction that free to play online games lack any quality compared to pay to play online games is unfounded. Have you ever heard of Counter-strike? Unreal Tournament (all of them)? Neverwinter Nights? Left 4 Dead? Starcraft? Warcraft? Quake Live?

Specifically, all Valve online games have extremely good anti-hack systems, efficient and reliable servers, constant updates, and aesthetic appeal (in terms of menus, loading times, etc). They are all also free to play.

Another very painful truth is that most "quality" online games are not P2P, in fact those only really became popular a few years ago. The good players don't go for pay to play games, they generally stay away from them.

When you said

After all p2p is good for eliminating noobs ( as you said ) casual players will play single player and thus keep their noobish gameplay for themselves. That's what I think.

you might as well have cut "I'm a ****ing noob" into your forehead with a knife.

So WTF are you talking about?

 

[Telzen]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

D3 is not an MMO, Blizzard won't release new patches lest to fix bugs.
The main content is already in the game, it's not like your usual MMO whereby bits and pieces of the game will be released monthly.

I didn't say it was.

I said "quicker patches/fixes". I didn't say anything about content.

Worst topic of the week... Your deduction that free to play online games lack any quality compared to pay to play online games is unfounded.

D2 is a great example. It wasn't making any money for them and they let it go to hell and just focused on WoW for years.

Have you ever heard of Counter-strike? Unreal Tournament (all of them)? Neverwinter Nights? Left 4 Dead? Starcraft? Warcraft? Quake Live?

Totally different category here. All of those except Warcraft/Starcraft have user hosted servers, so they aren't costing those companies money all the time.

Specifically, all Valve online games have extremely good anti-hack systems, efficient and reliable servers, constant updates, and aesthetic appeal (in terms of menus, loading times, etc). They are all also free to play.

I don't remember CS having good antihack. Now a days since everything is linked to a steam account if you are caught cheating you lose the account. Well I think you do, don't play any of them anymore. Also once again, those games (CS, Halflife 2, TF2) are all hosted on the users servers.

 

[Phranx]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

When you said you might as well have cut "I'm a ****ing noob" into your forehead with a knife.

Err, you just said the same thing as he did but on the other end of the scale:

The good players don't go for pay to play games, they generally stay away from them.

I don't think your "skill" in playing games comes into consideration when someone decides to pay a monthly fee or not.

I am more than happy to pay a monthly fee for a game built on a model that requires it. I would much prefer a game that is built with a solid end game replayability ala D2 so that you don't have to get monthly updates to stay interested.

 

[MYK]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

D2 is a great example. It wasn't making any money for them and they let it go to hell and just focused on WoW for years.

Right. They aren't making any money.

Not even when a bunch of my online friends have bought more than one Diablo Battle Chests.
Or that stores still stock the games and battle chests.

Or were those just mysterious pirated copies of Diablo II that came with all of the original documentation and lore to try and sway a P2P Vs. F2P online debate?!

...

Something interesting to talk about would be if they aren't making any money, why did Blizzard get two years of extended Battle.net server support?

...

To be on topic:
Seeing as how this is DIABLO III and not WOW Expansion #900, I'll take a wild guess that it will be free to play, just like the other two releases. But you know, we may end up with Starcraft II: The FPS!, which would blow their logical thinking and my guess right out of the water. :scratchchin:

 

[Brother Laz]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

There is no reason why D3 would require a monthly fee.

The server has to do almost nothing - it just moves a low number of objects around, calculates damage and occasionally rolls for drops. A TI could handle that. In fact, there isn't much more happening in D3 than in D2, while servers and net connections have gotten a hell of a lot cheaper since the 20th century.

Cheat protection? No. D2 is infested by cheaters because of its poor design: runes cannot be ruststormed, characters are not saved instantly when items are transferred (allowing server crash dupe tricks), and the game design of hundreds of useless monsters in front of a boss that will very rarely drop incredibly overpowered items is the root cause of things like bots and maphack.

Design the game so people have less reason to cheat and design it efficiently and defensively (for example, when you trade items, save both characters instantly and simultaneously) so the harmful cheats have no chance to work. Then discourage clientside cheating by embracing it and making all relevant information (map, monster stats) available to all players.

Problem solved, lots of money saved hunting down cheaters.

......

Also, face it, D3 has a hundred times less content than WoW. It is just not a good deal to pay monthly for it.

......

I'm not cheap, I'd gladly pay for more content - but most other people (like every kid) will not, which will divide and shrink the community, turn off people from buying D2 and result in a much smaller online community, thereby degrading my game experience more than the extra content would improve it.

Yay, I'm paying more for a lower population game!

See also: Hellgate London.

 

[Durin]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

Worst topic of the week... Your deduction that free to play online games lack any quality compared to pay to play online games is unfounded. Have you ever heard of Counter-strike? Unreal Tournament (all of them)? Neverwinter Nights? Left 4 Dead? Starcraft? Warcraft? Quake Live?

Specifically, all Valve online games have extremely good anti-hack systems, efficient and reliable servers, constant updates, and aesthetic appeal (in terms of menus, loading times, etc). They are all also free to play.

Another very painful truth is that most "quality" online games are not P2P, in fact those only really became popular a few years ago. The good players don't go for pay to play games, they generally stay away from them.

When you said you might as well have cut "I'm a ****ing noob" into your forehead with a knife.

So WTF are you talking about?

You obviously do not know what you're talking about :} Since when is Neverwinter a quality game? :}}} You compare NWN and L4D with WoW or EVE, I mean your statements are so funny :}
Why is it so frustrating for you to pay 5-10$ a month? Is it so hard to find a job?

 

[blankblank]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

Tell me this, how come some people are so DENSE that they don't see through their points? Diablo is not an MMO, and was not meant to be one. Paying $15 per month just to stop hacks/dupes/etc is just too expensive. From the initial design, it was not even meant to have a gazillion quests, monthly patches, quarterly content updates, or whatever.

D2 survived all these years without WoW feeding it. D3 will survive better with WoW feeding it all these money.

Prepaid would be the way to go if P2P can not be avoided. And I sincerely hope Blizzard would charge unlimited play around $50 a month, so these P2P wannabes get what they are looking for. I bet there should be no hacks by then.

 

[Synchrotron]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

Why is it so frustrating for you to pay 5-10$ a month? Is it so hard to find a job?

Why is so frustrating?

First: all montly fees are "expensive" comparing the cost/benefit of the online services, US$15 per month to play WOW? Thats freaking expensive for just 30 days of online play (I will probably be able to play D3 only in weekends so the benefit of the fee will drop to 15 dolars for 8 days of playing).
I agree that fees helps to keep the quality of the server but I would pay a maximum of US$3/month for online gaming , no more than that.

Second: to pay fees I would have to get an international credit card and thats annoying. My parents wont pay a cent for me with their cards.

 

[blankblank]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

Why is it so frustrating for you to pay 5-10$ a month? Is it so hard to find a job?

maybe because not all people are well off like you? $10 might not be huge but in 1 year, that would have been $120, enough to buy 2 AAA titles.

 

[Valmy]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

Hi.

I will play DiabloIII, it doesn't matter if it will cost 0$ or 15$. Each possibility have his advantages and his disadvantages.

I prefer a free game, because it's not a mmorpg. And I think if they create the possibility of paying for tickets that provide some services it will works ok. Each ticket could include things like:

*Customize character —color of skin, armor and items, change color hair of the character, weight, height...— to make your character visually unique in battlenet.

*New untradeable items, not powerful, just visually. For example, a viper mask for WD with the exactly same stats of a real item, cool things like that.

*Access to a better and extend stash.

*Create more characters in an account.

*More room in your friends list.

*Possibility of change the name of your character or respec some of your skills.

*An item that let you create your own guild.


And so on.

 

[MrCanon]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

Monthly fee or not, it'll still sell millions.
If you think you're going to hurt them by not buying it, think again.

At the very least, play it the first month of release then ditch the game.

The very first week of retail WoW was one of the best online gaming experience I ever had, and I expect D3 to be the same.

 

[Krugar]

Re: Pay to play or free to fail?

Since when is Neverwinter a quality game? :}}}

Since I said so.

Or wait... I'm not supposed to think NWN is a quality game if you say otherwise?

Why is it so frustrating for you to pay 5-10$ a month? Is it so hard to find a job?

Who exactly are you to judge him for what he can or cannot pay, or for what he is willing or not willing to pay? Are you really this insensitive to other people points of view, to the point of being incredibly offensive?

If this is the type of arguments you like to irresponsibly brandish around, how a about a taste of your own medicine? Something as:

"For someone living of his parents allowance, you are to quick telling others to find a job. Maybe you should stop collecting pokemon cards and trying to hit the wall with your acne squirting and actually find a real job yourself, pay some bills, feed yourself and the kids. Then you will value money more. Trust me, the last thing in your mind will be paying for a online game.

Until then get off my face your worthless leech"