On the subject of Free-To-Play and MMOs
 

Dear 1C/Maddox Games,

I imagine you don't read this forum very much but hopefully this finds the right people. I'm not really sure where else to send this because it appears you are not in touch with what the community wants, so here goes:

Obviously rumours are flying, but one of the rumours is that the next game will either be a F2P MMO or some kind of subscription-based model.

I just want to let you know that if you go with the Free-to-play model, supported by microtransactions (i.e. pay for individual skins, aircraft, ammo types, etc.), under no circumstances will I buy it. If you go with the subscription-based model, supported by a monthly fee (i.e. a traditional MMORPG), under no circumstances will I buy it.

I might just be one drop in the bucket, but I imagine there are others who will say the same and I think it's important that we as fans/consumers make our preferences known.

That's all; have a nice day 8-)

Agreed 100 percent.

+1!

Agreed..

And my preference is I want a 'good' flight sim..

And if I have to pay for it so be it!

On the note of what others will say..

Truth be told.. people will 'say' anything to keep flight simming free..

But truth be told..

If someone provided a 'good' online flight sim with a monthly fee..

AND there was no free alternative..

Flight simmers would buy and pay for a 'good' online flight sim with a monthly fee..

Why?

Because the truth is flight simming is a very small market relative to other gaming venues..

Hence the need to generate revenue..

As a mater of fact, that is the way it was for a long time up until about 10 years ago..

What with the likes of Air Warrior Online, Confirmed Kill (aka Warbirds) and the like..

Back in the early 90s I use to pay $12/hr to play Airwarrior Online..

Later Warbrids made that a little cheaper when they changed from an hourly charging model to a monthly charging model..

All of which were all doing quite well until a little 'free' to play online flight sim called IL-2 came out..

Which in essence killed off the online pay to play flight simming games..

Oh sure they are still around, but just a shell of what they once were!

The irony of all this is if 1C now came to realize that they have to do what the others were doing before 1C came out with IL-2..

There are good and bad aspects of charging to play the game..

One of the good things that comes from charging to play is it has a filtering effect on the people who do play..

That is to say that typically only 'serious' flight simmers are willing to pay to play..

Which in turn tends to filter out the non-serious type of flight simmers..

You know the types, the Quake first types who only take a break from Quake types of games to play flight sims

Than there are the kid-os..

You know the types..

Good news is most of the kid-os will have a hard time convincing their mama to pay for them to play! ;)

A win win IMHO! ;)

well i make 400 euro a month i would love to play iracing but i just CANT

case in point! ^^ ;)

Yeah I'm not talking about making it free, though. I'm perfectly happy to pay an upfront price for the sim and for subsequent expansion packs, just like we did with 1946.


Depends on your definition of "serious flight simmer"... I'm not in university any more; I can't spend 4+ hours every night playing video games and so being charged a monthly fee is a rip-off for me. I have a job and other real-life responsibilities (not to mention a fiancée to pay attention to).

I'm 100% against being charged for time you spend not playing the game.

Maybe if I was retired, in my 60's with no dependants and had lots of disposable income then I could get away with it.

What is going to decide the development of this series (if it finally does carry on) is not whether it will be an mmo or subscription based but how many of the purchasers are online or off line players. Many of the posters here who are the vocal ones are online players, most of the others are the silent majority (the off line players). the developers can't afford to lose possibly 75% of their sales (yes I can hear the screems already from the online minority) if the sequels become online only. If the majority of the sales were to online players there would be demands for more servers to cater for the demand but there isn't. Europe and America would be the biggest markets outside of Russia but I don't see many servers that can't cater for those wanting to play online. Those that are online players would be lucky to be 25%--30% of the sales. If the producers suddenly lost 3/4's of their potential sales the writing would quickly be on the wall to the development team (find your selves another job).
For the future of flight sims I certainly hope this doesn't happen. The lack of communication from all concerned with this project doesn't look good. We were all hoping that the new series would be a success and it still could be, it just needs time.
Maybe the financial support isn't there any more which would be a disaster for all of us (the players and the team involved).
I truely believe that being an online only sim will spell the end of the series.

Finally, regardless of what others say, the majority of purchasers are off line players. If the producers wish to continue with the series there has to be an off line option.

So we agree, and both realize, that here in the real world, those who make flight sims don't make as much $ on their efforts as those who make other types of games.. Hence the need to generate revenue beyond the initial cost of the game.. I am all for it! Be it the traditional IL-2 sequel money model or the RoF DLC model.. or even the pay to play model be it hourly or monthly or something else..

Agreed..

To clarify, serious typically means the types that don't play any other types of games.. As in only flight sims!

Back in the day of flight simming.. we referred to them as hard core simmers..

Of which I don't even fit the definition!

Today.. I would say a serious simmer is the type that only plays realistic military types of games.. Where most of which are flight sims or first person shooters.. That is the category that fits me best, but I will admit I have played 'other' types of games in the past.. But they typically don't hold my interest for very long.. I think what makes me a serious flight simmer is that I always come back to flight simming.. In 20+ years I have not lost interest in playing flight sims.. Where I have lost interest in other types of games

That depends..

As I noted, sometimes it is cheaper to play the monthly flat rate over the hourly charge.. At least that was the case for me when I played warbirds.. When they changed hourly my monthly bill was around $300+ and I even got a bill for $1,000+ once! When they switched to the monthly flat rate my bill dropped down to less than $200/month.. So it all depends

It is not age based at all..

It has more to do with 'what you do' in life..

Take me for example, a basic engineering job allows me enough disposable income and time to pay to play and still support several dependants, dogs, contribute to 401ks, and pay bills in general

We should not force game makers to cater to the lowest common denominator!

Put another way, I don't want to play a flight sim that any starbuck's barista can afford! ;)

+1

It's not a question of money: X dollars a month won't make or break most peoples' budgets.

It's a question of time: If I was in my 60s and retired I'd have all sorts of free time to play video games and still do enough around the house to avoid pissing my wife off.

I can afford the game financially but if I were to get busy and not have time to play then I'd be getting charged for not playing the game and not getting my money's worth.

I play sports, I ski, I go out for dinner/movie nights, etc etc etc. Why would I voluntarily accept being charged money for time I spend not playing the game?

Meh, that's elitist. I'm not one to dismiss someone based on how much money they make or where they work.

Because as I pointed out, sometimes it works out to be cheaper to pay a flat rate than an hourly rate

Elitist?

Not at all, I am simply stating the fact that some poeople, for what ever reason, make more $ than others. And that we should not expect game makers to cater to those who have to choose between paying for a game or new shoes for thier kids

Whatever.

My point is, if they go Free2Play (which means pay2win and cheaters) or subscription-fee (rip-off), then I quite simply will not purchase the sequel, no matter how good it is.

If that means no more WWII simming for a long time? Oh well, I'll have to live with that disappointment, I guess. But I'm not going to support the F2P or monthly-fee system, no matter how badly I would like to fly a Yak-1 with awesome physics/graphics/sound.

I'd just wish they'd hurry up and at least release some details. They probably think that they're building hype and anticipation, but what they're really doing is the opposite.

+1

I would rather the series die than see it tarnished like this...

LOL!

I remember that in 98~99 I pay 2U$/hour to play Warbids 2.77 online.
One squad guy used to pay 200 U$ per month to IEN.
And, at time the Internet connection here cost here another leg, one have to pay for conection and conectec time.

But in Sundays paid only per conection, so our squad play from 8 to 12 am every Sunday morning, some sleepless and inebriated from Saturday night. :)

Sokol1

I agree with Doggles on monthly subscription, there is no way I'd get my moneys worth.

I do however don't mind paying for mods or planes that I'd be insterested in using / flying like RoF. If it means the devs continue to receive income to keep going then why not?

Well look at the bright side..

At least we both agree that those who make flight sims need to generate revenue beyond the initial price of the game

And as I noted..

A lot of people will say this now hoping flight sim makers will belive what they say

But as we both know, and agree, that the flight sim makers need to generate revenue beyond the initial price of the game to stay in business

You would not be the 1st person to say that..

Only to cave later

I remember many a flight simmer saying the same thing your saying now 20 years ago, when most of us were playing off line flight sims like AOTP, AOE, SWOTL, CYAC and the like with regards to Air Warrior and Warbirds..

That is to say

If the flight sim is 'good' and your a 'serious' flight simmer, you will be surprised at how fast you can learn to like eating crow to join your buddies online! ;)

I'll tell you why not.

A "free to play" game means there's no barrier to registering a new account. That means if you get banned from the game for cheating, you just open a new account.

That means cheaters effectively cannot be banned since they can just register a new account and get right back in. IP bans don't work either if the person has a dynamic IP address (many residential ISPs do this).

So your only recourse is to hope the developers fix the bugs that allow cheats to happen.

Look at Maddox Games' track record: Do you think they will be releasing regular security updates? No.

A free2play game will be rife with cheating, with no way to stop it.

We'll see.

I had to quit iRacing for this reason. I paid over $300USD until I just couldn't keep up.

From what i can tell ROF is the same? correct me if I'm wrong about that but is the reason I won't touch that game either and I wont buy this one if I have to pay for every little piece.

If it has offline mode and its ONLY subscription I would be willing to pay but no way am I paying $1000s of dollars for one game like iRacing.

But that happens with a pay upfront games too. Look at Company of Heroes for example. The game can be picked up for $20, there's no subscription or no paid add-ons. People openly admit that if they get caught cheating, they simply buy a new licence.

It's naive to think people just buy 1 copy of game if their sole intention is to cheat.

Cheating is a fact of life for online gaming, there's nothing anyone can do about it. There are steps developers can take to kerb it but they'll never eliminate it no matter what model they follow.

At least that $20 is a mitigating factor and is tied to a CD-key of some sort. Cheaters are lazy; otherwise they would just take time to get good at the game rather than resort to cheats.

Nobody has unlimited cash/patience to keep buying game licenses.

Either way, go start your own "please give us pay2win" thread if you're so gung-ho about it.

No disrespect Doggles, but last time I checked this forum is an open forum (with some rules which I don't think I have broken).

I'm just presenting an alternate point of view, I'm not asking you to agree with them.

No RoF has the basic game free with the whole plane set updated as new planes are released. Problem is that only a couple of aircaft are flyable. IF you want to fly a particular plane, you pay a small once off fee and then that plane is available to you.

You might have to search to find a server that has your flyable aircraft on it.

There is no monthly fees for on line gaming and offline campaigns and quick missions.

Although I haven't flown in ROF for a long time I've "collected" a small stable of British planes. One day I might get aroound to using them.

Hah, a free to play/microtransaction model is the best you could hope for in an anti-cheat system! A constant flow of income from microtransactions keeps game company staff on the job of providing updates and gives incentive for the company to keep an eye out for cheaters, plugging holes where needed in regards to exploits/cheats. The company simply has to, it's their money farm now, if they don't tend to their crops, the money stops growing.

Free to play and *regularly* supported games are today's best anti-cheat system...WAAAY better than VAC, Punkbuster, etc. If a cheat happens, it's usually fixed and prevented after it's realized, a la World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, War Thunder. Unlike games like ours truly, CloD, where it's released into the wild with a snowball's chance in Hell to receive protection from cheating; It's released, no longer in developers hands with the leverage they need, or the ability to change a core mechanic to fix said cheats. Battlefield 3, a cheater's paradise -- the cheaters are rampant with no repercussions, no support from the developers...Call of Duty, etc. All games made for quick turnaround and no support.

The $60 games of today are going the way of the dodo. They're not made for longevity or continued support, but are designed for constant sequels 1-2 years later...the turnaround is horrendous.

And Doggles, your argument about not playing a game you're paying for because you're out doing other stuff is moot. If you're out doing other stuff, then don't buy the game, or cancel your subscription for that month. Furthermore, how can you stick to that sentiment and say you go skiing? I'm sure those skis, poles, goggles, boots, bindings, pants, jacket, and cute beanie with the puffball on top cost you at LEAST $500 altogether for the cheapie-cheap-cheapest stuff...yet you only use that when it snows...on a day off. So does that mean you're cool with paying for it when there's no snow on the ground? Why buy ski equipment at all then? Why doesn't that bother you?

If there's a subscription model in place in the sequel, it would be foolish to not follow suit of almost every other F2P model and charge more than $15 USD as other MMOs do. That's pennies an hour per month from your pocket even if you play just on the weekends. Company's recognize no one likes pay-to-win, if 1C were smart, the paid items in-game will be attainable by all, but attainable quicker by the buyers. That's easy to live with.

No one is going to give you a game for free. No one is going to develop a game without securing their interests in being a successful company.

Regarding your first post about not buying their product if "this" or "that", Doggles...I'll see you in the skies of that sequel on day one. Guaranteed.

No it doesn't. It provides incentives to keep producing skins that they charge $5 for.

All your examples miss the point entirely. What a surprise.

Basing your decision on the latest COD release doesn't make it valid. Are you an industry insider/expert? No? Then you don't know if those games are going the way of the dodo or not.

Firstly, because you don't pay a monthly fee for ski equipment. Once you stop growing you can essentially buy one set of equipment that lasts you for life.

Not to mention I never have qualms about spending good money on physical activities because exercise is good for me. Sitting on my ass playing flight sims really isn't so I'm less eager to spend my hard-earned money.

Trying to play the "lol cognitive dissonance" argument won't work, son.

That's your opinion, nothing more. Thankfully, your opinion carries zero weight with me.

Please quote where I said I wanted the game for free. Oh wait, that's what you are arguing for when you advocate the F2P model. What does the F stand for in F2P I wonder?????

I like how you're so confident. It's cute. I'm not bluffing. If you're a huge fanboy that will shell out for the sequel regardless of quality, that's your choice. If they go subscription/f2p I'll be exercising my choice and will have to content myself with other titles.

Don't bother responding: I think you, abortedman, are one of the biggest idiots in this community so I won't be replying to anything you post in this thread from here on out.

Name a free to play MMO that's rife with cheats and hacks that hasn't been patched or addressed.

Compelling argument. I stopped reading there. Hah, I expected nothing more from you.

Don't worry Doggles, those salopettes you bought in 1974 will come back into ski fashion one day ;)

1C don't give **** about our opinion, this topic is a waste of our time, will be deleted like the other one...

They are "bussiness man"... They know what they are doing... hohoho...

Even paid subscriptions don't keep cheaters out.

Even an MMO like world of warcrack (warcraft) at its height of 11 million subscribers, 300+ servers, and $15 US a month could not keep the cheaters out.

The moderators (like dungeon masters or game masters) and their pals all cheated. They even had cheating guilds with programs to fix the game's rolls (it used a modified 20D / 20 sided dice system) or add bonus / mods to the rolls.

The game was hacked so bad, even though Blizzard had hired droves of analysts to check for cheaters.

I was once a hard core WOW player, I worked 8 hours and played 6-8 every day (yeah what a life, I know :mad: ), my guild had the PK (player killer) servers hacked, we had d/l bot / hack / editor programs, we even had a over lay system with ghosted characters and easy text for the n00bs to follow when dealing with the hour long boss battles where you had to move to X Y Z in a sequence with certain party members doing their specialties requiring exact timing.

But the always get 18-20 for the die rolls was the best one we had. It also helped that the game master was in and he'd tell us about the update or let our programmers in on the internal beta test server so they could grab the code.


The closest to cheat free was in the 1946 servers, where people really knew the planes and would let the server admin know.

Or the old counter strike / counter strike 2 servers where most of the clans all knew each other and realized someone was pulling no clip or insta headshot cheats.

A solid knit community working with devs / server admins who are willing to make an effort to stop cheaters is the way to go.

I remember in the better 1946 severs, even people with a 10 kph extra speed, using MW50 / WEP / GM 1 / Forsazh forever, or sporting non period / historical armament (like 8 30mm's) / unlimited ammo, were found out within a few games and kicked / banned the next day.





As for CaptainD's ideas, I agree with them. For the sequel / IL-2 series. If they come out with IL-2 series sequels, with pay per new game / theater and then roll out with a separate MMO alongside the IL-2 BOM, I wouldn't mind the MMO being free to play, and pay for extras etc.



I'm all about supporting the devs, yet to thrive relies on a tried and true concept.

1C's business model for this series is simple. Be the best, accurate as possible, good customer service + work with the community / cater to community needs/wants for the game, make a awesome working game, and put out content (like campaigns, online, planes etc), have reasonable pricing, . . . Great products always sell, and reasonable pricing, and dedication to clients and customers keep them coming back.

Like it or not, I think the days when 50 USD buys a working almost bug free sim with features like CloD had planned, with many accuratly modelled flyable planes and even more AI planes, with off- and online play are over. This money buys you a module like DCS:A-10C, a single flyable plane.

I can accept the way ROF works: pay for new flyable planes or campaigns or maps. I could even live with a monthly subscription, if the content was continuously expanded for that money.

I am afraid a combination of F2P MMO with subscription (premium) possibility is the only way games make money in todays crisis economy. The choice is simple if investors/publishers decide to support the sequel it will be a sort of F2P+subscription MMO. If they decide not to support it, it will be canceled.

After a long break I reinstalled WoT after a major patch 2 months ago and spent about $150 already because it is fun sometimes.

In 2-3 years all decent game developers, programmers and modelers will work for MMOs because they can pay more and others will be out of the market.

MMO is a great model especially for adult gamers who work and value their time: e.g. you can play only once per week, buy a premium account on per day basis, buy premium equipment to make more cash, etc. In WoT it works very well.

Of cause pay-to-win projects are very frustrating and are not popular. Payments must be restricted to time-saving features only but not give advantage on a battlefield.

MMOs are targeted at younger audience. If we do not play it, it will not be a great loss to the market potential. Traditional sim community is already small and becoming smaller every year as it is ageing. If publishers can not attract 16-20 y.o youngsters in one way or another the sim genre is dead anyway (e.g. look at RoF problems).

If MMOs is the only way for the sim genre to survive I am supporting it.

This is all simulation you can get for one time $30+ payment today http://damageincthegame.com/

http://youtu.be/PRYOJmGo8dg

Subscription based model is such a horrible and outdated idea. There is a reason why every new subscription based MMO keeps failing (most recent example is BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic).

IMO, the only viable option for such a niche market game is a free-to-play content-based model. You pay for what you want when you want. Both DCS and RoF are already on this train.

The ROF system works just fine.
 

:-P+1
The ROF system works just fine.
Buy what you want when you want.
I avoid online play in most games,unless TRULY co op.
So Clod with a mission structure like 1946 is just fine.

What about offline players, like me? Will we pay?

I require an adequate AI, will it be fixed or dropped ?

I like the current model, pay-for-patch-with-new-planes :grin:

.

Nope. I have less than no desire to play online.

Difficult for such a game like a sim, because sims usually lives long with scenarious from users. There are so much scenarios and stories to tell, that a model like wot isn't applicable to do things like that. The whole freedom of a typical sim will suffer from this. what about offline flyer and their needed contents? Will they pay?

Also clear is, that such difficult and accurate games with such a small comunity is hard to produce for 50 bucks per user. battlefield could do, even with just 1000 players playing it! Why? Because it is just copy paste with new graphical content. noone takes care of differencies or accurate differencies in weapon impact, flight curves... They just accept eveything as it is as they do not know better and the game just needs to provide motivation and fun! Thats it, but costs are low and they earned a lot with bf3 and the addons, which are now also 100-120 bucks. They earned a lot and do not know, where to put all the money.

Same with wot: casual game, easy and sime fun for casuals and alsi a bit funny for fans of tanks. No accurate data needed, just balancing. I drive it as well and already spent about 300 bucks, although my first intention was just to buy premium to achieve the tanks faster.But now I spent money for 2 years premium, + 1 tank and several times using gold to get out the free xp on some tanks. Never thought I would go that far, but I am just average in the core players. Some of them already paid 100-3000 bucks for this game with nothing special, just casual gaming.

It is difficult, but u can see: I would spent also many bucks into a game which I like. But sims are another world and I do not know, if this would help. Perhaps such games, where u need some own imagination to fill it with life, is dieing out. Hope not. I am still dreaming for a fully simulated, graphically gorgeous worldwar 2 online with clustered servers, a big front and every aspect u dream of. Worldwar 2 online in good would be my death :) Big sim mmorpg with millions of people! just dreaming... :)

To be honest, I don't see what the big hubbub is.

In my mind it's a question of value vs cost. If the product is well made, fun, engaging and has a level of simulation I find acceptable, I'll buy it/subscribe to it as long as I'm having fun.

If it doesn't measure up to what I'm looking for, or if it costs TOO much, I'll leave it alone and not pick it up.

The thought of that it's the way it's sold/made available that will define if I buy it or not is, to be, utterly silly.

Personally I think this is the best way to go for both the user and the maker.. But I think the makers really like the idea of monthly check.. Only time will tell

these treads of late makes me think in the bottom of the ehart everybody is a troll

I have an idea...

They should charge you per plane used and for any repairs. This way every one will take care of their plane and bring it back to base in one piece :)

Also, they could charge for the bullets so pilots don't shoot from 10 miles away expecting a lucky shot.

:grin::grin::grin:

Great idea...

for pilots who have more money than sense:rolleyes:

What about the fuel? Who is gona pay for that? We can expect fluel for free. It would be foolish. People would just use the plane to fly around in private business and in abuse of taxpayers' money.

~S~

Great idea!! I've always been in favor of a system that brings funding into quality development house that deliver a quality product for the discriminating consumer and if that means I pay monthly then wonderful. Thumbs up!

What about a Guildwars 2 price model? Pay $60 for the new game, get free online mulitplayer and updates. Then over time they can release expansions for extra cash as well as microtransactions too.

Colander I am sure with your skills you could add this to the ATAG server, call it the atm mini game ;)

what about this:

for ech plane you fly you have to pay one euro and for every reported kill you get one euro :)

Hey man, don't be insulting mah fashion sense. I think I look pretty debonair on the slopes. You can judge for yourself:

http://www.tuppersteam.com/ski-outfi...ki-outfit5.jpg

lol.. I go skiing to the alps every year, and never seen anything as awful as that! :)

The ladies love it.

Hmm why i'm smelling Astro Glide all over the slope? :grin:
Doggles Prepare yourself to pay my eye cancer treatment medical bills! :grin: