Free to Play VS. Pay to Play

Yeah in some ways it is not fair to compare GW and WOW but the whole point was that companies who use the p2p model can afford to give the player alot more in return than a f2p model can. It is already proven that people will pay that monthly fee for more playable content.

GW has proven that you can make a good game and still make it free. Some have been playing this game for almost 4 years now. I cant see paying 15$ a month to play a game, 180$ a year, and 720$ wasted over that 4 year period, on top of at minimum 50$ per game for 4 games, not including if you paid for collectors editions upwards of 100$. Add to that more character slots and bonus content and its getting absurd. And dont forget to add the cable bill to that total, so you can even access the game, which is already ridiculous in its own right. Granted, it is a way better deal than my cable television offers for the time spent, but games like that would be like buying a DVD movie and having to pay the cable company every time you wished to watch it.

Now maybe I wouldnt mind paying a monthly fee to play a game if I didnt have to buy the game on top of it too. What the hell are you really buying at the store then, if its useless unless you pay to play it, other than a cardboard box with pretty pictures?

No thank you. GW had given me 1000s of hours of enjoyable content, has kept me interested for years, and hasnt bankrupted me doing it. Especially in an economy where people are being forced to really cut extra expenses. My vote will pretty much always reside on what am I getting for my money spent and GW has proven a good deal hands down. So pay2play games will always loose to the free online in my book. If GW can provide great graphics, a moving storyline, good support, and quality then so can others, and only greed is the deciding factor.

Honestly, GW does the same thing. You can download Prophecies, Factions, Night Fall, and EOTN for absolutely free on GW's website through the game client. All you are really paying for is a serial number to open an account on GW. You don't own the game itself. If you read the fine print, they have the right to deny you from playing "their" game.

Yes Toxin, but GW doesnt make you keep paying to play it over and over every month. What I was going for was that if you have to pay to play every month then the download of the game itself should be free. Not 50$ - 100$ for a game and then still keep paying to use it.

Uhhh, 50-100? I paid $20 for my WoW battlechest (BC and vanilla) and got a month free. That's more gameplay than the $30 I paid for Eye of the North for 8 hours of new quests and reskinned weapons & armor.

The download of any of the WoW games is free. Just download their game client off their site. Just like GW, you do however have to pay for an account to play it. An account for the core chapter itself is only $19. I honestly only see the 14 dollars a month as a fee for a variety of entertainment. It's not that much different than paying for cable as long as you keep getting new material. GW was great, but it's life only lasted 3 years before deciding that they had to make a sequel and stop adding major content to the original. They had to keep making new games every 6 months to make up for not having a fee. So, you kinda were paying a subscription every 6 months. Now the focus is on GW2.

Games always get cheaper over time. I know that when WoW first came out, it was somewhere around $60 or $70 (that's Australian). I don't know if WoW ever had a collector's edition, but if it did you can easily add $20-30 onto that original price. When I started GW, just after Factions was released, I paid $80 I think for Factions CE, and got... well, so far almost 36 months, for free. I would say that EotN was slightly overpriced in hindsight, but I still enjoyed the storyline the first time through.

I dislike subscription games. I waste my time enough on computer games without having salt poured into the wound by having to pay for that wasted time. I also can't afford it, since I'd much rather spend my money going out with friends. I absolutely hate having to make scheduled payments each month, which is something akin to debt. But the main thing is that I prefer to see exactly what I am getting for my money. I much prefer a system where I can choose to buy small content upgrades to my account and can see exactly what my money is going towards.

The 24th is almost here and it should be interesting.

I play Everquest2 and GW. Mostly EQ2 and yes I pay $15 a month and before I was paying $30 for EQ1, Vanguard and EQ2. If push comes to shove in the economic department I may have to cancel for a time, but I hope not.


GW is a nice change on occasion because it's a lot easier then EQ and doesn't take a lot of thought, not counting instances. And after all these years I still like to play it. But for the option of doing so so many different things: Crafting, Questing, Raiding, Instances, I have to say I like EQ better. But that's just me. GW has a place in my heart too.

They both have pros and cons. As for nerf bats LOL you should see the ones that are hitting EQ in the coming game updates. Everyone yells and everyone stays

In the end play what you want, it is entertainment after all. Enjoy the journey regardless the game. And it is just a game

Like I pointed out before - that may be true, but I also haven't done anything close to everything WoW has to offer yet. PvP is much bigger, the world is much, much, MUCH bigger, and there's so many more dungeons to do it's absurd (and contrary to what the guy said about Burning Crusade, it's much more interesting than the classic version. Some of the newer instances, and especially the boss fights, are very creative now that Blizzard is starting to learn that people will only grind through 40 man tank-n-spank raids so often before they get bored and quit).

Guild Wars? Done it all twice and then some. Yea, it only cost me about $175 or so, but I also ran out of things to do much quicker.

It "should be" priced at whatever people will pay for it just like every other product on earth is, and most people will pay an up-front cost plus a subscription (and as an aside, your "up-front cost" also includes your first month's sub, so you're paying roughly $25-$35 for the game itself, not 50-100).

I've plopped about $250 into WoW and it's two expansions so far and it's been worth it. I've spent about $2700 on cable/satellite over the same time period and gotten maybe half the entertainment, and at roughly $5/hour, if you don't get any snacks, movie theaters are out of the question too.

Yea, it's more expensive than Guild Wars, but it's also a lot more involved. I'd still play Guild Wars instead of WoW... but funny thing.... I've had nothing new to do in it for over a year now. If I were interested in replaying the same thing over and over, I'd just spend all my time playing Baldur's Gate or Planescape:Torment again. They're better games than Guild Wars and WoW combined and I only paid about $20 for each, but I've already done everything there is to do in them and I don't want to just keep repeating the same content over and over and over.

Not to the point, really, but I strenuously object to this approach. Blizzard's entire digital purchasing and content delivery system is an unmitigated disaster.

Then don't play them. Your personal preferences say nothing about the quality of the product. I hate paying too much for cars and I can't afford a Porsche GT3. Doesn't mean it's not a great car, just means it's not for me.

That's really what it comes down to. Yea, it costs more, but you get a whole hell of a lot more too. Guild Wars is short, lacks most of the basic features of modern MMOs (and even some basic features of semi-modern 3D games in general) and it's not being actively updated. That's a tradeoff for it being cheap. If that's okay with you, and you're happy spending years playing the same things over and over, fine. Not all of us can do that. I'd rather spend $15 a month and know that there's still a ton of things to experience in the game that I haven't gotten to yet even after years of playing it. At the same time, I enjoyed Guild Wars, and I think I got my money's worth from it, but there's just nothing left to do because they're not maintaining the game anymore in any serious way.

Bottom line: Some (most?) people don't mind paying more to get more when they can.

"Free to play" doesn't really exist.

There are:
- Leech to play. This is only used mainly in pirate servers, where some donate to pay costs and the rest play for free. Usually those that donate get stuff that those that do not will never get.
- Micro pay. This is like leech to play, just legal and more extreme. The few that play get unfair advantages, while those that do not pay are usually cannon fodder and extras to make the game feel less empty. If you remove the non paying players, you'll find the game emptier than maguuma.
- Fees to play. Those suck. They are just a scam. Players will usually pay more that they get, instead getting more stuff the more they pay. Most of those players play those game because their friends are there and they don't want to be left out. People also mistakenly feel like the game is better just because they are paying fees, that's usually because having to pay each month, they feel like wasting money if they played also other games. People that pay fees for games and defend that kind of payment are just deluded fools under a very effective brainwash.
- Pay once to play. This is the best because I say so, of course there are other reasons but the main one is that one. People pay once to buy the game, and then they can play forever. People can leave and come as much as they want, since the game will always be there without having to make anything else, you just have to open the box, install it again, and you are in.

Because there is something else that people like more: "Follow the crowd and not being left alone".

Basically, it comes down to the idea that you have to pay for the game somehow. Either by buying new content every so often, or by paying monthly fees (or both).
At this time, WoW is a more expensive game to play then GW, but that's not entirely a result of the financial model used.
For example, let's imagine that GW was set up so that you purchased it for free, but had to pay a $5 monthly fee to play it. It would then still be cheaper than WoW, even though they would both be pay-for-play.

Really, the only question is - "Is the game worth it to you?"

Edit - P.s. I've done pretty much everything I can in GW, so for the past month or 2 I've been playing WoW. Each game has it's good points and bad points. I don't think I'll be getting any of the expansions for WoW though. I bought the first game for about $25 (including a free month), which isn't bad, but I can't see me paying $50 plus monthly $15 (US) fees for it. Basically, WoW and GW are too old now - it's time for something fresh.

Your ridiculous speculation on the motivations of millions of people you've never met aside, it doesn't change the fact that, obviously, people don't "prefer" free to play as the other poster stated. If they preferred free to play, you'd think that the most successful free to play MMO out there wouldn't be lagging behind the leading MMO in the field by a 2:1 ratio.

Seems to me it's more likely people prefer a good MMO and don't really care so much about whether or not they have to pay a subscription fee.

I know it just shocks the ever-loving crap out of some people to find this out, but some of us don't really mind paying a measly $15 a month for hours upon hours of entertainment. Maybe before you bemoan $15 a month for a video game you should go out and harass the people waiting in line to spend $10 a ticket on "Paul Blart: Mall Cop".

Just a simple choice between what is right and wrong. I believe it is wrong to charge a monthly fee. Just like it is wrong for me to hang out with thieves. In this case the thief is blizzard. You can apply my sentiment to any MMO that charges a monthly fee. Applying words like imperative and dilemma over-dramatize my sentiment.

As you stated people are willing to pay the fee, and that is the problem. Some people are willing to pay more taxes too, does not make it right, I guess that I am not patriotic. Should any MMO be forced into no monthly fee Absolutely Not. If you can charge $40 for WOTLK and $15 a month to play it more power to em.

Now Blizzard has to option to pay $15 dollars to alter the sex of your toon per each change. Give me a break, at this point it is just Greed Unleashed, I do not care how anyone tries to justify it. They have to be laughing back at Blizz HQ. This is still EQ/SOE's fault, blizzard is just being blizzard and doing it better than anyone else.

On the flip side, I am glad that there are many people playing WoW also, this means there is hope Blizzard may just put out a NEW game not related to "franchise titles" we have been getting from them for over a decade. I do not want my son playing Diablo 10; God of Geriatrics, StarCraft; Legacy of the Idea Void and Universe of Warcraft, I have no doubt they could spare 3/4 billion dollars on it. After playing Warcraft from 1994 to 2003 Diablo since 1996 and Starcraft since 1998, I am getting sick of whole thing. Too many sequels is a bad thing.

My views on the subject:

I, for one, have no issues paying a subscription to a game I feel is worth the money. I'm currently subscribed to LotRO. I feel it's worth the money I pay into it for the content it provides. I see it is an entertainment service and most of us, if not all of us, pay some amount of money for some sort of personal entertainment in our lives. Buying a cellphone and then purchasing the contract, buying a tv and then purchasing the cable service; Both examples of buying the product and paying the service charges accompanied by it.

However, I don't buy into the idea that P2P games can always offer more. Both B2P and P2P rely on having a large and sustainable player base to keep up income. A P2P model can easily fail as much as a B2P, or F2P. It's all a matter of the quality of the game. Make it good and people will pay for it. Make it bad and people won't.

Pertaining to P2P, while I feel LotRO is worth my investment, they have the service downtimes Guild Wars doesn't have (or very very rarely has). Since my intital investment back in November, there have been countless service downtimes, server restarts, emergency down time, and unexpected service downtimes; The worst of which often last 4-10 hours.

While they have a support phone number, which I used once, it took more than 3 seperate calls and a near 35 minute wait on hold to get my issue resolved.

P2P, might offer a bit more, but that doesn't make it perfect. For all the money WoW takes in, they never solved the Server Queue issues that plagued the releases of both expansions and the insane amount of service downtimes. In my two 10 day trials for WoW, there was a total of 106 hours of service downtime and often a server queue that moved backwards; From a wait of 20 minutes to 8 hours just to get in. I don't think I could count to 15 hours total downtime for GW in the 2 years I played and I've never had to wait in line once I logged in. When a patch is ready in GW, all I have to do is restart and I can do that when I choose. In LotRO, or WoW, I have no choice. If a patch is coming I'm out for hours.

Now before I get jumped by WoW players, I'm not saying this downtime isn't needed. I know it is. My point is that the P2P model doesn't equate to perfection, or being better, in all areas. Honestly WoW is worth the money paid for it because it is a quality game regardless of waring gaming factions. It just so happens WoW is a game I, personally, didn't enjoy when I played.

F2P also has it's perks. Obviously, being free, that's the big attraction. Also they're far more accessible and the choices are far more plentiful. The downside is F2P games often throw in the catch. You can play all you want, do all you want, but if you want the best stuff it's in the "cash shop".

When I used to play Flyff many moons ago, I knew people who spent hundreds of dollars a month, sometimes even full paychecks, on Cash Shop items.

F2P also, in most cases, sacrifices quality for effeciency and quick release.

Whatever the business model may be, each has shown they can work and each has shown they can fail. As consumers, we just have to be wise on how, or where, we invest the money in relation to what we feel is worth that investment and what we enjoy playing.

I'm going to jump you because you're either complaining about problems that haven't existed for years or you're just making it up. Downtime is still an occasional problem, but 106 hours? No, that hasn't happened in years. There's an hour each day scheduled and there's scheduled downtime for server patches each Tuesday. It's always on off hours when the least people are playing. The biggest annoyance now is that they seem to have a lot of "emergency restarts", but those are 15 minutes each generally, and even that's only every few weeks on any given server.

And queues? Yea, right at the launch of expansions, but not eight hours. You might recall that Guild Wars doesn't suffer queuing issues at content releases and events, but it sure does have a crapload of lag that, in some cases, makes the game pretty much unplayable. Furthermore, when server pops start to have queue problems, Blizzard offers free moves to low pop servers to balance them out.

Yea, there's still queueing issues and downtime issues, but nothing even remotely close to what you described.

I believe there are some errors in your logic here.

It is true some people will go try out a game because their friends are there, I did that with WoW. I didn't stay because I didn't like it. I made a decision based on game play not who was playing.

As I said before I pay to play EQ2 and I also play GW, yes while my sub is running even. Some friends from work have started GW and I've been helping them. Am I sweating about the $15 bucks no; but I am sweating about missing stuff I want to do in EQ lol.

I am neither a fool nor am I brainwashed and I also think that blanket statements should never be taken seriously.

One more time: Play what you like

On topic however, I bet anyone could buy 4 games during the year and get more content, better play and exposure to more genres from those 4 games than any MMO could provide in the same timeframe. Burnout Paradise, DOWII, Kings Bounty, World of Goo come to mind, Dragon Age looks to be massive. This would also have the added benefit of having more that one developer get lions share of the money.

i dont mind paying 15$ a month for a game with alot of content, i mean i make than in less than an hour.

I remember when i got factions, back in 2006, finished the game 2 days after its release. 2days for 49.99+ tax.

The problem i had with Wow and other games, is that they took to much time from me..for example sometimes in an hour i could complete like 2 quests and that's all.So i just became bored since it was taking me too long to catch up with friends who had more free time. That is probably one of the main reasons i stick to guild wars..altho it gets boring after doing the same stuff over and over for 4 freaking years. Eye of the north wasn't that bad since i only paid 9$ for it.

If you have hundreds or even thousands of hours of playtime, read and post on internet forums about a game when you're not playing it, but a $15 subscription fee is "too much money", then there are other better low hanging fruit expenses to look at, if value for money is what you are really trying to optimize.

You say I made it up, but you just ackowledged in the above quote that it has taken place. So there's no real need to explain the position, is there?

Let me restate. It was over two (2), 10 day trials and a combined down time for both of those periods which included the weekly down time periods and extensions. One of those periods included the 24 hour+ 3.0.2 patch process, server restarts and extended service on some realms.

It appears we can both do the math.

Not once did I state that this is the norm for WoW just as great lag is not the norm for Guild Wars. Yet they both occur.

That was the point that was made. The P2P model, using WoW as the example (And LotRO), does not equate to perfection, nor does it solve game play, or technical issues, from the profit difference the P2P model takes against the B2P. If that offends people, I'm sorry...sort of.

Each model has it's pros and it's cons dependant on the players likes and dislikes, but also the quality of the game developed by the company.


Regardless, this is not a thread to debate WoW vs. GW. If you feel the necessity to do so further, take it up with me in private. I've got plenty of good things to say about both games and plenty of complaints about both. As well as many other games for that matter.