Playing many MMO’s in my time its interesting to see how they adapt a F2P model and how it differs. heres a few examples I will talk about, I have only chosen these 4 as I have experiance with them. They are Guildwars1, Lord of the Rings online, Age of Conan online and finally Teamfortress 2.
Guildwars 1 model is probably the simplist and has least choice as since GW1 was a free game originally they can only charge for added content. This shop allows players to dress characters or open slots for you to “recruit” your other chracters into your group, basically one of your characters is controlled by AI. The best thing about this shop is that it does not create any disadvantages to other players in pvp no matter how much you spend. The downsides are they are expensive for what you get and there is less choice than others.
Lord of the Rings was a big mmo and still is, it brought its f2p model in due to perhaps subs dropping and also the view that f2p is a better option. Lotro is perhaps the best model I have seen so far as you mostly purchase items or ares that link to your acount and never go away rather than some offering time based unlocks. The costs are also quite proportionate and give lots and lots of items to choose from. There is also the ability to gather enough points to buy stuff in game without buying points, however this takes a long time, the option is still there. The downsides are probably they are always coersing you to get a subscription somehow and you sometimes feel pressured into getting a sub.
Conan has a very aggresive f2p model, its impossible to gain free points and even when you sub you get such a small amount each month its more like a bonus to when you pay for points. The choices though are good. The bigegst problem is you can never “buy” content only rent it as such with month passes etc, and kinda of defeats the object of the store.. why not just sub. The biggest problem I faced was without a subscription you cannot enter the expansion zones EVEN if you have paid for it! To me the f2p model is nice if you dont mind playing the lower levels and getting a hang for the game, if you want all content and abilities that help you in game… get a subscription.
Finally Teamfortress 2 turned f2p I guess when they released the Mann o store, valve obviously saw it as going to be sucessfull and thought by giving a good game for free they will get more micro transactions… which they have. The Teamfortress store is brilliant, it offers players the chance to play/trade till they get the items they want, or just buy it. It doesn’t really change the game unfairly and there are alot of cosmetics, including player base made items. The bigegst fault is the prices of new items charging ridiculous amounts for a hat. As a casual player I would never really use this store. However it shows how sucessful this sort of thing can be, look up Valves Valentines ring for teamfortress 2… crazy!
Cusicusi's Blog 
Leave a comment