This Game P2P or F2P

[wingguys]

This game it's P2P or F2P i'm curious

[Damon]

Hi Wing! We do not have a set payment model in place yet.

[Darthorious]

This game it's P2P or F2P i'm curious

Even though they have not decided on that I would say my own personal opinion is it will end up being P2P if everything pans out for them. Reason I say that is have you ever seen a MMO with graphics like their demo that is F2P?

Not only that but from what little they have told us this really has the potential to upset WoW if they can get a good publisher behind them...

I still think this game is gonna do WoW in just due to the fact I don't know why a publishing company wouldn't back this project.

Look at cabal online it's not even close to having as good of a game as this will be if the developers can get the backing for it. And they are pushing that game all over the markets. (Not saying Cabal is bad I beta tested it just this one will be quite better IMO)

[isobar]

I have always been a fan of F2P with cash shops, but by the looks of this game, p2p might be the only way to go. If thats the case, it helps keep the little kiddies out anyway.

[Ziegler]

I have always been a fan of F2P with cash shops, but by the looks of this game, p2p might be the only way to go. If thats the case, it helps keep the little kiddies out anyway.

o.O
What p2p game have you been in that didnt have a bunch of kiddies in it? Everyone I have been in has had youngin's in it.

How about rating though...Rated M or T as the target?

[isobar]

o.O
What p2p game have you been in that didnt have a bunch of kiddies in it? Everyone I have been in has had youngin's in it.

How about rating though...Rated M or T as the target?

True... when I first started playing Everquest I managed to avoid all the little kiddies... although I was only 16 myself.

[Damon]

Thank you for the kind words Darth =) Welcome Isobar! and Zieg that signature is awesome. Great posts guys. We will have to see how the market changes and where it goes in the next few years. As a Game Developer I live and die by the smoothness of gameplay, as an entrepreneur I live and die by the numbers. The money MUST come from somewhere. With an MMO of this size we will have a quite large operating cost, and as Darth said if we reach our goal as the #1 MMO they will be quite high.

When a single player game is finished you recoup your costs of production from box sales, you can see it as Content goes down from launch. You can sell expansions or episodic content to help raise more cash. MMO games are different. On a bell curve as players eat up content at a sometimes crazy rate you must spend alot of resources ramping up for the next content expansion, improving the game, upgrading servers etc. This all takes careful planning.

We have discussed all business models. I do spend many sleepless nights going over estimates, strategies for overseas markets, what will the market hold, what is the right point price. Can I fill a missing void. The most important thing I think about is you the gamer, and there is one truth. You will pay for quality. We all like free, but you will have no problems paying for a sick game, and we are doing everything in our power making Kaos War just that game. A game of quality, fun and enjoyment for years to come.

[isobar]

Well if you manage to pull this game off, I am sure you will get a lot of followers. I understand the economy of a MMO, server costs, if something goes wrong you gotta pay someone to fix it, gotta keep fixing bugs, and balancing the game, gotta add new content to keep people around. Which is why I figure you will pretty much be forced to go p2p, and most likely b2p also, so you get some inital funding before the monthly fees start racking up.

One thing I have noticed for only being here one day, anytime I see a community where the developers are involved, I know the game has great potential. That is enough to keep me around to see how things develop. Count me in for the long wait!

[Darthorious]

Well if you manage to pull this game off, I am sure you will get a lot of followers. I understand the economy of a MMO, server costs, if something goes wrong you gotta pay someone to fix it, gotta keep fixing bugs, and balancing the game, gotta add new content to keep people around. Which is why I figure you will pretty much be forced to go p2p, and most likely b2p also, so you get some inital funding before the monthly fees start racking up.

One thing I have noticed for only being here one day, anytime I see a community where the developers are involved, I know the game has great potential. That is enough to keep me around to see how things develop. Count me in for the long wait!

Have to agree with you 110% there lol...

Also another idea to look into would be to sell exclusive in-game items. Reason I say that is several past MMO's I've played players if they logged in such and such a time you get a free whatever. And I have had quite a few times where I missed something and would kick myself and most of the time if not every time I would have paid cold hard cash to get the item. However I'm totally against ebay buying lol...

Good example is when I delayed buying an expantion set for Star Wars Galaxies. Well everyone that purchased the expantion when released got a Desert Skiff basicly that giant thing Luke is on when jaba is telling him to jump off in the pit. The pit with tenticles that Boba Fett ends up falling into.

Well of course later on I get the expantion but that mount/vehicle didn't come with it after the initial offer. It was nothing special persay or game breaking but I always wanted one and they were no-trade items. So I would have paid cash for one if there was an option to do so.

[Damon]

Having live events with special items is an awesome thing. Though as now a designer I've felt that if you pick up Kaos War 2 years after release players should still have the same access to content(and items) others did at release.
After you start to see the way we have designed our itemization you will see more of what I mean in a very big way. It is innovative and revolves around you as a player. We hope to be so innovative in this game you just smile from ear to ear just thinking about it. We really design this way. Much love and hand crafted care is going into this title and hopes to stand the tests of time.

[a chewy rock]

I think it's somewhat unfair to only offer certain "special" items at certain times like Day 1 or something. Not everyone has the ability to do that and more often than not, those items are non-tradeable so if you miss out there's no way to get it. I do like the idea of special useless but cool items with cool effects or looks that are givin out on the holiddays or something like that. This way nobody gets an advantage but just a cool little toy to play with and show off. It doesn't help them in any way, it just looks cool.

All players should be able to get an item if it benefits or gives them an advantage over others. If they can't then it's not fair for those who missed out unless they are tradeable items. There's always a seller and a buyer when it comes to things like that.

A way to not have to worry about people missing out on those special items would be to have the item placed in the players inventory so it's there when they next log on. That way nobody misses out.

[Spartan]

I was just thinking. In every game their is, you can never loot the enemies entire stash, which is kinda dumb. It would be nice to be able to loot the entire ARMOR/WEAPON/ITEM from an enemy. Instead of random drops, why cant we loot everything.

Also, the special items should be tradeable because you can always trade with people. Special Vendors should also be in place to sell the items once the event is over.

.Hack the Series had an interesting concept at how that works.

[Ziegler]

couple issues have to be dealt with though Spartan.

One, the data base space. Coming from a PnP DnD background, I can tell you that when you try to track every single piece of equipment on a mob, that ends up just being junk to sell to a vendor, it is wasted effort. Much easier to just give some random amount of coin and be done with it. Otherwise, you have to have either a huge inventory space for the character(which drags on the DB) or the stuff just gets left behind anyways.

Special items being bound are to counter Farmers, to keep them from ebaying and it also keeps twinking down as well. So generally I am for BoA items.


Now what I dont want to see, is me killing a wolf and pulling full plate mail armor off of him for loot.

[a chewy rock]

Why kill the wolf?, just ninja loot it from him while he's alive. But anyway,I don't see how a wolf or creature like that can have items such as plate mail with them either. It doesn't make any sense.

[Spartan]

I meant for a human type warrior/archer people. If they have a weapon, you should be able to pic it up.

Yes sometimes its just junk to sell, but hey, who doesn't like money.

[Will]

Personally this issue is on a fine line, and it's somewhere between "immersion" and "pointless tasks". There's a lot of issues like this, so you take the Pros and Cons and go from there:

Pro: Immersion. A monster swinging a sword should drop a sword. It makes sense.

Con: Inventory space, If you're doing something in the name of immersion, it may kill immersion just a bit. Try to imagine your hero lugging around 800 swords. Also raises balancing issues with consumables and other inventory items.

Con: Balancing / Immersion issues. Why do Deadly Gunners drop their cool rifle, but it has crummy stats? Well we can't make them drop a great weapon everytime, or we end up with balance issues, so we have to make it worse than it probably should be. So you ask, 'Why does the Deadly Gunner's weapon suck so bad?", and although it makes sense for balance, it doesn't make sense in the game world.

Con: Economy / Moneysink issues. With all of those items coming into the world, you'll need to take those into account in the economy. Can they be melted down into raw materials? Is a backback full of armor a more efficient way of gathering Iron than Mining? Will these items need to be nearly worthless to keep the economy intact? Will players get frustrated that mobs drop so much nearly worthless items?

I'm not suggesting that there are NO answers to these proposed questions, simply that it raises a lot of concerns. I have no problem with monsters occasionally having an item, wielding it, and dropping it. In fact I thought it was great that in Everquest, I could see the Ghoul lord holding his Sword, and I knew it was going to drop. I loved that, and it was immersive and helped the game.

So my opinion wavers, but I think there's a middle ground that makes sense for both immersion and balance.