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View Full Version : Unique Twist Joins P2P and F2P



Blackwater
06-17-2010, 04:35 PM
Ok, I've never posted to any forum ever, so please forgive any social mistakes. I'm proposing something I believe has never been tried. Since the f2p crowd, aka "Farmville" etc... has seen huge success (Seriously, I was at a local library the other day and a 60 year old woman was on the library computer managing her farm,) I propose Xsyon captures this spirit.

Here's how I propose it should work:

If I don't want to pay to play I can agree to join a tribe and turn resources into usable goods. I could craft, I could farm, I could do manual labor and what I receive in return is protection of the tribe and my efforts. Yes I'd be an indentured slave, but I can imagine a way to freedom (including forking out the money to be a freeman).

The paying members would constitute the leadership and the warrior class that protects the community.

Resources can not be gathered by non paying members either. Only paying members can gather and provide the resource the f2p crowd can work with. This mitigates the chinese farmer or trial account exploits.

I look forward to a discussion on why this might work or not. I and the community do not look forward to any flames.

Virtus
06-17-2010, 04:55 PM
while right now I would have to say there is no chance of this happening, if the game takes off after release and is stable for a few months to a year it might be something to look into.

Your suggestion is interesting however, i feel that the limitations you suggest for F2P are way to strict, yet, at the time time, any less and it would be too much.

I would love to hear other people's thoughts and suggestions.

Cunk
06-17-2010, 05:04 PM
It's not unprecedented. Wurm Online supported this sort of model for quite some time before they opened up a newbie island and isolated non-paying customers there. Before that F2P players could mix with the rest of the population but their skills were capped. It was a pretty good setup and helped fill the world out a little. We had hundreds of forum members trying out Wurm and contributing a little each to the building of our first village. And after that we could always count on waves of newbies whenever we started a new project. Now that free players can't play on the main servers that doesn't happen anymore.

The main problem (and the reason they made the newbie island) was griefers. Since it didn't cost anything to make new accounts it was pretty easy to cause trouble and then flee to a new account if you got caught. Honestly I never thought the griefing was all that bad but I guess the GMs complained enough for the dev to open up the F2P island.

zephar123
06-17-2010, 05:49 PM
Biggest issue has always been unfortunately with F2p it attracts alot of the scum. Griefers and exploiters.

Don't take me wrong I see some merit of your idea, of course this project here their is no way they could afford a F2p right now for several obvios reasons.

One issue with your idea though, their are quite a few players that are here just to collect resources and build we don't want to do anything else. We are also willing to pay a sub for this.

Blackwater
06-17-2010, 06:11 PM
I'm most appreciative of all the thoughtfull comments, thankyou! After reading all so far, I'd still submitt that the griever crowd that is typically using the F2P mode (via F2P or trial) can be silenced via a mechanic that says, either you're active in combat (aka, you've paid) or you're active in crafting or farming (aka, you're contributing to the wealth of the tribe).

Also, the tribe leader has the ability to instantaneously boot any member who is not contributing in a positive way to the tribe.

Cunk
06-17-2010, 06:58 PM
Griefing is never as simple as that. Nor is dealing with it. Not that I'm saying the possibility of griefers is a reason to not allow free players. It's just a balance thing. What are players willing to put up with in return for a more bustling world.

The other thing to consider is that these devs have already said they don't plan to let the server population grow unfettered. The lead dev hinted that they may cap the population (I forget the number and I'm sure it depends solely on what the server can handle while maintaining performance) so depending on how many people wind up interested in this game it's not likely he will be willing to sacrifice paying slots for free slots. However if the core paying populations levels off far below his cap then maybe he will consider some sort of F2P model to get more bodies in here (perhaps after trying a free trial).

Virtus
06-17-2010, 07:09 PM
could aways do what some F2Ps do and have limited free slots. Also, to stop combat griefers F2Ps could have less damage and less weapons to access etc. Sure it would be limited play but the idea to is nudge them into paying for it in the long run.

pid73
06-18-2010, 10:58 AM
I have a similar idea that could be very very cool:
- download client
- don't register (stay anonymous)
- don't login but press a button "play without account"
- play casual style, just to enjoy landscape and see if the client works and stuff
- no chat, no forum, nothing
- but.......

=> but you can't play a human. You get to play a mob (bear, dog, whatever) and will not be able to do anything but attack humans. This will be much like being an anonymous spectator but you will lend your "intelligence" to guide that special mob and make it more life-like for the real players. Get hunted and killed... but you can "get in" casually, anonymously and for free...

want to elaborate on that?

cbowsin
06-18-2010, 11:26 AM
I've mostly played Subscription games, and I would say they too have their fair share of griefers and exploiters. I don't think these types of gamers limit themselves by payment method.

As far as payment method goes, I am mostly an advocate for options. Not everyone plays the same, so I see no reason why everyone should pay the same.

That's a pretty good idea PID. Don't forget we may also have undead and mutants, so we could include them as well. lol.

pid73
06-18-2010, 11:31 AM
w00t!

Undead would be perfect for that kind of gameplay :D
Imagine you can't move fast, can't chat, can't do anything an undead can't, but you can make some emotes, run and attack, showing some limited intelligence, just like undeads :D

joexxxz
06-18-2010, 11:34 AM
Pid73, you got some talent, but hmm, hate to bring this up, what about lag that we experience all the time? :laugh:

pid73
06-18-2010, 12:26 PM
lag? what lag? when other players get near you?

even the UT3 engine has lag, but with the zeroping algorithm you don't feel it :)
DF uses client-side hit detection (zeroping), too.

http://www.zpmode.org/

Once Jordi decides to use dead reckoning you won't notice it that much.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3230/dead_reckoning_latency_hiding_for_.php

The other kind of lag (clicking a button and having to wait 3 secs to see the action done) is something different... with Ajax you use spinners and such:

http://ajaxload.info/

What else do you want to know? :)

Cunk
06-18-2010, 01:57 PM
I'm sorry but that kind of feature would be a griefer's paradise. Anonymously playing a creature for free that could harass paying players by attacking them? That would be laying out the red carpet for them.

In addition it could be used for risk-free spying. (Here I'm making the assumption that spying will serve a purpose in this game which may or may not be accurate.) Imagine being able to run around the map as an inconspicuous raccoon or squirrel, checking up on enemy layouts or activities.

pid73
06-18-2010, 02:19 PM
yes, these are issues that should be addressed, but I think (hope?) there could be some safeguards in place to avoid some of these abuses. for example you start at a random location. you have limited time (15 minutes until you will be kicked, then another player may take over). you cannot choose the mob. it will be quite slow and have very little options to interact with the world. the vision will be adapted to the mob (much like as bullfrog did in Dungeon Keeper, e.g. blurred, deformed, limited, colored vision). the mob will be medium/large size (easy to spot) and well-known to be that kind of thing (there is no equivalent NPC). like radiant zombies you can see from afar, because they shine with green radiation...

Xsyon
06-19-2010, 05:23 AM
but you can't play a human.

What what? Have you been spying on my game documents, pid?

What you propose is actually under consideration for post-Prelude. It was part of our game documents written over 10 years ago.

Players could opt for free or a low monthly fee to be able to play creatures and monsters. They could attack humans and each other but would not be able to loot or otherwise destroy anything.

Basically they would act as more intelligent MOBs. Or less intelligent, depending on who plays them ;)

There would definitely need to be some limitations such as:

These creatures can't enter tribal territory.
Players can't delete their creature. They can only create a new creature when it dies.
A limit on creatures / account and a time delay for creating a new creature after the old one dies.

These limits would tie in to the 'cheap' rather than 'free' account so that griefers couldn't create an unlimited number of accounts.

Well, these are all things I'm considering for the future. It will definitely need to be tried out extensively on a seperate test realm before adding something like this to the real game world.

pid73
06-19-2010, 10:48 AM
I just made it up :)

Someone said "slaves" and I thought "human slaves playing the mob part so that the human master (paying player) can have more fun" :D
That's much like in medieval times when there were no more foxes in the shire and the King took a peasant, put him a pelt on the back and then yelled "RUN!"...

zephar123
06-19-2010, 01:30 PM
Xsyon wrote:


but you can't play a human.

What what? Have you been spying on my game documents, pid?

What you propose is actually under consideration for post-Prelude. It was part of our game documents written over 10 years ago.

Players could opt for free or a low monthly fee to be able to play creatures and monsters. They could attack humans and each other but would not be able to loot or otherwise destroy anything.

Basically they would act as more intelligent MOBs. Or less intelligent, depending on who plays them ;)

There would definitely need to be some limitations such as:

These creatures can't enter tribal territory.
Players can't delete their creature. They can only create a new creature when it dies.
A limit on creatures / account and a time delay for creating a new creature after the old one dies.

These limits would tie in to the 'cheap' rather than 'free' account so that griefers couldn't create an unlimited number of accounts.

Well, these are all things I'm considering for the future. It will definitely need to be tried out extensively on a seperate test realm before adding something like this to the real game world.

interesting idea,

VowOfSilence
06-22-2010, 04:52 PM
pid73 wrote:

even the UT3 engine has lag, but with the zeroping algorithm you don't feel it :)
DF uses client-side hit detection (zeroping), too.

http://www.zpmode.org/

huh? i don't get it, how does that work? why does client-side detection make a difference? if anything, it sounds more risky. i'm surprised that DF (=Darkfall?) does that.


On topic: My favourite model is still the one that GuildWars/GW2 uses, Buy2Play. Pay once, then play at your own pace. Strange that nobody picked it up. I guess Cash shops just make more money, even though everybody on the internets seems to hate them...
Although using emotes to communicate with F2P zombie-slaves sounds hilarious xD

pid73
06-23-2010, 10:13 AM
darkfall, yes.

response time is very important for the look and feel of an interface.
it makes a great difference but it has some caveats (for usability) because there still is no frame of reference (and never will).

it is more risky because you expose stuff to the clients. but security can be enforced by other means.

KeithStone
10-26-2010, 01:39 PM
another thing that could be done, is don't allow the f2p player delete their town. Once the character is created, they can't delete it and they are locked with that character forever or until they upgrade account.