Bless Online - Paymodel

      HaxGamer wrote:

      There is no balance in F2P games, those who can afford to spend their money or their parents/relatives money in games to buy OP items or gold from gold-sellers...are simply destroying the "equality" factor offered by the game of everyone making gold and getting gear through sheer effort, time and dedication putted into the game.

      You probably haven't played well-done F2P games with no imbalance and a purely cosmetic cash shop.
      While not an MMO, Path of Exile is the best example of free to play done right. Their cash shop is 100% cosmetic. Their model can easily be reproduced for MMOs as well.

      I believe that it's common sense that P2W doesn't apply to all F2P games that exist right? So this isn't a matter of not having experienced "well done F2P" or "never played League of Legends or Dota 2" (I did Played LoL but didn't liked it).
      When i mentioned that F2P might not be a good choice for Bless i was refereeing to games of the same genre/category who choose to become F2P but their cash shops contained items that created unbalance in-game and eventually ruined the pvp, etc.
      That is why i don't agree with Bless becoming F2P because games aren't made out of air or water, they costed time, effort/work, money and those who developed for years want to be rewarded by having money coming back to their pockets and they are completely right on that matter, but this is the part where the cash shop comes in and the OP items in it as well, if it were just costumes, potions, exp boosts, skill resets, etc, then it will be more than fine right?
      But unfortunately most of the publishers in NA, EU or even in SEA(Asia) sell OP items in cash shops and that's what i'm afraid that might happen to Bless.
      It's understandable if many of you disagree or don't understand my point of view...i have been in a couple of mmorpg's where they were very similar to Bless by having tons of classes,races...and eventually those games publishers ended up by turning them into P2W in a long time process(and not from the beginning).

      Shiverlynn wrote:

      HaxGamer wrote:

      There is no balance in F2P games, those who can afford to spend their money or their parents/relatives money in games to buy OP items or gold from gold-sellers...are simply destroying the "equality" factor offered by the game of everyone making gold and getting gear through sheer effort, time and dedication putted into the game.

      You probably haven't played well-done F2P games with no imbalance and a purely cosmetic cash shop.
      While not an MMO, Path of Exile is the best example of free to play done right. Their cash shop is 100% cosmetic. Their model can easily be reproduced for MMOs as well.


      Dokanix wrote:

      You have clearly never played League of Legends or Dota 2 if you think F2P is always P2W.


      Onigiri, too.

      But, most games that are F2P get the life and soul sucked out of them by the little wallet-full rich people. Like....
      Who spends 180 dollars on a game that came out... in its first week!?

      People are crazy. 3:<<


      Shiverlynn wrote:

      Haha there was a guy in Blade and Soul China who bought VIP for 5 years the day the game came out.
      I don't know how much that costs, but something tells me I don't wanna know either.


      That's what I'm saying. ; ~;
      I don't wanna play Bless and the very first day peeps already got VIP status and glowing colorful names and dragon swords and stuff. xD


      It matters, because an awful business model can ruin any good game.

      (I'd consider a founder's pack though, since these help support late game development and can be nice to have in terms of bonuses, as long as it's not something stupid like Neverwinter's $200 or Archeage's $150)

      Shiverlynn wrote:

      It matters, because an awful business model can ruin any good game.

      (I'd consider a founder's pack though, since these help support late game development and can be nice to have in terms of bonuses, as long as it's not something stupid like Neverwinter's $200 or Archeage's $150)


      I forgot about those. Maybe I'll donate for this game...


      I stopped paying for F2P founders packs after I spent $100 on Dragon's Prophet and that came came out kinda... 'Meh' even after all the CBT combat changes. I might be tempted to break that streak for Bless after we get more information.

      F2P has a pretty clean track record right now. (At least in terms of semi or well known F2P games.) I think watching how Black Desert and Archeage turn out with their Cash Shops will be a decent indicator of how Bless will do F2P.

      Post was edited 15 times, last by “Red” ().

      Dokanix wrote:

      Seriously, I've never seen a bad F2P. I played Rift, Tera, Aion, Neverwinter, DP and some other games, and they were all kinda balanced. If a game is bad it usually goes P2W to get some money before it dies.


      There are plenty of F2P's you can pick up that have introduced P2W items. F2P hasn't earned it's notorious image for no reason.

      To name a few off the top of my head:

      • RODE (Probably the worst P2W I've ever seen- now dead.)
      • I feel Dragon's Prophet is on the line with its CS items.
      • Allods Online
      • Digimon Masters Online (Horrible.)

      People I play with refuse to touch any F2P games unless it's been recommended by notable people because F2P in their opinion is liquid poison to the game industry.

      There's a huge love-hate relationship with F2P, and its well deserved. We need good F2P games to come out and stay good like LoL & DOTA 2 to redeem the paymodel.

      Post was edited 2 times, last by “Red” ().

      Um... How are Neverwinter and Tera balanced exactly? Neverwinter cash shop has potions that heal you to full and can't be found otherwise as far as I know. Tera, depends on whether you played NA or EU, but EU Tera has insane prices (when I left everything was 5 times as expensive as the equivalent in the NA cash shop) and upgrading materials were removed from NPCs that sold them and put in the cash shop. You could grind for them since they still dropped from bosses but the drop rate had been "adjusted" (read: made frustratingly rare).

      Rift is fine but even they have some really good gear for sale in their cash shop, including a few best in slot pieces for some classes.

      I used to play Runes of Magic (by the same guys who made DP, by the way) and I loved the game but the equipment upgrade system was clearly designed to drain the money out of the player's wallet, and endgame raids basically required you to pay real life money to be able to take them on (well, I mean you could probably take them on in your free to play gear but then you'd be a liability to everyone else in your raid and annoy people). I left because of that, the difference between free players and paying players was just too huge (I played a tank, max level tanks had about 8k HP, while some cash shopper tanks reached 50k HP)

      ^ I wish there was a way to subscribe to people. I actually hadn't looked at other games DP's company had, wasn't aware DP and RoM were related. Dp's future is looking dimmer by the day.

      Anyway, I feel there may be a bit of confusion buried in this thread about what P2W actually means. Dontain is a great guy and this video is really informative on the P2W subject (Warning: Mature Language):



      "When a player can get a permanent or semi-permanent advantage over other players at the cost of real life funds."

      You know, just in case.

      Post was edited 1 time, last by “Red” ().

      Shiverlynn wrote:

      Um... How are Neverwinter and Tera balanced exactly? Neverwinter cash shop has potions that heal you to full and can't be found otherwise as far as I know. Tera, depends on whether you played NA or EU, but EU Tera has insane prices (when I left everything was 5 times as expensive as the equivalent in the NA cash shop) and upgrading materials were removed from NPCs that sold them and put in the cash shop. You could grind for them since they still dropped from bosses but the drop rate had been "adjusted" (read: made frustratingly rare).

      Rift is fine but even they have some really good gear for sale in their cash shop, including a few best in slot pieces for some classes.

      I used to play Runes of Magic (by the same guys who made DP, by the way) and I loved the game but the equipment upgrade system was clearly designed to drain the money out of the player's wallet, and endgame raids basically required you to pay real life money to be able to take them on (well, I mean you could probably take them on in your free to play gear but then you'd be a liability to everyone else in your raid and annoy people). I left because of that, the difference between free players and paying players was just too huge (I played a tank, max level tanks had about 8k HP, while some cash shopper tanks reached 50k HP)


      THIS!! Is a good example of what i meant earlier, it's not that aren't good F2P games out there but it's what happens on most of them and their cash shops that worries me.