Paying for Planetside

[Meriv]

Originally Posted by TheInferno

They specifically gave those as examples of what they won't do, so I'm not too worried about that.

Thanks for the info

[NCLynx]

Originally Posted by Madfish

I've been somewhat confused how buying one time purchases of horns for your helmets and pink zebra skin for your prowler is going to pay for the maintenance and ongoing development for PS2.

I realise free will lead to a vastly higher population (the long tail of the market!) - and now-a-days population means a lot to senior management. At least, it does where they will be subjected to advertising and marketing (such as facebook). But will that be enough to sustain the game?

As a PS fan, are you planning to pay for a monthly recurring pack (XP boost or whatever) just to renumerate the team? Or are you going to scrimp it? (You're probably NC if you do, free loaders).

How would you feel if contemporary advertising crept in 12 months down the line? This base is sponsored by Mercedes Benz!

As a last paragraph comment (all alone at the end, no one will read me. If you did, Hi!) is the game free, or one off payment for the game? I've seen mixed messages.

I'll likely be both paying for whatever monthly thing they have, as well as station cashing the hell out of my account. I've waited to long and been to excited about this game to not dump money into it.

[Burnzblood]

I don't know about you guys but when Sony had the "Triple Station Cash" sale several months back, I jumped right on that.

$25 for not 2500 SC but 7500!! They will probably do somthing like that again, and its nice to support the team and be ready to buy w/e we need on day 1.

Anyone confirm with devs yet how will will test the Store in Beta?

Like give us Beta Bucks like D3 beta??

[Daffan]

I'd do a subscription just for some benefits. I don't really mind for cosmetics but other stuff is always OK to me, cause you know heaps of other people will have boosts too.

[Chinchy]

Originally Posted by Burnzblood

I don't know about you guys but when Sony had the "Triple Station Cash" sale several months back, I jumped right on that.

$25 for not 2500 SC but 7500!! They will probably do somthing like that again, and its nice to support the team and be ready to buy w/e we need on day 1.

Anyone confirm with devs yet how will will test the Store in Beta?

Like give us Beta Bucks like D3 beta??

Did you know they have a max limit of 50,000 SC? I didnt until I hit it at that sale xD

[GhettoPrince]

Anyone know when the next sale is? Or is it just something you have to check in every day for?

[Rivenshield]

I fail to understand how they're going to make the bugger pay for itself without at least charging for the client, like any other FPS on the market. Full stop. Fifty bucks in, then you're home free -- unless you *want* to spend more.

[DiabloTigerSix]

Originally Posted by Rhyfelwrr

Free to play : League of Legends/ Heroes of Newerth model which is what they are copying.
Pay for customizability, pay for xp boosts

Pay to Win: World of tanks
Modelling the game so players are heavily pressured into using real world money to even be on par with players that are also paying.
Paying to spend less time grinding, paying for customizability, paying for very small subtle advantages, paying for better tanks, paying for skins, paying for stat redistribution without penalties.

Pay to Play: You should know some.

I hated the fact that in a recent interview into the progress of the game, the CEO of World of Tanks was basically explaining how the company will be making money in the next patch.
"Oh yes, this is our new premium tank, its an upgraded version of the regular tank, gets a better gun, armour and manouverability, and is more often put up against weaker enemies.... We are sure that the public will like it."
Add Nauseum.

What im trying to say is that, I hope that planetside 2 stays true to it's word and remains a free to play model.

The worst thing about Pay to Win games is how they make you feel once you pay. From my experience from playing Battlefield P4F and Combat Arms, every encounter with a player with basic equipment feels extremely unfair and makes me feel bad.

Everybody likes to think of themselves that they're good players, but when you have accuracy or DPS advantages over those who don't, this is impossible as it makes you feel like a cheater. About as fun as slaughtering puppies.

[Mr DeCastellac]

EDIT: Ah, I just saw the other post from someone responding to this, and it occurred that you may have misunderstood my point of the "agressive items". Like they said, I was referring to the item itself, not the unlock for it.

Originally Posted by Saifoda

Actually, on the "aggressive items," you CAN use station cash, BUT there are no items that cannot be bought without auraxiam or other resources. You can just get them faster by paying cash. Other games like War Inc etc... (ftp/pay to win models) have certain items that can only be bought with cash and are always bigger and badder than the in-game currency purchases.


For example, you're a medic or whatev and u want a new rifle, u can buy one for, say, 3,000 auraxium, OR with 300 station cash (which comes out to, what a couple bucks I think? I might be totally off on that -- but you get the idea).

I don't think so. They wouldn't let you buy items that give you direct power in a one-on-one conflict. The entire goal of the cash shop is to bring in revenue without selling power.

The things you can buy with either station cash or in-game currency are things like boosters and cert points (assertive).

It wouldn't make sense to pay real money for a vehicle that would normally cost a quite small amount of in-game resources. No one really knows since beta isn't out, but I think you have to buy weapons individually, not pay to unlock them. That's how it is with vehicles for sure.

Don't confuse it though, you do have to have the cert that unlocks it, but I think you pay a small amount of Auraxium for each one you buy afterwards.

[DarkChiron]

Originally Posted by Mr DeCastellac

I don't think so. They wouldn't let you buy items that give you direct power in a one-on-one conflict. The entire goal of the cash shop is to bring in revenue without selling power.

The things you can buy with either station cash or in-game currency are things like boosters and cert points (assertive).

Unlocking upgrades is in-game resources only.
Unlocking 'side-grades' is in-game resources or real world cash.
Unlocking cosmetic items is real world cash.

They've said that was the case for awhile now. The only way you can purchase the direct upgrades with real world money is indirectly through boosts.

[Roy Awesome]

Originally Posted by Madfish

I've been somewhat confused how buying one time purchases of horns for your helmets and pink zebra skin for your prowler is going to pay for the maintenance and ongoing development for PS2.

I realise free will lead to a vastly higher population (the long tail of the market!) - and now-a-days population means a lot to senior management. At least, it does where they will be subjected to advertising and marketing (such as facebook). But will that be enough to sustain the game?

As a PS fan, are you planning to pay for a monthly recurring pack (XP boost or whatever) just to renumerate the team? Or are you going to scrimp it? (You're probably NC if you do, free loaders).

How would you feel if contemporary advertising crept in 12 months down the line? This base is sponsored by Mercedes Benz!

As a last paragraph comment (all alone at the end, no one will read me. If you did, Hi!) is the game free, or one off payment for the game? I've seen mixed messages.

You would be suprised, but there really hasn't been a free to play game that has done 'badly' in the traditional sense of the word.

The thing about Free To Play, is that people just keep spending money on it. some people spend upwards of $500 on a single game. Why? Because they want to. Those people more than make up for the handful that spend nothing.

[GuyFawkes]

Originally Posted by Roy Awesome

You would be suprised, but there really hasn't been a free to play game that has done 'badly' in the traditional sense of the word.

The thing about Free To Play, is that people just keep spending money on it. some people spend upwards of $500 on a single game. Why? Because they want to. Those people more than make up for the handful that spend nothing.

So true

You will always find the odd few . I tried Atlantica online for a short while , and there were people spending hundreds each time a new feature was added to the market , new mount , new costume etc.

Also, just to add . While the dev team we currently have, is all for balance and have the best intentions for the game at launch , once it is launched we have no idea of what marketing team will be in place thereafter.

Within almost no time at all, when ps1 was released , a lot of the familiar names we were accustomed to were moved over to other projects like eq2 . I expect the same to happen this time , eq3 was mentioned a long while ago . In-house designers are moved to where the work is .

Once you have Marketing teams in place , things can get a bit blurry. Recently in eq2 , they added a poll in game , asking a number of questions if you the player would like full hp/energy potions to be added to the market and would you buy them. Most people I knew replied no . Not a size-able snapshot , guaranteed but I rarely saw a comment in favor of them in the chat . Yet they still added them into the game because people will buy them .

Sure, the vocal minority here may talk about balance and no pay to win ethos. But to the plethora of randoms that come to play ps2 ,if the Marketing team see the potential of buying 5000 auraxium for 500 sc , they will sell bucketloads. ''Damn, no resources left because I keep smashing reavers into a wall'' they can either work for more or get some instantly via sc .

Just look at the number of people wanting to be powerlevelled in other games . Laziness is the new norm. If a game is challenging and requires effort and/or skill to be involved in the real meat and bones of it , things soon get brought in to satisfy the lower end , since they are , by default the majority and the real cash cows .

[TeaLeaf]

I'll probably be investing money into getting through the progression system faster. I don't really like progression systems, but it's obviously necessary for a F2P game.

[demonicale]

As much as the game is "free", i WILL be doing some micro transactions to support this game and the great developers who made this game.

I see it as a "thank you"

And the fact i'm a nice guy haha