Potential "free to play for everyone" idea

I admit I haven't paid too much attention lately to the forums like I used to (story for another day), so if this idea popped up before, ignore and move along. Otherwise, be ready for a pseudo wall of text.

I caught a message in what Jack said on the live stream...that a free-to-play game is supposed to be free. I was shooting ideas to a friend, and I came up with a possible solution so that all players can enjoy the full level grind experience, without being stuck behind an overwhelming pay wall. Bear with me.

With each new episode, there can be a solo (or duo or both) that releases that is of the same tier level, but isn't behind the pay wall of that episode. The duo/solo is free to all players, any alerts or raids are still part of the episode and would need to be purchased. The best gear can still drop from the episode content. The free player can purchase the vendor gear, although it would obviously take longer to acquire. Any plans for crafting the best gear would still be a perk for those that pay (whether premium or sub). All the normal lockouts will apply, nothing else needs to change.

This is an initial brainstorming idea. This is a chance to make the game free to all, on some level, while still giving the best to those that are willing to open their wallets.

Please don't turn this thread into bickering and mud slinging. While I always believe if you like a game, you should just pay, there should be alternatives that can help grow the population and keep the game alive longer for us all to enjoy.

I caught that in the livestream too. Makes me wonder just how much he'll be able to change with WB and DC to answer to. (and vets that have spent *,***.**$ so far since the buy to play with 1 free month of subscription, and subscribe to play there after launch in 2011.) The "F2P" has always been a defined by studio phenomenon. DCUO did a F2P change of their own design at the time it happened. Mega server. Cross Server. New platform.

MMOs start with WoW envy. Then the ADD happened to happen, MOBA!
Latest design jackpot! http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/2/8708521/infinite-crisis-shutting-down-moba-pc-turbine
Can the Arkham series be made into a MMO?
Shirley, this DCUO can be changed.... it has many times.

I think what they're doing with the Open Episodes is a better solution than the one suggested above. The above suggestion is too confusing and fussy. You're just gating players for the sake of $4 per head. When you could be filling those instances with more players, keeping them active and engaged for the real money makers on the marketplace such as the Booster Bundles and (probably) the upcoming Time Capsules feature.

Maybe Jack is disheartened by the Gold Spammers? What are his thoughts on LFG as it is? A game with global chat channels defaultly available?
Hoe many of them make up the F2P census? (banned;new character)

I am more.of the type.to suggest an opposite strategy.

I think most people know, and most of the rest accept it when they find out, that a game advertised as FTP is limited. A drawn in. A way players can test drive before deciding.

I think FTP trial versions are a great idea for any game.

In the case of DCUO, I think the trial should only go to Level 30. A player has made a character and got it into its faction's organization. HQ full access... T1 Instances... now decide...

Subscribe to the game to play, or not.
There is no Premium in this version of reality.

What they need to do is start making DLCs free after like 2 years or something. I was playing yesterday and today since all the DLCs are free and I was going through alerts and raids from stuff like AF2 and WotL2 and those queue times were INSANE. I played for years before quitting and I don't ever remember queue times being that long. And that was for everything I queued for. Nobody plays that stuff anymore, just give it away.

With the population we have as low as it is i wish they woukd transition back to sub only. At our peak we had to of had more subs then we have players now. Complete guess but man we have what 35k end gamers. Just a number i heard tossed around the forums.

You would have a target audience to design for. You would not only get the desired cash per year per customer you designed the game hoping for, but these players are often thise who dump huge sums into the game. Yup exceptions apply but the guy spending fourty bucks or so on content per year is attempting to get by as cheap as possible. To say they will dump huge sums is unlikely. Again exceptions happen.

Dc is becoming super popular between tv and the movies about to hit all time highs. Bvs leading into justice league and such. The flash on tv is huge so DC itself has lure for years to come

Next gen gaming.
If u were here during the original t4 operations where 8 man groups could beat outside bosses or multiple raids could team up u know how epic dcuo could go. Open world pvp and open world in general on ps4 and pc are so much better then ps3.

Dcuo draw backs are bugs, slow changes (power balancing) and cateringto end game pugs of newbies. Its a put off to the long standing big spenders.


Thats what i would like to see

sounds like a fiscally responsible business model and not at all the pipe dream of over-entitled players who believe that in the age of internet everything should be free for them. totally.

So far, we've seen the addition of 100% soder colas, cost money. The announcement of new type of lock box that you can buy keys for. Costs money (yea they'll be obtainable in game but I bet the drop rate or attainment method makes buying them far more attractive). Free month where the main purpose is to sell replay badges to freeps due to the long lockouts and entice subscriptions. Where's the "supposed to be free" at? It looks like the opposite so far. I'm only seeing more drives for revenue generation which is fine. I subscribe and I'm okay with that because I don't mind paying for a game I enjoy. I just don't see any evidence to support that statement about free and everything seems to be going in a completely different direction. I prefer brutal honesty to fluffy feel good announcements and all I'm seeing so far is fluff.

I'm like the "older" content becomes free system.

Anything two Tiers below should be free.

Also, Put in other restrictions besides the money thing (which should be raised considerably.

Restrictions on costume changing or access to styles would be a big wall without affecting any game play. Whether you admit it or not, playing dress up is only second to gear progression.

I think this discussion goes totally in the wrong direction, and sadly, from the start.

We have one of the worst communities in MMO history. It is very likely that due to this, people will stop paying - except for replay badges - if they can get access to content for free. The key legendary perks ATM are

- early access (well, not happening since a couple of updates)
- every content covered with just a single fee
- ingame money access

I don't think the way "give more stuff for free" will do anything good for DCUO. The better approach would be raising the quality and fun level of the content so more people actually want to be subscribed. I know many people here consider the subscription model a dino, but the problem with DCUO is: the game started based on the subscription model, so lots of structures in game and in the content are designed for that game approach.

Add perks for being subscribed, fix the things that don't work, and people will getting to the point of wanting to spend money again in this game. And be sure the additional perks are useful for everyone/every type of gamer. Account bound gift boxes with a long list of different rewards - non-MP-auras, non-MP-furniture, non-MP-iconic styles, extra replay badges, extra marks, pack of scanners etc; all of the previous in account bound versions while also offering some special items allowed to trade to other players - end every subscribed account gets one per month could be a start. One of the "subscription auras" could be the money flying arround your toon thing people asked repeatedly for.

In the end, giving away more free stuff is just away to admit that your product is too weak to attract real customers. That is the point that needs fixing. So after the fast cure to add perks, fixing gameplay is of utter importance.

Only content should be free. EVERYTHING else should have heavy restrictions.

The whole point it for people to actually play, enjoy the game, but feel burdened enough to spend some money.

That, and COSMETICS!!! Its how the other games out there survive, and their customization systems suck by comparison.

Problem with making content free is that it will do two things.

1) Paying players will start to get upset when they feel that they are getting less for their money. (Proof is anything free recently or good example T4 inner.)
2) Non paying customers will start utilizing the system and ultimately abusing it which will just result in problems for paying customers. Happens quite often.

I think they should make content through T6 free with the long lockout if you don't have the content.

I also feel very strongly that episodes should be free to access. We need the queues filled. A stipulation would be that without purchasing episodes, you can only earn marks and prestige. You can only buy vendor gear. All other drops would require the purchase of the eps, or legendary. Would make more sense after CR diff' is removed, so lowbies can fairly contribute.

Good thing everything is free for me anyways, with my lifetime sub.

I haven't ran into queue problems. I have all my toons geared for either DPS and their role and I get queues at nearly any tier (I have CR113 through CR 170 characters) and almost never wait for more than a minute and queues pop for both DPS and support roles constantly. I don't a see queue problem to address. To the opposite in fact. PvP is essentially free and even though there is zero cost with PvP those queues take several minutes at times. Free content doesn't mean faster queues.

Legendary is already stripped of some worth by the low shelf life of content and CR relevancy.

I think it'd make legendary more appealing if the five bucks worth of MC was removed and the five was taken from the fifteen monthly price point, making it ten.

Something still needs to be done about gearing too fast. You shouldn't be clearing a whole tier in under an hour. You should want people to at least play everything in a tier 4-5 times before moving to the next tier.

That's actually something weird: a lot of newer games come with far far inferior customization systems compared to older games. SWG, EQ2, CoH/CoV - great customization; DCUO is more limited compared to those but: devs pointed out often enough that the console was already taking its toll during development (especially for body types). Newer games either have direct connections to some of the mentioned games or make customization some of that "yeah, we have some of it and now shut up already"-additions that really look like the companies behind some doesn't really care. Wonder if we're seeing the end of customization systems.

However, for your whole point: I don't buy into the free content thing. DCUO attracts a lot of "entitled freeloaders" and that type usually doesn't part with their money for optional stuff. Top of that: take the content access away from the subscription as a perk and the subscription won't be selling anymore either. We don't have the strong focus on the replay badge loot lottery progression for no reasons; the current community made somewhat clear that they don't care about secondary features in majority.

You can go the way suggest with a new game from the start, no problem (except for the cosmetics have to be of a certain min quality to be worth real money) but changinge the financial structure in an existing game is technically exchanging your audience for a differen one, at least in parts. And that didn't work out so well for Daybreak when they tried it back in their SOE days....

In everquest their other game, they allow people to play all of the content except the newest content for free.