Fortnite,destiny, smite, eso, leauge do I have to name anymore? Those are free to play or buy once for like $10 and play for free with 0 restrictions. You can pay for cosmetics
With open episodes how exactly are you restricted from getting to end game in DCUO. In the latest episode its even entirely free, what restrictions are you upset about exactly?
Dude. I’m not talking about myself. That’s the thing about you guys on the forums y’all only care about yourself. In order for dcuo to grow it needs more revenue. How can that happen? More players. Make the game more accessible. Open episodes is brand new!!! That’s 1 step, nice! Now they need to raise the escrow cap or get rid of it and make sp more easily attainable. They need to advertise they need to update the damn engine and graphics.
1. Open episodes is hardly new it's been going for over a year now and seems to have no signs of stopping. 2. The Most recent episode is entirely free, you can progress to the maximum extent, technically speaking. 3. How exactly does having no access to cash prevent you from progressing? It doesn't, it just means you can't buy shiny **** on the broker. 4. Every DLC is accessible, so anyone can obtain SP simply by putting in the effort, unless of course you're suggesting people be able to obtain SP by "having more access to the game" but not actually play it, let me try not to laugh hysterically at the stupidity of that prospect right there. 5. You can't just "upgrade an engine" doing so is effectively remaking the entire game, you could probably get some graphical improvements but you're not getting a new engine, just forget about it.
Made similar points with the fact Seasonals are also free. Death of Superman is literally like a free episode (Event). But I guess he skipped my message lol I agree so much with everything you said.
Actually just having more players does nothing. More players means more load on the servers and potentially more issues. Those players need to spend something, but are not forced to. If you are talking about people being forced to spend money...making it truely not a F2P game, I think that's worse in the end. F2P does give players a chance to try it out, then decide if they want to spend more...maybe much more. The things you are suggesting will cost money. No escrow means a drop in membership(some people sub only for the access to cash...guaranteed) and loss of escrow token sales. And making SP 'more attainable'...if you mean selling...will make money for sure, but for how long as people burn out on the spend-spend-spend mentality. And while I agree some advertising would be good (especially tied to DC media outlets), that will definitely cost money. Your original question had to do with is the game playable as F2P? Yes it is, but it's certainly lacking, and that's good. I'd think most people decide pretty quick if they want to drop a few bucks, become a sub or bail out...within a few days. A better question might be if the sub was good enough (meaning we didn't HAVE to spend money on top of it, would more of those new players sub vs staying F2P or maybe going premium and spending a minimal amount (maybe 5-6 bucks a month average)? Right now, the 2 big things that make membership better than a-la-carte is you get some value directly from benefits that HAVE value, just enough to make it worth about the $15 it costs...the other thing is the escrow, which you don't like. Take the escrow away with whatever membership changes come and now it's a toss up...probably meaning more people will just not sub and spend the money $15 at a time on whatever they think they need that month...or maybe let it slide altogether. Everyone would like to see DBG make enough money to make improvements...but none of us want to be the ones they make it off of...at least not more than we are comfortable spending. I know personally I give my fair share in Membership and some additional spend on seals or upgrades on my premiums as needed (although I do buy them on sale most of the time)....that's all I'm comfortable spending. Some others like spending more, good for them. That's not a 'only care about yourself' mentality...it's knowing your limits.
I like the term "Free to try" yeah that kind of sums up the model that DCUO uses. Level 1-30 are one big demo, like old Shareware.This game is not Free-to-play. I mean yeah sure it's been nice the past year with the open episodes it feels more F2P but it is really not. You will be constrained and feel it constantly. Please, just sub if you want to play. It will make the experience a lot better. I've been playing MMO's since UO first came out.. I've been gaming a lot longer than that. I guess because I grew up with the sub model so I have a certain value/return ratio and DCUO is a really big outlier on my scale. GW2 is pretty close to actual F2P. The base game is truly Free To Play with no restrictions on actual game play or advancement. There are convenience items to buy (more bags, endless harvesting items) but for the most part it is completely supported by cosmetic items. Yes, you have to buy actual expansions for further content, but they also have no real restrictions on gameplay or advancement. I don't count expansion purchases as disqualifying a game as F2P. There are some boxes you can buy keys to unlock that has a chance to have some gear (basically Promethian boxes or Time capsules) but really they aren't that great, and are not tied to progression in anyway. SWTOR is similar to DCUO in business model. It offers free to play base game (1-50 class storylines) with a fairly substantial limit on credits (though this can be worked around with Legacy storage), and limits on what gear you can equip (unless you buy the unlock). The "premium" model is pretty fair, a bit more open than DCUO's version, but you'll still have to purchase xpacs for additonal content. The sub option unlocks almost everything beyond cosmetics on the market (which most can be purchased from the broker.) You are also granted 500 market credits a month and get a market discount (like DCUO sub).But.. that being said the Market Place stuff is by far cosmetic in nature, or convenience (level skip). There is not really any pay to win like DCUO's artifacts,nth metal, exobytes. WoW obviously is still sub based with a new xpac every few years. You get it all for $15/month, no strings attached, and the only real "convenience" thing to buy off the market is a level boost. Outside of that anything sold on the blizzard market is 100% cosmetic only. FF14 is $15/month plus the xpacs every few years just like WoW. They release quite a bit of additional content for free (if you own the xpac) as the xpac ages. There is no restrictions on gameplay or advancement. The market items are purely cosmetic, with a increased sub option ($1 or $2/month) for additional bank space. The Secret World is F2P with a $14 (I think) subscription option. F2P is pretty open, I believe you can play through all the content with no real restrictions. There are premium chests that cost keys you have to buy either with in game cash, or through the market. The boxes are full of RNG garbage and really suck. Subbing gets you a xp boost, some market credits (kind of like DB cash) You can also buy boosts and such from the market. Power Progression is actually similar to the DCUO Artifact system with the huge time sink, but no failure rate. It gets to a point of Pay to Win.. but really you've burnt out all the content by the time you get there. There has been almost no development on this game in 2 years. Eve online has a lot of F2P content with some of the endgame stuff being $15/month sub only.. but honestly I don't have as much experience with this game because the time sink abyss was bottomless. The value proposition of a sub in DCUO would be ok IF you eliminated open DLC, it would be basically the same as SWTOR's model (but with FAR less content). The problem however that is unique to DCUO is that it locks actual character progression behind an additional paywall. You cannot in good faith argue that you an get artifacts to 200 without buying seals. This model is much closer to crappy mobile games where you have to spend $20 on a powerup to complete a level or whatever. No other current MMO I've ever seen has a Pay to Win component as blatant as DCUO. Nor have I ever seen a MMO outside of the mobile realm where the value of your purchase is so poor. $10 for Perfect Nth Metal 75000 xp. According to DCUOSourcewall calc, it would take 23 of these to get a single artifact to 200 from 0xp. That's $230. That doesn't include the additional $20-25 in seals (unless you're using your DB cash stipend on these) So.. somewhere near $250 for a single artifact.. multiply that by 3 for a single role, or 6 for both roles.. plus more if you do super high end fancy artifact swapping, all on to of paying $15/month. I mean.. it's astounding. No other game on the market to my knowledge comes even close to this. If you know one, please post it because I'm genuinely curious. So what's my point? I guess my point is, DCUO is not F2P, nor is it a sub based game. It is Pay to Win. When you lock character progression behind a paywall, even if it's not felt like that level of progression is "needed", it is by definition Pay to Win. The concept that "they have to make money somehow" is a red herring when you compare it to the above games. Most of them are doing Ok and do not have a pay to win component. The data from the EG7 sale claims the Average Return Per Paying User is $47.5. I assume that's folks that are already subbed. That's amazing.. I'm not entirely sure how they pull those metrics.. but wow. That's almost like everyone buying a couple months old AAA game every month. DCUO makes a crap ton of money, so yeah.. things probably won't change. All that being said, this doesn't mean DCUO it's not fun.. it is, but to me at least, the whole business model just feels super abusive and I absolutely hate having to click "buy this seal" on the market with my DB cash stipend. I purchased 10k DB cash last time there was a double arti xp.. I will never buy DB again. $85 didn't even get a single artifact to level 200. I will continue to pay a sub to play but I will never spend another dime in the store, nor will I ever recommend this game to anyone without the caveat of "It's fun.. but..."
I’m not familiar with all of those, but the ones I am familiar with are all there to draw you in to spending money with a free offering, and some are wildly success and profitable. The principal is the same with DCUO, all that varies is the implementation. They have to create an incentive to spend money, or nobody spends money and the game fails commercially. It’s obvious DCUO couldn’t survive from marketplace cosmetic sales in the way Fortnight does. Personally, I see the levels 1-30 as a free taster and tutorial. For most new players that’s probably something like 12 hours of play. After which, being free-to-play becomes increasingly difficult.
I'd like someone to honestly answer one question: Why are people here repeating the "Levels 1-30" line like it's the only thing f2p has available to them??? Did everyone suddenly suffer partial amnesia and just forgot Tiers 1 through 3, and the Tier 4 Duos and Alert??? And for years now we've had event level access to every new episode...why is that not also part of the conversation???
Kills an blows my mind how ppl say “pay to win” and “pay to play” as if its a bad thing or evil or the wrong way..... At what point in your lives did you adopt this false sense of entitlement? Come back to the real world OR welcome to the real world. Things cost $ in the form of investment and time to produce. If your investing in and producing something ppl want they will exchange money to you so they can have it. This is basic..... theres nothing wrong or evil about it. Te less “free to play” the better IMO. In the real world, if any game were truly free to play, and there was never a single reason or need to spend then there’d be no game because they cant/wont produce it for you for free. The bigger the investment, the more $ they need in return for it...... If you disagree my heart goes out to you and your delusion world you live in. Just wow, ppl actually believe that they are entitled to play this an other games free and are entitled to all the same things an entitled to the same progress etc....... just sad how delusional the world is becoming
NGL, DCUO's only issue currently for free players are the message restrictions and the money cap that players earned through playing the game, I think those are the only 2 that should be addressed in the future or ASAP, but other than that free players have access to most content in the game and is not forced to pay for powers, and this idea of buying XP for artifacts is all in the individual's choice.
Oh hell, I forgot about that crappy message restriction, who brought up that idea lol. I remember sometime ago talking to a new player and he suddenly stopped answering for long minutes, then it came to my mind free players can't even use the tell feature without limits. It's bad even if the guy wants to spend on the game. Just imagine: Person 1: "Hey, how do I add my card here", Person 2: "bla bla bla", Person 1: "Oh, can you help me with just this little issue I'm having when adding 25000 dbc?". Game: "Message was not sent because of restrictions", Person 1: Quits the game. Buying XP for artifacts is very optional in my opnion, you can get enough XP with just regular play just fine if you spend it wisely. But Seals are trash p2w, they can't be acquired in-game in any way. The devs promised to fix this a while ago and we never heard from them again. Not being able to buy/craft seals is probably the worst thing in the game right now, after PvP.
That was done to combat the plague that was the infestation of Gold sellers. It had gotten to the point that there were at least 10 different Gold Spammers flooding chat one after the other. Putting them on ignore had become useless, because like cockroaches there was another not long after. So they put up the chat restriction, with the only way around being to spend $5 to become premium. It worked...sort of. It didn't eliminate them completely, but it did bring them back to only one or two bots instead of a dozen or so every minute.
Yeah, I'm all for the restriction on LFG/TRADE/SHOUT, but tells and group chats should not be hit by the restriction. I was on a F2P toon once and got pulled into a group to run some content. I was in the middle of telling people how to do a feat and got hit by the 5 message restriction. BS as I was already in the group, meaning LIKELY not a bot. Even premiums have a 60 second timeout on LFG/Trade...which is a hassle, but again, to combat the spammers...a needed step. And yes...seals need to be tradable or somehow acquired in game. I get they were pulled due to an exploit, but fix the exploit and give trading back to us.
Thanks to the complaints from a few users on DCUO forums, that somehow actually made live, I don't recall that ever being a "problem" for the majority of the community since most of us can easilly ignore it.
Your memory is bad. It was a terrible time. People were hitting their ignore limits because of the flood of Gold Spamming cockroaches. Again, you remember differently.
It was a petty "fix" nonetheless, it creaated problems along with the "fix" by making new players relog just to tell me they were limited, it was good on paper, but in the end it made communicating with free to play players a nightmare, don't you think?
