F2P,Certs, and you

All of the threads popping up concerning these questions are just mind boggling. The entitlement from the people who think SOE made this purely for their enjoyment is disheartening.

The game was made to make money. The developers let you play for free so you can try it out. They don't even have to Dothan if they don't want to.

I wonder if all these folks whining that cert cost are too high do any work for free. How many of you would show up to work and then dock yourselves pay?

This entire discussion is mute, f2p simply means just that.


If you really need that shiny new gun and can't throw down $10 on a double or triple SC day then your time would be better spent working a part time job so you can afford your hobbies.

i couldnt disagree more

Couldn't agree more

Except Smedley has said he wants free-players to play - not just try it out - so they can be "content" for paying members, who should be all for anything that keeps the game fun for free-players. Rather than telling people to "get a job," perhaps you should try understanding where they're coming. Unlocking anything worth a damn takes the average player 20 hours (give or take). That means nothing new can be tried for those 20 hours and they're stuck with what they have. With so many unlocks and each one being it's own mini-grind, they will eventually get bored and move on (and have). Guess who that hurts most - you, the paying member sticking with the game.

You pretty much got it. If you look back at double cert weekend we had mucho pop and after that it has faded a bit. Yeah it's a fine balance to make money off F2P model but if the carrot is too far out of reach people get frustrated at the grind and leave. Funny too, I had just sent Smed an email about this subject and came back over to find this thread.

Couldn't disagree less

My understanding was that exp and cert game, core game functions were suppose to be obtainable without any sort of payment. The income would be earned on cosmetics, which I and I'm sure many others would be interested in purchasing. If they had more. At least thats what the f2p model is SUPPOSE to be. Otherwise it's "freemium" and is just free to drag your feet through and slave for anything, subscribe to play/enjoy.

I look at it like this. A game costs you say $80-$100 (Im in Australia so we get ripped off extra). PS2 was free to download and I could have played it without spending a cent. So I gave it a few days to see if I liked it. Frankly I think it is excellent, I know lots of things can be made better, but the benefit of subscription and pay to boost games are they get maintained and improved (rather than one shot pay and run games).

So I spent some $$$'s to spec out a toon and a vehicle. I think its was $20.

After 2 weeks I am still playing and having a blast, its double station cash day...well thats a no-brainer then....another $20

On triple, I may go mad and spend $50.

All up the game will have cost me the same as an off the shelf non-subscription game (like say Diablo or Farcry). However, I got to play it for a while to see if I liked it, it gets patched and supported (very important for multiplayers) etc.

And when you see 20 aircraft flying over as you hoon around with a full Sundy surrounded by 20 odd tanks and dozens of infantry, with the sounds of battle just over the hill.....well I am thinking, good game, good business model and good luck to SoE. More games like this the better.

Oh and may I add....a MP game that launched...LAUNCHED with an Aussie server so my ping doesnt require me to have psychic abilities to predict the future 400ms ahead....well that alone deserves some support IMHO.

Will it fade over time...of course....will they need to keep fixing and innovating it....of course....but in general PS2....hurrah

and for a game with a major selling point is massive battles. They need the population to stick around.

When core components of the game cost 1k certs each there's a problem. Air dominates because very few people have unlocked G2A luanchers, a second burster for their MAXes and/or skyguard. I'm not going to argue the effectiveness of each of these but without these tools a new player's tools for dealing with air are: single burster MAX or a ESF without flares or A2A missiles which makes them easy kills for pilots that have them.

I agree - which is what the problem is. They are competing with other free to play games, and almost every other (non-Asian) free to play game offers a far more reasonable and generous plan for free players (and also paying players) than Planetside 2.

Planetside 2 is failing to stay competitive in the business model, and is thus losing players to games offering better value.

I wish more companies would learn from Valve - it's better to give players too much for free than not enough. Giving players too much creates positive feedback loops, bringing in and retaining more players, who, in turn, bring in even more players, and ultimately more revenue. Rather than losing players, prompting more players to leave, you get people who have more involvement in the game, more gameplay methods, and have a better experience, thus play the game more and endorse it more.

You have to compare. Competing F2P models offer much more for much less. A weekend on Team Fortress 2 will earn you every single weapon/item in the game (except for purely cosmetic hats, which are far rarer and more expensive). DOTA2 allows access to everything for free, and makes money exclusively on cosmetic items - nothing affects gameplay. LoL (and SMNC) has rotational heroes, Mechwarrior: Online has a short/reasonable grind, Even Blacklight: Retribution has a pretty reasonable 'rental system,' where you can get a specific weapon for a week without spending any real money. Even Tribes: Ascend isn't so bad as to charge $7 for one item for one class for one faction, that is an identical reskin of another item with marginally different stats.

The point is that there are lots of games using the microtransaction (aka Free to Play) business model. And almost every one of them outside of Korea seem to offer much more to free players (and also paying players) for a lot less.

We want Planetside 2 to keep up, so it brings in more players, so we get bigger battles and have fewer empty servers, so we all have more fun and enjoy the game more, so we play more, so we spend more, so the game makes more money and stays in business longer.

Thing is, if certs are gained too slow to buy stuff it makes progression feel like an UBER slow grind fest....then people leave.

It's funny that people keep thinking how unfair it is for newbs to need to buy more AA options or suffer, but the rocket spammers paid for their $#!% too...

But I digress. As the game matures, SOE will have to throw the new guys some more free stuff just to be on par with the rest of the old timers that have stuck around. Mind you, by then there will be even MORE stuff to buy overall, including but probably not limited to (non-physics based) trenchcoats.

You do realize that rocket pods are only 500 certs wheras everything used to combat them costs 1k. And the problem isn't just rocket pods. If you let the enemy control the air they get liberators and control the ground, too.

^^^ Which is why I truly fear that PS2 will die in the coming months. I don't want it to, but if SOE doesn't get a grip on the real world of economics and not whatever fantasy land they're living in, it's going to die.

Nope, didn't realize. Got mine with a pack, never fly except as a personal drop pod. About what the mosquito amounts to: a pod with a tail attached to it.

I think SOE could do with bringing back the PS1 launchers, or just taking our default launchers and making them laser guided. Opening up both burster arms is a "meh" fix. Cooldowns are attached to max units, and everyone knows rockets > flak. Yet, if SOE buffs the flak, pilots ***** and moan about dying and refuse to fly, never mind all the people they're causing to die with their rockets.

If I had to pick one group to go though, it would definitely be the fliers. This game is an FPS first, and that's what people came for. It's not just cert costs, it was also just feeling helpless overall. Aircraft NEED to die to flak, and I mean one dedicated AA platform should easily break down a fighter as fast as a fighter can crack open a tank, however, I did mention most pilots are for the most part spineless cry babies whenever they actually have an effective hard counter to worry about.

The reality is that players want to avoid paying where ever they can, and if the game doesn't support their free players the servers would be much less full.
This game has a terrible predicament.
I think it should have been released for pay. a 50-60 dollar purchase, and then cut back on the servers to keep a steady budget.
They really f vucked up in my opinion with this launch.

All they needed was good marketing, a solid, non--crashy game, and a lot of hype. Then boom. It works out.
F2P is dumb.

I'm the tasty XP loot pinata you are going to pop, you better pay me at the very least in ingame items if you want my attention.
I'm the XP you are farming, remember that the next time you can't find a decent fight because all the F2P players left out of frustration and boredom.

By making F2P players second class citizens you are shooting yourself in the foot, twice even.
Once by denying yourself more targets to shoot at and the other time when you realize that the game is completely dead and nobody gives a ****.

I play completely free, except for 5 bucks I dropped on a double SC day to get some sweet cosmetics, and I don't really mind the amount of time it takes to unlock things. I plan on playing this game for years, and if it takes me a week or two to unlock a gun, that's fine, because I'll have it for years. Also, the default weapons are great, and plenty of weapons are less than 1000 certs, hell, I personally only use the default weapon and a 500 cert gun, and I do fine.

The unfortunate thing is that Sony has a very bad economic model for most of its F2P games.