Where did Cataclysm go wrong?

[benebarba]

I have to agree with Fridmarr on this. Can you just imagine if the game was F2P, but you had to spend non-game currency to buy abilities/armor/weapons/enhancements in order to be considered a viable raider?

What if the game was F2P, but you had to spend non-game currency to buy access to content that grants beneficial stuff - and then acquire it via in-game efforts? For example, would you consider paying 20$ to unlock a new raid instance?

Depends:

Assuming the game was structured differently than it is now (i.e. it had been set up as a 'pay for extra content' game from the start), if I had sufficient activites to keep me interested in the F2P or for relatively low cost, I'd probably play it. I'm thinking of a system where instead of buying expansions, you buy a base game for a moderate price then for say 10-20 bucks you get the next tier (assuming it'd be a couple months apart), maybe new zones to explore for a similar price (again, assuming these new areas would come out a few months apart). PVP would get ugly, unless it was just access to new BGs you gained. Similarly a level-based game that continually grew would make for funky price arrangements if a brand new player had to pay the same price to get to the new stuff as someone who'd been playing the entire time (think of what it was like prior to the big bundle price drops for WOW, but worse).

But if they shifted to that price model without changing anything else? So I'd have to pay for a new expansion (assuming zone costs would be in here), then for the new class and race, then subsequent tiers, etc. But had no more subscription cost? That would be tricky. I doubt I'd do it for long simply because I don't raid often and dungeons/dailies get boring fast.

At the end of the day, while I'd like it if you could get the pets/mounts from the store via in-game means, I don't think it's anywhere near the slippery slope some folks make it out to be nor is it remotely gamebreaking (I think it's the same as hats in TF2). Though if the mounts/pets could be obtained in-game it should not be part of some difficult achievement - those mounts should be special but a grind similar to other mounts would be OK to me.

[Amirya]

What if the game was F2P, but you had to spend non-game currency to buy access to content that grants beneficial stuff - and then acquire it via in-game efforts? For example, would you consider paying 20$ to unlock a new raid instance?

That would depend on how the game had initially shipped, what there is to do outside of the purchased content, and a few other things. So I won't say yes or no, but it is a possibility I won't ignore.

[Kelaan]

D&D Online did this. It was very very clear which instances (almost every one after level 8ish if I recall right?) had to be purchased.

Monthly subscribers had unfettered access to raids/instances/quests.
You could conversely flat-out buy them once and always have access. ($5-$8 or so per package, I think?) The cost of buying all the good ones was about similar to three to four months of subscription. If I'd enjoyed the game more, I would probably have done that. That said, it was tremendously frustrating to have that waved in my face -- if I were not already playing WoW, I would likely have said, "well, twenty bucks isn't so bad ..." and bought several.

[Skye1013]

What if the game was F2P, but you had to spend non-game currency to buy access to content that grants beneficial stuff - and then acquire it via in-game efforts? For example, would you consider paying 20$ to unlock a new raid instance?

Isn't that essentially what an expansion pack is? The only difference is the game isn't F2P...

[benebarba]

What if the game was F2P, but you had to spend non-game currency to buy access to content that grants beneficial stuff - and then acquire it via in-game efforts? For example, would you consider paying 20$ to unlock a new raid instance?

Isn't that essentially what an expansion pack is? The only difference is the game isn't F2P...

well, disregarding the subscription fee, expansions are even better: you get *all* of the content in that expansion for one price (what, 40-50 USD when new?).