Need a new game!

[Gracerath]

Diablo is free other than the price of the box purchase.

And for most "Free to play" games, a lot of their content is locked up in their cash shops. I'm a "premium" member for City of Villains since I've bought every expansion in the past and I have a little more access than the other free players, but not much. I'd argue though that most of the fun in the game is creating a character and playing it to level 15 or 20. It is an odd realization but it feels true. There is a reason I only play in one or two month chunks At least now when the itch hits, I don't have to pay 15 bucks for the subscription.

[Gerunna]

And for most "Free to play" games, a lot of their content is locked up in their cash shops.

That's one thing I like about World of Tanks: you don't really spend money to be more successful in the game, you spend it to eliminate grind time. You spend real world cash to buy gold which has a few purposes in the game. One is that you can convert gold to credits, the normal currency earned in-game for dealing damage / scouting enemies which is used to buy most tanks, equipment, ammo, and consumables.

Another main use is related to the xp system. You have an overall tech tree which dictates the progression from tank to tank, and within that each tank has its own mini-tech tree of certain modules (guns, turrets, etc.) to research and ultimately unlock the next tank(s). Each tank has its own dedicated pool of xp that is used to research new modules (guns, turrets, etc.) and eventually unlock the better tanks in its mini-tree. Once you've researched every module and child tank on a particular tank's mini-tree, that tank is considered elite. There is also a pool of what's called free xp which can be used in any mini-tree to which you have access. By spending gold, you can convert xp from any elite tank's personal pool to the free xp pool. This way when you get killed, instead being forced to sit through to the end of a battle you can jump over to battle in another elite tank to continue the grind. It's also nice if you're stuck at a sucky tank in the tech tree; you can essentially skip over it by doing the grind in another elite tank.

Aside from that, you can buy certain "premium" tanks, which incidentally have inferior stats for their tier in the tech tree but earn more credits, and ammo (the one true pay-to-win feature I know of, but even then its use is pretty rare outside of clan territorial battles). You can also buy a premium upgrade to your account which gives you more xp and credits per battle, but again that goes back to elimination of grind rather than pay-to-win.

[PsiVen]

And for most "Free to play" games, a lot of their content is locked up in their cash shops.

Sadly this is increasingly true even for "bought it for $50-60" games.

We've gone in two years from being horribly upset at sequels coming out too quickly to support the original, to buying hats and officially endorsing gold sellers. Journalists love to claim that PC gaming is dying, but it's customer service and value that's dying because it's following the trends of abusive console developers on annual sequel cycles for the same hardware...

*cough* Anyway, I have nothing against free-to-play MMOs that don't charge for the install. I might find some time to play CoH again, and I've been tempted to try out Age of Conan even though I know that I won't be getting subscriptions for either. It's a good model for games that need more players they can't get with subscription fees.

[Arnock]

I think the free to play model might work a bit better in a game that was originally designed that way.

Take league of legends, spending money can't give anyone an in-game advantage over anyone else. Money can only allow you to get aesthetic stuff and the opportunity to buy champions with money rather than the in-game currency.

[Malthrax]

Warpony 40K

[Gracerath]

Well, there it is. It took an amalgamation of space marines and the ponies to finally get a bit of a smile out of me for anything regarding the ponies.

[Levantine]

Bronies**

[Invisusira]

bandwagoneers***

[Skye1013]

Icantypeinitalicstoo****

[Malthrax]

iwouldtotallyplaythatgametho*****

[Skye1013]

I'll admit... I'd probably at least try it out.

(Damn... broke the italics chain... )

[masterpoobaa]

Well my Subscription expired on the 8th.

I had no motivation to do anything in wow besides work the AH for more gold, yet I still felt the need to login yesterday.
Found myself sitting at my PC desk doing nothing and wondering why I was there.
Strangest Feeling I have to say.

So yesterday (Sunday) I forced myself off the computer to do stuff.
Did a crapload of house cleaning, laundry, kitchen cleaning, Gardening.
Watched bits of the Bathurst 1000 (Auzzie car race for you Foreigners).
Enjoyed drinking some good cider while watching the race.

Did a bit of computing in the evening. Installed Baldur's Gate II (Which I never finished). Installed a widescreen mod for it, but had to run in a reduced 1440x900 resolution rather than native 1920x1200 - my god everything was soooo small.
Difficulty level was also something I had to get used to.
Got my ass handed to me on a platter a few times. No hand-holding like in wow. Its like doing a heroic mode raid... solo
I might need to play BG1 for a while to get my skills back. Very rusty

[Gracerath]

Mmm Baldur's Gate. My quick save/load button gets a hefty workout when I play that. I can't really tell if my monk is awesome or terrible. Or terribly awesome.

I picked up Mount and Blade Warband last week and it is oddly addicting.

[Gracerath]

Short and interesting vid re: F2P games vs subscription. Focus on GW2 mostly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns-IIn-DG-c

[Arcand]

Difficulty level was also something I had to get used to.

Ilithid casts Devour Brain
/quickload