Originally posted by Fuatia

i think only idiots play P2P, Plenty of F2P that have way better graphic and animation.  I played alot of P2P b4 but now only play F2P .  Until someone revolutionary P2P comes out ill stick to the Free.  I get just as much and sometime more excitement out of Free online games. :)

If you're playing MMOs for graphics and animations, you really are playing the wrong genre, go play an FPS or something. MMOs are for the community and lasting content.

And yea dont think iv ever played a F2P MMO, I dont think any have ever caught my attention.

Both due to (linkrealms) being free to play but I'm not a fan of item malls so I generally stick to p2p games although the newer mmorpgs just wasted my cash.

currently paying to play 2 games, that amounts to 30 dollars a month which is chump change when you compare the money spent to the entertainment time, plus the F2P games I have tried out are all a pile of crap with terrible communities, only F2P game that is any good is Anarchy Online but its old and it shows plus you dont get the whole game for free, and I dont consider Guild Wars to really be F2P considering the cost of the boxes for all the various additions.

If your a kid who cant afford pay to play then its good that there are free games but, in the end you get what you pay for when it comes to quality and the poster above who was say LotRO had a bad community and its empty of players is quite frankly ...lieing.

I've had my share of both Pay 2 Play and Free 2 Play games in the past. At the moment I'm down to just playing F2P games untill something I find really worth my time and money comes along.

I started out by playing Pay 2 Play games. How was that game called again... something like Biosfear or something. It was such a linear game, but never the less I seemed to enjoy the game because of the community and my first experience with a pet system.

After one and a half year of playing, or so I think afterwards, a mindless grindgame, I moved on to some free to play games. The problem with these free to play games is that they can't really seem to keep me interested. I have yet to find a free to play game with an ejoyable community, while living up to my expectations of being lag-free, having well ballanced characters, a pvp system that's worth giving a shot and have some crafting involved. Most already fail at the lag issue.

Right now I'm stuck playing those free to play games I don't really enjoy too much. I haven't found a game really worth investing my time and money into, while I'm looking for a game that I can play for a couple of years at least. My bet is that I'll eventually give up on the MMORPGs.

Well. I'd say pay 2 play but I havent played one in 6 months! Currently its none. The last game I tried was Runes of Magic last week. I played it a few days then got bored with it. I may resume but I dont really feel like bothering. : /

Originally posted by Fuatia

i think only idiots play P2P, Plenty of F2P that have way better graphic and animation.  I played alot of P2P b4 but now only play F2P .  Until someone revolutionary P2P comes out ill stick to the Free.  I get just as much and sometime more excitement out of Free online games. :)

I've tried many F2P games, and found them lacking.  I'll stipulate to being pickier than the next guy, so that probably disqualifies a lot of games that might otherwise be objectively interesting or worthwhile.  Still, there's something about F2P that bothers me.  Ever heard of a "honey trap?"

A honey trap captures insects by offering them something sweet for no investment (or no perceived danger).  They become trapped in the honey, and *boom*.  Likewise, a F2P game lures you in because it's "free."

It can't be free.  Bandwidth costs money, servers cost money, and presumably, the people who wrote and now maintain the game like to eat and have shelter.  The game has to have revenue.  So, either you see a lot of ad-driven content (an unreliable revenue stream), or there's another, sneaker revenue stream lurking somewhere.  Hmm.  What could that be?  Could it be--item malls?

F2P costs more than P2P when you factor in item malls. If you don't pay out for the item malls, then you limit your participation in the game, and presumably, that isn't something you like.  If true advancement in the game relies on purchasing the Crystal Loincloth of Smargafargabargadar, then eventually you'll pay.  And you'll pay real money, not some faux currency--because you either take a direct hit to the wallet, or you bought interior currency with real currency.

I often wonder whether or not dedicated F2P players--most of whom probably don't have meaningful employment--have ever studied economics.  I certtainly would never go to a local restaurant I like and demand that they feed me for free unless I happen to order some particular menu item.  I pay to play because I like to get paid to work--and for someone, writing and maintaining an MMORPG is work.

So, as near as I can factor it out, either you pay them through item malls or you pay them through monthly dunnage.  I like monthly dunnage.  It's regular, it's easy to budget, and there's no chance I'll overspend just to get that Crystal Loincloth and then have to explain where the money went when the rent comes due.  If that doesn't make sense to you, then...maybe you think other people are idiots.

I have been P2P until recently, now I'm just spinning my wheels waiting for something ground breaking to happen. Better to play a decent F2P game and not waste money on the gibberish the industry is pumping out. I still would prefer to play P2P as the content "feels" less phoned in, though honestly it's hard to really draw a good defining line at the moment as many have been stating the growing quality of F2P games has redefined what a F2P game is, namely a game that doesn't have a monthly fee though not lacking in quality when compared to a monthly fee based game, though I personally am split on the overall status.

My indecision on this stems from never playing a F2P game that drew me in like the MMOs of days past. I pretty much know I'm playing the wrong games when after ten levels the "GRIND FEST" alarm goes off in the back of my brain. It's that saturation of "grindiness" that is making a discussion of F2P item shop versus P2P monthly fees a diffcult exchange to validate under the current state of the market. Maby as the F2P genre becomes less defined by these grinders there will be a better built bridge between what a F2P game offers and what a P2P game offers. Not that the market needs dilution of its audience between two strong genres at the moment.

The question then becomes is it really what we pay for the game that defines our experience, am I enjoying a P2P game more because if I don't I'm wasting more money. That's probably a bit too off topic for this thread.