Sure, there are some great ones, but there are quite some reasons why I wouldn't play one.

• in general, the companies who make f2p MMORPGs have a lower buget for the game than the P2P ones, and more often you not you notice this as well in the game
• they are not really for free but rather like  free trial. The deeper you get into the game, the more likely you are to pay some €€€ anyway and then you could also play a P2P game
• in many f2p MMORPGs, the one who pays most gets most. they level faster, look better, hit harder, have more options in general and whatnot. It's as if you'd play Monopoly or something, and you could buy an additional dice by paying 50€. In P2P, everyone got basically the same chances.
• if you are really into the game for a while, you risk to get into the mood to pay a lot for the game. Far more than you'd pay for a P2P which has a fixed subscription fee

I mean sure, you can download them, try them and play them for free. But if they are great, you're probably going to pay €€€ anyway. And if they are bad, then you wouldn't want to play it anyway. In addition to that, you often get less depth or less content. Not always, but often.

As said, I don't think all F2P games are bad or that people who play them are doing the wrong thing. But I personally tried quite some F2P games and up to now found none I'd have more fun, without paying anything, than with a P2P one.

The only games I play where I spend money on in irregular intervals and which you could compare to a F2P game with an item shop would be MTGO and BF. But for both of them is simply no similiar thing available online that you could else play.

To me, free to play games are not really free, but simply the same as a pay 2 play , only that i  get choose when, how much  and for what i do pay.
 

They also have the benefit that i can try them as much as i want and decide if it´s really a game worth my time and my money or not.

I tried many pay to play games where i paid the big $ buying the retail boxes only to find out i did not really enjoy it, where as in a free to play game, i would ´ve never paid a cent before i found out i didin´t like it.

I like to try both p2p and f2p both have their good and bad things but atm since there is nothing that is appealing to me in p2p I'm sticking on some f2p and single player games.

Personally there is more variety in f2p then p2p and you just lose some gigabytes since they are free.

As for f2p you waste more money then p2p well that's subjective I played jade dynasty for almost a month had 3 cash shop mounts gotten with ingame gold still miss that game but the grind in it was too mind numbing at the higher level and the ascending made it worse.

But anyways I can resist on not wasting money on exp pots and such why can't you too?

I've never been against free to play game's because of their subscription model. I've just yet to play a f2p that is compellling enough to warrant playing or paying for.

I'll probably check out DDO at some point, not sure if she counts entirely though.

Been a active subscriber of both EQ and AO for several years since 2002ish
played the most well known commercial mmo's such as wow, eq2, swg (fail) etc..  :D

Im just tired of paying 15$ each month to a game thats not really that great anyway,
for 15$ a month i can get so many other things i rather have, like nice graphics,
amusement, excitment, depth.

Since most mmo's are by default developed to have some 600-800 hours of gameplay
why would i spent 1000's of hours, unless they continuely add content which alot fail todo.

Free mmo's or micro payments such as ddo. are great cause when im fed up with it
i donot feel as attached to my character as one i might have spent years and 100$
building up. and for what,..  ... nothing.. 

Hell i wont ewen pay for AION, tryed it 1 month, there is nothing new and
innovative, except the flying which is limited. but its just the same mmo as usual
with different graphics. Looks great for a mmo, but crappy for a pc-game.

A free mmo, (if the servers arent shut down) then i can return much later and just play
a few weeks, continue where i left off, without paying. 

Problem is, i started DDO again after it got free, allready spent more than 500$ on it.
in less than ½ a year, well i got everything i want,,  but hehe..  considering it a
lifetime investment while they keep the servers running. :D

---

Might ,,  just might reinstall Anarchy online, when they get done with their graphics engine
supposed to be around march..
 

BUT around march, battlefield : bad company 2 is hitting my computer, so next few months
i will proberly be spending unlocking stuff :D

 I suppose the biggest appeal is the casual gaming side of it. I play Project Torque at times (at most 2 times a month) and i've never spent a dime on the game. If it were a month to month subscription game I could never justify the monthly cost compared to how often I play the game.

  I couldn't agree more with the quality of f2p games though, it is very appearant that they do not have the budget of a monthly subscription mmo.

I don't think too many people are really "INTO" free (cash shop) mmorpg. They just want to check out the games since they are "free".

I tried basically all free mmorpg but 99% of the time I didn't spend any money in them unless they have reasonable subscription plans.

The main reason why players look into free mmorpg is probably the p2p ones are not good enough for the $15 a month they ask for.

i know its hard to belive, but there IS ppl not that welthy looking for some sort of entertainment

Possibly more people are into F2P these days cause the P2P releases these days are hardly worth the money.

Some can argue that you will end up paying the same as a P2P game anyway. Sure you might end up paying for a F2P, but at least then you get a good feel for the game, its community and played it for a few months before you start dumping money into it. And if you limit yourself to spending only 15/month for a F2P, it still costed less then P2P, cause you didn't have to shell up 60+ to buy it first.

Right now I mostly kill time in F2P MMOs. I don't put money into em. But my choices are...either a buggy launch, overhyped and over priced P2P mmo that ends up  on the shelf in a few months and I am out a hundred or so bucks. Or a not too badly launched, not overhyped, and free mmo that ends up being deleted from my PC in a few months, and costs me nothing.

Hate em all ya want, right now the F2P genre is releasing better looking and smoother playing MMOs than what we have seen released from the big P2P companies over the past couple years. Least with F2P, you know you aren't paying for another WoW clone....you are gettin it for free.

I see many p2p games will cut the $15 a month subscription fee to $10-$12 within 12 months.

The point is, there would not be any f2p if ppl do not pay for it. Some can say they don’t spend real cash in games, but for those ones, there will be another spending 3-4 times more a month than would spend in a p2p.

P2p is normally good, because has stability, more content begin developed, etc... The problem with f2p is that the company will have a lot of "promotions" new cash shop items if they are in need of money, which normally destroy in-game economies.

The good point of f2p....because it's free of course, and like our friend said, not everyone can pay for their entertainment, so the friends with more cash pay for them xD.

But, in my opinion, we will have more f2p than p2p from now on, it will just grow big, since micro-transactions and advertises are on the stage now.
 

Originally posted by NinjaNerf

 

The main reason why players look into free mmorpg is probably the p2p ones are not good enough for the $15 a month they ask for.

Yes i too agree with you, the standard of p2p games in the past few years are a joke.

...

But , i used to play Rom which is supposed to be a f2p game; but when people start to spend 22000 Euro on a weapon then you know it is time to leave. 

...

I will wait for gw2 with fingers crossed.

Because they're free. They may suck but they are free if you don't want to spend money. It's no more complicated than that.

Because we dont wanna pay for a game if there are good free mmorpg why pay for others?

I was never a huge fan of f2p games because the quality of them compared to p2p games was rather lackluster.  Lately, however, there are starting to be some f2p games that add more to the game than what you saw in the past.  Plus, a lot of companies coming out with p2p games leave a lot to be desired least in my opinion.  So for me, it isn't so much that I'm into f2p games as it is companies expecting you to purchase their product and pay a monthly fee are getting extremely lazy in what they're offering so by default it's starting to push me towards the f2p market.

The quality gap between the two types of games seems to be growing smaller to me.  Partly due to companies offering f2p games putting more effort into their product while a lot of p2p companies seem to be doing less.  I would prefer p2p games be the opportune way to go because I've never been a huge fan of how unbalanced f2p games can be due to those being able to spend crazy amounts of money always overmatch those on a set amount they can spend on these games.  However, there are few companies that seem to put effort into their product for the monthly fees they expect these days.  Not all of them, there are a few that still do a good job, but there are a hell of a lot more that don't and their number seems to be on the rise.

As MMOs become more solo and autistic, who wants to pay every month for that?

I've played these games for a while. Some people just try these games and after a while feel comfortable in them even tho they know of the alternatives. Others end up there because of family members/real life friends. Another reason could be that sallary in some countries is just lower. For example south american countries or the eastern bloc.

Then there are those that are of the opinion that the available p2p games dont offer enough over the f2p games to justify spending money.

Originally posted by NinjaNerf

I see many p2p games will cut the $15 a month subscription fee to $10-$12 within 12 months.

If this does happen, more people might play them, but you would still have to buy the game and that's what i don't like.  i mean $60 for a game i am not sue if i even like....

 The word free is all you need to see. Some people especially teens do not have a CC and still want to play a MMO. Simple really no need to over complicate it.

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

I was never a huge fan of f2p games because the quality of them compared to p2p games was rather lackluster.  Lately, however, there are starting to be some f2p games that add more to the game than what you saw in the past.  Plus, a lot of companies coming out with p2p games leave a lot to be desired least in my opinion.  So for me, it isn't so much that I'm into f2p games as it is companies expecting you to purchase their product and pay a monthly fee are getting extremely lazy in what they're offering so by default it's starting to push me towards the f2p market.

The quality gap between the two types of games seems to be growing smaller to me.  Partly due to companies offering f2p games putting more effort into their product while a lot of p2p companies seem to be doing less.  I would prefer p2p games be the opportune way to go because I've never been a huge fan of how unbalanced f2p games can be due to those being able to spend crazy amounts of money always overmatch those on a set amount they can spend on these games.  However, there are few companies that seem to put effort into their product for the monthly fees they expect these days.  Not all of them, there are a few that still do a good job, but there are a hell of a lot more that don't and their number seems to be on the rise.

I totally agree with THIS ^^  I used to have alot of scorn for F2P games but as of late, too many P2P games have been lackluster and not worth the money.  I am also seeing some F2P games coming out that are making an effort to not penalize players that dont sink money into gear and such and end up with a huge advantage over other players.  I really dont mind a F2P game that allows players to purchase "fun" items or decorative items or even allow them to gamble with real cash.  And I dont mind putting a little money (with a cap of say $15 bucks a month, the amount I would pay for a P2P game) into a game for those types of things.  It doesn't effect players and create unbalance and it's fun.