Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3997491-20130702092041/@comment-7153552-20130702204647

Well, K.o.C. (changed it a little again), The Old Republic started a very fast downhill slope when they opened with too many servers and had to close some early on, this is one of those changes you shouldn't make publicly. It hurt them severely, their numbers were already lower than they had expected to open with. But when an MMO starts closing shards, that's practically the death-nail. They made an attempt to coming back, and part of that implimenting a slight pay to win business plan. Alas, it took over, and then it sucked.

My most recent endevour into Free to Play games is World of Tanks. This game is fun, and you can sink a lot of money into it if you aren't careful, but sinking the money doesn't mean you win, and I love that. In fact, some of the tanks you buy for cash are worse than their earned counterparts. You're better off doing the work, and even that can be lessened by spending a little cash. You buy the in-game currency (Gold) and can use it to convert XP from a tank you've maxed out into free XP (useable by any tank to research with), but you still have to earn that XP before it can be converted over to another tank. This system is great, and I have to be very careful with how much I spend on it each month, lol.

The same can be said for Defiance and Neverwinter. I bought a really cool looking ATV in Defiance, but it's not any faster than one I can attain normally in the game, I just liked the way it looked. In Neverwinter I bought a mount under the same conditions, and some keys to open dropped lockboxes from mobs in the game. These lockboxes can have amazing things in them (mounts, gear, professions supplies, enchants, etc.), but it's not a guarantee that you'll get the biggest and the best - even if you do, you're promised to be able to use it on that character.

I say all of that to say this; Straight sub-based gaming is on the outward trend. F2P/B2P is making more money these days for the dev companies.