A YouTuber, Josh Strife Hayes, has a long history of making video's discussing the design philosophy of MMO's.
This time he discusses Free vs Paid to play MMO's.
I like his videos but found this one to explain the obvious if you ask me. I am saddened he did not bring up players investment to their account in a monthly subscription vs free to play. While everything he said is true, I think the people in a Free to Play game have so little invested they are more likely to not worries about there reputation and this makes a much more hostile, unfriendly, and well horrible community.
starblight said:While everything he said is true, I think the people in a Free to Play game have so little invested they are more likely to not worries about there reputation and this makes a much more hostile, unfriendly, and well horrible community.
I agree and disagree. I disagree, because most free-to-play models revolve around cash shops that take out the need to be involved with the economy, or even the world at large, that actually takes quite a bit of investment. The player can get maximum level and fully geared in a fraction of the time using premium currency. They can sell their items on the AH at insane prices because they can only be obtained through RMT (or insanely low drop rates) which inflates the economy. I do agree that there is definitely a majority personality type in most FTP games that is unsufferable.